[Xastir] fGIS for shapefile creation, any good?

[Tom Russo]

On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 07:42:50AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <archer at eskimo.com> flavor, containing:
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Tapio Sokura wrote:
> 
> > And in general how do I distinguish
> > between large roads and small roads and so on. Obviously I have to get
> > the information into the dbf file, but how do I do that neatly with fGIS?
> 
> I haven't heard of or used that package.  You might be able to use
> some of the tools that come with Shapelib in order to do it.  Worth
> a look anyway.  I see dbfadd, dbfcreate, and dbfdump in the main
> directory;  dbfcat, dbfinfo in the contrib directory.  I've used
> dbfdump and dbfinfo before, but not the others.

I am not familiar with fGIS --- but if it has the capability to create
vector layers with a heads-up digitizer, it should have the capability to add 
attributes to vector data.  Look for a menu item that allows you to associate
a table with the vector layer.  Odds are good that when you export the vector 
layer to shapefile format it should export the associated table to dbf.

If fGIS doesn't have that capability (and if it doesn't it has no business 
calling itself a GIS), you could use dbfcreate and dbfadd to create your own
associated dbf file.  There is an example of how to use these tools in the
README.MAPS file under "rolling your own shapefiles"

If you have lots of lines in your shapefile, using these two tools could be
a PITA.  You could also use openoffice to create a dbf file to go with your 
shapefile if necessary.  But I would assume that fGIS could do it if you
dug enough.

As for what format of dbf file to use, it's rather arbitrary.  As long as you
make up a consistent set of line attributes that you apply to each feature in 
your hand-rolled vector layer, you can use dbfawk to get it displayed any way
you like.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY     SAR502  DM64ux         http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 
 "The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly
  worth the effort." -- Norton Juster