

Recommended Configurations for:

  U.S. Users:
  -----------

    Minimum:  Shapelib, pcre
    --------
      Allows use of all built-in map types plus 2003 (and later) Tigermap data,
      shapefile weather alerts, and local ESRI Shapefile format
      maps, including U.S. satellite/image/topo maps via Internet.

    Medium:  Shapelib, pcre, lcms, ImageMagick, libcurl/wget,
    -------

      Allows use of all the above plus Internet maps and local image
      maps.

    Maximum:  Shapelib, pcre, lcms, ImageMagick, libcurl/wget,
    --------  libtif, libproj, libgeotiff

      Allows use of all the above plus USGS topo maps.

  Rest of World:
  --------------

    Minimum:  lcms, ImageMagick, libcurl/wget
    --------
      Allows use of all built-in map types plus local and Internet
      image maps, including Canadian topo maps via Internet.

    Medium:  lcms, ImageMagick, libcurl/wget, Shapelib, pcre,
    -------

      Allows use of all the above plus ESRI Shapefile maps.

    Maximum:  libproj/libtiff/libgeotiff
    --------
      Adds more map types.  Some of these may not be useful in your
      part of the world.


Map Type:           Libraries Required/Notes:
---------------     -------------------------
DosAPRS             Built-in.
WinAPRS             Built-in.
X-APRS              Built-in.
MacAPRS             Built-in.
PocketAPRS          Built-in.
USGS GNIS           Built-in.  Can split into county-sized chunks
                    using xastir/scripts/split_gnis.pl to speed
                    things up.
Address Lookup      Built-in.
Weather Alerts      Shapelib
pre-2003 Tigermaps  Shapelib
post-2003 Tigermaps Shapelib, pcre
ESRI Shapefiles     Shapelib
Image Maps          ImageMagick.  Often need lcms library and others
                    as well (whatever it takes to make ImageMagick
                    happy).  Can also use the XPM library for some
                    image types without installing ImageMagick.
Internet Maps       ImageMagick plus wget or libcurl.  Often need
                    lcms library and others as well (whatever it
                    takes to make ImageMagick happy). WMS Maps are
                    in this category as well.
UI-View Maps        Convert from .INF to .GEO format using
                    xastir/scripts/inf2geo.pl
OziExplorer Maps    Convert some maps to .GEO format using
                    xastir/scripts/ozi2geo.pl
USGS DRG Topo       libtiff, libtiff-devel, libproj, libgeotiff
APRS Overlays       Convert to Shapefile maps with scripts/pos2shp.pl


The default map, "worldhi.map", is used with permission of its creator, Keith Sproul, WU2Z.


How to Use APRS Overlay Maps (*.POS files) within Xastir:
---------------------------------------------------------
    Use the "xastir/scripts/pos2shp.pl" script to convert the
    overlay files to ESRI Shapefile maps:

        # ./pos2shp.pl test.pos testmap
        # cp testmap* /usr/local/share/xastir/maps/.

    Xastir:  Map->Configure->Index: Add New Maps
             Map Chooser:  Select the "testmap" map


Using Online Maps:
------------------
      There are a few *.geo files that get installed into Xastir's maps/
      directory upon install. These invoke online map sources of various types:

   OpenStreetMap
   -------------

      Select the appropriate files from the Online/ directory in Map Chooser

   WMS Map Servers
   ---------------

      Xastir has support for WMS map servers built-in. To use this you'll need
      to create a *.geo file in your map directory (usually
      "/usr/local/share/xastir/maps/Online/", "/usr/share/xastir/maps/Online/"
      or any directory below those) for each LAYER you wish to use, perform a
      re-index of your maps, then select them in the Map Chooser.

      Procedure: Hunt down a WMS map server that you wish to use, then find
      its "GetCapabilities" link. Here's an example:

  http://geogratis.gc.ca/maps/CBMT?service=wms&version=1.1.1&request=GetCapabilities

      Look at it directly in your browser or use Xastir's "wms.pl" script to
      see the structure and keywords of the XML. Note that if using "wms.pl"
      you must add backslashes prior to each '&' character in the URL.

  wms.pl "http://geogratis.gc.ca/maps/CBMT?service=wms\&version=1.1.1\&request=GetCapabilities"

      "wms.pl" will show the format of the XML file plus a section at the end
      which looks like:

---------------
  POSSIBLE .GEO FILE CONTENTS:

  WMSSERVER
  URL http://geogratis.gc.ca/maps/CBMT?service=wms&version=1.1.1&request=GetMap&SRS=EPSG:4326&FORMAT=image/png&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&TRANSPARENT=FALSE&STYLES=&LAYERS=National

  WMSSERVER
  URL http://geogratis.gc.ca/maps/CBMT?service=wms&version=1.1.1&request=GetMap&SRS=EPSG:4326&FORMAT=image/png&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&TRANSPARENT=FALSE&STYLES=&LAYERS=Sub_national

  WMSSERVER
  URL http://geogratis.gc.ca/maps/CBMT?service=wms&version=1.1.1&request=GetMap&SRS=EPSG:4326&FORMAT=image/png&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&TRANSPARENT=FALSE&STYLES=&LAYERS=Regional

  WMSSERVER
  URL http://geogratis.gc.ca/maps/CBMT?service=wms&version=1.1.1&request=GetMap&SRS=EPSG:4326&FORMAT=image/png&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&TRANSPARENT=FALSE&STYLES=&LAYERS=Sub_regional
---------------

      This means there are four different map layers you can get from that WMS
      server. To see/use each one you'll need to create four different .geo
      files for Xastir. The format of a WMS Server .geo file is exactly two
      lines. Try using each of the two-line outputs from wms.pl as a start
      towards creating your own .geo files.


Getting Maps and other Data Files for Xastir:
---------------------------------------------

      NOTE:  Set map FILES to permissions 644 ("rw-r--r--"), map
      DIRECTORIES to 755 ("rwxr-xr-x") using the "chmod" command.
      These permissions will allow anyone on the box to read the map
      files, and access the map directories. Type these
      commands exactly as shown in order to set the map directory's
      permissions properly.  Do this as the root user:

      cd /usr/local/share/xastir/maps
      find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
      find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

      You can repeat these commands at anytime, to fix up errant map
      permissions that are created by downloading/installing new
      maps.

      Currently the maps/GPS directory needs to be writable by normal users
      in order to support downloading GPS data using GPSMan.  This will be
      changed at some future date, moving this directory into the user's
      home directory instead.

      cd /usr/local/share/xastir/maps
      chmod 777 GPS
      find GPS -type d -exec chmod 777 {} \;
      find GPS -type f -exec chmod 777 {} \;



    Download some maps:

      If you compiled with ImageMagick and have wget or libcurl installed,
      you can skip this step and use the online OSM/WMS maps
      exclusively. However, having maps on your computer is often faster
      than transferring images over a modem, and is not subject to the
      failures of your Internet connection.  See the section below on map
      caching for an exciting feature that works with most online maps to
      really speed things up!

      You can have any number of maps in the /usr/local/share/xastir/maps
      directory.  You can organize the maps however you like. You can also
      use symbolic links to link to files/directories on other disks. Map
      files are loaded in the order that they appear in the chooser unless
      you adjust the layering priorities in the "Properties" dialog (it's
      recommended that you use these now instead of a directory hierarchy to
      choose the layering).

