Re: [SLUG] A question of databases

From: Ronan Heffernan (ronanh@auctionsolutions.com)
Date: Fri Apr 09 2004 - 14:49:42 EDT


>For history sake you DO want a db, you need to keep those things on
>file for the lawyers if there is ever a question about who saw what.
>
>
>
You might want to keep PNG files of the output (and have your script
scrawl the lat/lon and timestamp on the corner of the PNG, BTW GRASS
spits-out PNGs natively). There is probably already a database in their
main (Windows) system. Dunno.

>Ronan, does GRASS read .shp files? if it does then you are in luck with
>the streets there are loads of street data out there in .shp files and
>there may be a converter that will convert the TIGRE files to .shp
>files. The street name info is carried in the .shp files so when you
>plot the streets you will see the names along with the street.
>
>
>
GRASS does read shape files, but it tends to be pretty ugly (vector
representation with poor control over overlapping labels and such). It
would be much more user-friendly to have a Rand McNally map with an 'X'
on it. Licensing the map shouldn't be an issue as long as you buy one
paper map for each GRASS computer.

I worked with GRASS and TIGER data ~4 years ago, when I moonlighted for
a wireless (802.11b) ISP. We wanted to map our signal strength over all
of Pinellas county. So I downloaded the TIGER data for Pinellas County,
and wrote a script to read signal strength from /proc/sys/net/aironet
and GPS coordinates from an RS-232 Garmin and write one record every
minute or so (tunable) into a Postgres database. The plan was to have
someone drive a laptop all around Pinellas and then to shove the data
into GRASS later. The company folded before the driving part could be
performed, but the GRASS experience lingers.

--ronan

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