chris@hobbit.gandalf.ca (Chris Sullivan) (04/15/91)
Dear X fans:
Well here at last is my summary of all the help I received towards finding
outline maps in the public domain. What I actually did, however, was buy
a copy of Corel Draw which has a lot of maps in ClipArt samples included
with it. Thanks for that pointer to Michael Quinn at DigiMap Data
Services (104 Charlton Boulevard, North York, Ontario, M2M 1B9, PH 416-
250-8998 FX 416-250-7173. Corel Draw includes pointers to sources of all
the ClipArt Samples, one of which I connected with. I bought their package,
MapArt, and imported the files (EPS format) into Corel Draw, exported them
to TIFF format bitmaps, and from thence I was more or less home free (it
would have been much quicker on a Sparc - don't try it on a 286 unless you
have lots of time - I used a 386).
DigiMap distributes MapInfo, which I went to a GIS trade show and saw, and
liked. It's based on XVT technology, and comes bundled with all kinds of
vector-based maps. DigiMap also markets separate maps for various formats.
Thanks again, everyone. I will send copies of this under separate cover
to those who requested it.
1. "GIS for Mac"
******************************************************************************
PC/ARC-INFO, a version (with reduced capabilities) of workstation ARC-INFO,
runs on IBM machines. I don't have their address, but you can probably
find an ad from them in a current issue of GIS World, PO Box 8090,
Ft Collins, CO 80526.
GRASS was developed by the US Army Construction Engineering Research Lab,
and is Unix based, but has been ported to the Mac.
GRASS distribution sites:
Concurrent, Mac, and AT&T:
ITD SRSC
Bldg 1103, Suite 118
Stennis Space Center, MS 39529
Phone: 601/688-2509, Scott Howard
Fax: 601/688-2861
SUN, Tektronix, and PC 386:
DBA Systems
Redwood One Building, 10560 Arrowhead Roa
Fairfax, VA 22033
Phone: 703/934-6769, Dave Johnson
Fax: 703/385-5870
Concurrent, SUN, and PC 386
European GRASS Center, Buro Nieuwland
P.B. 522
6700 AM Wageningen, Netherlands
Phone: (011) 31-8370-21711, Jan Wim Ploeg
Fax: 31-8370-25046
SCO UNIX 486
Satellite Technologies Group (STG)
9901 E. Valley Ranch Pkwy, Suite 2020
Irving, TX 75063
Phone: 214/506-9980, H. Eric Douthit II
Fax: 214/556-2330
There is a high end GIS package called "MapGrafix" that runs
on the MAC. It costs about $6000.00 (educational price). It
was meant to compete with ARC-INFO but it doesn't seem to be
as full featured. One good feature is the fact that you can
use any database (unlike ARC-INFO) with it. The program
takes some getting used to because it deviates from the
standard MAC-USER interface. They will sell you an almost
fully functional demo version for about $50.00. It can be
obtained from:
ComGrafix, INC.
620 E St.
Clearwater, FL 34616
ph: 813-443-6807
A GRASS port called MacGrass is available for $900.00 from
ITD, Space Remote Sensing Center
Building 1103, Suite 118
Stennis Space Center, MS 39529
ph: 601-688-2509
You need a macII with AUX and a big hard disk 200-300meg to
run MacGrass. Also need a video terminal attached to the
mac. MacGrass is commanded from a video terminal because it
takes over the color display for display only. The program
is only distributed via apple streaming tape, so you'll need
one of those too.
If Grass is public domain why the $900.00 fee?
You are basically paying for the video driver and
customer support.
There was a fairly comprehensive listing of these programs in the
Newsletter of the Canadian Cartographic Association about nine months
or a year ago. If you have the firepower (memory, etc.), MAP II which
can be obtained from John Wiley for about $125 is quite nice. For
smaller systems (e.g., SE) there are other, monochrome, programs
available from academic sources.
By all means, spend $125 for MAP II. It offers a full suite of grid-based
GIS functions, color support, nice data import/export capabilities, and
you can get support from both John Wiley (the software publisher) or
Machine Computng Lab., Dept. of Geography, U. of Manitoba (the developer).
