From fnievinski at terra.com.br Mon Apr 1 06:39:50 2002 From: fnievinski at terra.com.br (Felipe Nievinski) Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 01:39:50 -0300 Subject: [Freegis-list] Clearinghouse Message-ID: <200204010139500390.026F02A0@smtp.terra.com.br> Hi. On Mon, 01 Apr 2002, John Reid wrote: > I'm currently looking at setting up a demo dataset using freely > available datasets for my local area, concentrating initially on storage > of data catalogues and metadata. John, I just read your message. The message below is in response to Alexander's message. The idea of the addition to the SDI Cookbook is great. I'll get back to you asap. On Tue, Mar 26, 2002, Alexander Pucher wrote: > I'm recently planning to set up an geodata clearinghouse using free > software. Right now, all data is stored in an ArcGIS personal > geodatabase. I've searched the web and found some stuff from the FGDC > (mainly the Isite package). By clearinghouse I understand a decentralized system of servers full of metadata in a networked environment, used for resource discovery. The Z39.50 protocol is widely used for communication between computers in a clearinghouse. Isite is a package of (free software) programs for distributed searching. It contains a Z39.50 server implementation, besides other things. By using Isite you can: - index a file collection, each file being a metadata record, - search locally this database, - receive queries via Z39.50. If you just want to create and add a server peer to an existing clearinghouse (for example, registry.gsdi.org) this is almost all you'll need to do. You can then notify the clearinghouse maintainer that your server is ready to be accessed, and perform queries on local or remote Z39.50 servers using a Z39.50 client or through an already available http to Z39.50 gateway. To manage your metadata file collection (create, update and delete records), do it by hand offline, or build a web-based system using your prefered language. There is available (see URL below) a set of very elucidative Perl scripts which makes a metadata entry system. Any modification to your metadata-base you'll have to re-index it and restart the Z server. If you also want to build your own http to z39.50 gateway, be prepared to dig deep. As far as I can tell you, the Isite zcon defines the presentation of the search results (the way it formats Z39.50 responses into HTML) in its source code, so you'll have to hack its internals just to add your university logo to the results page, for example. Maybe the PHPYAZ (again, see URL below), a Z39.50 client for PHP, can do a better job. If you want to serve the actual data online, provide links for it in the metadata records (the metadata standards usually define linkage fields to provide this information). Look at a (free) Web Map Service server or a Web Feature Server if you want to provide dynamic content rather than just static files. Just some ideas. Commentaries are welcomed. The URLs: - Isite 2.05 - General Instructions http://www.awcubed.com/Isite/FGDC-README.html - Web-based FGDC Metadata Entry System http://130.11.52.178/metaover.html - PHPYAZ http://www.indexdata.dk/phpyaz/ - Spatial Data Infrastrucures Implementation Guide Chapter Four: Geospatial Data Catalog -- Making data discoverable http://www.gsdi.org/pubs/cookbook/cookbook0515.pdf regards, Felipe N. From pucher at atlas.gis.univie.ac.at Mon Apr 1 12:49:18 2002 From: pucher at atlas.gis.univie.ac.at (Alexander Pucher) Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 12:49:18 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Clearinghouse References: <200204010139500390.026F02A0@smtp.terra.com.br> Message-ID: <3CA83B2E.9010300@atlas.gis.univie.ac.at> Wow, a lot of information coming in the last days. Thanks you all so far-John, Jan and Felipe. My personal intention (that's why I posted my question) is simple. We have a lot of geodata in our dept., stored in several ArcGIS personal geodatabases. All I want to do is to set up a web-based intranet search engine, so that dept. members can search the available data. In a first step, it is not needed that users can actually download the datafiles-a metadata result list of the queried data would be enough. I think, this is not really a clearinghouse, for it would only have one peer. Changes are good that some of my colleagues will try to set up a ESRI-based system, but my intention is to do it with free software. I had a look at the Z39.50 protocol stuff from FGDC and played around a bit with the Isite software package. Looks good, but still some questions remain like "how to get all the metadata out of ArcGIS in batchmode" etc. I will have a look at your URLs (esp. the PHP item) and will come back as soon as I've been through them. Best wishes, alex Felipe Nievinski wrote: >Hi. > >On Mon, 01 Apr 2002, John Reid wrote: > >>I'm currently looking at setting up a demo dataset using freely >>available datasets for my local area, concentrating initially on storage >>of data catalogues and metadata. >> > >John, >I just read your message. The message below is in response to Alexander's message. >The idea of the addition to the SDI Cookbook is great. I'll get back to you asap. > > >On Tue, Mar 26, 2002, Alexander Pucher wrote: > >>I'm recently planning to set up an geodata clearinghouse using free >>software. Right now, all data is stored in an ArcGIS personal >>geodatabase. I've searched the web and found some stuff from the FGDC >>(mainly the Isite package). >> > >By clearinghouse I understand a decentralized system of servers >full of metadata in a networked environment, used for resource >discovery. > >The Z39.50 protocol is widely used for communication between >computers in a clearinghouse. Isite is a package of (free >software) programs for distributed searching. It contains a >Z39.50 server implementation, besides other things. > >By using Isite you can: >- index a file collection, each file being a metadata record, >- search locally this database, >- receive queries via Z39.50. > >If you just want to create and add a server peer to an existing >clearinghouse (for example, registry.gsdi.org) this is almost >all you'll need to do. You can then notify the clearinghouse >maintainer that your server is ready to be accessed, and >perform queries on local or remote Z39.50 servers using a >Z39.50 client or through an already available http to Z39.50 >gateway. > >To manage your metadata file collection (create, update and >delete records), do it by hand offline, or build a web-based >system using your prefered language. There is available (see >URL below) a set of very elucidative Perl scripts which makes >a metadata entry system. >Any modification to your metadata-base you'll have to re-index >it and restart the Z server. > >If you also want to build your own http to z39.50 gateway, be >prepared to dig deep. As far as I can tell you, the Isite zcon >defines the presentation of the search results (the way it >formats Z39.50 responses into HTML) in its source code, so >you'll have to hack its internals just to add your >university logo to the results page, for example. >Maybe the PHPYAZ (again, see URL below), a Z39.50 client >for PHP, can do a better job. > >If you want to serve the actual data online, provide links for >it in the metadata records (the metadata standards usually >define linkage fields to provide this information). Look at a (free) >Web Map Service server or a Web Feature Server if you want >to provide dynamic content rather than just static files. > >Just some ideas. >Commentaries are welcomed. > >The URLs: >- Isite 2.05 - General Instructions > http://www.awcubed.com/Isite/FGDC-README.html >- Web-based FGDC Metadata Entry System > http://130.11.52.178/metaover.html >- PHPYAZ > http://www.indexdata.dk/phpyaz/ >- Spatial Data Infrastrucures Implementation Guide > Chapter Four: Geospatial Data Catalog -- Making data discoverable > http://www.gsdi.org/pubs/cookbook/cookbook0515.pdf > >regards, >Felipe N. > > >_______________________________________________ >Freegis-list mailing list >Freegis-list at intevation.de >https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list > > -- ________________________________________________________ Institut fuer Geographie und Regionalforschung Universitaet Wien Kartografie und Geoinformation Departement of Geography and Regional Research University of Vienna Cartography and GIS Universitaetstr. 7, A-1010 Wien, AUSTRIA Tel: (+43 1) 4277 48644 Fax: (+43 1) 4277 48649 E-mail: pucher at atlas.gis.univie.ac.at FTP: ftp://ftp.gis.univie.ac.at WWW: http://www.gis.univie.ac.at/karto ________________________________________________________ "The chance of the bread falling with the butter side down is directly proportional to the value of the carpet" --Jennings' Corollary to the Law of Selective Gravity From bernhard at intevation.de Mon Apr 1 13:47:27 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 13:47:27 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Clearinghouse In-Reply-To: <3CA83B2E.9010300@atlas.gis.univie.ac.at> References: <200204010139500390.026F02A0@smtp.terra.com.br> <3CA83B2E.9010300@atlas.gis.univie.ac.at> Message-ID: <20020401114727.GJ22946@intevation.de> On Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 12:49:18PM +0200, Alexander Pucher wrote: > My personal intention (that's why I posted my question) is simple. We > have a lot of geodata in our dept., stored in several ArcGIS personal > geodatabases. All I want to do is to set up a web-based intranet search > engine, so that dept. members can search the available data. So me this sound like the key technocal point for you will be to find a good way to access the data in the databases. Let me elaborate on this a bit. Personally I do not have much experience with what to expect when you write "ArcGIS personal geodatabase". I also did not find good information about the underlying technology searching the web for a couple of minutes. This is something you have to find out. Let's assume the geo and attribute data is in a DBMS based on MS Access. As long as the data is in there, you cannot manipulate it easily from a complete Free Software setting. Thus you probably want to extract the data in order gain back control over it. I'm not aware of software that can work directly on the files of MS Access, but I did not look for this kind of software so far. Assuming you are stuck with going over ms access interfaces running ms windows you probably can utilise the com interface. Python windows will enable you to do this and write a script you might run non-interactively. Certainly there are other ways. Once you have access to the data in the database you can set up periodical scripts to collect the data you want and transfer them in your simple database (e.g. text file based, postgresql or mysql). Adding a web and search interface to such a database is an easy exercise you find many tutorials for utilising Free Software (e.g. zope, php3, Quixote). > In a first > step, it is not needed that users can actually download the datafiles-a > metadata result list of the queried data would be enough. I think, this > is not really a clearinghouse, for it would only have one peer. > > Changes are good that some of my colleagues will try to set up a > ESRI-based system, but my intention is to do it with free software. Please report back what you were able to do and what you've found out. -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020401/1f3372e6/attachment.bin From ahallam at digitalearth.com.au Tue Apr 2 06:39:48 2002 From: ahallam at digitalearth.com.au (Andrew Hallam) Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 14:39:48 +1000 Subject: [Freegis-list] Clearinghouse In-Reply-To: <20020401114727.GJ22946@intevation.de> References: <20020401114727.GJ22946@intevation.de> Message-ID: <18029875.1017758388@[192.168.0.11]> --On Monday, April 01, 2002 13:47 +0200 Bernhard Reiter wrote: > I'm not aware of software that can work directly on the files of MS > Access, but I did not look for this kind of software so far. Quick think, possible options: - Python with Win32 extensions can use ADO to connect to any Access file and access the tables. - PHP's COM module provides similar tools. - See also ActivePerl and ActivePython. All the above require writing code so it would be easier to use Access to export the data. - There is an extension to pgAccess II which contains a GUI based Access to PostgreSQL wizard (haven't used it myself). Regards Andrew Hallam Digital Earth Pty Ltd http://www.digitalearth.com.au From sfkeller at hsr.ch Tue Apr 2 07:51:59 2002 From: sfkeller at hsr.ch (Stefan F. Keller) Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 07:51:59 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] JaGo and GeoTools: Any comparative remarks? Message-ID: <3CA946FF.A3D69C3E@hsr.ch> Dear all I am interested in issueing a diploma thesis which should test - among other items - the capabilities of available open source geodata viewers (primarily as stand-alone clients applications). The primary goal is to use them for simple web mapping purposes of a universal vector geodata language (INTERLIS - the GeoLanguage; sort of superset standard of UML/GML from Switzerland, www.interlis.ch). I've found JaGo and GeoTools so far. Now, I would like to ask you the following: - has anybody experience using one of these or both? - does anybody know other relevant projects? Regards -- Stefan Keller P.S. My first impressions: - JaGo seems to me appealing but there is only one upload compared to GeoTools. - GeoTools is more active but I could not evaluate its architecture yet. ___________________________________________________________________ Prof. Stefan F. Keller, Dozent fuer Informatik Center f?r integrierte Geo-Informationssysteme (int>e>gis) am Institut ITA-HSR der Hochschule fuer Technik Rapperswil (HSR) CH-8640 Rapperswil, Tel. 055 222 47 46, Fax 055 222 44 00 mailto:sfkeller at hsr.ch, http://www.hsr.ch und http://integis.ch ___________________________________________________________________ HSR, der sch?nste Campus der Schweiz... siehe http://netcam.hsr.ch/ From alfred.de-jager at jrc.it Tue Apr 2 18:09:01 2002 From: alfred.de-jager at jrc.it (Alfred de Jager) Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 18:09:01 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #337 - 4 msgs References: <20020402100102.1A67E13A01@lists.intevation.de> Message-ID: <3CA9D79D.827D35CB@jrc.it> Dear Alexander, Regarding your geodatabase metadata storage and fgdc metadata collectors. Please take care before using these tools. They are merely conceived to collect in one moment metadata not to update or relate between them. In order to do the latter you better throw away all those flat-file models and start over with a 'normalized' model containing only the essentials. Hint, try to update the phone number of your 'contact person' using ArcGIS The problem of the whole GI metadata hype is that we do not apply the normal IT rules of data normalization (no redundancy) and essentialization (store the minimum and derive what is derivable). GI Metadata is still an enduser wish list and in any implementation I have seen thus far the whole thing is mixed and end user perspective driven. Apperently nowbody cares about the managebility of these data! I think we now know what the end user wants! We have around 3 official committees writing down cryptic definitions for field names like 'title', 'author' etc. What we now need to do is to define which information is derivable and which is not. From what is not derivable you need to check if it is essential (is my faxnumber essential to know at the level of metadata?) if not skip it. The remaining information needs to be normalized and stored in a database out of which you generate (perhaps xml) information sheets. One does not store XML sheets!!!!!!! Normalization means that every repeated piece of information (eg a contact person) results in a separated relatable table. Such a database does not exist in a generic way since the essentialization must result for any organization in a slightly different model. To exchange information between organizations both organizations must not only agree on a physical protocol like Z39 but more on the identification of their objects (contact persons, organizations, placenames, keywords, reference systems and the whole bunch). Conclusion. Metadata systems when seriously applied do not come out of the box, you ought to develop yourself a model and if you what to exchange metadata with organizations outside your model you should first agree on object identifiers before even bothering on exchanging. My Hints: Most databases contain a 'comment' field for any object, unstructured metadata (definition of what it is, what units are used) can be stored best in there, close to the data. For organisational information you just use the contact administration of e.g. your browser in which an email address can be an unique identifier. Most browsers allow in various modes to 'share' that information and make it searchable. Note that browser contact information is not normalized. Thus if your organisation is large you better buy a contact administration package. Most GI metadata is derivable from the dataset themselves and using simple batch programs you should be able to make that searchable as well. Geodatabase does the latter, partly, and if convenient for you, you can use that. In Oracle (and other databases) the whole database structure is stored in the database dictionary and thus using Geodatabase on top of Oracle is a little bit double (understatement). What then remains is the creation of one table containing.... two fields: "contactperson email", "physical dataset location" Just imagine the simplicity. Caio -- Drs. Alfred de Jager Geographer, GIS and Database Consultant Portal for European Landscape Research http://www.aris.sai.jrc.it/en/search-tools freegis-list-request at intevation.de wrote: > Send Freegis-list mailing list submissions to > freegis-list at intevation.de > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > freegis-list-request at intevation.de > > You can reach the person managing the list at > freegis-list-admin at intevation.de > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Freegis-list digest..." > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Clearinghouse (Alexander Pucher) > 2. Re: Clearinghouse (Bernhard Reiter) > 3. Re: Clearinghouse (Andrew Hallam) > 4. JaGo and GeoTools: Any comparative remarks? (Stefan F. Keller) > > --__--__-- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2002 12:49:18 +0200 > From: Alexander Pucher > Cc: Freegis-list at intevation.de > Subject: Re: [Freegis-list] Clearinghouse > > Wow, a lot of information coming in the last days. Thanks you all so > far-John, Jan and Felipe. > > My personal intention (that's why I posted my question) is simple. We > have a lot of geodata in our dept., stored in several ArcGIS personal > geodatabases. All I want to do is to set up a web-based intranet search > engine, so that dept. members can search the available data. In a first > step, it is not needed that users can actually download the datafiles-a > metadata result list of the queried data would be enough. I think, this > is not really a clearinghouse, for it would only have one peer. > > Changes are good that some of my colleagues will try to set up a > ESRI-based system, but my intention is to do it with free software. > > I had a look at the Z39.50 protocol stuff from FGDC and played around a > bit with the Isite software package. Looks good, but still some > questions remain like "how to get all the metadata out of ArcGIS in > batchmode" etc. > > I will have a look at your URLs (esp. the PHP item) and will come back > as soon as I've been through them. > > Best wishes, > alex > > Felipe Nievinski wrote: > > >Hi. > > > >On Mon, 01 Apr 2002, John Reid wrote: > > > >>I'm currently looking at setting up a demo dataset using freely > >>available datasets for my local area, concentrating initially on storage > >>of data catalogues and metadata. > >> > > > >John, > >I just read your message. The message below is in response to Alexander's message. > >The idea of the addition to the SDI Cookbook is great. I'll get back to you asap. > > > > > >On Tue, Mar 26, 2002, Alexander Pucher wrote: > > > >>I'm recently planning to set up an geodata clearinghouse using free > >>software. Right now, all data is stored in an ArcGIS personal > >>geodatabase. I've searched the web and found some stuff from the FGDC > >>(mainly the Isite package). > >> > > > >By clearinghouse I understand a decentralized system of servers > >full of metadata in a networked environment, used for resource > >discovery. > > > >The Z39.50 protocol is widely used for communication between > >computers in a clearinghouse. Isite is a package of (free > >software) programs for distributed searching. It contains a > >Z39.50 server implementation, besides other things. > > > >By using Isite you can: > >- index a file collection, each file being a metadata record, > >- search locally this database, > >- receive queries via Z39.50. > > > >If you just want to create and add a server peer to an existing > >clearinghouse (for example, registry.gsdi.org) this is almost > >all you'll need to do. You can then notify the clearinghouse > >maintainer that your server is ready to be accessed, and > >perform queries on local or remote Z39.50 servers using a > >Z39.50 client or through an already available http to Z39.50 > >gateway. > > > >To manage your metadata file collection (create, update and > >delete records), do it by hand offline, or build a web-based > >system using your prefered language. There is available (see > >URL below) a set of very elucidative Perl scripts which makes > >a metadata entry system. > >Any modification to your metadata-base you'll have to re-index > >it and restart the Z server. > > > >If you also want to build your own http to z39.50 gateway, be > >prepared to dig deep. As far as I can tell you, the Isite zcon > >defines the presentation of the search results (the way it > >formats Z39.50 responses into HTML) in its source code, so > >you'll have to hack its internals just to add your > >university logo to the results page, for example. > >Maybe the PHPYAZ (again, see URL below), a Z39.50 client > >for PHP, can do a better job. > > > >If you want to serve the actual data online, provide links for > >it in the metadata records (the metadata standards usually > >define linkage fields to provide this information). Look at a (free) > >Web Map Service server or a Web Feature Server if you want > >to provide dynamic content rather than just static files. > > > >Just some ideas. > >Commentaries are welcomed. > > > >The URLs: > >- Isite 2.05 - General Instructions > > http://www.awcubed.com/Isite/FGDC-README.html > >- Web-based FGDC Metadata Entry System > > http://130.11.52.178/metaover.html > >- PHPYAZ > > http://www.indexdata.dk/phpyaz/ > >- Spatial Data Infrastrucures Implementation Guide > > Chapter Four: Geospatial Data Catalog -- Making data discoverable > > http://www.gsdi.org/pubs/cookbook/cookbook0515.pdf > > > >regards, > >Felipe N. > > > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Freegis-list mailing list > >Freegis-list at intevation.de > >https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list > > > > > > -- > ________________________________________________________ > > Institut fuer Geographie und Regionalforschung > Universitaet Wien > Kartografie und Geoinformation > > Departement of Geography and Regional Research > University of Vienna > Cartography and GIS > > Universitaetstr. 7, A-1010 Wien, AUSTRIA > > Tel: (+43 1) 4277 48644 > Fax: (+43 1) 4277 48649 > E-mail: pucher at atlas.gis.univie.ac.at > > FTP: ftp://ftp.gis.univie.ac.at > WWW: http://www.gis.univie.ac.at/karto > ________________________________________________________ > > "The chance of the bread falling with the butter side down is directly proportional to the value of the carpet" > > --Jennings' Corollary to the Law of Selective Gravity > > > --__--__-- > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2002 13:47:27 +0200 > From: Bernhard Reiter > To: Freegis-list at intevation.de > Subject: Re: [Freegis-list] Clearinghouse > > --zq44+AAfm4giZpo5 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Content-Disposition: inline > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > > On Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 12:49:18PM +0200, Alexander Pucher wrote: > > My personal intention (that's why I posted my question) is simple. We=20 > > have a lot of geodata in our dept., stored in several ArcGIS personal=20 > > geodatabases. All I want to do is to set up a web-based intranet search= > =20 > > engine, so that dept. members can search the available data.=20 > > So me this sound like the key technocal point for you will be to=20 > find a good way to access the data in the databases. Let me > elaborate on this a bit. > > Personally I do not have much experience with what to expect when > you write "ArcGIS personal geodatabase". I also did not find good > information about the underlying technology searching the web for a > couple of minutes. This is something you have to find out. > > Let's assume the geo and attribute data is in a DBMS based on MS Access. > As long as the data is in there, you cannot manipulate it easily > from a complete Free Software setting. Thus you probably want to > extract the data in order gain back control over it. > > I'm not aware of software that can work directly on the files of MS Access,= > =20 > but I did not look for this kind of software so far. > Assuming you are stuck with going over ms access interfaces > running ms windows you probably can utilise the com interface. > Python windows will enable you to do this and write a script you=20 > might run non-interactively. Certainly there are other ways. > > Once you have access to the data in the database you can set up > periodical scripts to collect the data you want and transfer them in your= > =20 > simple database (e.g. text file based, postgresql or mysql). > Adding a web and search interface to such a database is an easy > exercise you find many tutorials for utilising Free Software (e.g. > zope, php3, Quixote). > > > In a first=20 > > step, it is not needed that users can actually download the datafiles-a= > =20 > > metadata result list of the queried data would be enough. I think, this= > =20 > > is not really a clearinghouse, for it would only have one peer. > >=20 > > Changes are good that some of my colleagues will try to set up a=20 > > ESRI-based system, but my intention is to do it with free software. > > Please report back what you were able to do and what you've found out. > > --=20 > Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) = > =20 > > If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: > http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html > > --zq44+AAfm4giZpo5 > Content-Type: application/pgp-signature > Content-Disposition: inline > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Weitere Infos: siehe http://www.gnupg.org > > iEYEARECAAYFAjyoSM8ACgkQh9ag3dpKERYvNACdFFAj7eTut02D1D6ultgBCMfM > SU0AoJeajeaRPk8CEdmEiSHfSCFAZaGT > =GRHU > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > --zq44+AAfm4giZpo5-- > > --__--__-- > > Message: 3 > Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 14:39:48 +1000 > From: Andrew Hallam > Reply-To: Andrew Hallam > To: Freegis-list at intevation.de > Subject: Re: [Freegis-list] Clearinghouse > > --On Monday, April 01, 2002 13:47 +0200 Bernhard Reiter > wrote: > > > I'm not aware of software that can work directly on the files of MS > > Access, but I did not look for this kind of software so far. > > Quick think, possible options: > > - Python with Win32 extensions can use ADO to connect to any Access file > and access the tables. > - PHP's COM module provides similar tools. > - See also ActivePerl and ActivePython. > > All the above require writing code so it would be easier to use Access to > export the data. > > - There is an extension to pgAccess II which contains a GUI based Access to > PostgreSQL wizard (haven't used it myself). > > Regards > Andrew Hallam > > Digital Earth Pty Ltd > http://www.digitalearth.com.au > > --__--__-- > > Message: 4 > Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 07:51:59 +0200 > From: "Stefan F. Keller" > Reply-To: "Stefan F. Keller" > Organization: HSR Hochschule fuer Technik Rapperswil - FH Ostschweiz > To: freegis-list at intevation.de > Subject: [Freegis-list] JaGo and GeoTools: Any comparative remarks? > > Dear all > > I am interested in issueing a diploma thesis > which should test - among other items - the capabilities > of available open source geodata viewers (primarily as > stand-alone clients applications). The primary goal is > to use them for simple web mapping purposes of a universal > vector geodata language (INTERLIS - the GeoLanguage; sort of > superset standard of UML/GML from Switzerland, www.interlis.ch). > > I've found JaGo and GeoTools so far. > Now, I would like to ask you the following: > > - has anybody experience using one of these or both? > - does anybody know other relevant projects? > > Regards > -- Stefan Keller > > P.S. My first impressions: > - JaGo seems to me appealing but there is only one upload > compared to GeoTools. > - GeoTools is more active but I could not evaluate its > architecture yet. > ___________________________________________________________________ > Prof. Stefan F. Keller, Dozent fuer Informatik > Center f?r integrierte Geo-Informationssysteme (int>e>gis) > am Institut ITA-HSR der Hochschule fuer Technik Rapperswil (HSR) > CH-8640 Rapperswil, Tel. 055 222 47 46, Fax 055 222 44 00 > mailto:sfkeller at hsr.ch, http://www.hsr.ch und http://integis.ch > ___________________________________________________________________ > HSR, der sch?nste Campus der Schweiz... siehe http://netcam.hsr.ch/ > > --__--__-- > > _______________________________________________ > Freegis-list mailing list > Freegis-list at intevation.de > https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list > > End of Freegis-list Digest -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: alfred.de-jager.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 578 bytes Desc: Card for Alfred de Jager Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020402/283a95fe/alfred.de-jager.vcf From jan at intevation.de Tue Apr 2 19:59:54 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 19:59:54 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] JaGo and GeoTools: Any comparative remarks? In-Reply-To: <3CA946FF.A3D69C3E@hsr.ch> References: <3CA946FF.A3D69C3E@hsr.ch> Message-ID: <20020402175954.GC1376@intevation.de> Hi Stefan, On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 07:51:59AM +0200, Stefan F. Keller wrote: > I am interested in issueing a diploma thesis > which should test - among other items - the capabilities > of available open source geodata viewers (primarily as > stand-alone clients applications). The primary goal is > to use them for simple web mapping purposes of a universal > vector geodata language (INTERLIS - the GeoLanguage; sort of > superset standard of UML/GML from Switzerland, www.interlis.ch). from your description I read that you are primarily looking for Free Software web-mapping tools in order to explore (view) geo-data. This would include server-side solutions such as MapServer. However, if you are actually looking for a stand-alone client version send over the Internet, you should not limit your analysis to tools that run (also) in your browser. In case a local installation is required, you can install any sort of package. There is a large list of Free Software packages that allow interactive geo-data exploration. There is none yet comparable with ArcView though. > I've found JaGo and GeoTools so far. > - does anybody know other relevant projects? Don't forget OpenMap if you are looking for Java only. Best Jan -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From bernhard at intevation.de Tue Apr 2 22:41:19 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 22:41:19 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] geoserver beta released In-Reply-To: <001e01c1d686$988e5130$1400fe0a@matt> References: <001e01c1d686$988e5130$1400fe0a@matt> Message-ID: <20020402204119.GG9874@intevation.de> [ Sorry for the messed up format of Rob's email. The contents of the HTML alternative confused the admin interface of our mailinglist manager. Thus I've manually deleted this part without changing the Content-Type to non-alternative. It is not really a good idea to send HTML email anyway... *sigh* ] On Thu, Mar 28, 2002 at 01:30:08PM -0500, Rob Hranac wrote: > Several important announcements regarding the GeoServer Project. For > those with no background regarding GeoServer (formerly FreeFS), it is an > open source (GPL) implementation of the OpenGIS Consortium's Web Feature > Server specification, built on top of PostGIS. If you are interested in > experimenting with OpenGIS distributed web services, GeoServer is a good > place to start. > > (1) Beta (0.90) Release Available > GeoServer moved out of alpha this week, at long last. By beta we here at > the GeoServer project mean: normal humans have a good chance of > successfully installing/configuring GeoServer and can have a reasonable > expectation of compliance with the 0.0.14 and 0.0.15 versions of the Web > Feature Server specification. Furthermore, the code base is now well > documented and should be accessible to most Java developers. GeoServer > was tested extensively in the OpenGIS Consortium's Open Web Services > demonstration project and has successfully communicated with several WFS > clients. We encourage both users and developers to download this > release, play with it, and tell us about your experiences. Please send > all flames and love to: geoserver at vfny.org. You may download the beta > here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=25086. > > (2) New GeoServer Site (http://geoserver.sourceforge.net) > Although our new site has been around for a while, it was in a > relatively unfinished state. It is now a bit more polished, including > some additional and updated documentation. If you register at the site, > you will automatically be placed on our release announcement list and > may participate in site polls and discussions. > > (3) GeoServer 1.0 Release Timeline > Astute readers will note that our previous release timelines were a pack > of lies. This was due in part to rapidly changing circumstances in the > OpenGIS world, but was mostly due to our own poor judgment. We pledge to > do better in the future. To that end, we will now stop claiming to be > prepared to release a 1.0 version of GeoServer before a 1.0 version of > the specification is approved! Since it is not clear when the > specification will be approved, we have no clear GeoServer 1.0 release > date, except that it will be after OGC approval of WFS 1.0. We here at > the GeoServer project speculate that this will be sometime this summer. > Current development priorities, in rough order of importance, include: > transactional capabilities, full filter support, and additional back-end > data format support. We here at the GeoServer project take our user > requests seriously, so if you have a working installation of GeoServer > and need a feature to improve your quality of life, let us know. -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020402/98a6b851/attachment.bin From sfkeller at hsr.ch Wed Apr 3 16:29:04 2002 From: sfkeller at hsr.ch (Stefan F. Keller) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 16:29:04 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: metadata storage and fgdc References: <20020402204302.1A58113A1F@lists.intevation.de> Message-ID: <3CAB11B0.372BFE35@hsr.ch> Dear Alfred (Alfred de Jager ), In freegis-list-request at intevation.de you wrote: > Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 18:09:01 +0200 > From: Alfred de Jager > Organization: Joint Research Centre > To: freegis-list at intevation.de > Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #337 - 4 msgs > > Dear Alexander, > > Regarding your geodatabase metadata storage and fgdc metadata collectors. Please > take care before using these tools. They are merely conceived to collect in one > moment metadata not to update or relate between them. In order to do the latter > you better throw away all those flat-file models and start over with a > 'normalized' model containing only the essentials. I completely agree! > Hint, try to update the phone number of your 'contact person' using ArcGIS. > The problem of the whole GI metadata hype is that we do not apply the normal IT > rules of data normalization (no redundancy) and essentialization (store the > minimum and derive what is derivable). That's what we also try to do: take the most important thing of geodata, that's the geodata schema (precisely described in INTERLIS (=>UML=>XML) and derive from that what you can for metadata purposes. There is also a object catalog (data dictionary) needed (in XML; there are papers on this methodology, see e.g. http://www.integis.ch, some are also in english available). The object catalog and the remainder needs definitely to be defined in a metadata/catalogueing model. That what's ISO 19115 is doing. As a matter of fact, there is no sw around (I know of) to do this derivation and metadata management job. > GI Metadata is