[Xastir] README.MAPS Where is it?

[Jason Winningham]

On Dec 12, 2004, at 10:53 PM, John Kraus wrote:

> I downloaded all of the shapefiles from the TAMU site.
[snick]
> I am working with all of the southeast files so there should be no 
> gaps.
[snick]
> The machine is a 500mhz AMD K-6  with 256 ram and a 4gb swap partition.

You didn't specify how big an area you're trying to display, but if 
you're trying to display several states I think you're asking too much 
of your computer.

I have 7 of the southeastern states from that site and they occupy 
2.6Gb.  All of one state (AL) takes my laptop (3.2GHz P4 with 1Gb RAM) 
a minute or two to parse.  You've got several gigabytes of data that 
xastir has to parse to render a map, and you've got a low powered 
machine with not much RAM that's trying to do it for you.

If you want to view an entire state or several states at once go with 
something simple, like the shapefile with just the state borders 
(sorry, can't remember off the top of my head where it came from), or 
maybe use the APRS-DOS or WINAPRS state maps, which are all quite 
small.

When I want to display several states, I either use just the state 
borders, state borders+GNIS, or sometimes state borders+county 
borders+GNIS.

There is a shapefile from NOAA that has interstate highways.  I haven't 
found (or written) a dbfawk file to make it pretty, but state 
borders+the interstate system is fairly small and will still give you a 
good picture of several states.

-Jason
kg4wsv