      There are many methods for organizing many maps. Create a map
      hierarchy using something that makes sense to you. The old method of
      creating transparent/filled or raster/vector directories has been
      superseded by the new map layering features in the Map
      Chooser->Properties dialog. It's now suggested that the map layering
      be done there, and the directory layout designed to make it easiest
      for the user to select maps. Perhaps a good start would be:

           World/
           Canada/
           Canada/Province/
           USA/
           USA/State/WA/
           USA/State/WA/County/
           ...
           GNIS/
           Overlay/

      Please note that the map directories are entirely up to the user
      now. Use the map layering facilities (Map Chooser->Properties) to
      determine the order in which they will be drawn, and to determine
      which will draw filled areas.  Note that raster maps will always draw
      filled, not matter what the setting suggests.  For vector maps, you
      have a choice of:

            Fill = No       Polygons will never be filled
            Fill = Yes      Polygons will always be filled
            Fill = Auto     Polygon fill is determined by map (or if it's a
                            Shapefile, by any associated dbfawk file).

      Map types available by extension:

      Vector Format:
      .shp/.shx/.dbf  Shapefile vector map (need all three files)
      .map            APRSdos/WinAPRS/MacAPRS vector map
      .gnis           GNIS labels file (actually points instead of vectors)
      .geo            Vector map or Internet vector map.  Note that for
                      http/ftp-based maps Xastir requires an IMAGESIZE line.

      Raster Format:
      .tif/.fgd       geoTIFF raster image map
      .geo            Raster image map or Internet raster image map.  Note that
                      for http/ftp-based maps Xastir requires an IMAGESIZE line
                      unless using WMS maps.

      Note:  .geo is listed twice because it can fit in both categories,
      depending on the base format of the map file that the .geo file
      points to.  .geo files are handled by the XPM library or by
      ImageMagick, so most anything that can be handled by those installed
      libraries can by handled by Xastir.

      A few maps of various types are available from:

        http://we7u.wetnet.net/xastir/maps/

      Here's a page that we'll try to keep up-to-date which will have lots of
      links to download-able maps on it:

        http://xastir.org/index.php/Xastir_Maps

     Dos/Win/MacAPRS style vector/fill maps:

      http://www.winaprs.com/Maps.htm
      http://www.cnunix.com/ftp/hamradio/rutgers.mirror/maps/maps2/
      ftp://ftp.tapr.org/aprssig/maps/

       WORLDHI.MAP is suggested as a basic view of the world map.

      You can use any of the other maps available from this site. Many of
      them were created from Tiger/Line maps, but they are several years out of
      date. It is suggested that you don't use these as your primary
      street-level maps; the newer shapefile-based maps are usually preferable.
      In cases where you cannot compile shapefile support, these maps suffice.

      
     PocketAPRS vector maps:

      The WinAPRS 2.51 distribution included the full collection of 
      PocketAPRS vector maps for the USA. The download is about 60MB, from the
      TAPR ftp site.

        ftp://ftp.tapr.org/aprssig/winstuff/WinAPRS/waprs251.zip

   
     Raster Maps:

      For Canada there is a country wide set of topographic map images available 
      from the "Department of Natural Resources Geomatics Canada". Running 
      /scripts/toporama250k.pl will pull down 430mb of 1:250k map images 
      from that departments site. If that's not enough data, running
      /scripts/toporama50k.pl will pull down around 10gigs

**** Note that recent changes at the "Department of Natural Resources Geomatics 
Canada" have made these scripts fail.  Changes to the scripts are being coded 
and tested.  Git will be updated once the scripts are proven to work again. ****


     For Ireland, EI8IC (http://www.mapability.com) has produced a set of overlay 
     maps that show the County Borders, Main Towns and Roads.  John, EI7IG, has 
     created a set of ".geo" files to go with them and they are all available in one 
     tarball from [http://ireland.aprs2.net/xastir/IrelandMaps/Ireland.tar.gz 
     ireland.aprs2.net] They are free for non-commercial use.

     Also available are a map of the 
     [http://ireland.aprs2.net/xastir/IrelandMaps/Ireland1600x2000.bmp country], with 
     an associated [http://ireland.aprs2.net/xastir/IrelandMapsIreland1600x2000.geo 
     geo] file, the [http://ireland.aprs2.net/xastir/IrelandMaps/Ireland1600x2000.bmp 
     South East], its associated  
     [http://ireland.aprs2.net/xastir/IrelandMapsIreland1600x2000.geo geo] and a 
     [http://ireland.aprs2.net/xastir/IrelandMaps/IrishMET.geo Weather Radar] .geo file.


     Shapefile format maps (Requires shapefile support):

      Shapefile format maps are slowly becoming the standard vector format of
      maps used with Xastir. Xastir 1.3.2 and above by default enable dbfawk
      support for parsing shapefile metadata, see below.

      A nice world map is available at http://aprsworld.net/gisdata/world/
      thanks to James Jefferson, TerraSpace, Russia, and the Digital Chart
      of the World (for Antarctica).  Note that this file is currently
      available only in uncompressed or in tar/bzip2 format.  To decompress
      the latter file, you'd type "bunzip2 filename" and then
      "tar xvf filename".

      Some other shapefile format maps are available at:
      http://www.nws.noaa.gov/geodata/

      Still other shapefiles are available from esri.com, geographynetwork.com
      and gisdatadepot.com (from their "free data" link).  Lot's of useful
      stuff at these sites, just look around.  You can also check
      with your County GIS office for shapefiles of your county.  You can
      convert them from State Plane to Lat/Long projection using
      instructions later in this document.

      Canada street maps in Shapefile format are available at
      http://www.geobase.ca

      If you also use GeoTIFF images, get the handy usgs_24kgrid.zip file from
      http://data.geocomm.com/quadindex/.  This file provides a grid of all of
      the 7.5' maps and their names for the U.S.

      A nice world map is available at http://aprsworld.net/gisdata/world/
      thanks to James Jefferson, TerraSpace, Russia, and the Digital Chart
      of the World (for Antarctica).  Note that this file is currently
      available only in uncompressed or in tar/bzip2 format.  To decompress
      the latter file, you'd type "bunzip2 filename" and then
      "tar xvf filename".

      www.bts.gov has the "National Transportation Atlas" that you can download
      pieces of (at least for the larger layers) or ask for (free) CD-ROM's to be
      mailed to you.

      -----
      Re-projecting shapefiles (or: why doesn't my shapefile show up?)

      A shapefile is pretty much just a collection of points and lines
      between points.  Xastir expects that those points are expressed in
      degrees of longitude and latitude with positive values indicating N
      and E and negative values indicating S and W.

      One often comes across shapefiles with data in some other format, such
      as UTM or state-plane projections with units in meters or feet.  You
      must re-project these sorts of shapefiles in order to use them in
      Xastir.  You must either know what the current format is of the
      shapefile you wish to re-project, or have the .prj file that some
      shapefiles come with.

      Fortunately, the shapelib-1.2.10 distribution (which you probably
      compiled and installed to enable shapefile maps in Xastir) includes a
      tool for performing this re-projection.