still an enduser wish list > and in any implementation I have seen thus far the whole thing is mixed and end > user perspective driven. Apperently nowbody cares about the managebility of > these data! I think we now know what the end user wants! We have around 3 > official committees writing down cryptic definitions for field names like > 'title', 'author' etc. What we now need to do is to define which information is > derivable and which is not. From what is not derivable you need to check if it > is essential (is my faxnumber essential to know at the level of metadata?) if > not skip it. > > The remaining information needs to be normalized and stored in a database out of > which you generate (perhaps xml) information sheets. One does not store XML > sheets!!!!!!! Why not? XML is always better than .doc-Files, i.e. for explanatory text! An also better than ORACLE dumps. Depends what is in the XML! >Normalization means that every repeated piece of information (eg a > contact person) results in a separated relatable table. Such a database does not > exist in a generic way since the essentialization must result for any > organization in a slightly different model. To exchange information between > organizations both organizations must not only agree on a physical protocol like > Z39 but more on the identification of their objects (contact persons, > organizations, placenames, keywords, reference systems and the whole bunch). > I again completely agree! This is exactly why we developed INTERLIS for defining geodata and data models. In addition - as a free side effect - we can derive formats automatically - even GML if this is needed. Currently GML is not enough so that we use an own INTERLIS/XML-format (see www.interlis.ch for free documentation, ask interlis at lt.admin.ch for an official englisch version of this standard). > Conclusion. > Metadata systems when seriously applied do not come out of the box, you ought to > develop yourself a model and if you what to exchange metadata with organizations > outside your model you should first agree on object identifiers before even > bothering on exchanging. With this INTERLIS geolanguage we are able to define and exchange even metadata and catalogues. There is a working group to define a Swiss profile if ISO 19115 Metadata! There are some papers on this at http://www.kogis.ch. You have mentioned FGDC and ArcGIS/ArcCatalog. These models are outdated! We recommend the ISO Core (or even a subset of if like you suggest). Even OGC and ESRI is expected to change to ISO Metadata (because the project leader of the ISO group moved to ESRI, as I heard from my ISO expert colleagues!). > My Hints: > Most databases contain a 'comment' field for any object, unstructured metadata > (definition of what it is, what units are used) can be stored best in there, > close to the data. For organisational information you just use the contact > administration of e.g. your browser in which an email address can be an unique > identifier. Most browsers allow in various modes to 'share' that information and > make it searchable. Note that browser contact information is not normalized. > Thus if your organisation is large you better buy a contact administration > package. Most GI metadata is derivable from the dataset themselves and using > simple batch programs you should be able to make that searchable as well. > Geodatabase does the latter, partly, and if convenient for you, you can use > that. In Oracle (and other databases) the whole database structure is stored in > the database dictionary and thus using Geodatabase on top of Oracle is a little > bit double (understatement). > > What then remains is the creation of one table containing.... two fields: > > "contactperson email", "physical dataset location" Perhaps a little too small list (:->)? I'd suggested in addition a "prize indicator". > Just imagine the simplicity. The message of N. Wirth and thus of INTERLIS was similar: "The Art of Simplicity". > Ciao > -- > Drs. Alfred de Jager > Geographer, GIS and Database Consultant > > Portal for European Landscape Research > http://www.aris.sai.jrc.it/en/search-tools Regards -- Stefan Keller ___________________________________________________________________ Prof. Stefan F. Keller, Dozent fuer Informatik Center f?r integrierte Geo-Informationssysteme (int>e>gis) am Institut ITA-HSR der Hochschule fuer Technik Rapperswil (HSR) CH-8640 Rapperswil, Tel. 055 222 47 46, Fax 055 222 44 00 mailto:sfkeller at hsr.ch, http://www.hsr.ch und http://integis.ch ___________________________________________________________________ HSR, der sch?nste Campus der Schweiz... siehe http://netcam.hsr.ch/ From Dieter.Lehmann at sbg.ac.at Wed Apr 3 17:23:20 2002 From: Dieter.Lehmann at sbg.ac.at (Dieter Lehmann) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 17:23:20 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: metadata storage and fgdc Message-ID: <001001c1db23$8243bc20$238ec98d@titan.fh-nuertingen.de> Hello, thanks for this wonderful discussion about metatdata. But what should the enduser do? For example - we (EU-project) are now in the stage to define, which metadata-standard we should use. And - we want to share our files - so, in my opinion, a very simple solution is necessary. I must admit, that the problem of standardisation (like address should be) should be considered. But what happens, if you change even simple ESRI-Shape files - you are very happy, if you could read all stuff, and don't have to bother with any normalisation that could not be restructured... We think (because our partners have sometimes very little knowledge about GIS and metadata..) to build a very easy web-interface, like the minimal FGDC-standard, look at http://www.fgdc.gov/clearinghouse/metadataesystem/metaform.html, this seems to fulfil our needs. I have short question concerning standard of projections.... is there a common projection for working with EU-wide data? - thanks! Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ Dieter Lehmann Center for Geoinformation Processing Salzburg ZGIS Institute for Geography and Geoinformation University of Salzburg Hellbrunnerstr. 34 A-5020 Salzburg Austria phone +43-662-8044-5263 Dieter.Lehmann at sbg.ac.at -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Stefan F. Keller An: freegis-list at intevation.de Datum: Mittwoch, 3. April 2002 16:32 Betreff: [Freegis-list] Re: metadata storage and fgdc >Dear Alfred (Alfred de Jager ), > >In freegis-list-request at intevation.de you wrote: > >> Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 18:09:01 +0200 >> From: Alfred de Jager >> Organization: Joint Research Centre >> To: freegis-list at intevation.de >> Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #337 - 4 msgs >> >> Dear Alexander, >> >> Regarding your geodatabase metadata storage and fgdc metadata collectors. Please >> take care before using these tools. They are merely conceived to collect in one >> moment metadata not to update or relate between them. In order to do the latter >> you better throw away all those flat-file models and start over with a >> 'normalized' model containing only the essentials. > >I completely agree! > >> Hint, try to update the phone number of your 'contact person' using ArcGIS. >> The problem of the whole GI metadata hype is that we do not apply the normal IT >> rules of data normalization (no redundancy) and essentialization (store the >> minimum and derive what is derivable). > >That's what we also try to do: take the most important thing of geodata, >that's the geodata schema (precisely described in INTERLIS (=>UML=>XML) >and derive from that what you can for metadata purposes. There is also a >object catalog (data dictionary) needed (in XML; there are papers on >this methodology, see e.g. http://www.integis.ch, some are also in >english available). The object catalog and the remainder needs >definitely to be defined in a metadata/catalogueing model. That what's >ISO 19115 is doing. > >As a matter of fact, there is no sw around (I know of) to do this >derivation and metadata management job. > >> GI Metadata is still an enduser wish list >> and in any implementation I have seen thus far the whole thing is mixed and end >> user perspective driven. Apperently nowbody cares about the managebility of >> these data! I think we now know what the end user wants! We have around 3 >> official committees writing down cryptic definitions for field names like >> 'title', 'author' etc. What we now need to do is to define which information is >> derivable and which is not. From what is not derivable you need to check if it >> is essential (is my faxnumber essential to know at the level of metadata?) if >> not skip it. >> >> The remaining information needs to be normalized and stored in a database out of >> which you generate (perhaps xml) information sheets. One does not store XML >> sheets!!!!!!! > >Why not? XML is always better than .doc-Files, i.e. for explanatory >text! An also better than ORACLE dumps. Depends what is in the XML! > >>Normalization means that every repeated piece of information (eg a >> contact person) results in a separated relatable table. Such a database does not >> exist in a generic way since the essentialization must result for any >> organization in a slightly different model. To exchange information between >> organizations both organizations must not only agree on a physical protocol like >> Z39 but more on the identification of their objects (contact persons, >> organizations, placenames, keywords, reference systems and the whole bunch). >> > >I again completely agree! This is exactly why we developed INTERLIS for >defining geodata and data models. In addition - as a free side effect - >we can derive formats automatically - even GML if this is needed. >Currently GML is not enough so that we use an own INTERLIS/XML-format >(see www.interlis.ch for free documentation, ask interlis at lt.admin.ch >for an official englisch version of this standard). > >> Conclusion. >> Metadata systems when seriously applied do not come out of the box, you ought to >> develop yourself a model and if you what to exchange metadata with organizations >> outside your model you should first agree on object identifiers before even >> bothering on exchanging. > >With this INTERLIS geolanguage we are able to define and exchange even >metadata and catalogues. There is a working group to define a Swiss >profile if ISO 19115 Metadata! There are some papers on this at >http://www.kogis.ch. > >You have mentioned FGDC and ArcGIS/ArcCatalog. These models are >outdated! We recommend the ISO Core (or even a subset of if like you >suggest). Even OGC and ESRI is expected to change to ISO Metadata >(because the project leader of the ISO group moved to ESRI, as I heard >from my ISO expert colleagues!). > >> My Hints: >> Most databases contain a 'comment' field for any object, unstructured metadata >> (definition of what it is, what units are used) can be stored best in there, >> close to the data. For organisational information you just use the contact >> administration of e.g. your browser in which an email address can be an unique >> identifier. Most browsers allow in various modes to 'share' that information and >> make it searchable. Note that browser contact information is not normalized. >> Thus if your organisation is large you better buy a contact administration >> package. Most GI metadata is derivable from the dataset themselves and using >> simple batch programs you should be able to make that searchable as well. >> Geodatabase does the latter, partly, and if convenient for you, you can use >> that. In Oracle (and other databases) the whole database structure is stored in >> the database dictionary and thus using Geodatabase on top of Oracle is a little >> bit double (understatement). >> >> What then remains is the creation of one table containing.... two fields: >> >> "contactperson email", "physical dataset location" > >Perhaps a little too small list (:->)? I'd suggested in addition a >"prize indicator". > >> Just imagine the simplicity. > >The message of N. Wirth and thus of INTERLIS was similar: "The Art of >Simplicity". > >> Ciao >> -- >> Drs. Alfred de Jager >> Geographer, GIS and Database Consultant >> >> Portal for European Landscape Research >> http://www.aris.sai.jrc.it/en/search-tools > >Regards >-- Stefan Keller >___________________________________________________________________ >Prof. Stefan F. Keller, Dozent fuer Informatik >Center f?r integrierte Geo-Informationssysteme (int>e>gis) >am Institut ITA-HSR der Hochschule fuer Technik Rapperswil (HSR) >CH-8640 Rapperswil, Tel. 055 222 47 46, Fax 055 222 44 00 >mailto:sfkeller at hsr.ch, http://www.hsr.ch und http://integis.ch >___________________________________________________________________ >HSR, der sch?nste Campus der Schweiz... siehe http://netcam.hsr.ch/ > >_______________________________________________ >Freegis-list mailing list >Freegis-list at intevation.de >https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list From robert.maki at dnr.state.mn.us Wed Apr 3 20:20:24 2002 From: robert.maki at dnr.state.mn.us (Robert Maki) Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 12:20:24 -0600 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: metadata storage and fgdc Message-ID: Greetings: Interesting discussion. We have made a commitment to managing our GIS metadata resources within a relational data model (Oracle-based) to meet database objectives of normalization, etc, and are currently operational with metadata descriptions from broad (layer) levels to detailed table and valid value domains. Our model further differentiates between data optimized for maintenance and derivative data. Metadata reports for derivative data draw partly on descriptive elements associated with the maintenance data sources. We are an FGDC node but have not yet begun writing (ISITE) indexable XML documents from the database yet (we are still limping along with a legacy technology in that area). Our approach is certainly not generic but may offer some ideas to folks who are working in this area. I can make a model (visio) available if anyone is interested. A couple of comments. To my mind, the biggest drawback of the FGDC metadata effort was their failure to design a workable physical data transfer format. The mp file format was really inadequate. The SGML format was a better idea but was not codified as a standard. Both of those approaches took a *document* view of the subject while what was really needed was an *element*-based method. Could someone educate me as to whether the current efforts feature this type of flexibility in their approach? Regarding ArcCatalog, we have found few advantages to their approach in that ESRI seems to view metadata as a document storage problem, rather than an enterprise data problem. Regarding metadatabases, we borrowed a fragment of ISO11179 (metadata registry) for storage of value domains, permissible values, and value meanings and have found it to be pretty robust (as long as you write an application to manage the content). Thanks for the discussion. Robert Robert J. Maki 500 Lafayette Road GIS Data and Infrastructure Supervisor Saint Paul, Minnesota 55155 Management Information Services (651) 297-2329 Minnesota DNR robert.maki at dnr.state.mn.us >>> "Dieter Lehmann" 04/03/02 09:23AM >>> Hello, thanks for this wonderful discussion about metatdata. But what should the enduser do? For example - we (EU-project) are now in the stage to define, which metadata-standard we should use. And - we want to share our files - so, in my opinion, a very simple solution is necessary. I must admit, that the problem of standardisation (like address should be) should be considered. But what happens, if you change even simple ESRI-Shape files - you are very happy, if you could read all stuff, and don't have to bother with any normalisation that could not be restructured... We think (because our partners have sometimes very little knowledge about GIS and metadata..) to build a very easy web-interface, like the minimal FGDC-standard, look at http://www.fgdc.gov/clearinghouse/metadataesystem/metaform.html, this seems to fulfil our needs. I have short question concerning standard of projections.... is there a common projection for working with EU-wide data? - thanks! Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ Dieter Lehmann Center for Geoinformation Processing Salzburg ZGIS Institute for Geography and Geoinformation University of Salzburg Hellbrunnerstr. 