A monochrome product recently on the market, hinted at by D. Marble, is
called macGIS. It is also about $100, will run on all Macs (including
on a 400K external drive!), and comes with an interesting 3-D wire-frame
modeling program (if your data set has z-coords.). It may be found by
contacting David Hulse, Dept. of Landscape Architecture, Univ. of Oregon,
Eugene, OR 97403.
These Mac products each have interesting user-interfaces (somewhat Mac-
standard) which _should_ allow for easier access and perhaps better
spatial problem-solving by students. I would be very interested to see
results of similar GIS-related studies executed using these Mac products
versus more traditional PC-MAP, PC Arc/Info products. I expect that the
Mac can easily accommodate more sophisticated metaphor-based interfaces
in the future, making Mac-based GISs more intuitively like hands-on
geographical/spatial analysis, but only time will tell...
2. "National Highway Planning Network"
******************************************************************************
>Bruce Peterson, of the Transportation Planning and Policy Group at the
>Oak Ridge National Laboratory, notes that the initial version (1.0) of
>the National Highway Planning Network has been released to the National
>Energy Software Center for public distribution.
>
>The NHPN currently contains 380,00 miles of roadway with 45,000 links
>and 28,500 nodes. Most links include a digitized chain of points showing
>roadway alignment derived from USGS 1:2M DLGs, generally accurate to
>approximately 1200 meters. Attribute detail on many roads includes
>administrative and functional class, and all roads will indicate sign
>route, length, and access control, among other characteristics.
>
>Inquiries about distribution should be directed to NESC at 312-972-7250.
>Technical queries to Bruce at 615-574-4419 or GTO@ORNLSTC on Bitnet.
>
>Adapted from a notice dated 6/28/90
3. "CIA World Bank II, Austin Code WOrks, UCSD.edu, Census"
******************************************************************************
I have searched far and wide and have come up with a couple
sources for U.S. Map data.
HANAUMA.STANFORD.EDU (36.51.0.16) has the world map as
does the UCSD.EDU Anonymous FTP site. This database is the
CIA World Bank II and it contains the data and some source
files explaining the format. The World Bank II is Public
Domain. Oh yes, I believe it also has the coordinates to some major
cities. The data has the land boundaries, rivers, political
boundaries, and one other thing I can't remember ;-)
The U.S. Map and state lines can also be purchased from Austin
Code Works for a small fee. This is also public domain data.
At UCSD.edu there is also a mercator projection.
One last interesting database is on uunet.uu.net. There is a
large Census file. I didn't get it, but it might help somebody
out. I read an article in Byte showing that the census has maps
of all the roads on CD and this might be one of their files. It
might be handy to play with if you don't have the most recent CD
of the data yet.
4. "U.S. Highway Database"
******************************************************************************
Subject: Re: [bit.listserv.gis-l] U.S. Highway Database
We have some digital files, both on the VAX belonging to the Center
for Mapping, and in our own GIS lab. What are you looking for? Any
particular data elements, formats, etc.? A lot of our stuff is in the
form of ARC/INFO coverages.
5. "mit.edu WorldMap"
******************************************************************************
Quick look produced. charon.mit.edu:pub/WorldMap/README
----------
This is a collection of geographical data providing the raw data for a
map of the world. Each file consists of a sequence of line segments.
Each line segment has two points: x1 y1 and x2 y2, in that order. For
example, the first line of Texas is:
-103.0034 36.4802 -102.1604 36.4937
representing a line segment from (x1, y1) = (-103.0034, 36.4802) to
the point (x2, y2) = (-102.1604, 36.4937). All information is in
longitude (x) and latitude (y), in the range of -179.14 to 190.37 for
longitude and 6.25 to 175.51 for latitude.
Two main data sets are provided: a world map (world) and a map of the
state boundaries of the United States (usa). These are kept in
separate directories, usa and world.
The usa directory has the following files. For each we also give its size
in bytes:
6868 Alabama 7196 Nebraska
5544 Arizona 2484 Nevada
10336 Arkansas 4216 New-Hampshire
18648 California 6936 New-Jersey
2700 Colorado 3204 New-Mexico
3060 Connecticut 16456 New-York
3162 Delaware 25738 North-Carolina
306 District-of-Columbia 3572 North-Dakota
29954 Florida 8092 Ohio
12886 Georgia 9432 Oklahoma
8532 Idaho 8532 Oregon
11730 Illinois 5814 Pennsylvania
8704 Indiana 2210 Rhode-Island
8908 Iowa 10302 South-Carolina
3858 Kansas 5652 South-Dakota
14994 Kentucky 10268 Tennessee
22338 Lousiana 38524 Texas
13532 Maine 2088 Utah
19210 Maryland 4352 Vermont
9622 Massachusetts 24820 Virginia
28152 Michigan 19476 Washington
12920 Minnesota 13940 West-Virginia
12954 Mississippi 13260 Wisconsin
10370 Missouri 2808 Wyoming
8532 Montana
The world directory has the following files.