      First make the shpproj utility by:

      1. change to directory: <shapelib source directory>/contrib
      2. type 'make' to compile the contrib files
      3. Optionally install shpproj by copying it to /usr/local/bin

      shpproj takes 4 arguments:

          shpproj shp_file new_shp -i="in_params" -o="out_params"

      shp_file is the name of your existing shapefile triad (without the
      extension).

      new_shp is the name of your new shapefile triad (which doesn't exist
      yet).

      -i="in_params" are the parameters describing the existing shapefile.

      -o="out_params" are the parameters describing the new shapefile.  We
      want this to be "geographic".

      Examples:

      Convert shapefile triad from US State-plane, South Central Texas region
      (FIPS code 4204), in feet to geographic:

        shpproj stateplane_shapefile geographic_shapefile \
             -i="init=nad83:4204 units=us-ft" -o=geographic

      Convert UTM zone 15 to geographic:

        shpproj utm_shapefile geographic_shapefile \
             -i="proj=utm zone=15 units=m" -o=geographic

      To get a listing of the FIPS codes, you need to have proj installed
      (see elsewhere in this file for more information).  Look in the
      "<proj source directory>/nad/nad.lst" file.

      For more detailed documentation, see the shpproj.txt file in the
      "<shapelib source directory>/contrib/doc" directory.

      There's a resource for looking up the FIPS codes for a particular
      area:

            http://www.aprs.net/fips/

      An important note about using shpproj to re-project maps 

      The shpproj program cannot be used to convert shapefiles unless they're
      already using the NAD83 or WGS84 datum.  shpproj will do the conversion
      if you ask it to, but it will do it incorrectly.

      A simple program to convert shapefiles between various projections
      that does do datum conversions correctly is "shpcs2cs," available
      from
          <http://www.swcp.com/~russo/shape_web/>
      That program requires libproj to be installed properly, and uses a 
      command line format similar to the "cs2cs" program that comes with 
      libproj.

      If you already have GDAL installed, you should have the "ogr2ogr" 
      program available to you.  ogr2ogr will not only convert projections
      and geodetic datum correctly, but will also convert format (ArcView
      binary format to shapefile, TIGER/Line files to shapefile, etc.).
      Some detailed instructions for using ogr2ogr to do this conversion
      are available at 
          <http://www.swcp.com/~russo/shape_web/>

      -----

      Using "dbfawk" to interpret shapefile DBF data:  Each shapefile
      map (*.shp, *.shx) comes with a DBase data file (*.dbf) in which
      each shape in the .shp file has a corresponding set of descriptive
      data about that shape in the .dbf file.  While shapefiles are all
      a standard format and will most always draw (possibly after having
      been re-projected with shpproj), the corresponding .dbf data varies
      widely depending on the data source.  For example, US Census
      Tiger/Line files contain 20 attributes for each shape including such
      values as the name of the shape (i.e. street name), and a "Census
      Feature Class Code" (CFCC) which indicates whether a shape is a
      dirt road or a superhighway, for example.   

      In "pre-dbfawk" Xastir, knowledge of the various sources of
      shape files was built into the program and it was necessary to
      add code to support new shapefile sources (such as those
      produced by local government agencies, non-US, etc.).  Xastir
      with dbfawk moves this logic into metadata files named *.dbfawk.
      These files are linked to the .shp/.dbf files they belong with in
      one of two ways:
        1. "Signature" recognition.  .dbfawk files located in the config/
           directory are read to find the "dbfinfo" signature, which is
           simply the ordered list of attribute names found in the .dbf file.
           If you browse config/*.dbfawk you will see dbfawk's for the most
           well know shapefile types.  For example, tgrlk.dbfawk matches
           all the "tgr*lk?.dbf" US Census Tiger/Line files.  When a shapefile
           map is displayed, its .dbf signature is matched up with one of
           the config/*.dbfawk files.
        2. "Tied" to a file.  If you installed a .dbfawk file in the same
            directory as the .shp and .dbf files (e.g. sample.shp, sample.dbf
            get a corresponding sample.dbfawk) then that file is used instead
            of signature matching.
      The first method allows a single .dbfawk file to be automatically
      used for hundreds of standard shapefile maps.  The later allows you
      to customize how your particular shapefile map displays.

      What's in a .dbfawk file?  The best documentation of these files
      is found by looking at the commented examples in config/*.dbfawk.  
      dbfawk is modeled after the "awk" pattern scanning and processing 
      language -- but, it is *not* exactly awk:
        - Regular expression syntax is that used by Perl (the pcre library
          is used) rather than pure awk.
        - Action statements are much more limited than full-blown awk.
        - The concept of records and fields is used since a .dbf record
          is structured of usually several fields (name, feature type, etc.).
      That said, what dbfawk does is allow a great degree of control of
      how and when shapes and their names are displayed.  This is done by
      setting the values of several "builtin" variables [Technically, these 
      are only built-in to shapefile support.  Potentially the awk-like 
      code can be extended to other uses.]:
        dbfinfo:   the "signature" to match against.
        dbffields: which fields to read from the .dbf file.
        color:     what color code to display the shape with.
        lanes:     width of the shape.
        name:      name of the shape.
        key:       search key (used for WX alerts to find the shape)
        symbol:	   symbol for landmarks, etc.
        filled:	   draw polygons filled.  Filled="Yes" or "No" in the Map
                   Properties dialog will override this option.  Set to "Auto"
                   in that dialog to have the dbfawk file control this.
        fill_style: style of fill (0=solid, 1=FillTiled, 2=FillStippled, etc.)
        fill_color: color of fill
        fill_stipple: stipple pattern if fill_style=2 ("FillStipple")
                      0=13 percent, 1=25 percent, 2=50 percent.
        pattern:   solid or dashed lines.
        display_level: at what zoom level to begin displaying the shape
        label_level: at what zoom level to begin displaying labels
        label_color: color to use for labels
      
      Execution of a dbfawk file:  Just like awk, the file consists of
      patterns that are matched against input data and actions to take
      when the pattern matches.  There are four special patterns in dbfawk:
        BEGIN_RECORD: action is executed just before parsing a record.
        BEGIN: action is executed just before parsing a field.
        END: action is executed just after parsing the field.
        END_RECORD: action is executed just after parsing a record.
      All other patterns are regular expressions that are matched against
      a data value of <fieldname>=<value>.  For example:
        FENAME=Main

      Actions in dbfawk files consist of setting variables and two special
      actions:
        next: skips to the next field in the record.
        skip: skips to the next record.
      If neither next nor skip is given in the action, then processing falls
      through to the next pattern/action pair in the dbfawk file.
      
