SDTS on GRASS

GRASS GRASS user
1

I am interested in importing the USGS 7.5 minute series into grass.
My understanding of the USGS maps is that the new format is SDTS, and
I found the sdts modules in the 4.2.1 binaries for Linux.

The utility v.in.sdts segfaults when in input mode, and I have been
unable to locate the sources to investigate. The manual page refers
to a 'GRASS-SDTS User Guide' but gives no references, and I note that
the grass mail-list seems to trickle out without resolving some SDTS
problems.

My understanding is that the SDTS is the USGS newest standard and it
seems that there should be lots of interest in it in the grass world.
Am I missing something here? Has the world abandoned SDTS, or has
it abandoned grass? Or is there just a need for someone to address it?

Any help would be appreciated. Is there another non-proprietary unix
program which works better than grass for SDTS?

      Thanks in advance

2

Hi Al,

You didn't specify which map products you were trying to convert at the
1:24k scale... are these drg's, dem's or dlg's? I'm operating under the
assumption that you want the dem's, since these are the significant resource
at the USGS that have recently become a free download. The sdts import
provided in GRASS most likely can't deal with compressed raster data: the
raster sdts format was only recently introduced, and companies like ESRI are
still working on incorporating such importers into their expensive GIS.
There are some resources on the web that convert sdts raster data into a
format more easily imported, that may help resolve your problem (still
assuming you want the new sdts raster data, and not vector.) Check out this
location for ports of the converter to Windows and Unix (SUN) systems, as
well as the C source code (if you need to run it on Linux... I haven't tried
the Sun port on my Linux box):
ftp://ftp.blm.gov/pub/gis/sdts/dem/

Also, in case my assumption is totally incorrect, that site also vector sdts
tools. Good luck, and if you get something running on Linux I'd like to
know.

Steven J. Swanson
Archaeological Research Institute
Arizona State University

-----Original Message-----
From: grass@pandora.cecer.army.mil
[mailto:grass@pandora.cecer.army.mil]On Behalf Of root = (Al Anderson)
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 1999 12:04 PM
To: grass-list@pandora.cecer.army.mil
Subject: SDTS on GRASS

I am interested in importing the USGS 7.5 minute series into grass.
My understanding of the USGS maps is that the new format is SDTS, and
I found the sdts modules in the 4.2.1 binaries for Linux.

The utility v.in.sdts segfaults when in input mode, and I have been
unable to locate the sources to investigate. The manual page refers
to a 'GRASS-SDTS User Guide' but gives no references, and I note that
the grass mail-list seems to trickle out without resolving some SDTS
problems.

My understanding is that the SDTS is the USGS newest standard and it
seems that there should be lots of interest in it in the grass world.
Am I missing something here? Has the world abandoned SDTS, or has
it abandoned grass? Or is there just a need for someone to address it?

Any help would be appreciated. Is there another non-proprietary unix
program which works better than grass for SDTS?

      Thanks in advance

3

On Fri, 2 Jul 1999, Steven J. Swanson wrote:

Check out this location for ports of the converter to Windows and Unix
(SUN) systems, as well as the C source code (if you need to run it on
Linux... I haven't tried the Sun port on my Linux box):
ftp://ftp.blm.gov/pub/gis/sdts/dem/

  Sol Katz at the BLM Service Center is Denver is responsible for most of
the spatial data translation code. He's been writing them for several years
now: MOSS, MapInfo, ArcInfo; dlgs and now sdts. Perhaps we can talk him into
doing more for GRASS (which I think he used back in the early days).

Rich

Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.
2404 SW 22nd Street
Troutdale, OR 97060-1247 U.S.A.
+ 1 503-667-4517 (voice) | + 1 503-667-8863 (fax)
rshepard@appl-ecosys.com
           Making environmentally-responsible mining happen.

4

Rich Shepard wrote:

On Fri, 2 Jul 1999, Steven J. Swanson wrote:

> Check out this location for ports of the converter to Windows and Unix
> (SUN) systems, as well as the C source code (if you need to run it on
> Linux... I haven't tried the Sun port on my Linux box):
> ftp://ftp.blm.gov/pub/gis/sdts/dem/

  Sol Katz at the BLM Service Center is Denver is responsible for most of
the spatial data translation code. He's been writing them for several years
now: MOSS, MapInfo, ArcInfo; dlgs and now sdts. Perhaps we can talk him into
doing more for GRASS (which I think he used back in the early days).

Rich

Rich,

Sol passed away this spring. I skimmed the GRASS 5.0beta code tree I have,
and couldn't find the SDTS code either. Does anyone know where it is?

I have written some code for SDTS support that I might be willing to integrate
into GRASS; however, I am not keen on trying to support existing code unless
it is pretty easy to understand.

Some info on my code can be found at:

  http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/sdts/index.html

My underlying ISO 8211 library (the encoding format for SDTS) can be found at:

  http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/iso8211/

Best regards,

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