[Xastir] Tiger map data?

[Curt, WE7U]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007, Craig Anderson wrote:

> 	I've downloaded the Tiger 2006 maps from tamu.edu
> and installed them and they work fine.  But they are basically
> all grey, whereas the online maps are multi-colored and are
> much easier to use.
>
> Do I have the 2006 maps mis-configured?

If you wish to enhance the coloring you'll need to tweak the dbfawk
file with the matching shapefile signature.  Look in the
xastir/config/ directory for *.dbfawk files.  Those that start with
"tgr" are the ones of interest.  We appear to have one per Tiger
layer.

I haven't tried the latest Shapefile downloads so I don't know if
the distributed dbfawk files work properly with them.  Who's tried
this?

See README.MAPS, the section starting with "What's in a .dbfawk
file?" to find out about dbfawk files.


> What data is being
> served by the online servers?  Can I download a copy of that?

I suspect they're using Tiger/Line data, not shapefiles, and
probably an older version of the maps that what you just downloaed.
Xastir does support Tiger/Line files (via the GDAL/OGR library), but
not as well as it does Shapefiles.  Shapefiles are our preferred
vector format.

If you install GDAL/OGR just to do Tiger/Line data, you'll be even
more disappointed in the results, both for aesthetic reasons and for
speed reasons.  Tiger/Line is a terrible format for actually drawing
maps, and very slow.

--
Curt, WE7U.   APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"