      The special dbffields variable is used to list which fields of the
      record to be processed and in what order.  The order is significant
      since it may take several DBF fields to build up a complete name.
      For example, in Tiger/Line, the street name is actually the 
      concatenation of FEDIRP, FENAME, TYPE, FEDIRS.  Here's an excerpt
      from tgrlk.dbfawk to demonstrate:
        BEGIN {dbffields="TLID:FEDIRP:FENAME:FETYPE:FEDIRS:CFCC"}
        ...
	/^FEDIRP=(.+)$/ {name="$1 ";next}
	/^FENAME=United States Highway (.*)$/ {name="$(name)US $1"; next}
	/^FENAME=State Highway (.*)$/ {name="$(name)State $1";next}
	/^FENAME=State Route (.*)$/ {name="$(name)SR $1";next}
	/^FENAME=(.*)$/ {name="$(name)$1; next}
	/^FETYPE=(.+)$/ {name="$(name) $1"; next}
	/^FEDIRS=(.+)$/ {name="$(name) $1"; next}
      
      Creating and testing dbfawk files:  You can test an existing dbfawk
      file by setting debug level 16 in Xastir (this will generate a huge
      amount of map rendering debug output, including dbfawk info):
       "./xastir -v 16 2>/tmp/log"
      Or, use "testdbfawk" which reads a .dbf file (or single field assignments
      on the command line).  For example:

    cd /usr/local/share/xastir
	testdbfawk -D config -d Counties/mz01ap14.dbf 2>&1 | less
    8 Columns,  479 Records in file
    sig: ID:WFO:GL_WFO:NAME:AJOIN0:AJOIN1:LON:LAT
    DBF Signatures match!
    name=Lake Okeechobee, key=AM_Z610, symbol=, color=8, lanes=2, filled=0, pattern=0, display_level=65536, font_size=2, label_level=512
    label_color=20
    ...

      testdbfawk takes the following command line syntax:
        testdbfawk --help
          Prints command line usage
        testdbfawk -D directory -d file.dbf
          Scans directory for dbfawk files with signatures matching file.dbf,
          runs the dbfawk program that matches if it's found.
        testdbfawk -f file.dbfawk -d file.dbf
          runs the dbfawk file "file.dbfawk" over the dbf file "file.dbf"

      So in the example above, testdbfawk scans the current directory
      for dbfawk files with signatures that match tgr36119lkA.dbf's
      signature.  testdbfawk dumps its output to standard error, so in
      the example standard error is redirected to standard out and
      piped into "less" for paging.

      To create a .dbfawk file, you need to understand the layout and contents
      of your .dbf file.  Use "dbfinfo" and "dbfdump" which are in the shapelib
      contrib directory.  Dbfinfo will list the field names and dbfdump will
      dump out all fields of all records.  Take the field names from dbfinfo,
      and concatenate them together in order, separated by ":" to make the
      dbfinfo= signature variable assignment.

      Your best bet is to start with an existing .dbfawk file as an example.

      Dbfawk hints and kinks:  You have to think like an awk programmer and
      realize that the order that rules are listed matters, that it's important
      to use "next" as soon as it makes sense so other rules aren't looked at
      unnecessarily and, to use "skip" when you want to fix bad dbf data.
      For example, my county's Tiger/Line maps have several coding errors
      where a segment of a main highway is incorrectly labeled as a local 
      street.  This rule overrides one of those incorrect records:
	# This Furnace Dock Rd segment is really Rt 9!
	/^TLID=139773160$/ {name="Briarcliff-Peekskill Pky"; display_level=8192; label_level=512; color=4; lanes=4; skip;}
      TLID is the Tiger/Line ID which is the unique identifier for this 
      segment.
      -----

    Rolling your own shapefile maps:

    It is relatively easy to create your own shapefile maps (for example,
    if you want to highlight a walk-a-thon course).  There are several
    methods available with Xastir:

    1. Use GPSMan to download a GPS track to a shapefile.

    2. Save a station tracklog of an actual station or an object that
       you manually move along the course.  When you select Station Info,
       you are presented with the option to save the track, which gets
       put in 
       .xastir/tracklogs/<datestamp>_<callsign>_APRS_Trail_<color>.*
       You can move the .shp, .shx, and .dbf files to your maps directory.
       Use DBFAWK to make a map-specific .dbfawk file.  For example:
	BEGIN {dbfinfo="Credits:DateTime";dbffields="Credits:"}
	BEGIN_RECORD {key=""; lanes=4; color=12; name=""; filled=0; 
           pattern=1; display_level=8192; label_level=32; symbol=""}
       This makes the track width 4 and red (12).

    3. You can use xastir's "object" capability to generate shapefile maps.
       a) Turn off object transmission using 
          Interface->Disable Transmit:Objects
       b) Put objects where you want.  Set the display symbol as you like it.
       c) run the "object2shp.pl" script in the scripts directory
           (/usr/local/share/xastir/scripts/object2shp.pl in most installations)
          to generate a shapefile:
            /usr/local/share/xastir/scripts/object2shp.pl ~/.xastir/object.log myshape
          This requires the four shapelib utilities "dbfcreate", "shpcreate",
          "shpadd" and "dbfadd" as described below.
       d) EXIT XASTIR
       e) REMOVE ~/.xastir/config/object.log
       f) move "myshape.shp," "myshape.shx," and "myshape.dbf" to your maps
          directory.
       g) restart xastir.  
       h) select your newmap in the map chooser.
      Creating maps in this way is basically just a scripted version of the
      manual map generation technique in (4) below.

    4. You can also use the shapelib tools (shpproj was presented earlier)
       to manually create a shapefile.  For example, the following 
       marks out the mile-posts for a marathon, using tgrlpt.dbfawk
       (US Census Tiger/Line landmark points with an APRS(tm) symbol extension) 
       for the metadata:
       #!/bin/sh
       # turn mileposts into a Tiger landmark shapefile

       rm -f posts.shp posts.dbf
       shpcreate posts point
       dbfcreate posts -n ID 8 0 -s CFCC 3 -s NAME 30
       shpadd posts -74.0570 40.6025
       dbfadd posts 1 'X\m ' Start
       shpadd posts -74.0443 40.6065
       dbfadd posts 2 'X\m ' 1M
       shpadd posts -74.0353 40.6093
       dbfadd posts 3 'X\m ' 2M
       shpadd posts -74.0268 40.6260
       dbfadd posts 4 'X\m ' 3R
       shpadd posts -74.0200 40.6277
       dbfadd posts 5 'X\m ' 3G
       shpadd posts -74.0270 40.6252
       dbfadd posts 6 'X\m ' 3B
       shpadd posts -74.0197 40.6395
       dbfadd posts 7 'X\m ' 4R
       shpadd posts -74.0203 40.6388
       dbfadd posts 8 'X\m ' 4BG
       shpadd posts -74.0077 40.6508
       dbfadd posts 9 'X\m ' 5R
       shpadd posts -74.0083 40.6503
       dbfadd posts 10 'X\m ' 5BG
       shpadd posts -73.9957 40.6623
       dbfadd posts 11 'X\m ' 6R
       shpadd posts -73.9962 40.6617
       dbfadd posts 12 'X\m ' 6BG
       shpadd posts -73.9850 40.6743
       dbfadd posts 13 'X\m ' 7R
       shpadd posts -73.9858 40.6738
       dbfadd posts 14 'X\m ' 7BG
       shpadd posts -73.9782 40.6865
       dbfadd posts 15 'X\m ' 8M
       shpadd posts -73.9597 40.6890
       dbfadd posts 16 'X\m ' 9M
       shpadd posts -73.9573 40.7007
       dbfadd posts 17 'X\m ' 10M
       shpadd posts -73.9622 40.7122
       dbfadd posts 18 'X\m ' 11M
       shpadd posts -73.9515 40.7230
       dbfadd posts 19 'X\m ' 12M
       shpadd posts -73.9520 40.7345
       dbfadd posts 20 'X\m ' 13M
       shpadd posts -73.9525 40.7465
       dbfadd posts 22 'X\m ' 14M
       shpadd posts -73.9403 40.7503
       dbfadd posts 23 'X\m ' 15M
       shpadd posts -73.9578 40.7587
       dbfadd posts 24 'X\m ' 16M
       shpadd posts -73.9556 40.7675
       dbfadd posts 25 'X\m ' 17M
       shpadd posts -73.9465 40.7808
       dbfadd posts 26 'X\m ' 18M
       shpadd posts -73.9372 40.7935
       dbfadd posts 27 'X\m ' 19M
       shpadd posts -73.9272 40.8047
       dbfadd posts 28 'X\m ' 20M
       shpadd posts -73.9343 40.8142
       dbfadd posts 29 'X\m ' 21M
       shpadd posts -73.9453 40.8050
       dbfadd posts 30 'X\m ' 22M
       shpadd posts -73.9525 40.7923
       dbfadd posts 31 'X\m ' 23M
       shpadd posts -73.9630 40.7810
       dbfadd posts 32 'X\m ' 24M
       shpadd posts -73.9720 40.7696
       dbfadd posts 33 'X\m ' 25M
       shpadd posts -73.9811 40.7683
       dbfadd posts 34 'X\m ' 26M
       shpadd posts -73.9763 40.7720
       dbfadd posts 35 'X\m ' Finish
    ---------

