[GRASSLIST:3199] Bogged down in Tiger/Line details.

[Ben Logan]

I am working on some programs (scripts really) to import the
Tiger/Line 2000 files into GRASS, and am having difficulty figuring
out how to represent all of the desired data from the files.  Perhaps
some of you with more GIS experience than I can help.

As you may know, the Tiger/Line files contain a _lot_ of information.
Right now I'm concentrating on the vector line features (mainly roads
and hydro).  I'll worry with the area features (county boundaries,
districts, etc) later.

I decided that using a relational database was necessary, so my
programs first import the record files into a PostgreSQL database.
Another script creates GRASS vector files based on selected CFCC's
using the TLID as category values.

Each arc (complete chain in Tiger/Line lingo) may have up to six
feature names.  How do I associate all of that data with the GRASS
vector file?  What would be the most useful way?  I could write a
script that uses d.what.vect to retrieve the category value of a
location, and then extracts all of the feature information from the db
and prints it to stdout.

For my purposes, I need to be able to query (and perhaps label) the
maps for information such as the county road numbers, road names,
distance between intersections, etc.

I don't feel like I've been very clear, but perhaps it's a start.  Any
thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ben

-- 
Ben Logan: ben at wblogan dot net
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"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the
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