[Xastir] Shapefile maps

[Curt Mills]

Been watching the discussions regarding GeoPDF and Shapefile maps
lately. Figured I'd point out this link which talks about Shapefile
maps and where to get (some of) them:

  https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shapefiles

There are other sources as well, for instance your county GIS office.

I personally prefer Shapefile maps for offline use: They are vector
maps and therefore load quickly, plus Xastir has support for
Shapefiles build in.

The downside to Shapefiles: The DBF file can have all kinds of formats
and field ordering, so you must create a DBFAWK file (DBFAWK's are
specific to Xastir) for each type, which usually means for each
source+type of map.

Vector data are in the *.SHP files, indexes in the .SHX files. *.DBF
files contain the labels which attach to the points/vectors/areas, and
are the more variable portion that we have to adapt to. Xastir only
needs those three pieces (we don't use *.PRJ or others) plus a DBFAWK
file that matches.

In the case of the NWS, we must update the DBFAWK's constantly 'cuz
they keep changing the DBF files that go along with their maps (U.S.
weather alerts).

Not sure if that makes everything more confusing or not, but there ya' go.

-- 
Curt, WE7U
http://wetnet.net/~we7u
http://www.sarguydigital.com