[Xastir] readme.maps questions

[Brian Webster]

Dale,
	Post a screen shot of your map layout when you get a chance. I too prefer
the format for the online Tiger maps, so anything that can come close to
that would be great. And if you have gone through the pains of the dbfHawk
file creation we might all benefit from it should we like the look and feel
of your maps.



Thank You,
Brian N2KGC

-----Original Message-----
From: xastir-bounces at lists.xastir.org
[mailto:xastir-bounces at lists.xastir.org]On Behalf Of Dale Seaburg
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 2:55 PM
To: xastir at lists.xastir.org
Subject: Re: [Xastir] readme.maps questions


Craig, N6YXK, gave me some hints and help offline with the new 2008
Tiger/Line shapefiles.  As it turns out, and as Tom and Curt pointed
out, if the data is in Shapefile format, then no conversion is
necessary.  Hey, I'm learning as fast as I can...  LOL!

Craig gave me his dbfawk files to try that he had put together for
the 2007 Tiger/Line data.  I don't have dbfinfo, but do have
dbfdump.  So, I was able to make a list of fields for each usable
shapefile from the download from the census website for Texas.  I
then edited the dbfawk files from Craig - most of them had minor
field-list changes from 2007 to 2008.  It was at this juncture that
the light grew brighter and things started to make sense.

Lastly, I changed the layer priority per Craig's instructions in the
maps_index.sys file (I think that's the name), so the fill coloring
would be at a lower layer.  The county map I played with came out
quite nice.  I still would like to enhance with different road colors
depending on whether they are US, State or County roads.  Also, I
need to be able to put county boundaries in, so when I add
surrounding counties I'll see the borders.

I still have a lot to learn.  I am quite rusty with Linux, being so
windows-centric due to my job (C# and postgresql).  I had to dig out
my "Linux in a Nutshell" and "Mastering Regular Expressions" and
brush up.  Talk about a one-night crash course!

Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions.  I feel like I'm slowly
getting some traction.

73 - Dale.  KG5LT
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