34 A-5020 Salzburg Austria phone +43-662-8044-5263 Dieter.Lehmann at sbg.ac.at -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: Stefan F. Keller An: freegis-list at intevation.de Datum: Mittwoch, 3. April 2002 16:32 Betreff: [Freegis-list] Re: metadata storage and fgdc >Dear Alfred (Alfred de Jager ), > >In freegis-list-request at intevation.de you wrote: > >> Date: Tue, 02 Apr 2002 18:09:01 +0200 >> From: Alfred de Jager >> Organization: Joint Research Centre >> To: freegis-list at intevation.de >> Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #337 - 4 msgs >> >> Dear Alexander, >> >> Regarding your geodatabase metadata storage and fgdc metadata collectors. Please >> take care before using these tools. They are merely conceived to collect in one >> moment metadata not to update or relate between them. In order to do the latter >> you better throw away all those flat-file models and start over with a >> 'normalized' model containing only the essentials. > >I completely agree! > >> Hint, try to update the phone number of your 'contact person' using ArcGIS. >> The problem of the whole GI metadata hype is that we do not apply the normal IT >> rules of data normalization (no redundancy) and essentialization (store the >> minimum and derive what is derivable). > >That's what we also try to do: take the most important thing of geodata, >that's the geodata schema (precisely described in INTERLIS (=>UML=>XML) >and derive from that what you can for metadata purposes. There is also a >object catalog (data dictionary) needed (in XML; there are papers on >this methodology, see e.g. http://www.integis.ch, some are also in >english available). The object catalog and the remainder needs >definitely to be defined in a metadata/catalogueing model. That what's >ISO 19115 is doing. > >As a matter of fact, there is no sw around (I know of) to do this >derivation and metadata management job. > >> GI Metadata is still an enduser wish list >> and in any implementation I have seen thus far the whole thing is mixed and end >> user perspective driven. Apperently nowbody cares about the managebility of >> these data! I think we now know what the end user wants! We have around 3 >> official committees writing down cryptic definitions for field names like >> 'title', 'author' etc. What we now need to do is to define which information is >> derivable and which is not. From what is not derivable you need to check if it >> is essential (is my faxnumber essential to know at the level of metadata?) if >> not skip it. >> >> The remaining information needs to be normalized and stored in a database out of >> which you generate (perhaps xml) information sheets. One does not store XML >> sheets!!!!!!! > >Why not? XML is always better than .doc-Files, i.e. for explanatory >text! An also better than ORACLE dumps. Depends what is in the XML! > >>Normalization means that every repeated piece of information (eg a >> contact person) results in a separated relatable table. Such a database does not >> exist in a generic way since the essentialization must result for any >> organization in a slightly different model. To exchange information between >> organizations both organizations must not only agree on a physical protocol like >> Z39 but more on the identification of their objects (contact persons, >> organizations, placenames, keywords, reference systems and the whole bunch). >> > >I again completely agree! This is exactly why we developed INTERLIS for >defining geodata and data models. In addition - as a free side effect - >we can derive formats automatically - even GML if this is needed. >Currently GML is not enough so that we use an own INTERLIS/XML-format >(see www.interlis.ch for free documentation, ask interlis at lt.admin.ch >for an official englisch version of this standard). > >> Conclusion. >> Metadata systems when seriously applied do not come out of the box, you ought to >> develop yourself a model and if you what to exchange metadata with organizations >> outside your model you should first agree on object identifiers before even >> bothering on exchanging. > >With this INTERLIS geolanguage we are able to define and exchange even >metadata and catalogues. There is a working group to define a Swiss >profile if ISO 19115 Metadata! There are some papers on this at >http://www.kogis.ch. > >You have mentioned FGDC and ArcGIS/ArcCatalog. These models are >outdated! We recommend the ISO Core (or even a subset of if like you >suggest). Even OGC and ESRI is expected to change to ISO Metadata >(because the project leader of the ISO group moved to ESRI, as I heard >from my ISO expert colleagues!). > >> My Hints: >> Most databases contain a 'comment' field for any object, unstructured metadata >> (definition of what it is, what units are used) can be stored best in there, >> close to the data. For organisational information you just use the contact >> administration of e.g. your browser in which an email address can be an unique >> identifier. Most browsers allow in various modes to 'share' that information and >> make it searchable. Note that browser contact information is not normalized. >> Thus if your organisation is large you better buy a contact administration >> package. Most GI metadata is derivable from the dataset themselves and using >> simple batch programs you should be able to make that searchable as well. >> Geodatabase does the latter, partly, and if convenient for you, you can use >> that. In Oracle (and other databases) the whole database structure is stored in >> the database dictionary and thus using Geodatabase on top of Oracle is a little >> bit double (understatement). >> >> What then remains is the creation of one table containing.... two fields: >> >> "contactperson email", "physical dataset location" > >Perhaps a little too small list (:->)? I'd suggested in addition a >"prize indicator". > >> Just imagine the simplicity. > >The message of N. Wirth and thus of INTERLIS was similar: "The Art of >Simplicity". > >> Ciao >> -- >> Drs. Alfred de Jager >> Geographer, GIS and Database Consultant >> >> Portal for European Landscape Research >> http://www.aris.sai.jrc.it/en/search-tools > >Regards >-- Stefan Keller >___________________________________________________________________ >Prof. Stefan F. Keller, Dozent fuer Informatik >Center f?r integrierte Geo-Informationssysteme (int>e>gis) >am Institut ITA-HSR der Hochschule fuer Technik Rapperswil (HSR) >CH-8640 Rapperswil, Tel. 055 222 47 46, Fax 055 222 44 00 >mailto:sfkeller at hsr.ch, http://www.hsr.ch und http://integis.ch >___________________________________________________________________ >HSR, der sch?nste Campus der Schweiz... siehe http://netcam.hsr.ch/ > >_______________________________________________ >Freegis-list mailing list >Freegis-list at intevation.de >https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list _______________________________________________ Freegis-list mailing list Freegis-list at intevation.de https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list From batsy at vapour.net Wed Apr 3 21:50:16 2002 From: batsy at vapour.net (batz) Date: Wed, 3 Apr 2002 14:50:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: [Freegis-list] Canadian data. Message-ID: This is signifigant because it is an editorial in the print edition of the national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, and those of you who have ever tried to get canadian data know what a ridiculous and expensive process it can be. It is good to see that this cause is getting some recognition. I have included the awkwardly long URL at the bottom of the message if you need it, or if the article does not display properly here. It's hard to find a cheap datum By DAVID AKIN With all that's going on in the world, it may seem trivial to write about the price of statistics -- Canadian statistics, no less. But some important Canadian data are too expensive and that's harming our ability to create new jobs and new wealth in the knowledge economy. It's a good time to be thinking about the price of this data because we're just at the beginning of a new census cycle. That is, the census of Canada, an important undertaking of the federal government to count just about anything worth counting in the country. Last month, Statistics Canada released details on the population of Canada. You'll recall the release was front-page news, mostly because the count showed that Canada is growing at an anemic pace and some parts of the country, mostly rural areas, are actually shrinking. This information will play a central part in the forward planning of organizations as diverse as municipal police departments, charitable organizations and Fortune 500 multinationals. But that was just the first statistical snapshot. Over the next year or two, Statscan will release much more data from the 2001 census. Lots of that information will be made available for free, but a great deal of important data, valuable to all sorts of organizations across the country, will be made available only to those willing to pay a great deal for it. In fact, if you wanted to get detailed figures on household income, dwelling type, education and other variables on a street-by-street, across-the-country basis, you could pay Statscan more than $10,000 for the privilege. By contrast, the same kind of data, with similar amounts of detail, for the United States can be purchased from the U.S. Census Bureau for as little as $100. But that's not all. There is also a great disparity between us and the U.S. for the cost of digital versions of street maps. A Canadian set can cost as much as $25,000 and will include only built-up, urban areas; a full set of U.S. maps, including urban and rural areas, costs $2,000 (U.S.). Having these two sets of data -- digital street maps and census data -- lets anyone with a personal computer and some cheap software figure out how best to deploy scarce resources, find new business opportunities, or conduct research into the ways Canadian society is organized. This data -- geographic locations and lists of things such as people and houses -- is called geospatial data, and there's a small but thriving industry of geospatial data users in Canada who are trying to push federal policymakers toward the idea that raw data about our country ought to be made available for as close as possible to free, and that such a policy would have immense benefits for all of us. In the U.S., data collected by the public's representatives -- the government -- about the public are viewed as the public's good. The job of government, in the U.S. at least, is to get this information into the hands of the public with as little fuss as possible. It feels different in Canada. The data collected by the public's representative here are viewed as a potential moneymaker for the state, and that's wrong. They're our data and our government ought to give them to us. GeoConnections, a federally funded organization, commissioned a study last year that examined Canada's geospacial data dissemination policies. The report, prepared by KPMG Consulting for the GeoConnections committee, concluded that the government does a poor job getting data it collects about the country into the hands of those who could make some use of it. "Decisions are taken without using the best available data because the cost of the data exceeds valuable budgets and/or perceived value. In some instances, effective, timely and economic decision-making is hindered. . . . The outcome is inferior decision-making in both the public and private sectors." This is important because the most senior members of the Chrétien government have made it a priority to nurture a knowledge economy that generates wealth from bits and bytes, yet the federal government is hoarding one of the most precious resources to build a knowledge economy. Some studies say that, for every dollar invested in distributing geospacial, census-based data, users of that data generate $4 in growth, mostly by improved resource allocation. KPMG had some common-sense proposals, the most sensible of which was this: The main goal of Canada's data dissemination policies should be to increase the use of the data. It should not be to balance a departmental budget or earn revenue. A bureaucrat's success should be measured by the number of kilobytes moved out the door, not by the size of a departmental bank balance. The responding agencies -- Statscan et al. -- are still thinking about it. David Akin is national business and technology correspondent for CTV News and a contributing writer to The Globe and Mail. Sorry for the long URL, it's the site.. http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/FullStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&date=20020403&dateOffset=&hub=columnists&title=Columnists&cache_key=columnistsNational¤t_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1 From sfkeller at hsr.ch Thu Apr 4 07:50:36 2002 From: sfkeller at hsr.ch (Stefan F. Keller) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 07:50:36 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: metadata recommendations (continued) References: <20020403200002.4B91B13A1B@lists.intevation.de> Message-ID: <3CABE9AC.AFC109BD@hsr.ch> Sorry again: I 'd like to answer to Alfred the following: o Regarding simplicity in Metadata: At MEGRIN (years ago for LaClef project) and on the bi-annual Swiss GIS conference two years ago I proposed a so-called "Simple Metadata Model" (even here, I have to dig out the english paper which included UML-/INTERLIS- and XML Schemas). o Regarding "normalization" Alfred mentioned: I would even suggest really object-oriented data schemas (not good old relational) which can be extended at a national level or locally) . Thus one should rather speak of "well- designed, robust or change resistant schemas". How these are mapped to existing relational data base can be delegated to the computer specialists. There are tools for this (like the forthcoming Open Source UML/INTERLIS-Editor at http://www.eisenhutinformatik.ch). o Regarding exchange of data (including geodata and metadata): You mention that there must be an agreement on Object Identifiers. This is again right. Alt least there must be common "user defined keys" (besides the common geo-reference system). When I mention INTERLIS also here, it's because we got an agreement two years ago on generic OID-generation between cadastral surveying in Germany (ADV) and Switzerland (http://www.kogis.ch)! We called it sometimes SOID ("Simple Object Identifier" sic!) and it's published and available as a service at http://www.interlis.ch. o As long as there is no software around for ISO Metadata Core, what I propose for metadata managment NOW are the following basic documents (all with the same root name): 1. Object Catalog: A simple textual/tabular document which describes the geodata objects in plain language; => a HTML-file (perhaps with style sheets) can be generated, if software is available (like the above mentioned UML/INTERLIS-Editor). 2. Main Geodata Schema (textual, computer readable notation) : A precise model of the geodata; the *key document* of all geodata and geo-services including classes, attributes, data types, units, reference system; => an UNICODE (ASCII)-text in INTERLIS. 3. Other Geodata Schemas (graphic notation) : automatically (!) derived from (2.) using the freely available INTERLIS compiler: => 3a. An UML class diagram in JPEG and 3b. an XML Schema (ASCII). 4. Metadata : A textual/tabular document according to the "Simple Metadata Model" (as defined above in INTERLIS and derived XML-Schema); mention additional product (price, quality, category, spatial extension derived from geodata and supplier information (contact email)... and links together all the (partially generated) files from above. => A HTML-file (with style sheets) which is generated using XSLT (this file should be exported later on from a Metadata/Catalogueing Software). If these documents are published on web server they are searchable almost for free if a search functions is available on the web server software. As somebody mentioned before: Why not consider uploading its metadata to a up and running remote "Clearinghouse or Geo Portal" acting as an application service; as long as this is not proprietary, or able to archive its contents in XML (sorry again these formats) at any time...? A last recommendation when you model your metadata schema on your own or consider buying/using an available software: just keep your eyes on the ISO 19115 Metadata Core Schema if you want to update share your metadata for a longer time. Regards -- Stefan F. Keller From sfkeller at hsr.ch Thu Apr 4 07:54:09 2002 From: sfkeller at hsr.ch (Stefan F. Keller) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 07:54:09 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: metadata recommendations: protocols? References: <20020403200002.4B91B13A1B@lists.intevation.de> Message-ID: <3CABEA81.9014A946@hsr.ch> Some of you seem to know the Z39.50 protocol very good: is'nt this a rather outdated, clumsy standard? And instead of inventing "information brokers" again, I would suggest to look at Napster-alike protocols and open standard developments. Those peer-to-peer concepts are currently a hot topic - a sort of alternative or completion to the web! What do you think about peer-to-peer in catalogueing services? Regards -- Stefan Keller P.S. Sorry for these technical questions... From jan at intevation.de Thu Apr 4 07:29:17 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 07:29:17 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Canadian data. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020404052917.GB380@intevation.de> Hi, thanks for this info. I have two coments to add here: First, the comparison with the TIGER data of the US does not make advantage of the full truth. Which is: the TIGER data are free data (public domain) - you pay only for packaging, delivery etc. I am quite convinced that this is not true for the Canadian data where you are surely restricted (not free) in distribution and use. Second, there was a nice project called Free Geospatial Data in Canada at http://members.home.net/freedata/, but it has gone for unknown reason. Does anybody know what happened? Best Jan On Wed, Apr 03, 2002 at 02:50:16PM -0500, batz wrote: > This is signifigant because it is an editorial in the print > edition of the national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, and > those of you who have ever tried to get canadian data know > what a ridiculous and expensive process it can be. It is good > to see that this cause is getting some recognition. > > I have included the awkwardly long URL at the bottom of the message > if you need it, or if the article does not display properly here. > > It's hard to find a cheap datum > By DAVID AKIN > > With all that's going on in the world, it may seem trivial to write about > the price of statistics -- Canadian statistics, no less. But some important > Canadian data are too expensive and that's harming our ability to create > new jobs and new wealth in the knowledge economy. > > It's a good time to be thinking about the price of this data because we're > just at the beginning of a new census cycle. That is, the census of Canada, > an important undertaking of the federal government to count just about > anything worth counting in the country. > > Last month, Statistics Canada released details on the population of Canada. You'll recall the release was front-page news, mostly because the count showed that Canada is growing at an anemic pace and some parts of the country, mostly rural areas, are actually shrinking. > > This information will play a central part in the forward planning of organizations as diverse as municipal police departments, charitable organizations and Fortune 500 multinationals. > > But that was just the first statistical snapshot. Over the next year or two, Statscan will release much more data from the 2001 census. Lots of that information will be made available for free, but a great deal of important data, valuable to all sorts of organizations across the country, will be made available only to those willing to pay a great deal for it. > > In fact, if you wanted to get detailed figures on household income, dwelling type, education and other variables on a street-by-street, across-the-country basis, you could pay Statscan more than $10,000 for the privilege. > > By contrast, the same kind of data, with similar amounts of detail, for the United States can be purchased from the U.S. Census Bureau for as little as $100. > > But that's not all. There is also a great disparity between us and the U.S. for the cost of digital versions of street maps. A Canadian set can cost as much as $25,000 and will include only built-up, urban areas; a full set of U.S. maps, including urban and rural areas, costs $2,000 (U.S.). > > Having these two sets of data -- digital street maps and census data -- lets anyone with a personal computer and some cheap software figure out how best to deploy scarce