GTData Review

GTData currently delivers over 40 utilities for converting, creating, manipulating, and analyzing GTViewer data. Most users may only be familiar with the basic tools to do their conversion, but GTData continues to grow its collection of data utilities. This Blog entry is really just to expose everyone to all that is included with GTData and not to tell how to use them. Documentation on all of the utilities can be found in GTData.doc.

General Utilities

The general utilities are utilities that may be used regardless of the source data type.

• GTConfig - GUI utility for editing Table Definition files (*.tab) and generating database scripts (for loading data directly out of Oracle). Very useful tool that is probably underused.
• GTIndex - Creates a spatial index (.gtn) for Graphics files (.gtg).
• GTAsciiIndex - Creates the Ascii Index (.idx) for a tabular file (data.txt). This index file is automatically created by FV2Ascii and GTConvData, but it is sometimes need when creating your own data.
• GTSortIdx - Sorts a Tabular Data .idx file.
• GTRefSort – Sorts a reference index and can create a .fer file from a .ref file.
• GTQuery - Compiles queries (*.qry) from the Query Definition files.
• GTTextQuery - Creates a locate query based on the text dump file from GTConv. Used to make text searches from text elements that are not features.
• GTExtract - Creates an extract file (.gtx) by range from the command line. Identical in functionality to the interactive Extract in GTViewer; however, this one can run in a script.
• GTPack - Creates an extract file (.gtx) from the command line. Similar to GTExtract except the data is not extracted, it is packed. See previous blog entry for more information on the differences.
• GTFontEdit – GUI tool for creating and editing Font characters in the GTViewer font format (*.dfn).
• GTFont - Convert ASCII Font definitions to GTViewer Fonts (*.dfn).
• GTGetKeys - Creates linkage index for graphics files
• GTGetOffset - Retrieves coordinate information from dgn files. Can help determine the offset values when preparing for a conversion.
• GTGetRange - Determines the range of a set of features based on an Attribute value(s).
• GTGetRange1 - Finds the range of a specific feature in a graphics file.
• GTDumpMdb - Creates an Ascii dump file (data.txt) from an Access file (.mdb).
• GTDumpDbf - Dumps the contents of a .dbf file to the Tabular data or a raw pipe delimited format.
• GTMergeGtg - Merge multiple graphics files (.gtg) files into one .gtg file.
• GTMergeData - Merge multiple Tabular Data (data.txt) files into one. Also, provides the incremental data support for tabular data.
• GTUpdateGtg - Integrates an update .gtg file (with adds and deletes) into an existing .gtg file. Part of the Incremental Update tool collection.
• GTRemap – Remaps the filter ids in a graphics file (.gtg) to another a mapped set of filter ids.
• GTRemap1 - Remaps element in a graphics file (.gtg) from one (filter id, color, style, weight) to another (filter id, color, style, weight).
• GTSplitGtg - Split one graphics file (.gtg) file into multiple files based on filter id. A parameter file defines the mapping.
• GTShiftGtg - Scales and/or Shifts all elements in a graphics file (.gtg).
• GTRasterIndex - Create raster index shapes for MrSID files.
• GTCompact - Compacts Group Elements and elements with duplicate element (with same keys and optionally with same filterid).
• GTTile - Tiles multiple .gtg files into a single .gtg file.
  

Data Creation Utilities

• GTGetRecords - Extracts a set of attributes for a specified table from an ASCII data file.
• GTMakeInter - Creates intersection elements and data files from a delimited text file of values.
• GTIntersect - Generate intersection nodes from Shapefile street segments. Also, can generate street labels from Shapefiles.
• GTInterGtg - Creates intersection features from graphics files (.gtg) files (similar to GTIntersect).
• GTLabelGtg - Create street labels from street line segments in a graphics file (.gtg) (similar to GTIntersect).
• GTFormatInfo - Extract embedded data from a .gtg file and apply to a template for formatting.

Shapefile Related Utilities

• GTShapeConv - Data Conversion utility for Shapefile graphics.
• GTShapeDbfConv - Data Conversion utilty for Shapefile data (*.dbf) files.
  

DGN based Data Conversion Tools

These utilities are generally used with source data from Framme, Field View, MGE, and Microstation.

• GTConv - Data conversion utility for FRAMME, FV, MGE, DGN graphics data. This utility may be the used the most if your source data is DGN based. This utility is probably the most complex of the GTData set and has been around the longest.
• FV2Ascii - Converts a Field View snapshot’s tabular data to the GTViewer tabular format. If you start with Field View data, you would use this tool. If you start with Framme data, you would use GTDataConv.
• GTFilterUpd - Updates Filter Definition files (*.flt) with FRAMME Feature and component names.
• GTFRBConv - Creates Field View Rulebase files (*.dta) from FRAMME rulesbase source files (.rdl, .fdl, .cdl, etc.).
• GTDataConv - Data Conversion utility for database dump files.
• GTGetUDLSMap - Creates a UDLS map file for GTConv. This file show the user-defined linestyles name map in a DGN file.
• GTSum - Creates a summary of element information from a set of DGN files including element types used, levels used, colors used, etc.