    Splitting large Shapefile maps into regularly-sized tiles:

      Look for "shp2tile" at http://imaptools.com/tools/, it does
      exactly that.  This can speed up Xastir tremendously if you're
      zoomed in quite a bit on a large Shapefile map (or maps).  If
      it is broken into tiles Xastir only has to load the tiles of
      interest instead of slogging through the entire large file
      each time.


    GeoTIFF Map files (requires GeoTIFF):

      If you compiled in geoTIFF support, you can use USGS DRG topographic
      maps. These are primarily useful to U.S. users. DRG topo maps can be
      found for free for most states, and can be purchased for others.

        http://www.bianifc.org/gis_gps/gps/drgfree.html
        http://www.gisdatadepot.com

      or try a google search with "free drg maps" as the search query.

      If you have no luck finding free DRG maps, go to
      http://www.geocomm.com/ and check out the "DRG Data Bundles"
      they have available.  You can purchase a DVD containing all the
      DRGs for an entire state in three scales, all of them usable in
      xastir, for a relatively low price.  Be warned, however, that
      parts of the US have DRGs that are produced by an agency other
      than the United States Geological Survey, and these DRGs are not
      necessarily in correct GeoTIFF format.  The areas covered by the
      Tennessee Valley Authority appear to be among those, as one
      xastir user discovered when purchasing a DVD of DRGs for North
      Carolina.  It is still possible to use these DRG files, but they
      need preprocessing.  See the section below entitled "Defective
      GeoTIFF files need even more special processing."

      Many useful US maps can be downloaded from the National Map Viewer: 
      http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm

      Free FAA sectional charts can be downloaded from
        http://aviationtoolbox.org/raw_data/FAA_sectionals/current/
      This site was set up by someone who had a subscription to the FAA
      DVD collection and made them available on the web (this is legal per
      FAA's terms of use).  They are no longer being updated as of mid 2005.
      These charts are in Lambert Conformal Conic projection, though, and
      need to be converted with gdalwarp to be usable in xastir (see below).

      Current, valid-for-navigation FAA sectional charts may be purchased
      from the FAA at
 	https://naco.faa.gov/ecomp/Catalog.aspx?a=AERO+NOS+DIGITAL
      for about $1.50US each.  These files are also in GeoTIFF and are the
      same type as those that are available on aviationtoolbox, but these are
      updated every 6 months and are kept current.  You will have to process
      them before viewing in xastir.

      The 7.5' topo maps work the best so far.  Be sure to install the .tif AND
      the .fgd files side-by-side into the map directories. Without the .fgd
      file Xastir won't be able to crop the white border from the map.  Xastir
      currently knows how to handle NAD27, NAD83, and WGS84 geoTIFF files.
      GeoTIFF files created in other datums will be displayed at an incorrect
      location with Xastir. The .tfw files included with most geoTIFF images
      are not used by Xastir.

      If you must make FGD files by hand, the included script mapfgd.pl can
      create them for you from the USGS geoTIFF files. The format Xastir is
      looking for is the following:

        1.5.1.1  WEST BOUNDING COORDINATE:  -122.000000
        1.5.1.2  EAST BOUNDING COORDINATE:  -120.000000  
        1.5.1.3  NORTH BOUNDING COORDINATE:  48.000000 
        1.5.1.4  SOUTH BOUNDING COORDINATE:  47.000000 

     -or-

        1.5.1.1  West_Bounding_Coordinate:  -122.000000
        1.5.1.2  East_Bounding_Coordinate:  -120.000000  
        1.5.1.3  North_Bounding_Coordinate:  48.000000 
        1.5.1.4  South_Bounding_Coordinate:  47.000000 

      Notes about DRG-Enhanced (DRG-E) files:
      * The DRG-E files will draw over the correct spots if you remove
      the .fgd file, but will overflow their boundaries and

      * The DRG-E files will draw over the correct spots with decent
      boundary trimming (as far as I can tell, which isn't very far:
      correct me!) if you use a .fgd file taken from 'real' DRG files
      from USGS.

      Basically: get rid of the .fgd file from the DRG-E!!

    Highly Compressed MrSID image files:

      Be wary of DRG-E or DOQQ files that are compressed with MrSID
      compression.  That is a proprietary compression format for
      which we do not have access to the decoding algorithm.  We
      cannot use those from within Xastir.  There's possible good news
      lurking on the horizon though:  LizardTech has mentioned on the
      gdal-dev mailing list that they might be supporting open-source
      with a driver for gdal sometime soon.  

      It is also possible to decompress these files with a free tool
      from LizardTech called "mrsiddecode", available at 
        http://www.lizardtech.com/download/dl_options.php?page=tools

      mrsiddecode can produce GeoTIFF output with the right command line
      options.  There is a Linux version of mrsiddecode, but one user
      has observed that the Windows version running under Wine is a little 
      more robust.  Your mileage may vary.

      Be warned that MrSID is a very effective compression algorithm, and
      compressed MrSID files of size 5MB could easily decompress into 50MB
      GeoTIFFs.  

      Note also that many GIS departments take perfectly usable
      GeoTIFF files with all projection and datum tags and use ESRI products
      to compress them down into MrSID files, thereby losing all the
      GeoTIFF tags.  See below.

    GeoTIFF files in certain projections need special processing:

      Not all geotiff files available on the net are usable directly in 
      xastir.  Some of them are in projections that xastir can't use 
      properly, and others are missing all of the metadata information that
      is needed to work out how to convert them to Lat/Lon unprojected rasters.
      If you encounter a geotiff file that has the correct tags, but is
      in some projection other than UTM, you can convert that file to a  
      lat/lon raster if you have gdal installed.  Simply run the following
      command:
        gdalwarp -t_srs EPSG:4326 original_raster.tif usable_raster.tif

      This will warp the geotiff file "original raster.tif" from
      whatever projection it was in into an unprojected lat/lon raster
      "usable_raster.tif" that can be directly read into xastir.
      Depending on the source projection, you might get a map that
      doesn't tile well with other maps due to the inclusion of opaque
      border material, but it can sometimes be the only way to import
      a map you need to use.

