rose@tci.bell-atl.com (Bob Rose) (02/22/90)
[I posted a message asking for pointers to
electronic format maps]
Hey, folks, I've been flooded with mail messages as
well as phone calls! THANKS! I tried to email
a reply to all who sent me mail, but many of my
messages bounced.
I've gotten plenty of great leads, and I'm now
getting more information from the companies and
agencies mentioned. When I get all the info and
order something, I'll post again to let you know
what we got and how it works out. For now, though,
I'll post a summary of the replies. I cut and pasted
from mail messages, so you might see your words in
here!
If you have other pointers besides what's here, please
send them along. I'm sure we'll be able to get what we
need from one of these sources, though.
thanks again!
Bob
The electronic format maps summary:
COMPANIES/AGENCIES
1)
"The Austin Code Works" sells 3 lists of maps that may help.
They are as follows:
1. U.S. Cities (names & longitude/latitude of 32000 US cities and
6000 state boundary points) $35
2. The world digitized (100000 longitude/latitude of the world
country boundaries) $30
3. US map (15701 points of state boundaries) $15
The address is:
The Austin Code Works
11100 Leafwood Lane
Austin, Texas 78750-3409
voice 512-258-0785
BBS 512-258-8831
FAX 512-258-1342
2) Delorme Mapping
PO Box 298
Freeport, Maine 04032
207-865-4171
Mktd Dir: Carey Gersten
3) Defense Mapping Agency, suburban D.C. (I think Bethesda, MD, but I'm
not sure).
Maps of places you didn't even think we could go to get maps.
Many classified. Worldwide coverage.
4) National Cartographic Information Center
U.S. Geological Survey
507 National Center
Reston, VA 22092
Ask for "Digital data, catalog and price list".
5) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Rockville, Md.
Land and sea maps. Land is areas near water and around
airports, and small scale North American maps showing the
North American geodetic network. There may be others. Water
is US Coastal waters in detail, and open ocean at small scale.
There is a paper map outlet office at 1001 Executive Blvd,
Rockville. MD 20852. They may have info on computer readable
maps. Their Boulder, Colorado office may be the digital map
data outlet.
6) U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, D.C.
Road and street maps of U.S. to the house and house number
level of detail.
7) I think what you may want is the WDB II tapes from the NTIS. (If
you are not familar with them, NTIS is the National Technical Information
Service, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Their address is:
NTIS
U.S. Department of Commerce
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
For information call (703)487-4763. To order (703)487-4660.
The WDB II contains about 6 million points which describe coast lines,
country boundaries, state boundaries (in USA [and maybe Canada] only),
islands, lakes, and rivers. The points are arranged in line segments.
Unfortunately, the line segments are not structured in a way that
allows one to readily build continent polygons. (I have done a little
work on this, but it is not what I am paid to do, so it is far from finished.)
The complete set of tapes costs $660, last I heard.
For higher resolution (the WDB II data seems to be about 1 minute, in the areas
we have looked at), the US Geological Survey produces DLG-3 tapes, which
contain everything found on the topo maps broken up into dfferent data
categories. They are only available for the US and its holdings, and
not all have been produced yet. It would also be very expensive to get a
complete set for the entire US.
Anonymous FTP:
(these two references may be the same)
There is a nice database of country/island outlines for anonymous ftp
in the pd1:<msdos.worldmap> directory of simtel20.arpa.
Try World Database II (or is it III?) -- it lives on the file server at
wsmr-simtel20.army.mil. They aren't bit maps but are outlines.
Other Sources:
Dave Miller at CMU (miller+@andrew.cmu.edu)
The Great American History Machine
XMAP Project from UCal Berkely (?)