Format of Output Coastline Files

Output files from the GEODAS Coastlines Extractor are saved to your disk as ASCII files. These files contain data from the current plotted GEODAS Coastline at the current resolution, from the selected area on your plot. At this time there are 2 choices for output format.

GEODAS VCT00 ASCII Vector Format:

This format is the ASCII Version of the GEODAS 2-D Vector Format VCT00. A brief breakdown of the format follows. See GEODAS 2-D Vector Format for a full description of this format.

ASCII VCT00 files are simply a series of records, broken up into line segments according to the pencode, which contains the resolution information as multiplication factors of one or more of the first 7 prime numbers, the value of which increases with lower Resolution. In this way a single pencode can be used for several different resolutions.

The data records are 28 ASCII characters in fixed fields, plus computer's end-of-record indicator. There will always be at least one space between fields, allowing the data to be input as space-delimited data.

FIELD NAME  SIZE DESCRIPTION
________________________________________________________

Longitude   11   Longitude of the point, with precision up to 6 decimals.

Latitude    11   Latitude of the point, with precision up to 6 decimals.

Pencode      6   Delineates the flow of the segments:
                 0 - Start, MoveTo Point (Pen up Move)
                 1 -  Full Res, LineTo Point (Pen Down Move)
                 Factor of 2 - Second Level Resolution LineTo Pt
                 Factor of 3 - Third Level Resolution LineTo Pt
                 Factor of 5 - Fourth Level Resolution LineTo Pt
                 etc.
 Example
-102.670000 -74.580000     1
-101.330000 -74.750000    10
-100.000000 -75.000000     3
 -99.500000 -74.750000   770
-101.330000 -74.330000    30
-100.670000 -74.000000    30
-101.500000 -73.750000     6
-101.500000 -73.500000   385
-100.000000 -73.580000 30030

Arc/Info Ungenerate Format:

This format can be imported by a number of GIS applications, such as Arc/Info and Arc/View. It consists of ASCII formatted records, each containing a line-segment number, followed by a series of comma-separated longitude/latitude records for that segment,, followed by the ASCII line "END". Segments are repeated in this manner. After the last segment with it's "END" line, an additional "END" line is output. The GEODAS version of this format follows:

Character   Field
Nos.        Length   Description
____________________________________________________________

1-11        11       Longitude of the point, with precision to 6 decimals
                     decimal points are explicit
                     + = East, - = West
                     
12           1       Comma separator

13-22       10       Latitude of the point, precision to 6 decimals
                     Decimal points are explicit
                     + = North, - = South

Example:
1
 100.351130,  5.977480
 100.343630,  5.999980
END
2
  99.336110,  6.488890
  99.340280,  6.488890
  99.336110,  6.488890
END
3
  99.465280,  6.566390
  99.469440,  6.569170
  99.465280,  6.566390
END

...

220
  99.368610,  7.223050
  99.380840,  7.206110
  99.390560,  7.204440
  99.397780,  7.210000
  99.396120,  7.222220
END
END