    Defective GeoTIFF files need even more special processing:

      It is unfortunately the case that the ESRI software in use by many
      GIS departments produces GeoTIFF files that have NO information about
      the coordinate system that applies to them --- they'll have just
      enough information to know what the numerical coordinates of each 
      pixel are, but no information to tell you whether those coordinates are
      UTM, Lat/Lon, State Plane, or anything else.  For such maps you will
      need to determine the coordinate system by finding external files
      called "metadata" that are associated with the images.  US
      Federal datasources have a standardized file format (".fgd") that
      provides this information, but many state or university GIS departments
      just make some other format up for themselves.  Most sources of
      map data should have such metadata available, but sometimes it is a bit 
      of a chore to find it.

      You can determine whether a .tif file has coordinate system information
      in it using the "gdalinfo" command from the GDAL suite or "listgeo" from
      the libgeotiff distribution.  If gdalinfo shows something like this:

        Driver: GTiff/GeoTIFF
        Size is 5364, 7620
        Coordinate System is `'
        Origin = (588067.750000,5331248.500000)

      you're the lucky owner of a file that has no coordinate system info
      (because the only thing after "Coordinate System is" is a pair of
      quotation marks).   Another dead givaway would be:
         Metadata:
           TIFFTAG_SOFTWARE=Arc/Info
      which tells you that the image was processed with a piece of software
      that fails to put in all the right tags.

      If you get maps whose metadata say are in UTM projection but for which
      gdal indicates missing geoTIFF tags like it does in the example above, 
      xastir won't be able to display them unless you fix them up.
      Fortunately, the GDAL library tool "gdal_translate" can do the
      job.  For example, if you have a source map with metadata that
      says it's in UTM Zone 10, NAD83 datum, to make it suitable for
      Xastir to read you can do something like this:

      gdal_translate -a_srs EPSG:26910 original.tif georeferenced.tif

      The inclusion of the "-a_srs" option to gdal_translate
      forces the new tiff file to have the correct geotiff tags to
      indicate that coordinate system.  

      The EPSG number to use for images in UTM projection with NAD83
      datum is 26900 plus the UTM zone number.  The EPSG number for UTM in
      NAD27 is 26700 plus the zone number.  The above command
      will allow Xastir to read in the image and reference it
      properly.  If you do the gdalwarp option above instead, you can end up
      with solid color areas between the edges of the original image
      and the lat/long rectangle that the image will be warped to; these 
      extra pixels represent "no data" areas due to the difference in shape
      between the original rectangular image and the warped image.   The 
      color of this area depends on the colors present in the original
      image; GDAL attempts to use a color that is different from any in the
      source image.  If those areas don't matter to you, then either
      method will work for you.  If you're planning to tile multiple
      UTM images together, then the gdal_translate option is best.

      If your maps are NOT in UTM, you must also gdalwarp, because xastir
      cannot properly display geotiffs that are in projections other than
      UTM or "unprojected" lat/lon.  

      EPSG numbers for odd-ball coordinate systems can be found at 
      http://www.remotesensing.org/geotiff/proj_list/Wkt_adam.zip

      Maps that require gdalwarp include the FAA sectionals mentioned above,
      and some topo maps in obscure state plane coordinates from various state
      GIS departments.

    XASTIR can only use GeoTIFF files that are 8-bit per pixel with one band

      Some geotiff files contain multiple bands or multiple bytes per pixel.
      Xastir currently uses only BYTE format, so you may need to convert the
      geotiff file with gdal_translate.  The number of bands, bytes per 
      pixel and other information about geotiff files can be obtained using
      gdalinfo.  

      One-band, 16- or 32-bit-per-pixel:
       The command "gdal_translate -ot BYTE original.tif new.tif" 
       can convert 16 and 32 bit per pixel geotiffs to ones that can be used
       by xastir
   
      Multiple band, 8-bit-per-pixel:

      The command "gdal_translate -ot BYTE -b 1 old.tif new.tif" 
      can extract a single band as a grey scale layer from a multi-band 
      geotiff file, but this is probably not what you really want.
      The command 
            rgb2pct.py old.tif new.tif
      can create a single band palette based geotiff from a three band rgb 
      tif by dithering the colors down to a small palette.  This last
      tool requires gdal built with Python support.  See the gdal 
      documentation for these tools for further information.

    More manipulations of GeoTIFF files:

      gdal also provides several additional tools that can be used to 
      tile maps or chop them up into smaller pieces, but explaining the
      details of that process is probably beyond the scope of this document. 
      See the man pages for "gdal_translate" and "gdal_merge.py" for 
      an explanation of how those tools could be used to accomplish this.

    .geo files/online maps & graphics:

      If you have ImageMagick and wget or libcurl installed, .geo files
      for NWS radars are available from one of these sites:

          ftp://gcpoolz.com/geos/Srb_geos.zip
          http://we7u.wetnet.net/xastir/maps/radar-geos.tgz

      You'll probably want to add an IMAGESIZE line to each one to speed up
      loading when some radars are offscreen: (bash syntax, modify for your
      shell...)

          for a in srb_*; do echo "IMAGESIZE 620 620" >> $a; done

      NOTE:  For .geo files with an ftp or http address for fetching the image,
      IMAGESIZE is currently a REQUIRED parameter in the .geo file.  For .geo
      files where the image is resident on your hard drive, the IMAGESIZE tag
      is optional.

      Please also note that the coordinates in the .GEO files are expressed
      in decimal degrees, and are listed with longitude first then latitude
      on the TIEPOINT lines.

      Other tags you can put in a .geo file: 
      DATUM: (not used, yet...)
      PROJECTION: Currently only supports "TM" for transverse Mercator.
      REFRESH: number of seconds to reload the maps.  Multiple maps
          with different values pick the smallest value.
      TRANSPARENT:  Color to remove from the background (make it transparent).
          Use a number, 0=black.  Color-mapped images use the map value, so 
          white is usually 0xffff.  Value can be decimal or hex if preceeded 
          by "0x".  Multiple TRANSPARENT lines can be used in a file to make
          multiple colors transparent.
      CROP: removes borders.  Values are [left top right bottom] with
          (0,0) at the upper left.  A good value for the NWS radar
          images above is "CROP 35 20 616 600"
      GAMMA, CONTRAST, NEGATE, EQUALIZE, NORMALIZE, LEVEL, MODULATE:  These 
          are all ImageMagick options, and are documented there, and
          briefly in the xastir help file.

     
     "Find Address" feature (US only):

      The "Find Address" feature is based on the open source geo-coder by
      Dan Egnor and as such uses the same format for the data. You can
      download preprocessed data based on Census Tiger 2003 data at:
      http://www.dementia.org/geocoder/tgr2003/

      Reprocessed geocoding files from the 2006 Second Edition TIGER/Line 
      data were produced by Jason Winningham in June of 2007 and made 
      available on the TAMU FTP server by Gerry Creager.  They are much
      better than the 2003 data, and it is recommended that they be used
      instead.  Download them from 
         ftp://aprs.tamu.edu/pub/geocode/

     Geographic Names Information System Labels:

      These aren't maps, but are collections of name labels for locations.
      These display at various zoom levels like Dos/WinAPRS map labels, but are
      also searchable from the Maps menu.

         http://geonames.usgs.gov/

      Click the link "Download GNIS Data: State and Topical Gazetteers" on
      the left.