resources, find new business opportunities, or conduct research into the ways Canadian society is organized. > > This data -- geographic locations and lists of things such as people and houses -- is called geospatial data, and there's a small but thriving industry of geospatial data users in Canada who are trying to push federal policymakers toward the idea that raw data about our country ought to be made available for as close as possible to free, and that such a policy would have immense benefits for all of us. > > In the U.S., data collected by the public's representatives -- the government -- about the public are viewed as the public's good. The job of government, in the U.S. at least, is to get this information into the hands of the public with as little fuss as possible. > > It feels different in Canada. The data collected by the public's representative here are viewed as a potential moneymaker for the state, and that's wrong. They're our data and our government ought to give them to us. > > GeoConnections, a federally funded organization, commissioned a study last year that examined Canada's geospacial data dissemination policies. The report, prepared by KPMG Consulting for the GeoConnections committee, concluded that the government does a poor job getting data it collects about the country into the hands of those who could make some use of it. "Decisions are taken without using the best available data because the cost of the data exceeds valuable budgets and/or perceived value. In some instances, effective, timely and economic decision-making is hindered. . . . The outcome is inferior decision-making in both the public and private sectors." > > This is important because the most senior members of the Chr?tien government have made it a priority to nurture a knowledge economy that generates wealth from bits and bytes, yet the federal government is hoarding one of the most precious resources to build a knowledge economy. > > Some studies say that, for every dollar invested in distributing geospacial, census-based data, users of that data generate $4 in growth, mostly by improved resource allocation. > > KPMG had some common-sense proposals, the most sensible of which was this: The main goal of Canada's data dissemination policies should be to increase the use of the data. It should not be to balance a departmental budget or earn revenue. A bureaucrat's success should be measured by the number of kilobytes moved out the door, not by the size of a departmental bank balance. > > The responding agencies -- Statscan et al. -- are still thinking about it. > David Akin is national business and technology correspondent for CTV News and a contributing writer to The Globe and Mail. > > > > Sorry for the long URL, it's the site.. > > http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/FullStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&date=20020403&dateOffset=&hub=columnists&title=Columnists&cache_key=columnistsNational¤t_row=1&start_row=1&num_rows=1 -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From alfred.de-jager at jrc.it Thu Apr 4 13:30:15 2002 From: alfred.de-jager at jrc.it (Alfred de Jager) Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 13:30:15 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #339 - 4 msgs References: <20020403200002.4B91B13A1B@lists.intevation.de> Message-ID: <3CAC3947.83D27C10@jrc.it> Metadata revisited Many reactions, useful reactions and quite cumbersome to comment in emails on it. I' ll give it a try and I come up with a proposal that might interest you. Mr Keller, When trying to comprehend all the links you send for implementing a swiss gi infrastructure, my main wonder was if this aiming at the swiss context only or are you interested to go beyond that? Besides the swiss context of course the progress of the project and the implementation issues might be of interest of everybody. The interlis language seemed to me more a translator. Useful but I pinpointed that the main issue of data transfer is unique identification of normalized objects, technical tools are necessary though but not the main reason why gi metadata is not working yet (..) Thus the contact person must have a number or a unique name (I proposed an email address, I know of the limitations of the latter) For the data set similar problem arises, I proposed the physical location on a disk as unique identification. In a database that would be the full 'schema'. Also this has known limitations. All other objects to be added will obtain the same problem. If I write that the source of my swiss data is the suisse landesvermessungsamt and you send me an xml sheet in which you call it bundesamt fur Landestopographie meaning the same than no computer system will be able to make the link. Thus if we want to define any organization as a data source than we ought to make a world wide web service giving a unique id to any organization that can be a data source for geoinformation. That is nothing new, booksellers happen to do that already for decades using their isbn number. Therefore the whole ISO excercise is useful but should lead to the implementation of world wide ids of any normalizable object defined in it. More or less this is happening now through openGIS initiatives, e.g. concerning spatial reference systems. Storing XML. Of course you can store an XML sheet and that is always better than storing a .doc. But is it difficult to search through it and consequently to index it. Currently many skilled programmers are busy in making XML sheets stored in databases searchable and indexable, a bit alike search engines index web pages. But I think that the GI Metadata, especially after essentialisation are so limited that we simply do not need all that overhead. Just store the fields of the XML sheet as normal strings, dates and numbers in your database and make searching and updating fast by default. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr Lehmann, A simple solution is not existing as you already found out. If you use a webbased solution than the risk to anticipate on is that your metadata and the data itself are detached. Thus the risk of inconsistency between both is large. (you move the data to another disk and then what happens to the metadata?) Concerning European projection systems. They do not exists as well. Europe being too large for one projection system in the first place. European wide maps are often presented in Lambert Equal Area projections, UTM or Albert projections. Lambert projections start to distort when bypassing an extent over 1000 kms. In that respect Albert can be more useful for continental mapping. The trend is to store data in lat/long based on the so-called etrs 1989 reference and project only when presenting the data on screen or maps. Most GIS packages are able to do so by now. A list of locally used projection systems commonly used in some european countries can be found on our service http://www.aris.sai.jrc.it/cgi-bin/tl1.pl?tl1.pl+countries+countries.id so for a european wide project you deproject the local data to etrs and alike create a database for whole continent. this counts also for imagery data. In that case you use a cylindrical plate carree projection in which you should correct the area statistics of your data while going south-north since the plate carre projection does not conserve area. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr Maki, Yes I would be most interested to see your model. Especially the sql create table scripts! Also I agree that while using large databases, an element based approach is needed. I proposed this also for a new gi datamodel in the EU commission. Something more about this you find on http://www.aris.sai.jrc.it/en/software/giscoentities.html Note that such an approach also might lead to a 'metadata' loop. What I mean is that at a certain moment one can create so much metadata at element level that the essential data gets lost in the process. That is why I urge for 'essentialisation'. It is also the case that all to my knowledge gi metadata initiatives are not addressing the issue of metadata at element level. It is focussing on 'describing' a set of data. Hence the difference could be a pointer at technical level, so I am not that worried. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr Batz(?) The described Canadian situation complies with the general European situation. Though I find it difficult to prove that the lack of affordable GI data has measurable economical impact. My feeling is that a lot of GI data is available but we lack skilled programmers to adapt the available data to specific user needs. Bref we lack imagination, skills and perhaps political priority. The whole data pricing problem can be regarded as a monopoly problem, classical and long. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Proposal to the Freegis List. As I stated earlier, to make metadata work we need to agree of identifiers for the normalizable objects... The objects I am missing in a sense that would like to have a 'world wide ID ' for them are the following; 1. dataprovider 2. contact person 3. several 'limited lists' (formats, software packages, languages, character sets, keywords etc) To make these ids alive it seems obvious to me to make webservice, for example under freegis in which the details of these objects can be manipulated and searched. Therefore I would like to know if anybody is interested in setting up such a service. What is needed is a page to ingest and manipulate the data. A service to extract the data per ID in an XML sheet A service to search through the data. Also needed are procedures to provoke that the providers and contact persons themselves help in keeping it all updated and probably a whole lot more that encompasses my perspective of the problem at this stage. Arriverderci, Alfred de Jager -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: alfred.de-jager.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 578 bytes Desc: Card for Alfred de Jager Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020404/c495c4f5/alfred.de-jager.vcf From neteler at itc.it Thu Apr 4 18:30:17 2002 From: neteler at itc.it (Markus Neteler) Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2002 18:30:17 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] just found: GISToolkitEditor Message-ID: <20020404183017.H30511@itc.it> Hi, just found: GISToolkitEditor http://gistoolkit.sourceforge.net/Editor.html "What is it: The GISToolkitEditor is a sample application that is used to demonstrate and verify the capabilities of the GISToolkit. It illustrates how to read data from a variety of data sources, perform some simple operations on that data and then store it back into a data source. The GISToolkitEditor can be easilly and quickly expanded as the GISToolkit expands. License Information The GISToolkit uses the LGPL license . " Cheers, Markus From jan at intevation.de Fri Apr 5 07:26:29 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 07:26:29 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] just found: GISToolkitEditor In-Reply-To: <20020404183017.H30511@itc.it> References: <20020404183017.H30511@itc.it> Message-ID: <20020405052629.GA355@intevation.de> Hi Markus, On Thu, Apr 04, 2002 at 06:30:17PM +0200, Markus Neteler wrote: > just found: GISToolkitEditor > http://gistoolkit.sourceforge.net/Editor.html > > "What is it: > The GISToolkitEditor is a sample application that is used to demonstrate > and verify the capabilities of the GISToolkit. It illustrates how to read > data from a variety of data sources, perform some simple operations on that > data and then store it back into a data source. The GISToolkitEditor can be > easilly and quickly expanded as the GISToolkit expands. > > License Information > The GISToolkit uses the LGPL license . > " it was on FreeGIS since August 2001 :-). However, it changed a lot so thanks for the hint. Jan -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From jan at intevation.de Fri Apr 5 14:56:51 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 14:56:51 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Ann: Thuban Message-ID: <20020405125651.GA973@intevation.de> Hi, this is just to let you know that Intevation started the development of an interactive viewer for geographic data named Thuban. Main features are its cross-plattform GUI, extensibility and flexibility for deriving individual GIS applications. Thuban is Free Software licensed under GNU GPL. Intevation plans to deploy Thuban in several client projects. Thuban is implemented with wxPython which allows its GUI to blend in with desktop on different platforms. An early prototype can be downloaded already. http://thuban.intevation.org Regards Jan -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From dtrillo at dap.es Mon Apr 8 08:51:14 2002 From: dtrillo at dap.es (David Trillo Montero) Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 08:51:14 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] python Message-ID: I recently have known the existence of Python. I would like to know a little more about this language and its power in the GIS field. Has someone experience with it. I would like to know that is useful, and what i can and cannot do with it. I will sum your responses and experiences.... David From bernhard at intevation.de Mon Apr 8 10:54:37 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 10:54:37 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] python In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020408085437.GA30261@intevation.de> On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 08:51:14AM +0200, David Trillo Montero wrote: > I recently have known the existence of Python. I would like to > know a little more about this language and its power in the GIS > field. Has someone experience with it. I would like to know that > is useful, and what i can and cannot do with it. The main advantages for GIS from python are the general advantages of python over other languages. You should be able to find some references of computer language comparisons from its homepage: www.python.org www.python.org/doc/Comparisons.html For FreeGIS some points even gain more weight: * Python can be used in an interactive mode thus also making a good scripting language Important because scripting will keep its place in complex geoprocessing. * Python is a cross platform and easy to learn A lot of people in geoprocessing do not intend to become in depth computer scientists. * Python and its tools are completly Free Software (A point not in need of explaination on this list.) Many geoprocessing takes place in research or academic setting. Free Software is a natural fit for these environments. -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020408/b821a79e/attachment.bin From sfkeller at hsr.ch Mon Apr 8 11:55:22 2002 From: sfkeller at hsr.ch (Stefan F. Keller) Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 11:55:22 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Metadata revisited - answers to Alfred de Jager Message-ID: (Thanks too to all of you for this discussion!) Mr. de Jager Many important issues you raise in your last mail (Thu, 04 Apr 2002 13:30:15 +0200): > the links you send for implementing a Swiss GI infrastructure > my main wonder was if this is aiming at the swiss context only or > are you interested to go beyond that? First (10 years ago), there was the observation, that geodata is at the heart of any infrastructure and that the main problem of any (!) interoperability (including data transfer, online and metadata services), is communication. This is done through a precise, both human and computer readable data schema. Thus, INTERLIS ("the GeoLanguage") is mainly a communication language. Then, INTERLIS was implemented in SW since five years. Now INTERLIS-based SW is first in showing ISO-concepts. INTERLIS has also been rated first in an internal ISO evaluation but was penaltied because of lacking tool support (that was years ago), lacking graphical notation (that now is UML), perhaps some lacking politics/lobbying. Now, recently Switzerland (and INTERLIS) got a second chance becoming an ISO WG leader for a working geometry profile. Interesting enough, OMG (www.omg.org) - the issuer of UML and CORBA - now is changing its fundamental approach to interoperability to "model based architecture", which is the same in principle as I try to explain here. > The INTERLIS language seemed to me more a translator. Useful but (...) It is a unfortunately broad misunderstanding what INTERLIS is: It's not a SW - it's an official Swiss standard body paper specification (freely accessible in de/fr/it/en). It's not a cadastral format - it's mainly a schema description language... and additionally it is combined with transfer format rules, which in turn define an exchange format (this mechanism can be extended to interface specification generation (for online APIs), like IDL). Important last remark: One has to keep in mind that modeling is a demanding tasks and (even GIS project leaders in governement who are data owners) IT skills are often lacking - as you too seem to state. > (...) more a translator. Useful but I pinpointed that the main > issue of data transfer is unique identification of normalized > objects (...) I just can't follow, why you would like to organize IDs for (always) every object for metadata: first what is this ID-linking for? If you organize mainly a portal/clearinghouse and if you agree, that metadata on its own is not a large dataset, then wy not simply overwrite existing datasets? Second, you probably know that there are not many GIS around yet (I know of one or two in Switzerland) which can manage IDs: you have to consider their deep implications in the core db. Having said this, I's like to repeat, that we got a proposition for generating world wide "Simple OIDs" (SOID or simply OID) coordinated with german cadastral authorities (see www.interlis.ch > Services where also the INTERLIS 2 spec are downloadable). The difference I pointed out between "normalized" objects and "object-oriented robust modelled" objects we can discuss perhaps in another thread. > Thus if we want to define any organization as a data source than we > ought to make a world wide web service giving a unique id to any > organization that can be a data source (...) That is also feasible with the SOID: there, the idea was, that every data source owner can decide what is exactly identified: whether it is a GIS, a single database-server component/module or every SOID generation component/module. > Storing XML: (...) > (...) Just store the fields (...) as normal strings, dates and number > in your database and make searching and update fast by default. There remain two problems one of defining APIs for (cascaded) online-queries and the another problem of exchanging/archiving metadata. The latter we think having solved (using the INTERLIS-mechanism which is usefil for any schema). For the first problem (assuming that this not solved yet a OpenGIS...) it seems to me most interesing to do more research, discussion and stndardization in looking for Napster-alike peer-to-peer concepts leading hopefully to uesful and tested protocol specifications. > ... Regarding your last suggestion for a "free" OID service, I would like to forward this to some of my Swiss colleagues - perhaps we could offer such a thing in a short time. The main question remains to agree on the goal of such OIDs and to agree on a OID specification (like the SOID proposal). Regards -- Stefan Keller ___________________________________________________________________ Stefan F. Keller, Professor f?r Informatik Center f?r integrierte Geo-Informationssysteme (int>e>gis) am Institut f?r Internet-Technologien und -Anwendungen (ITA-HSR) der Hochschule Rapperswil (HSR) Oberseestr. 