200449 africa 73800 europe.pol
189871 africa.pol 303072 greenland
124230 antarctica 1206384 northamerica
709587 asia 14063 northamerica.pol
112012 asia.pol 38663 pacifica
169617 australia 377405 southamerica
653704 europe 70479 southamerica.pol
Each file is the basic information for a continent. The *.pol files contain
political boundaries. If you want only natural boundaries, do not use the
*.pol files. If you want all political boundaries, you must use both
files since most political boundaries are also natural boundaries.
These two main data sets were independently constructed. As a result,
they do not completely match (or possibly there was considerable
continental drift between the the construction of the two of them). I
don't know where the original data came from. It has been processed
to get it into this form. Although all data has 4 decimal places, I
doubt that it is that accurate. Two decimal places is more probably
the limit of its accuracy. Please do not use this data to determine
missile target coordinates.
Obvious sources of improvement:
a. label areas
b. change segments (of 2 points) to poly-segments (of n points)
c. Add cities, rivers
6. "xmap program"
******************************************************************************
There is the xmap program with some maps of some spot in Indiana, USA, but
nothing more than that - plus the author's mail address is no longer valid.
7. "CIA again"
******************************************************************************
I've seen a huge file that contained map information on literally the entire
world. I believe the information was produced by the CIA in the U.S. --- the
compressed file was on the order of 50 MB (big huh?). You might check the
decwrl.dec.com machine file wdb2.tar.Z. I can't tell you what format the data
is in.
Have you found any other information? I would guess that a query to Brian
Ried at DEC (again, probably decwrl.dec.com) might uncover some more info.
He seems to be the person that produces the UUCP network maps.
8. "info-mac (try art?)"
******************************************************************************
I have 2 maps one of the US, one of the world in X bitmap format
that I converted from the Pict format (orignals were MacDraw docs.)
I got all of this from sumex-aim.stanford.edu. The application
to convert PICT -> X bitmap is (I think) in the directory utils
and is called XBitmap.
9. "comp.mail.maps.postscript"
******************************************************************************
There is a newsgroup called comp.mail.maps.postscript or something
that posts internet/bitnet maps of various countries in postscript
form. It may be a start but I don't think it will have the
resolution/detail you're after.
10. "credits"
******************************************************************************
Thanks to the following, and anyone else whose names I forgot or misplaced:
(No guarantee as to how current these addresses are.)
Tom Wilson, twilson@gandalf.ca
James L. Peterson
Software Technology Program
MCC
Austin, Texas
james.peterson@mcc.com
Karl A. Nyberg karl@grebyn.com
Post Office Box 497 Grebyn Corporation
Vienna, VA 22183-0497 USA +1-703-281-2194
%% Dru Nelson %% Miami, FL %% Internet: dnelson@mthvax.cs.miami.edu %%
Hal Mueller hmueller@cssun.tamu.edu n270ca@tamunix (Bitnet)
Graduate Student, Department of Computer Science
Research Assistant, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843
MARBLE@MAPVXA.CFM.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Duane Marble)
Mike Gould
State University of New York at Buffalo
mabbs@hfrd.dsto.oz.au
Stephen A. Mabbs
Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation
-amit
codex!abhargava@uunet.uu.net
Chris Moore (Touch Communications Limited?)
sooner!cwm@Decwrl.dec.com
Rob Caplan
caplan@cs.stanford.edu
11. "the end"
************************************************************************
regards,
Chris
Chris Sullivan Tel: 613.723.6500
Systems Architecture Group Ext: 8253
Gandalf Data Limited Fax: 613.226.1717
130 Colonnade Rd. S. Telex: 053.4728
Nepean, Ontario chris@cannibal.gandalf.ca
Canada K2E 7M4