> Has any seen or heard of a good, CHEAP PC based program for transforming 
> coordinates?  We are looking for a package that we can install at the Fire
> Management Office here at the park, which is in a separate location from
> the GIS workstation.  We have dismissed the "Geographic Calculator"
> software from Resolution Mapping as too expensive ($225.00) and limiting
> (requires Windows).  
> 
I've been using a program called "PLANE", under the MS-DOS environment,
which was given to me free of charge by the mapping people at TN. State
Gov't.  I believe that it originally came from the USGS, and that it is
a public domain program.  USGS charges for the copying fee I think, but I
can't claim more about it beyond that.  I got no docs with it but it seems 
to work as long as you can put the numbers in correctly (i.e., in the
expected format).  The only thing I might say is that USGS may also
distribute source with it, so that an enterprising soul with a FORTRAN
compiler could recompile it with less strict numeric input formatting.

(Hey, if anyone else has the source, I'd love to have a copy myself!)

It transforms Lat-Lon to an X-Y coord. system, X-Y to Lat-Lon, and X-Y to
X-Y, where "X-Y" is UTM, any state plane system, plus many other map
projections.  It also prints out these values to a printer (one per
line) so that is advantageous.  I'll be the first to admit it is *far*
from fancy in terms of being idiot-proof (a.k.a. user-friendly) but it
gets the job done.  Runs in 256K PC environs, no graphics required.
Just pipes out text to DOS.  I did write a little GW-Basic program to
create batch files which take masses of points to convert and dump the
results to a file or the printer, so one can implement scriptable 
conversions with it.  May not be everyone's cup of tea but I've been
using it here in our GIS lab for 5+ years.

I'll be good hearted and make you a deal; in fact I posted this back to
the list because I figured someone else might be interested too.  You
send me a self-addressed floppy mailer *with_enough_return_postage* (or
at least the change to buy stamps with) and a 5.25" or 3.5" diskette 
(low or high density, just please format it first!) and I'll make you a 
copy.  After all, it's public domain Federal Gov't. tax-dollars-at-work
stuff.

Now that I've made my offer, I'll say two things.  First of all I was in
your shoes once and wished for such a program years ago.  Back then we
didn't have Internet, never heard of E-mail or Usenet, worked on
8088-based XTs and mainframes, etc.  Just made lots of phone calls until
someone had what I needed.  So I'm hoping it helps others.  Second, I
saw postings to Usenet (comp.infosystems.gis) from Resolution Mapping
about their product too, and wrote for details.  I was quite surprised
to learn that they wanted *that much* for a program which basically did
what PLANE did.  Granted, and gladly so, they provide a much nicer
input and output facility and I don't mind that it runs under Windows at
all.  I won't argue with that.  Further, I agree that you have to make
up your costs somewhere and programmers have to be fed.  But US$229.00? 

I don't typically do things like this but I wrote them a letter and said
(constructive criticism mode on) that I thought their price was too
high.  I suggested $49 to $69.  Welllll, just this past Friday I got a
phone call from 'em and I must have struck a nerve.  He (name not remem- 
bered) tried to say that by getting some two programs from USGS and
paying their full price for source code, documentation, etc., that
"their software costs a lot less", and I think he compared it to almost
$400.  Whatever, he didn't convince our GIS office that his product was
worth it.  It's almost got me thinking that I ought to write a
coordinate transformation program up myself and make it shareware or
just Low Cost.    

Sorry Grass Folks, I'll turn soapbox mode off now.  Just wanted to
answer a fair question and I hope that I've done so.  Let me know if I
can be of help!
-- 
John N Schmidt KD4EAI, Lab Director + 615-898-5561 M-F 1300-2230Z <7-4:30>
Middle Tennessee State University  ++ 615-898-5538 or 615-896-2871 FAX 24H 
1500 Greenland Drive, PO Box 135  +x+ ggjns@Knuth.MTSU.edu via the Internet
Murfreesboro, TN 37132-0135 USA  +xx+ MTSU Center for Remote Sensing and GIS 
AX.25-TCP/IP Adr [44.34.50.50]  +xxx+ Home of Packet/Internet gateway W4EFQ

