<div>Dear Frank, </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Thank you for the fast answers. Thanks also to Even regarding GPX: I'm excited to test GPX reader and hopefully also writer if expat makes it into the Windows distibution. See my further comments below.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Stefan</div>
<div> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">2007/11/19, Frank Warmerdam <<a href="mailto:warmerdam@pobox.com">warmerdam@pobox.com</a>>:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Stefan Keller wrote:<br>> Frank,<br>><br>> I'm referring to your thread and Bryan Keith's post about "FWTools
2.0.0<br>> Released": Frank made a great job especially also with OGR and I' trying<br>> to promote and use it.<br>><br>> Regarding documentation and features of the OGR (incl. OGR2OGR) tools I<br>> have following hints and questions, especially also to outreach it to
<br>> Windows users:<br>><br>> * The REC driver (read-only) is mentioned in ogr2ogr but I don't find<br>> any documentation about it as a source/format.<br><br>Stefan,<br><br>This is a special purpose format that is not of wide interest. I am not
<br>keen on documenting it.</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>That's ok. REC sounds just like RECORD which could stand for an textual db format.</div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> * GRASS is mentioned in the Web documentation<br>> (<a href="http://www.gdal.org/ogr/ogr_formats.html">
http://www.gdal.org/ogr/ogr_formats.html</a>) without reading/writing<br>> availability restrictions - but it doesn't work either (at least on my<br>> Windows installations).<br><br>FWTools does not support GRASS. libgrass is under the GPL and FWTools
<br>includes GPL incompatible software (such as MrSID), so I had to<br>choose either the GRASS driver or non-free drivers. I chose the<br>non-free drivers.</blockquote>
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<div>Fine.</div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> * GPX writing: The Web documenation says: "OGR has support for GPX<br>> reading (if GDAL is build with expat library support) and writing." From
<br>> this, reading is not optional; so the following should work - but<br>> doesn't: $ ogrinfo -ro -al test.gpx</blockquote>
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<div>Ok. Even clarified that it's not yet checked in for 2.0.0. </div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">The GPX support is very new, perhaps it was introduced after the last<br>FWTools release? I see FWTools is built against expat (at least on
<br>linux) and so we can reasonably expect GPX support. Hmm, I think expat<br>is missing on windows (other than the expat for OGDI) so I'm not sure<br>what will happen there.</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div>So, will both - GPX and expat - make it into 2.0.1 (linux and Windows)? </div>
<div>The ability to have default GPX reading support sounds appealing to me.</div></div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> * Reading two of the most prominent formats from GPS and GIS, namely GPX<br>> and GML, are not part of the main distribution of FWTools (GPX needs
<br>> expat library and GML Xerces).<br><br>I believe FWTools on windows and linux includes Xerces and thus full<br>GML support.</blockquote>
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<div>Sorry: GML writing works.GML reading needs xerxes: So we have two differend libraries, expat and xerxes, for reading XML. This could perhaps enhanced while upgrading to GML 3: Any plans?</div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> And Interlis needs a jar (ili2c.jar) from elsewhere.<br><br>I'm not adverse to distributing ili2c.jar
with FWTools, but I<br>don't distribute a Java interpreter so I think it would be of<br>limited value.</blockquote>
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<div>Good argument. So let it be like it is: There is even a direct download link in the documentation <a href="http://www.gdal.org/ogr/drv_ili.html">http://www.gdal.org/ogr/drv_ili.html</a></div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> I understand the argument to keep components apart. On<br>> the other side, this means, that Windows users are practically excluded
<br>> from using these features. => Is it difficult for those who maintain the<br>> build scripts anyway to compose a Windows release as it is now together<br>> with one which *includes* these three libraries?
<br><br>I'm starting to wonder if you are mixing up the "stock" GDAL DLLs<br>distributed from <a href="http://download.osgeo.org">download.osgeo.org</a>, and FWTools. FWTools is not<br>maintained by "those", but just by me. And it does have GML and
<br>hopefully will include GPX.</blockquote>
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<div>No, I just wasn't shure who makes the Windows delivery. But yes, distribution of OGR/GDAL/FWTools through <a href="http://download.osgeo.org">download.osgeo.org</a> doesn't make in easiert for newcomers to catch the latest stable version.
</div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> * Finally one question about perhaps the most well known "GIS/CAD"<br>> formats ever: DXF file reading is currently not supported. To be sure
<br>> not to begin redundant activities: Are there plans to enhance that?<br><br>There is currently no support for reading DXF and I am not aware of anyone<br>working on this. The existing DXF/DWG driver is likely to be removed from
<br>GDAL/OGR since it includes some source code directly adapted from the<br>open design alliance code base.<br><br>An MIT/X DXF read/writer without dependencies on external libraries would<br>be a valuable addition to GDAL/OGR.
<br><br>Best regards,</blockquote>
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<div>What do you mean with MIT/X? </div>
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<div>Yours, Stefan</div><br> </div>