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From: peterson@milano.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Geographic data bases
Message-ID: <3112@milano.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Dec-86 14:58:18 EST
Article-I.D.: milano.3112
Posted: Wed Dec 10 14:58:18 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Dec-86 07:43:06 EST
Sender: peterson@milano.UUCP
Organization: MCC, Austin, TX
Lines: 28

I have begun to accumulate a lot of geographic data and need a
standard form to put the data in.  I expect that new data will
need to be converted into the standard form, but at least all
of my programs could be made to work with just one representation.

Can anyone suggest previous work that may have been done on a
data representation format for geographical data?

I have outlines of states, countries, oceans as well as city street
data.  It appears to me that all of the data is made up of three
basic types:

	point
	line
	area

points have names, location (x,y or lat,long), and annotations.
lines have names, a list of points, and annotations.
areas have names, annotations and either a list of lines defining
	an outline or a list of (sub)areas.

From this I can define a representation (ASCII, free-format), but
would like to know what other people have done first.

Thanks.
-- 
James Peterson
peterson@mcc.com  or  ...sally!im4u!milano!peterson