10, CH-8640 Rapperswil mailto:sfkeller at hsr.ch, http://www.integis.ch und http://www.hsr.ch ___________________________________________________________________ From dtrillo at dap.es Wed Apr 10 12:43:26 2002 From: dtrillo at dap.es (David Trillo Montero) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 12:43:26 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Sum: Python Message-ID: Thank you very much for all your responses. Anyway I would like to hear more about Python and GIS. I have been encourage finally to learn it, even if I have to improve my programmer skills. anyway, here are your comments. Dragos Lipan: :)) Python is a object oriented, programmer productivity oriented. It has a sublime way of working with objects and extremely fast learning curve. Is a very good programming language. In the GIS field nothing happens special with Python, you can interface existing libraries wrote in c, c++, python and inteface them. For imagery you can use several packages. I work with PIL. You should start from here: http://www.rimbault.net/python/ Howard C Butler sent me this: Glad to hear that you are interested in Python. I've been using Python for about a year and a half, as well as using Avenue for going on five years. Coming from Avenue, Python feels very comfortable, behaves like you would expect it to, and is very powerful. As a language, the syntax is clean, readable (especially after you've been away from a script for a month or two), and very flexible. Python itself is built-upon and written in C, and if you have something that requires more performance, you can write it into a C module and still use it within Python. There is even a version of Python called Jython that allows you to work in Java environments, but I don't know too much about it. Python is powerful in the windows environment thanks to Mark Hammond, who wrote the hooks to allow Python to talk COM. You can use Python-COM to talk to windows apps like Excel and IE (and ArcGIS!) without having to resort to DDE. The standard library and modules that Python users have written is quite large, and if you need to do something, most likely someone else has already written a module that will do what you want (like working with dbf files, the Python Imaging Library for handling gobs of image formats, and ReportLab for generating pdfs). Bruce Dodson has done the most to bring Python to the ESRI world by writing a DLL that allows the Python interpreter to be embedded within ArcView (http://www.geocities.com/brucedodson.rm/avpython.htm). This means that you can script Avenue objects with Python and vise versa. It's very handy because Avenue isn't that extendible (scripting-wise), and if you wanted to do anything outside of ArcView before, you often had to write a DLL or struggle with DDE for apps that supported it. As for getting started, download yourself a copy of the ActiveState Python distribution (assuming Windows here, the avpython.dll doesn't work with Solaris to my knowledge). (http://www.activestate.com/Products/Download/Download.plex?id=ActivePython) Python 2.1.1 or 2.2.0 will do. I'd choose 2.1.1 for now because a point release is coming in the 2.2 branch, and any of the database adapters (and other compiled Python modules) you might want to use (postgres, mysql, dcoracle2) are likely pre-compiled for 2.1 and not 2.2 yet. You will also need to get a copy of the dll that is compatible with Python 2.1. The version of the dll on Bruce's site only works with Python 2.0, but there is a version of the extension available that has dll's for both 2.1 and 2.2 (http://hobu.net:81/Research/scripts) After you get Python installed, the dll renamed and put in your bin32 directory, and the .avx file put in your ext32 directory, your good to go. The O'Reilly "Learning Python" book and the New Riders "Python Essential Reference" are probably the two best starter books. Bruce has some sample scripts that show how to fire up Excel and put some data into it. So far, I've used the avpython.dll to write a MySQL connector for ArcView, as well as script Internet Explorer and Excel. I've been very happy working in Python, and I think it fits well with Avenue. It allows you to easily get out of the ArcView-only box that Avenue alone puts you in. I think it adds a lot to ArcView and will allow me to keep writing Avenue whilst I stubbornly learn the new stuff in ArcGIS. james m. johnston: I have dabbled with Python a bit. It is a very powerful and useful language, but as yet I haven't applied it to GIS, nor have I gone beyond playing with it. If your getting into the vb and com based world of the new ArcGIS, it will prove extremely valuable I'm sure. My brother in law swares by it and he has been a com based programmer for the last 10 years. good luck! David Trillo Montero Dpto. Innovaci?n y Desarrollo. E.P. Desarrollo Agrario y Pesquero de Andalucia Telefono: 954938100 Ext 8483 Fax : 954938110 mailto:dtrillo at dap.es From jan at intevation.de Wed Apr 10 12:00:17 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 12:00:17 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Sum: Python In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020410100017.GA1044@intevation.de> On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 12:43:26PM +0200, David Trillo Montero wrote: > Thank you very much for all your responses. Anyway I would like to hear more about Python and GIS. > > I have been encourage finally to learn it, even if I have to improve my programmer skills. anyway, here are your comments. just to add that this URL will give you all Free GIS Software (at least partly) written in Python: http://freegis.org/browse.en.html?category=pl&pl=Python All the best Jan -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From dtrillo at dap.es Thu Apr 11 13:13:45 2002 From: dtrillo at dap.es (David Trillo Montero) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:13:45 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Thurban Message-ID: I've been inside FreeGis.org and I downloaded Thurban, but I could see anything. Can someone tell me if i need extra components and where can i find them? I got also wxMSW-2.3.2-setup.zip but I still see anything. I'm waiting for help... David From bernhard at intevation.de Thu Apr 11 13:27:42 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 13:27:42 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Thurban In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020411112742.GW23162@intevation.de> Probably a good place to ask is the Thuban mailing list: http://thuban.intevation.org/mailinglist.html I guess we need more details about what you did so far and what responses you've got. On Thu, Apr 11, 2002 at 01:13:45PM +0200, David Trillo Montero wrote: > I've been inside FreeGis.org and I downloaded Thurban, but I could see anything. Can someone tell me if i need extra components and where can i find them? I got also wxMSW-2.3.2-setup.zip but I still see anything. > > I'm waiting for help... -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020411/f4601f86/attachment.bin From dtrillo at dap.es Fri Apr 12 12:22:07 2002 From: dtrillo at dap.es (David Trillo Montero) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 12:22:07 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] wxPython Message-ID: Does any one know a tutorial for wxPython? I've been inside the official wxPython page and in the tutorial section but the information is scarce. David From bernhard at intevation.de Fri Apr 12 13:02:58 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 13:02:58 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] OT: learning wxPython In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020412110258.GI32515@intevation.de> On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 12:22:07PM +0200, David Trillo Montero wrote: > Does any one know a tutorial for wxPython? I've been inside the > official wxPython page and in the tutorial section but the > information is scarce. Once if you are through that tutorial, you can check out the huge demo.py. As it is not that complicated most people just copy the code from there and do not need much else. Otherwise the wxpython list or the python newsgroup are good places to ask for further assisstance. -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020412/21a99369/attachment.bin From rq at quiedeville.org Fri Apr 12 20:08:10 2002 From: rq at quiedeville.org (Rodolphe Quiedeville) Date: 12 Apr 2002 20:08:10 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Presentation and question Message-ID: Hi, This is my first post on this list, so I'll briefly introduce myself. I'm first interesting by free software, I'm a freelance and living in Paris. I began soma days ago a project with the goal to have a full system for yachting based on free software. This project include some GIS tools, so I decided to join Freegis mailing list / project to help freegis team. That's all I some question and request about freegis.org, I didn't find answers in the ML archive. - there a database that contains all projects description ? The request is, is it possible to add the information about Debian package availability regards to each project ? If you think it coul be useful I can help to fill these information for some projects. Regards -- Rodolphe Quiedeville ( Travaillons Libre ) Free Software Jobs http://fr.lolix.org/ GNU/Linux Jobs http://fr.joinux.com/ GPG Key : http://rodolphe.quiedeville.org/gpg.txt From bernhard at intevation.de Fri Apr 12 21:07:22 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Fri, 12 Apr 2002 21:07:22 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Presentation and question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020412190722.GJ1379@intevation.de> On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 08:08:10PM +0200, Rodolphe Quiedeville wrote: > This is my first post on this list, so I'll briefly introduce > myself. I'm first interesting by free software, I'm a freelance and > living in Paris. Hi Rodolphe, > I began soma days ago a project with the goal to have a full system > for yachting based on free software. This project include some GIS > tools, so I decided to join Freegis mailing list / project to help > freegis team. Good news. Please note that we also have another list for people who want to directly help to improve the information offerings of freegis. http://freegis.org/mailman/listinfo/team > - there a database that contains all projects description ? Yes, we have a postgresql database running in the back. As you can see in the next steps planned for the FreeGIS site http://freegis.org/todo.en.html currently at no. 6 we want to make it possible for people to download this, too. > The request is, is it possible to add the information about Debian > package availability regards to each project ? If you think it coul be > useful I can help to fill these information for some projects. This seems to be useful, we just have to think a bit about maintenance. Right now, packages.debian.org seems to be an easy access to this kind of information. On the other we might need to add rpm availablity then, too. What do other think? Bernhard -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020412/62162e66/attachment.bin From rq at quiedeville.org Fri Apr 12 21:22:02 2002 From: rq at quiedeville.org (Rodolphe Quiedeville) Date: 12 Apr 2002 21:22:02 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Presentation and question In-Reply-To: <20020412190722.GJ1379@intevation.de> References: <20020412190722.GJ1379@intevation.de> Message-ID: le Fri, 12 Apr 2002 21:07:22 +0200 Bernhard Reiter a ?crit : > On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 08:08:10PM +0200, Rodolphe Quiedeville wrote: [...] > Good news. Please note that we also have another list > for people who want to directly help to improve the information > offerings of freegis. http://freegis.org/mailman/listinfo/team Ok I'll subscribe to it too, so. > > - there a database that contains all projects description ? > > Yes, we have a postgresql database running in the back. > > As you can see in the next steps planned for the FreeGIS site > http://freegis.org/todo.en.html > currently at no. 6 we want to make it possible for people to > download this, too. It sounds good. > > The request is, is it possible to add the information about Debian > > package availability regards to each project ? If you think it > > coul be useful I can help to fill these information for some > > projects. > > This seems to be useful, we just have to think a bit about maintenance. > Right now, packages.debian.org seems to be an easy access > to this kind of information. Indeed, but if I consult freegis.org and want to test immediatly one soft or an other It coul bee cool to have the information on freegis.org > On the other we might need to add rpm availablity then, too. Surely ! Regards, -- Rodolphe Quiedeville ( Travaillons Libre ) Free Software Jobs http://fr.lolix.org/ GNU/Linux Jobs http://fr.joinux.com/ GPG Key : http://rodolphe.quiedeville.org/gpg.txt From bh at intevation.de Fri Apr 12 21:42:10 2002 From: bh at intevation.de (Bernhard Herzog) Date: 12 Apr 2002 21:42:10 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Presentation and question In-Reply-To: References: <20020412190722.GJ1379@intevation.de> Message-ID: <6q8z7sn1pp.fsf@abnoba.intevation.de> Rodolphe Quiedeville writes: > le Fri, 12 Apr 2002 21:07:22 +0200 > Bernhard Reiter a ?crit : > > Right now, packages.debian.org seems to be an easy access > > to this kind of information. > > Indeed, but if I consult freegis.org and want to test immediatly one > soft or an other It coul bee cool to have the information on freegis.org I wonder: would it be difficult to automatically create links that will initiate a search for the package on packages.debian.org or rpmfind.net? You'd only have to store the name of the debian or rpm package and only if it differs from the project name. Another thing that might be interesting is a field that inidcates whether a package is part of the current version of the FreeGIS CD-ROM. Bernhard H. -- Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ Sketch http://sketch.sourceforge.net/ MapIt! http://www.mapit.de/ From rq at quiedeville.org Fri Apr 12 21:58:26 2002 From: rq at quiedeville.org (Rodolphe Quiedeville) Date: 12 Apr 2002 21:58:26 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Presentation and question In-Reply-To: <6q8z7sn1pp.fsf@abnoba.intevation.de> References: <20020412190722.GJ1379@intevation.de> <6q8z7sn1pp.fsf@abnoba.intevation.de> Message-ID: le 12 Apr 2002 21:42:10 +0200 Bernhard Herzog a ?crit : > Rodolphe Quiedeville writes: > > > le Fri, 12 Apr 2002 21:07:22 +0200 > > Bernhard Reiter a ?crit : > > > Right now, packages.debian.org seems to be an easy access > > > to this kind of information. > > > > Indeed, but if I consult freegis.org and want to test immediatly one > > soft or an other It coul bee cool to have the information on freegis.org > > I wonder: would it be difficult to automatically create links that will > initiate a search for the package on packages.debian.org or rpmfind.net? > You'd only have to store the name of the debian or rpm package and only > if it differs from the project name. It sounds good to me, an example below with GPSMan : http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=gpsman&searchon=all&subword=1&version=all&release=all The result of this method it's better because you'll automaticly now in wich release the package is available. And the same with GPSDrive on rpmfind : http://rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=gpsdrive&system=&arch= The URL are very simple, we can implemented with no difficulty. How do you generate the html code ? > Another thing that might be interesting is a field that inidcates > whether a package is part of the current version of the FreeGIS > CD-ROM. Indeed. Regards, PS: I put the reply-to field to team at freegis.org I hope mailman will not erase it, I suppose it's better to continue this discussion on team -- Rodolphe Quiedeville ( Travaillons Libre ) Free Software Jobs http://fr.lolix.org/ GNU/Linux Jobs http://fr.joinux.com/ GPG Key : http://rodolphe.quiedeville.org/gpg.txt From alet at unice.fr Mon Apr 15 16:46:15 2002 From: alet at unice.fr (Jerome Alet) Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 16:46:15 +0200 (MET DST) Subject: [Freegis-list] [ANNOUNCE] PDFMap v1.60 is out Message-ID: Hi, I'm pleased to announce the availability of PDFMap v1.60. PDFMap is a GPLed Python module and command line tool which intensively uses the ReportLab toolkit (http://www.reportlab.com) to allow people to create high quality maps in the PDF format. Objects can be represented on maps using different predefined shapes in user defined colors, or images, and are correctly scaled and oriented according to each object's dimensions and orientation wrt the North. Each object can be made clickable, at least in Adobe's Acrobat Reader, allowing you to make back-links to any web enabled database. The new version changes are : - Support for web based images, even for the map background. - Support for transparent images. possibility to force a color to be rendered as transparent for images which don't have transparency information. - Support for arbitrary page sizes. Page sizes can be specified either in centimeters (default), inches or points. - Some bug fixes. WARNING : To use v1.60 YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED ReportLab's CVS version or any official version NEWER than 1.13 (and 1.14 is not yet out, so please go the CVS way). Alternatively you can go to http://www.reportlab.com/ to download the daily tarball. You can download PDFMap or see some samples and screenshots, from : http://pdfmap.sourceforge.net/ A mailing list and the CVS tree are available from : http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfmap/ Commercial support is available from : contact at librelogiciel.com (website is currently down for heavy maintainance but email works) Comments are very welcome. Thank you for reading. Jerome Alet - alet at librelogiciel.com From chagirard at yahoo.com Tue Apr 16 13:24:35 2002 From: chagirard at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?girard=20charlotte?=) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 13:24:35 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Freegis-list] tutorials Message-ID: <20020416112435.6084.qmail@web14203.mail.yahoo.com> Hello, I am a french student and I want to developp a world map in a Visual basic application. For this, I would like to find some libraries to use in my application. GIS is a new field for me and I would like to find a tutorial too (english or french version), to help me to understand the basic notions... Thank you ! Charlotte ___________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais ! Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com From silke at intevation.de Tue Apr 16 17:45:21 2002 From: silke at intevation.de (Silke Reimer) Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 17:45:21 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] tutorials In-Reply-To: <20020416112435.6084.qmail@web14203.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20020416112435.6084.qmail@web14203.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20020416154521.GB4487@intevation.de> Charlotte, On Tue, Apr 16, 2002 at 01:24:35PM +0200, girard charlotte wrote: > Hello, > > I am a french student and I want to developp a world > map in a Visual basic application. For this, I would > like to find some libraries to use in my application. > GIS is a new field for me and I would like to find a > tutorial too (english or french version), to help me > to understand the basic notions... > Thank you ! > > Charlotte I'm not sure, whether you are asking for a free library to include GIS functionality in Visual basic applications (which I don't know) of for basic information about GIS. In the latter case I propose to look on the following links. I don't know if the tutorials are really good, but that's what I found at a first view in the internet. http://www.gisdevelopment.net/tutorials/ http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/GIS/gistuts.html http://www.usgs.gov/research/gis/title.html Good luck, Silke > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en fran?ais ! > Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com > > _______________________________________________ > Freegis-list mailing list > Freegis-list at intevation.de > https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list -- Silke Reimer Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From rq at quiedeville.org Wed Apr 17 12:56:56 2002 From: rq at quiedeville.org (Rodolphe Quiedeville) Date: 17 Apr 2002 12:56:56 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] GPS Simulator Message-ID: Hi, There is a lot of software to communicate with GPS like GPSDrive, GPSMan. I want to test these software but I haven't got a GPS, do you know some software that can simulate a GPS on a serial interface ? I can't find any. Regards, -- Rodolphe Quiedeville Travailleur Independant Specialiste Logiciel Libre Free Software Jobs ( http://fr.lolix.org/ ) GPG Key : http://rodolphe.quiedeville.org/gpg.txt From ahmed_wagih at yahoo.com Wed Apr 17 18:28:21 2002 From: ahmed_wagih at yahoo.com (Ahmed Wagih) Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 18:28:21 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #348 - 2 msgs References: <20020417100101.D55C113A18@lists.intevation.de> Message-ID: <000b01c1e62c$e7503f30$d45377d4@darcairo.com> Hello Charlotte, You might want to try the mapobject/mapobject lite evaluation version which would work for 90 days and are mostly designed for VB applications such as the one you are talking about. the link is listed below for your convenience. http://www.esri.com/software/mapobjects/download.html Best Regards, Ahmed Wagih Cairo University ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 12:01 PM Subject: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #348 - 2 msgs > Send Freegis-list mailing list submissions to > freegis-list at intevation.de > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > freegis-list-request at intevation.de > > You can reach the person managing the list at > freegis-list-admin at intevation.de > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Freegis-list digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. tutorials (=?iso-8859-1?q?girard=20charlotte?=) > 2. Re: tutorials (Silke Reimer) > > --__--__-- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 13:24:35 +0200 (CEST) > From: =?iso-8859-1?q?girard=20charlotte?= > To: freegis-list at intevation.de > Subject: [Freegis-list] tutorials > > Hello, > > I am a french student and I want to developp a world > map in a Visual basic application. For this, I would > like to find some libraries to use in my application. > GIS is a new field for me and I would like to find a > tutorial too (english or french version), to help me > to understand the basic notions... > Thank you ! > > Charlotte > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français ! > Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com > > > --__--__-- > > Message: 2 > Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 17:45:21 +0200 > From: Silke Reimer > To: freegis-list at intevation.de > Subject: Re: [Freegis-list] tutorials > > Charlotte, > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2002 at 01:24:35PM +0200, girard charlotte wrote: > > Hello, > > > > I am a french student and I want to developp a world > > map in a Visual basic application. For this, I would > > like to find some libraries to use in my application. > > GIS is a new field for me and I would like to find a > > tutorial too (english or french version), to help me > > to understand the basic notions... > > Thank you ! > > > > Charlotte > > I'm not sure, whether you are asking for a free library to include > GIS functionality in Visual basic applications (which I don't know) > of for basic information about GIS. In the latter case I propose to > look on the following links. I don't know if the tutorials are > really good, but that's what I found at a first view in the > internet. > > http://www.gisdevelopment.net/tutorials/ > http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/GIS/gistuts.html > http://www.usgs.gov/research/gis/title.html > > Good luck, > > Silke > > > > > > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français ! > > Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Freegis-list mailing list > > Freegis-list at intevation.de > > https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list > > -- > Silke Reimer > > Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ > FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ > > > > > --__--__-- > > _______________________________________________ > Freegis-list mailing list > Freegis-list at intevation.de > https://intevation.de/mailman/listinfo/freegis-list > > > End of Freegis-list Digest _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From jan at intevation.de Wed Apr 17 17:38:24 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 17:38:24 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Freegis-list digest, Vol 1 #348 - 2 msgs In-Reply-To: <000b01c1e62c$e7503f30$d45377d4@darcairo.com> References: <20020417100101.D55C113A18@lists.intevation.de> <000b01c1e62c$e7503f30$d45377d4@darcairo.com> Message-ID: <20020417153824.GA1902@intevation.de> On Wed, Apr 17, 2002 at 06:28:21PM +0200, Ahmed Wagih wrote: > You might want to try the mapobject/mapobject lite evaluation version which > would work for 90 days and are mostly designed for VB applications such as > the one you are talking about. the link is listed below for your > convenience. > > http://www.esri.com/software/mapobjects/download.html I must add that MapObjects is proprietary software and does not count as Free Software at all. Best Jan -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From heiko.kehlenbrink at vermes.fh-oldenburg.de Wed Apr 17 22:16:14 2002 From: heiko.kehlenbrink at vermes.fh-oldenburg.de (Heiko Kehlenbrink) Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 22:16:14 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] GPS Simulator References: Message-ID: <3CBDD80E.2060804@vermes.fh-oldenburg.de> Rodolphe Quiedeville wrote: >Hi, > >There is a lot of software to communicate with GPS like GPSDrive, >GPSMan. I want to test these software but I haven't got a GPS, do you >know some software that can simulate a GPS on a serial interface ? > >I can't find any. > >Regards, > Hi Rodolphe, you can find a running gpsd(aemon) wich serves the output of a hooked up gps-device on port 2222. Just type : http://www.mgix.com:2222 and you could see the output. If you install GPS3D you could "pipe" the output with : viz www.mgix.com into GPS3D. if you start Gpsdrive without a running gpsd the programm offers you the option start running itself in a simulator mode. Maybe you could "pipe" the internet-gpsd into Gpsdrive? Never tried it myself. good luck! regards Heiko From warmerdam at pobox.com Thu Apr 18 17:12:55 2002 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:12:55 -0400 Subject: [Freegis-list] GDAL/OGR 1.1.7 Released Message-ID: <3CBEE277.7000405@pobox.com> Folks, The GDAL/OGR package 1.1.7 release is now available for download in source format. It can be found at: ftp://ftp.remotesensing.org/pub/gdal/gdal-1.1.7.tar.gz ftp://ftp.remotesensing.org/pub/gdal/gdal117.zip GDAL is a translator library for raster geospatial data formats that is released under an Open Source license. As a library, it presents a single abstract data model to the calling application for all supported formats. The related OGR library (which lives within the GDAL source tree) provides a similar capability for simple features vector data. The following entries in the NEWS file cover major changes in 1.1.7. GDAL 1.1.7 - Overview of Changes -------------------------------- o Add XPM (X11 Pixmap) format. o Added rough ENVI raster format read support. o Added --version support (and supporting GDALVersionInfo() function). o Special hooks for getting raw record data from sar ceos files and Envisat via the metadata api. o Upgraded TIFF/GeoTIFF support to CVS version ... includes new extension API and removes need for private libtiff include files entirely. o gdal_translate now has scaling option (-scale). o Added utility documentation. OGR 1.1.7 - Overview of Changes ------------------------------- o Added Arc/Info binary coverage format read support. o Added ogrtindex for building MapServer compatible OGR tile indexes. o Added default implementation of GetFeature(fid) method on OGRLayer. o Shape driver now supports reading and creating free standing .dbf files for layers without geometry. o Added utility documentation. o Fixed major memory/file handle leak in SDTS access. o Added ADSK_GEOM_EXTENT support for OLE DB provider. o Ensure shapefiles written with correct polygon ring winding direction plus various other shapefile support fixes. o GML read/write working reasonable well, including use of .gfs files. Best regards, -- ---------------------------------------+-------------------------------------- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent From warmerdam at pobox.com Thu Apr 18 20:41:06 2002 From: warmerdam at pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 14:41:06 -0400 Subject: [Freegis-list] OpenEV_FW 1.4.1 Binary Release For Windows Message-ID: <3CBF1342.5030708@pobox.com> Folks, I have prepared a binary release of OpenEV and a bunch of related tools, including GDAL, OGR, OGDI and PROJ.4 utilities. It can be downloaded from one of: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/openev/OpenEV_FW_141.zip ftp://ftp.remotesensing.org/pub/gdal/openev/OpenEV_FW_141.zip I have included the README below. Best regards, -- ---------------------------------------+-------------------------------------- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent Open Source GIS/RS Binary Kit for Windows ========================================= OpenEV For Windows 98/NT/2000 ----------------------------- VERSION: OpenEV 1.4.1_FW After unzipping edit the setfw.bat file in a text editor, and change OPENEV_FW_DIR to point to wherever you put the resulting directory tree. A sample image, utm.tif, is provided in the directory demo-data under your install directory. Start OpenEV by running openev.bat in a command window, then select File, Open and double click on the demo-data directory in the left column. Select the image utm.tif and then OK. See the online help for how to use OpenEV (fron the Help menu in OpenEV, note: you must have a html browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer installed). web page: http://openev.sourceforge.net email: OpenEV at atlsci.com OpenEV was funded in part by Atlantis Scientific (www.atlsci.com) and GeoInnovations (www.geoconnections.org). Other Libraries, and Utilities ------------------------------ o GDAL 1.1.7, including gdalinfo, gdal_translate, and gdaltindex utilities. - Includes ECW, and OGDI raster support. o OGR 1.1.7, including ogrinfo, ogr2ogr, and ogrtindex utilities. - Includes OGDI vector, and GML support. - Includes SoftmapSF.dll (OpenGIS Simple Features for COM/OLEDB provider) (just register it using "regsvr32 openev_fw\bin\SoftmapSF.dll") o Includes sfcdump.exe, an SF OLE DB provider dumper. o PROJ 4.4.4 plus proj.exe and cs2cs.exe o Gnuplot plotting package (run pgnuplot). o OGDI 3.1.0, gltpd, ogdi_import and ogdi_info. o Python 2.0 About this Package ------------------ This package was prepared by Frank Warmerdam (warmerdam at pobox.com) as a handy package containing several related packages, with a maximum of inter-component linkaged enabled. It is considerably more ad-hoc than some of the more formal release packages, but it may have greater functionality than formal releases. This package aspires to be a "tool bench" of GIS/RS tools for the end user. From john2 at sentieon.com Thu Apr 18 21:07:49 2002 From: john2 at sentieon.com (John) Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 14:07:49 -0500 Subject: [Freegis-list] Import Utility for Tiger 2K files??? Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20020418140602.00b3a5d0@netmail.home.com> Hi, I am looking for a utiltity to process the raw Tiger 2K (Tiger Line 2000) files. Does anyone know where to locate a free tool for this? Thank you. John From neteler at itc.it Fri Apr 19 09:11:37 2002 From: neteler at itc.it (Markus Neteler) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:11:37 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Book announcement: "Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach" Message-ID: <20020419091137.B5051@itc.it> Dear GRASS Community, dear FreeGIS enthusiasts, a long term problem - a missing comprehensive book on how to use GRASS is overcome. A new book is just leaving the presses: Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach Markus Neteler, Helena Mitasova 1. ed. 2002, 460 pages Kluwer Academic Press, Boston, Dordrecht This hard cover book provides basic information about the use of GRASS from setting up the spatial database, through working with raster, vector and site data, to visualization, image processing and hands-on applications. The book also contains a brief introduction to programming within GRASS and examples of the GRASS usage with other Open Source software tools, such as "gstat", "R statistical language", and linking GRASS to "MapServer". The appendix includes overview of all current commands, list of supported projections and formats as well as equations used in some modules. To get some feel for the book, the table of contents and samples are temporarily available here: http://mpa.itc.it/grassbook/ We consider publishing a book about GRASS by a major publisher an important step for GRASS being recognized as a serious, reliable software worth teaching at academic institutions and for official use in research. We also think that it is important for GRASS that Kluwer goes to many conferences where a large number of people may have the opportunity to learn about GRASS5. Through the publisher, the word about GRASS 5 will get out to universities, professional organizations, scientific and trade journals and other places which are hard to reach for us. Because Kluwer publishes books for narrow audiences (as ours still is), the cost per book is relatively high. However, the book can be purchased at a very reasonable price through bulk presales. For example a pre-sale of 100 books can be done at $50 or pre-sale of 50 books can be done at $60. Presales also lower the final list price which is over $100 depending on the presales (if you think that is too much, please read Tim O'Reilly's web site about publishing books, they need to sell many more books than we can to have around $50-60 list price). The book is currently in press and should be available within a month or two - exactly the right time with the GRASS5.0 release. Currently we are collecting companies, organizations, institutions to arrange pre-sales at $50 net price per book. The deadline for orders at that price is Thursday next week. Please let us know whether you would be interested in presales and help us to make the book more affordable for everybody. Thank you, Helena Mitasova Markus Neteler From silke at intevation.de Fri Apr 19 09:20:50 2002 From: silke at intevation.de (Silke Reimer) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:20:50 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Import Utility for Tiger 2K files??? Message-ID: <20020419072050.GC14457@intevation.de> John, On Thu, Apr 18, 2002 at 02:07:49PM -0500, John wrote: > Hi, > > I am looking for a utiltity to process the raw Tiger 2K (Tiger > Line 2000) files. Does anyone know where to locate a free tool for this? I don't know what exactly you want to do with the Tiger data. If you are interested to view them, perhaps a good starting point is tkgeomap since there exist already some tools to view Tiger place data. I hope this helps a little bit. http://www.tkgeomap.org http://www.tkgeomap.org/tkgm/ptiger.html http://www.tkgeomap.org/tkgm/tkgm_util.html By the way, we should add these tools on the FreeGIS home page. Ciao Silke -- Silke Reimer Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ -- Silke Reimer Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From bernhard at intevation.de Fri Apr 19 12:00:46 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 12:00:46 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: [GRASSLIST:3545] Book announcement: "Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach" In-Reply-To: <20020419091137.B5051@itc.it> References: <20020419091137.B5051@itc.it> Message-ID: <20020419100046.GD31370@intevation.de> On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 09:11:37AM +0200, Markus Neteler wrote: > The book is currently in press and should be available within a month or two > - exactly the right time with the GRASS5.0 release. As release assistant I have to add that the developers do not guarantee any fixed GRASS 5.0.0 release date. We plan to have a 5.0.0pre4 release later this month and hope to release this about a month later. