[GRASS-user] Data interchange file format

[Tyler Mitchell]

Antonis Christofides wrote:
> They've contacted me from an agency where they have a contractor
> preparing some geographical data for them, and the contractor is going
> to deliver the data on a CD.  I'm being asked what file format they
> should request.  They originally intended to ask for arcinfo files,
> but now they are more interested in open source systems.  Does grass
> read arcinfo data interchange files?  But, in any case, an open
> standard for such interchange would be preferable, is there any that
> is reasonably widely supported?


Antonis,
Sorry to add another variable to the confusion :)

Many people do not know that OGR supports ArcInfo binary coverages
(AVCBin) as well [1].  So, yes, GRASS should be able to read in ArcInfo
format files.  If it is vector data that is in the form of an ArcInfo
"coverage" then you'd use the v.in.ogr command to import one of its
".adf" files.

If it is an .e00 file (arcinfo interchange format), then you have a
couple options (one was already mentioned).  I normally use a set of
tools called avcimport [2] to "import" the .e00 file into a coverage
format.  Then I use OGR tools [3] or GRASS v.in.ogr to import the data
into GRASS or other formats [4].

Hope that helps.  You will likely be fine no matter what format they
give you data in.

Tyler

[1] http://gdal.maptools.org/ogr/drv_avc.html
[2] http://avce00.maptools.org/avce00/index.html
[3] http://gdal.maptools.org/ogr/ogr2ogr.html which is included in:
http://fwtools.maptools.org/
[4] http://gdal.maptools.org/ogr/ogr_formats.html