I am going to be receiving some data from an Arc/Info system. I know that
GRASS can handle Arc/Info "Generate" format, but I'm told by the person
I'm getting the data from that the "Generate" format would require one
file per layer and attributes would come across in a separate file per
layer and this would require more time than he can spend generating my
data. Is there a better format method of bringing the data in? He has
suggested using a DXF file because it would be a one file solution. Any
ideas?
Gordon,
the person telling you this is definitely wrong about things. Assuming you're
wanting a polygon coverage ungenerated, the procedure in Arc/Info is as follows:
UNGENERATE line <cover> <ungenerate-file>
UNGENERATE point <cover> <ungenerate-file>
this will ungenerate the lines and polygon labels in separate files. After
that, enter TABLES, select the *.pat file and UNLOAD the Info database to
a plain text file (take care of the items to be exported and the delimiter).
This will take two minutes maximum, and will give you a perfectly useful
input for Grass.
Good luck,
Philip Verhagen
-----------------------------------
philip@raap2.ivambv.uva.nl
R A A P
Plantage Muidergracht 14
1018 TV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
tel: +31 (20) 421 62 00
fax: +31 (20) 421 42 90
http://raap2.ivambv.uva.nl/home_eng.html
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> I am going to be receiving some data from an Arc/Info system. I know that
> GRASS can handle Arc/Info "Generate" format, but I'm told by the person
> I'm getting the data from that the "Generate" format would require one
> file per layer and attributes would come across in a separate file per
> layer and this would require more time than he can spend generating my
> data. Is there a better format method of bringing the data in? He has
> suggested using a DXF file because it would be a one file solution. Any
> ideas?
Philip Verhagen wrote:
the person telling you this is definitely wrong about things. Assuming you're
.. stuff deleted about using ungenerate ...
Phillip has misunderstood, I think, and the advice is quite correct. The
point
it makes is that Arc/Info exchange format (.eoo) can contain many
different
themes (soil, geology, roads etc etc) in one file. Philip correctly
described
the only way to move this data to grass using ungenerate, but you will
have to
repeat the procedure for every theme in the Arc database, making it very
tiresome in for your data supplier if there are many different themes.
DXF will allow all the themes to be written to one file (one theme for
each
layer), but you will almost certainly loose some of the attribute data,
even if
the polygons and lines themselves are transferred successfully (e.g. you
may
end up with contour lines, but not the heights of the contours)
Sorry, this isn't a very constructive response - I could be wrong, but I
think
the only way is to ungenerate each theme separately and to bribe your
data
supplier.
--
David Wheatley
Department of Archaeology,
University of Southampton,
UK, SO17 1BJ