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020419/302f9e53/attachment.bin From movahedp at shirazu.ac.ir Sat Apr 20 15:19:52 2002 From: movahedp at shirazu.ac.ir (movahedp) Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 17:49:52 +0430 Subject: [Freegis-list] help Message-ID: <001801c1e86e$0ee94620$6d24e1c2@afshin> hi everybody how can i obtain plotem.exe for merging the postscripe outputs in "gslib90" in one paper? regerds Afshin Movahedpour -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020420/736269a8/attachment.html From neteler at itc.it Sun Apr 21 08:15:09 2002 From: neteler at itc.it (Markus Neteler) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 08:15:09 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: Book announcement: "Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach" In-Reply-To: <20020419091137.B5051@itc.it>; from neteler@itc.it on Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 09:11:37AM +0200 References: <20020419091137.B5051@itc.it> Message-ID: <20020421081509.E19684@itc.it> Dear GRASS Community, dear FreeGIS enthusiasts, a short folluw-up concerning the book announcement below as we got several individual book requests: While we search for further book resellers, institutions, universities, until April, 24, to make the book affordable for everybody (we have to reach at least 100 books to enable the publisher to significantly lower the price), now also individual book orders can be processed at reduced price. Individual book orders please send to, in Germany: Intevation GmbH Silke Reimer International: OpenOSX http://OpenOSX.com/grassbook/ Please contact these resellers directly if you want to order at a reduced book price. Further resellers, institutions, universities interested in 20+ books for 50$ per book (plus shipping) may contact me or Helena Mitasova personally. This offer may expire April, 24th. Later the book will become available as usual (bookstores, online bookshops etc and above resellers). Note that the publisher's offer to allow the authors for organizing pre-sales to lower the final list price is quite unusual. This email should be the last notification. Kind regards Markus Neteler On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 09:11:37AM +0200, Markus Neteler wrote: > Dear GRASS Community, > dear FreeGIS enthusiasts, > > a long term problem - a missing comprehensive book on how to use GRASS > is overcome. A new book is just leaving the presses: > > Open Source GIS: A GRASS GIS Approach > > Markus Neteler, Helena Mitasova > 1. ed. 2002, 460 pages > Kluwer Academic Press, Boston, Dordrecht > > This hard cover book provides basic information about the use of GRASS from > setting up the spatial database, through working with raster, vector and > site data, to visualization, image processing and hands-on applications. > > The book also contains a brief introduction to programming within GRASS and > examples of the GRASS usage with other Open Source software tools, such as > "gstat", "R statistical language", and linking GRASS to "MapServer". The > appendix includes overview of all current commands, list of supported > projections and formats as well as equations used in some modules. To get > some feel for the book, the table of contents and samples are temporarily > available here: > > http://mpa.itc.it/grassbook/ > > We consider publishing a book about GRASS by a major publisher an important > step for GRASS being recognized as a serious, reliable software worth > teaching at academic institutions and for official use in research. > We also think that it is important for GRASS that Kluwer goes to many > conferences where a large number of people may have the opportunity to learn > about GRASS5. Through the publisher, the word about GRASS 5 will get out to > universities, professional organizations, scientific and trade journals and > other places which are hard to reach for us. > > Because Kluwer publishes books for narrow audiences (as ours still is), the > cost per book is relatively high. However, the book can be purchased at a > very reasonable price through bulk presales. > For example a pre-sale of 100 books can be done at $50 or pre-sale of 50 > books can be done at $60. Presales also lower the final list price which is > over $100 depending on the presales (if you think that is too much, please > read Tim O'Reilly's web site about publishing books, they need to sell many > more books than we can to have around $50-60 list price). > > The book is currently in press and should be available within a month or two > - exactly the right time with the GRASS5.0 release. > > Currently we are collecting companies, organizations, institutions to > arrange pre-sales at $50 net price per book. The deadline for orders at that > price is Thursday next week. Please let us know whether you would be > interested in presales and help us to make the book more affordable for > everybody. > > Thank you, > > Helena Mitasova > Markus Neteler -- Markus Neteler ITC-irst, Istituto per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica Project on Predictive Models for the Environment Via Sommarive, 18 - 38050 Povo (Trento), Italia tel +39 0461 314 -520 (fax -591) http://mpa.itc.it From jan at intevation.de Sun Apr 21 11:15:17 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Sun, 21 Apr 2002 11:15:17 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] help In-Reply-To: <001801c1e86e$0ee94620$6d24e1c2@afshin> References: <001801c1e86e$0ee94620$6d24e1c2@afshin> Message-ID: <20020421091517.GA12607@intevation.de> Hi, On Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 05:49:52PM +0430, movahedp wrote: > how can i obtain plotem.exe for merging the postscripe outputs in "gslib90" in one paper? I have searched for a program called plotem.exe, but did not find any. Can you provide some more details on what you are looking for? Best Jan -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From jidanni at yam.com.tw Sat Apr 20 06:53:14 2002 From: jidanni at yam.com.tw (Dan Jacobson) Date: 20 Apr 2002 12:53:14 +0800 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: new grass book "free"? Message-ID: >Your recent message to the GRASSLIST list has been >rejected for the following reason: >Only list subscribers may send messages to this list. >The text of your message follows: Just curious, what about like with the GNU emacs manuals, where the paper manual is just seen as a way to support the project and have a handy hardcopy. The whole thing would also be available on line too, in the spirit of the 'free' tradition. So not to spoil the fun, but are there stuff that could be also put on line but now won't? I suppose also one couldn't legally photocopy the book of course. Sorry, I'm a Stallmanist. -- http://jidanni.org/ Taiwan(04)25854780 From neteler at itc.it Mon Apr 22 08:17:36 2002 From: neteler at itc.it (Markus Neteler) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 08:17:36 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: new grass book "free"? In-Reply-To: ; from jidanni@yam.com.tw on Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 12:53:14PM +0800 References: Message-ID: <20020422081736.A8754@itc.it> On Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 12:53:14PM +0800, Dan Jacobson wrote: [...] > Just curious, what about like with the GNU emacs manuals, where the > paper manual is just seen as a way to support the project and have a > handy hardcopy. The whole thing would also be available on line too, > in the spirit of the 'free' tradition. > > So not to spoil the fun, but are there stuff that could be also put on > line but now won't? I suppose also one couldn't legally photocopy the > book of course. Sorry, I'm a Stallmanist. We tried to negotiate that - however, it seems to be difficult. Obviously we are the first authors for the publisher to write about Free Software and also trying to keep the book free. At time the book is fully copyrighted by the publisher (may change in future). So it is upon their decision if we can publish parts or fully online. I do not expect too much. To go with such a big international publisher we explained earlier, there are several advantages to reach a wider audience that the mailing lists and more. If things change, you will find the material in common places online. Best regards Markus Neteler http://mpa.itc.it/grassbook/ From bernhard at intevation.de Mon Apr 22 14:34:33 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 14:34:33 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: new grass book "free"? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020422123433.GF28419@intevation.de> On Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 12:53:14PM +0800, Dan Jacobson wrote: > I suppose also one couldn't legally photocopy the book of course. Fair use or similiar right will still allow you in most countries to photocopy the book or parts of it for certain conditions. > Sorry, I'm a Stallmanist. Stallman itself is no Stallmanist, so what are you? :) Note that we've informed Markus about the advantages of Free Documentation. He certainly prefers it. As GRASS is not seen as a mainstream subject, it is difficult to find a publisher at all. Note that GRASS itself is coming with a lot Free Documentation. The developers do welcome more documentation efforts. -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020422/7351161f/attachment.bin From cveale at hortresearch.co.nz Mon Apr 22 23:06:03 2002 From: cveale at hortresearch.co.nz (Chris Veale) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 09:06:03 +1200 Subject: [Freegis-list] GIS newbie Message-ID: <009801c1ea41$84197800$860142a1@thebeast> Hi. I am extremely new to GIS and have a request for knowledge. I have written a program that implements GIS to a very simple degree (it uses a bitmap of a map) and allows clicking on it to calculate things. I have a need to now use shape files (or mapper files - I have both formats) Can you please explain to me what shape files are and what mapper files are, and the formats of both. Also can you tell me how to use a shape or mapper file without using arcview, I think I should be able to import it into my delphi application. Cheers Chris PS please talk slow so that I can fully understand the formatting of these files. ______________________________________________________ The contents of this e-mail are privileged and/or confidential to the named recipient and are not to be used by any other person and/or organisation. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and delete all material pertaining to this e-mail. ______________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020423/79f4a9e0/attachment.html From gaz at tkgeomap.org Tue Apr 23 07:54:17 2002 From: gaz at tkgeomap.org (gaz) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 00:54:17 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Freegis-list] GIS newbie In-Reply-To: <009801c1ea41$84197800$860142a1@thebeast> Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Chris Veale wrote: > I have a need to now use shape files (or mapper files - I have both formats) > > Can you please explain to me what shape files are and what mapper files are, > and the formats of both. > > Also can you tell me how to use a shape or mapper file without using > arcview, I think I should be able to import it into my delphi application. > Shapefiles are files made with a format used by Arcview and Arcinfo. Although these are proprietary programs, the Shapefile format specification is available to the public. You can download the specification from http://www.esri.com/library/whitepapers/pdfs/shapefile.pdf There is a free library for reading and writing Shapefiles at http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/shapelib/ It is in C, but you might be able to translate some parts into Delphi. I hope this helps. Gordon http://www.tkgeomap.org From bernhard at intevation.de Tue Apr 23 11:49:42 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 11:49:42 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] help In-Reply-To: <009801c1ea41$84197800$860142a1@thebeast> <001801c1e86e$0ee94620$6d24e1c2@afshin> References: <009801c1ea41$84197800$860142a1@thebeast> <001801c1e86e$0ee94620$6d24e1c2@afshin> Message-ID: <20020423094942.GG5555@intevation.de> Please make sure to do post in html. It is considered not appropriate in most mailinglists and newsgroups. Posting only in plain text will raise your chance of getting qualified answers, because some people will not bother to read email with html formatting at all. Bernhard On Sat, Apr 20, 2002 at 05:49:52PM +0430, movahedp wrote: > hi everybody On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 09:06:03AM +1200, Chris Veale wrote: > Hi. -- Professional Service around Free Software (intevation.net) If freegis is useful for you, consider paying for the service: http://freegis.org/about-paying.en.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020423/9f7e8349/attachment.bin From bernhard at intevation.de Tue Apr 23 12:07:26 2002 From: bernhard at intevation.de (Bernhard Reiter) Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 12:07:26 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] help In-Reply-To: <20020423094942.GG5555@intevation.de> References: <009801c1ea41$84197800$860142a1@thebeast> <001801c1e86e$0ee94620$6d24e1c2@afshin> <20020423094942.GG5555@intevation.de> Message-ID: <20020423100726.GI5555@intevation.de> On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 11:49:42AM +0200, Bernhard Reiter wrote: > Please make sure to do post in html. Not not not post in html! (Now you get some extra "not"s, because the first one was lost due to overfast typing.. :) ) -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 248 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020423/abe8ff0f/attachment.bin From jidanni at yam.com.tw Wed Apr 24 03:02:20 2002 From: jidanni at yam.com.tw (Dan Jacobson) Date: 24 Apr 2002 09:02:20 +0800 Subject: [Freegis-list] Re: new grass book "free"? Message-ID: An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Helena Subject: no subject Date: no date Size: 2295 Url: http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020424/11788815/attachment.txt From pramsey at refractions.net Thu Apr 25 00:21:41 2002 From: pramsey at refractions.net (Paul Ramsey) Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 15:21:41 -0700 Subject: [Freegis-list] New OSS / OpenGIS Diagram Message-ID: <3CC72FF5.7F8B4119@refractions.net> I updated my OpenGIS diagram from last year, and alot of the dotted lines have disappeared! The open-source GIS community is definately rocketing along. P. -- __ / | Paul Ramsey | Refractions Research | Email: pramsey at refractions.net | Phone: (250) 885-0632 \_ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: OGC-OSS.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 14876 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/attachments/20020424/20dcffd7/OGC-OSS.pdf From raanders at acm.org Fri Apr 26 16:46:23 2002 From: raanders at acm.org (Roderick A. Anderson) Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 07:46:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Freegis-list] Virtual Terrain Project? Message-ID: While doing some searching I ran across this site (http://www.vterrain.org). First time I've seen it. A quick search of the FreeGIS site didn't turn it up. Did I overlook it? If not, it might something to look into. Appears to be 'Free'. Not even GPL'd but rather a MIT/X (like) license. Best, Rod -- Why is it so easy to throw caution to the wind. Shouldn't it be heavier and shaped like an anvil? Jon Anderson From jan at intevation.de Sun Apr 28 14:38:34 2002 From: jan at intevation.de (Jan-Oliver Wagner) Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 14:38:34 +0200 Subject: [Freegis-list] Virtual Terrain Project? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20020428123834.GA30141@intevation.de> Hi Rod, On Fri, Apr 26, 2002 at 07:46:23AM -0700, Roderick A. Anderson wrote: > While doing some searching I ran across this site > > (http://www.vterrain.org). > > First time I've seen it. A quick search of the FreeGIS site didn't turn > it up. Did I overlook it? If not, it might something to look into. I am sorry to confirm: yes, you overlooked it at FreeGIS :-) I have tried terms "Virtual", "Terrain" and both searches listed also VTP. Please let me know if some other search mechanism did not found VTP. All the best Jan -- Jan-Oliver Wagner http://intevation.de/~jan/ Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ FreeGIS http://freegis.org/ From batsy at vapour.net Mon Apr 29 17:19:49 2002 From: batsy at vapour.net (batz) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 11:19:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Freegis-list] todays cryptome Message-ID: Cryptome/cartome.org seems to have found a pile of relevant news regarding applications of GIS data today. They have assembled some nice images from mapquest too. For those of you who don't check the site regularly, it is www.cryptome.org, and GIS specific news can be found at www.cartome.org. I wonder if GIS is the new cryptography, as far as fashionable technologies go. If cartographers and GIS technicians can do for geospatial data what the cypherpunks are alleged to have done for strong crypto, I'm all for it. geopunks, cartopunks, terrapunks, oh my. ;) -- batz From raanders at acm.org Mon Apr 29 18:31:44 2002 From: raanders at acm.org (Roderick A. Anderson) Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 09:31:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Freegis-list] Virtual Terrain Project - follow up Message-ID: Thanks to all that replied. It seems I needed to use VTP instead of vterrain for my search. Anyway the important part is I'm aware of it. Really neat idea and project. Best, Rod -- Why is it so easy to throw caution to the wind. Shouldn't it be heavier and shaped like an anvil? Jon Anderson