      These files should be renamed in the form "<ST>.gnis" after download,
      where <ST> is the abbreviation for the state that they cover, and
      should be placed in the /usr/local/share/xastir/GNIS/ directory. To
      make sure that maps are layered correctly with GNIS labels on the top
      of the map stack, plus searchable, it is suggested that you link
      /usr/local/share/xastir/maps/z to this GNIS directory.

      Type this as root to create the link and directories:
       cd /usr/local/share/xastir/maps
       ln -s ../GNIS z

      The map files must end in ".gnis" to be used by Xastir, and must be in
      pipe delimited format.  These are readily available from the above link
      with such filenames as "AZ_DECI.TXT". The files must be renamed to
      <ST>.gnis, and the trailing whitespace should be removed for speed. This
      can be accomplished in one step with the following command. (bash
      style...)

   for a in *deci; do sed -e 's/[ ]*$//g' < $a > `basename $a _deci`.gnis; done

      Individual files can have whitespace removed as follows:
        sed -e 's/[ ]*$//g' < inputfile > outputfile

      Populated places GNIS file can be had at:

          http://geonames.usgs.gov/stategaz/POP_PLACES_DECI.zip

      A note from Jason Winningham, kg4wsv:

      "The file has over 181k records in it.  You can use the following command
      to weed out all places with populations less than 1000, and get it down
      to just under 14k records, which is really fast to load: 

        awk -F\| '{if ($17 > 1000) print $0}' \
            /usr/local/share/xastir/GNIS/0pop_places.gnis \
            >/usr/local/share/xastir/GNIS/0pop_places_over_1k.gnis

      I stuck a zero at the beginning of the filename so this would
      show up in the GNIS directory before any of the state files."


     County weather Warning maps (requires shapefile support):
      
       The latest shapefile format weather maps may be found here:
         http://www.nws.noaa.gov/geodata/

       or more easily found here (but not guaranteed to be the most
       current:
         http://we7u.wetnet.net/xastir/Counties/

       We now have a script in the xastir/scripts directory called
       "get-NWSdata" which fetches the files you need and plops them
       into the correct directory and unzips them.  Run that script
       as root.  It requires "wget" to work.  You may then try the
       NWS-TEST.log test shown below to verify proper operation.

        --------------------------
        The files of interest are:
        --------------------------

        NWSI Libraries:
        ---------------
        County Warning Area Boundaries (c_*.zip)
        Public Zone Boundaries (z_*.zip)
        Coastal and Offshore Marine Zones (mz*.zip, oz*.zip, hz*.zip)
        Fire Weather Zone Boundaries (fz*.zip)

        County Libraries:
        -----------------
        AWIPS Counties (w_*.zip)

      Unzip those files in the /usr/local/share/xastir/Counties/ directory and
      Xastir should find them and use them for weather alerts. Be sure to
      include the .shp, .shx, .and dbf.
           
       Note that you can also use the county file as the background polygon
       filled map for drawing county lands and borders.  Either make a link
       to these files from your maps directory, or copy the files there so
       that they show up in the Map Chooser.

      To test whether the weather alerts are working (whether weather?), copy
      the NWS-TEST.log file to your ~/.xastir/logs/ directory and then bring it
      in to Xastir using the File->Open Log File option.  Zoom in to the
      WA/OR/ID area (Pacific Northwest) and you should see a picture that looks
      like this:  <http://www.eskimo.com/~archer/xastir/xastir-wx-alerts.png>
      Note that you may have to change the dates embedded in the file if Xastir
      thinks they are expired.  See the notes at the top of that file.  If the
      alerts are still active they should appear in the View->Weather Alerts
      dialog.

	Australian rules Weather Alerts

		http://wxsvr.aprs.net.au/implementation.html

     Download audio files:

       To play the wav files you will need a program such as vplay to play the
       audio file through your sound card.

       Grab xastir-sounds.tgz at the ftp site you downloaded Xastir, or at
        ftp://ftp.tapr.org/software_lib/Linux/xastir/xastir-sounds.tgz

       Un-tar the file.  Put the sounds files into the
       /usr/local/share/xastir/sounds directory where Xastir can find them.
       (FIXME: thunder.wav is missing?).

     Download FCC and/or RAC Database files:

       If the FCC database is installed, a Search FCC Database button will
       appear in the station info box. If the RAC (Radio Amateurs of Canada)
       database is installed, a Search RAC Database button will appear for
       callsigns beginning with "VE" or "VA".

       The download and installation of these is automated in the get-fcc-rac.pl
       script included with Xastir, but you may install them by hand
       individually if you wish as described here:

       To use the FCC lookup:
       ----------------------

         Download:
         http://wireless.fcc.gov/uls/data/complete/l_amat.zip

         (The only file needed from this 87 Meg zip is the EN.dat file)

         **** NOTE To use the data base file it must be sorted first!!! ****
     
         unzip l_amat.zip

         To sort the file, make sure you have plenty of disk space for this as
         the file is BIG!

         cat EN.dat | /usr/bin/perl -pe 's/\r\r\n//g' | sort +4 -t \| > EN.dat.sorted

         Install it in the xastir/fcc directory:

         su
         mv EN.dat.sorted /usr/local/share/xastir/fcc/EN.dat


       To use the RAC lookup:
       ----------------------

         Download:
         http://205.236.99.41/%7Eindicatif/download/amateur.zip

         unzip amateur.zip
         mv AMATEUR.RPT /usr/local/share/xastir/fcc/AMACALL.LST


       Hiking trails from National Geographic's Topo or mapXchange:
       ------------------------------------------------------------

        For those of you who may be familiar with National Geographic's Topo!
        program, there's a way to use the user-saved data (but not topo maps
        themselves) from within Xastir.  Many users create TPG and/or TPO
        files in TOPO from GPS data and/or hand-drawn routes.  They can then
        upload them to the mapXchange site, and in fact there are many hiking
        trails that one can download for free from that site.  Okay, how to use
        them?

        Go to <http://www.gpsbabel.org>.  Go to the Project page and then the
        CVS page and follow the instructions for grabbing the CVS gpsbabel
        sources.  Only CVS has the Topo version 3.x support, which was just
        recently added (May 2006).  Follow their instructions for building/
        installing/using the program.  It's a command-line program where you
        specify the input and output formats and filenames.  Using this program
        you can snag the interesting data out of the files and convert it to
        GPX format.  Once you have that, you can use the "gpx2shape" script to
        convert them to Shapefiles.  Xastir can then use them as map files.



