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US Government Map Data
and TXT2GTX Software

Updated 1800 Monday 21st July 2003

From Robin: I'm most grateful to Hans de Rijck in Holland for visiting this very old page, noticing that the format of data has changed on the US web site - and then going on to write a little program NIMA2GTX which will do for the new format data what TXT2GTX did for the old format. You may download Hans' program from NIMAGTX. NIMAGTX self-extracts into NIMA2GTX.EXE. Thanks Hans :-)

from 27th January 1998 ...

It is possible to download data from the US Government web site below, for conversion and use with GPSS. Please consult information on the US web site for any restrictions on use of the data. You will find the quality of the data varies according to that downloaded. The TXT2GTX program below generates text files in GPSS-compatible format.

You may want to click here for GPSS technical information.

You may find errors in the data - such as the Irish railway stations in our example data files - which may be due to the source data, our software, or both. You will find the source data accurate for some countries, but only within about 1 nautical mile for others such as the UK. Look out for 00" in the data. This appears to be deliberate degrading of the data related to copyright issues. In tests so far, we found degrading present for some countries like the UK and Italy, but not for others such as Singapore or Russia.

Here is the link to the US Government site : http://www.nima.mil/gns/html
If this does not respond, try : http://164.214.2.59/gns/html/index.html

You might select the categories of location data (e.g. towns or landmarks) for the country or geographic area you want, then save it into a suitable file such as TXT2GTX.TXT.

The program TXT2GTX.EXE will convert the data into a GPSS-compatible GTX file such as GPSS.GTX, or a new GTX file that you might add into the GPSS.FND list. If you want to change the category codes in GPSS category codes such as those in GPSS.CAT, then you must add these to the file TXT2GTX.CAT. If there is no TXT2GTX.CAT file present, TXT2GTX.EXE will convert all items to GPSS category L = Landmark.

Here is the link to TXT2GTX1.EXE which self extracts into a little DOS program called TXT2GTX.EXE plus several example files.
Download TXT2GTX1.EXE (59,678 bytes)
Now Issue 3 11th Jan. Now removes : and trailing text from names. See Aberfam in example below.

Robin apologises now for any bugs in the software, but thought that you might want to be among the first to try this capability. He has already e-mailed the US web site, asking for information on copyright and restrictions to use. So far their feedback indicates there are no problems in you using the data with GPSS.

TXT2GTX.TXT - Typical data downloaded from US Site

Query Results

Sort Order By Name
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

   NAME        DESIG. LATITUDE    LONGITUDE   AREA  UTM   JOG NO.
  Aberfam: see Aber-fan
               RSTN  51°41'00"N    3°21'00"W  UK00  VC72  NM30-02
  Aber-fan
               RSTN  51°41'00"N    3°21'00"W  UK00  VC72  NM30-02
  Abergwyfni: see Abergwynfi
               RSTN  51°39'00"N    3°36'00"W  UK00  VC52  NM30-02
  Abergwynfi
               RSTN  51°39'00"N    3°36'00"W  UK00  VC52  NM30-02
  Achnashellach Station
               RSTN  57°29'00"N    5°20'00"W  UK00  UJ67  NO30-07
  Acocks Green
               RSTN  52°26'00"N    1°49'00"W  UK00  WD80  NN30-12
  Acock's Green and South Yardley: see Acocks Green
               RSTN  52°26'00"N    1°49'00"W  UK00  WD80  NN30-12

Typical content of TXT2GTX.CAT for code conversion

PPL,LPOP
RSTN,LR
BDG,LBRI
HSP,LH
END,END
cat code in data, GPSS cat code
END,END terminates the data

Typical content of output data in GPSS format - TXT2GTX.GTX

TXT2GTX.GTX produced by TXT2GTX.BAS holds ?
catcode,,location,name,
LR,,514100N0032100W,Aberfam,
LR,,514100N0032100W,Aber-fan,
LR,,513900N0033600W,Abergwyfni,
LR,,513900N0033600W,Abergwynfi,
LR,,572900N0052000W,Achnashellach Station,
In this particular example, the data is railway stations in the UK. If this GTX file is copied to replace $LR.GTX in GPSS, then it will plot the stations in response to the R key. Note that Ascot and Sunningdale Station are missing, and that the data is only accurate to about 1 mile - less so in Ireland !

TIGERGTX - USA Gazeteers from Tiger data

This data and software is for testing. Many thanks to Sol Katz for pointing Robin to some more sources of USA data. This data and software enables you to generate a GPSS-compatible GTX file, so you can search for that small town by name, then be guided to it by voice. Or you might just want to know where the nearest populated place is.

USPLACES.EXE expands into PLACES.TXT, a large file of 3,378,038 bytes, as downloaded from http://ftp.census.gov/ftp/pub/tiger/tms/gazetter/ in its Zipped form. TIGERPRO.EXE expands into TIGERGTX.EXE and its .BAS source code. See the USA Download page for typical GTX output files covering the whole country.

You may wish to run TIGERGTX to extract a small, managable file of places near your home town. You could simply ask for everything - all 23,789, but then searches would probably be a bit slow for you. You can filter based on population or lat/lon limits.

when you have your GTX file - or to test one of those on the USA download page - simply copy it to replace the $LPOP.GTX UK towns - respond to P key, and/or GPSS.GTX the general gazeteer. Or, you may want to start by replacing the little $LR.GTX (R = Railway Stations) by this file. To test it hit P (or R) to find nearest place to car, followed by enter key for next nearest, etc. Follow this by ` followed by text anywhere in the name. GPSS will find the nearest place which has a name that includes this text. e.g. ` in CA will find the nearest place in California. e.g. `san fra - will probably find San Francisco. Just follow by D key to make this the destination - or if you are just testing on the desk - the V for Visit key - to put the car in this place and change map accordingly.

Download USPLACES.EXE (804,205 bytes)
Download TIGERPRO.EXE (36,417 bytes)
Issue 2 27th Jan - now removes comma from name. Thanks Dave !