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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>From the GIS Tools website <A
href="http://www.gistools.com">www.gistools.com</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>GIS Tools Software is Now Freeware<BR><BR>GIS
Tools, providers of software such as TGR2SHP, TGR2MIF, and Census Summary File
translators will now make their software available as freeware. Dr. Bruce
Ralston, the author of these programs, states that making these programs
available for free is part of his service on the Association of American
Geographers Census Committee. In addition to making the executables available,
the source code for TGR2SHP is also available along with a technical whitepaper
describing the logic and structure of TGR2SHP. States Ralston, “In working with
students, and in my own self-education, I have found some of the ideas used in
TGR2SHP, particularly efficient extracting of the topology in TIGER and the
strategy for quickly assembling area features (polygons to us older folks), to
be quite instructive. Students who have been exposed to these ideas seem to have
a better understanding of how programs can be structured to exploit topological
relationships.”<BR>The programs, user manuals, whitepaper, and source code can
be found at http://tnatlas.geog.utk.edu/downloadfree.htm. A whitepaper and
source code for the summary file extractors will be released before the end of
this calendar year.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>note: Thanks to Dr. Ralston for releasing his
software and source code to freeware.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ian, N3CVA</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Geographer</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>