WHERE TO FIND MORE INFO ON MAP DATUMS, ETC:

    Geodesy:
    http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/geodesy/welcome.html

    "Geodesy for the Layman"
    http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/PUBS_LIB/Geodesy4Layman/toc.htm
    


MAP CACHING (WORKS WITH MOST ONLINE MAPS):

    Map caching works in conjunction with the map download routines,
    which fetch maps from http or ftp addresses.  The map caching features
    use functions found in Berkeley DB 4.0 library, AKA libdb (version 4.0
    or better), to create and manage a cache directory and a persistent
    database of information about the files in the cache directory.  This
    directory defaults to ~/.xastir/map_cache.  The files under this
    directory can be cleaned up or removed by hand at any time - the
    caching routines will simply download the maps and put new entries
    into the .db file.

    Map files are saved with filenames that include the number of seconds
    since the Unix epoch.  This allows the caching routines to easily
    determine the age of maps so that older cached maps can be deleted.
    This is currently (Dec 2004) controlled with a compile time maximum
    age setting.  See map_cache.h for specifics and for brief
    documentation about all of the map_cache functions. 



DRAWING YOUR OWN MAPS USING XASTIR ITSELF:

    The final result here will be ESRI Shapefile vector maps that
    you can then use within Xastir.  You'll need Shapelib compiled
    into Xastir to make use of this feature (the private copy of
    Shapelib is fine for this).

    Turn off Object Transmit first (Interface menu).

    Place an object or item at the start location of your route.

    Click on the "Move" button to active move mode, then move that
    object around the map.  Once you're done you'll have a bunch of
    straight lines that depict the course.

    Now bring up Station Info on that object and click on the Store
    Track button.  If you've got Shapelib compiled in, you'll get a
    shapefile created with the track you just drew.

    After you're done you can delete the object and then turn on the
    Object Transmit toggle again.  You'll end up transmitting the
    deleted final position of the object for a few hours unless you
    kill/restart Xastir, but that's ok.  Nobody will see it on their
    maps 'cuz it's a deleted object.
 
    Look in ~/.xastir/tracklogs/ for the Shapefile.  Copy it to your
    maps directory, changing the name on the three files as you
    like, then create a dbfawk file for it if you want to change how
    it is drawn in Xastir.

    Another way would be to drive the course with a GPS and then
    download the track via Xastir/GPSman to create a Shapefile map.

    Yet another way would be to drive it with an APRS rig and then
    Store Track as described above.  You could also drive with
    GPS/Xastir (without APRS) to get a very detailed track and then
    save your own track.



DRAWING SAR SEARCH SEGMENTS IN XASTIR:

    Turn on "Draw" mode (togglebutton at the top of the main
    window).  The cursor should change to the Measure/Draw symbol.

    Using the middle mouse button, click on each vertice until you
    are almost done describing a polygon (don't close it yet).  If
    you don't have a middle mouse button, clicking on BOTH mouse
    buttons at once will do it if you have "emulate third mouse
    button" enabled in your X-Windows configuration.

    Go to Map->Draw CAD Objects->Close Polygon.  The polygon will
    get completed, the area enclosed will be computed, and a dialog
    will pop up asking you for more information.  You do not have to
    enter any information in this dialog, but a name of some type is
    helpful in order to be able to identify each segment when
    modifying/deleting/viewing these segments.

    Note that these CAD Objects get saved in a file and reloaded
    each time you start Xastir, but they cannot currently be written
    out as a map file and used as a general map.

    Note also that these CAD Objects don't get transmitted.  They
    are currently for local display only.

    The display of various kinds of data related to these segments
    can be modified in the Map->Draw CAD Objects menu.  Modifying
    parameters for any segment is done in the
    Map->Draw CAD Objects->CAD Polygons dialog.

    Click on the dashed line in the menus in order to separate that
    menu from the rest and allow you to keep the menu on the screen.
    This is very useful when drawing CAD Objects or changing
    display/filtering options.

    Turn off "Draw" mode when you're done.  The cursor should return
    to normal.



SUMMARY OF DISTANCE/AREA/ANGLE CALCULATIONS:


    DISTANCE:
    ---------
    *) Haversine formula (2-parameter atan version) for computing
    distance between two points, for our general distance routines:

        calc_distance()
        calc_distance_course()
        distance_from_my_station()

    *) Haversine formula (2-parameter atan version) in "Measure" for
    both the X/Y offsets and the total distance.

    Haversine formula is more accurate for shorter distances than
    spherical trigonometry calculations.  Both methods are equivalent
    for longer distances.  Both are Great-Circle calculations (as
    opposed to Rhumb-line or planar geometry).  See the GIS FAQ for info
    on these methods.  Dr. Math website mentions both of these and refers
    people to the same GIS FAQ.

    Also note that the Haversine formula is ill-conditioned if the
    two points are antipodal (on opposite sides of the Earth).  From the
    GIS FAQ: "but the error, perhaps as large as 2km (1 mi), is in the
    context of a distance near 20,000km (12,000 mi)."  For our purposes
    that's just fine.


    AREA:
    -----
    *) Area of a spherical rectangle from Dr. Math's website for the
    "Measure" function.  There are errors in their last two derived
    formulas.  They have been notified of it.  Our implemented code
    is correct.

    *) The area calculation for CAD Object Polygons is probably not
    spherical, but closer to planar.  It might take some doing to calculate
    the area of irregular polygons on a spherical surface.  We use Greene's
    Theorem to compute the area based on the vectors.  The lengths of each
    vector are computed via the Haversine formula, so it's not strictly a
    planar area calculation either.  Somewhere in-between planar and spherical?
    This should be plenty good enough for areas that are less than 12 miles on
    a side (that's about where planar geometry starts to diverge from spherical
    trigonometry), perhaps also for somewhat larger areas than this due to the
    advantage of computing the vector lengths with the Haversine formula.


    ANGLE:
    ------
    *) Great Circle departure angle for the "Measure" function.

    *) Great Circle departure angle for the calc_distance_course()
    function.

    *) Dead-reckoning angle is essentially a Rhumb-line calculation
    (constant heading), with a few caveats:

        We compute the next point along a constant angle based on the last
        position transmitted, the time elapsed, and the course desired.
        This then gets corrupted a bit either by the standard APRS grid that
        it has to snap to (and the position snapped to for the previous
        position) and/or by the relatively course angle available for Base-91
        compressed positions.

        Standard APRS positions give 1-degree angular resolution but 60-foot or
        so grid points.  Base-91 Compressed positions give something like 1 to
        3-foot grid points but less angular resolution (+/- 2 degrees.  We
        can't win!

        The end result is that we start off like a drunk sailer due to our
        short transmit times and the above limitations, then the angle smooths
        out as the time increases between the transmits.  You can see this
        easily at zoom level 1 when you place an object, when you make a change
        to an object, or move an object (transmit rate goes up for any of these
        conditions).

    Dead-reckoning effectively does a Rhumb-Line calculation as it is
    trying to do a constant heading.  That means it is not the shortest
    distance between the points.  I'm still trying to get my head around
    that last concept as it is counter-intuitive to someone versed in
    compass/maps on land and with shorter distances.

    A Great-Circle route is the shortest distance between two points on
    a sphere, whereas a Rhumb-line is what you get if you move along a
    constant compass heading and is a bit longer.

    We probably do not need to go to ellipsoid calculations for Xastir.
    Spherical calculations should be easily accurate enough for what we do.
 


  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
APRS(tm) is a Trademark of Bob Bruninga

Copyright (C) 1999 Frank Giannandrea
Copyright (C) 2000-2023 The Xastir Group

