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+<TITLE>fGIS project</TITLE>
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+<H1>f(GIS) project</H1>
+
+fGIS stands for "functional GIS". It means that fGIS uses
+functional data model rather than object-oriented. Spatial phenomena
+are interpreted as functions of spatial coordinates, defined on
+some subset of earth surface. Such subset can be contineous area,
+or set of lines, like transport or hydrography network, or even
+set of isolated points.
+<P>
+
+I hope that such approach would allow to develop powerful map operation
+language much like simple relational model of tabular data give birth to SQL.
+<P>
+Idea of fGIS was born when I've worked on DOS with <A HREF="http://www.mnplan.state.mn.us/EPPL7/">EPPL7</A> and <A HREF="http://www.esri.com">Arc/Info</A> GIS systems. I've found that
+on most tasks, related with natural sciences, EPPL7 outperforms Arc/Info
+hundred times or so. So, I wanted to have system which is open-source,
+have purified ideology, and is free from some EPPL7 limitations, caused
+by 16-bit nature of DOS. Later I've found that <A HREF="http://www.laum.uni-hannover.de/iln/grass/grass42/">GRASS</A> already implements most of my ideas,
+but GRASS is huge and knowing how other raster GIS like IDRISI are outperformed
+by EPPL7, I have very few hopes that its existense makes my efforts useless.
+<P>
+Concepts of project, both data model and program design are described
+on <A HREF=concepts.html>separate page</A>
+<P>
+If you could read Russian, you can read <A HREF=concept.html>old conceptual paper</A> on functional GIS.
+
+<H2> Project structure</H2>
+
+To avoid inventing of yet another, incompatible scripting language, we
+decided to develop f(GIS) as extension to <A
+HREF="http://www.scriptics.com">Tcl/Tk</A>. It give us not only
+full-featured macro language, but also cross-platform GUI and large set
+of extensions, including interfaces to major RDBMS servers.
+<P>
+fGIS project now consists of following parts:
+<OL>
+<LI>Portable C library to access EPPL7 data files.<BR>
+ <A HREF="lib_doc.pdf">Documentation</A> in russian language and PDF format
+ is available. Later, I've decided to drop EPPL DGT vecrtor format in
+ favor of my own, which would be more suitable for fGIS concept. DGT
+ is bit too object oriented for me, while it is most compact and fast
+ of non-topology vector GIS formats available.
+<LI><A HREF="EPU.html">Environmental planning Utilities</A> - reimplementation of major EPPL7
+ commands. EPPL7 stands for Environmental Planning Programming Language,
+ but I don't want special language for it. There are lot of existing ones.
+ I prefer to use Unix toolbox philosophy, so it is set of independednt
+ utilities.
+ <P>
+ Not all of this utilites are written yet.
+
+<LI><A HREF=tclext.html>Tcl extensions to visualize data</A>
+ It is simple and most portable way to write map viewer. Planned
+ features include drawing of raster maps as semi-transparent patterned
+ images, which allow to overlay raster over raster, but now only
+ colored maps work. This extension includes commands for editing raster
+ files and for spatial queries
+
+<LI><B>Set of Tcl libraries</B> to implement high-level tools.
+ It should lead
+ to complete graphical application with powerful macro language (TCL itself),
+ access to most of SQL servers (all which have Tcl interface libraries,
+ including ODBC standard on Win32 platform).
+ This libraries should include wrappers
+ for utilities, to hide from user two important things:
+<OL>
+<LI> that raster values are always integer numbers rather than text strings
+or real numbers and "legend files" are used to map one to another
+<LI> that logical map layer is not nessecary stored in separate raster file.
+It can share raster with other layer and differ from it only in value
+remapping (reclass) table.
+</OL>
+ This libraries consist of several abstraction layers, which are not properly
+ documented yet.
+<LI> Tcl application which provides graphical user environment. Idea behind
+ it is that most everyday tasks should be performed by few mouse clicks,
+but if you want more you always can open Tcl console and have a full power
+of Tcl at your fingertips, including ability to modify GUI.
+</UL>
+
+<H2>Current state</H2>
+
+<I>f(</I><B>GIS</B><I>)</I> project haven't reach evel alpha stage yet.
+I would consider it alpha not sooner than at least 80% of features would
+be implemented. But it is already usable for those who own <A HREF="http://www.mnplan.state.mn.us/EPPL7/">EPPL7</A> and want portable viewer for their maps
+or utilities which overcome some limitations of EPPL7. You can browse
+<A HREF="TODO.txt">TO DO list</a>. I would be grateful if you would peek
+something from it and attempt to implement it.
+
+<P>
+There is no snapshots and releases. This page have only historical
+interest
+<P>
+Be sure to read <A HREF="install.html">installation instructions</A>
+before attempt to install fGIS.
+<P>
+Of course, it is not guaranteed even to compile, nevertheless to run,
+although it have been used successfully on Linux (GCC 2.7.2),
+Solaris-SPARC (GCC 2.7.2) and (utilities only) DOS (Watcom C 10).
+It would almost undoubtely fail to compile on 64-bit platform (any
+brave soul with Alpha or UltraPenguin to port?).
+<P>
+Current version of visualisation library works with Tcl/Tk 8.0p2.
+It should also work with Tcl 7.6p2/Tk 4.2p2.
+
+Note that <A HREF="http://home.wxs.nl/~nijtmans/dash.html">dash patch</A> is
+almost neccessary, becouse without it Tk would unable
+to print (save to postscript) raster maps, produced by <I>f(</I><B>GIS</B><I>)</I>.
+
+<A HREF="http://home.wxs.nl/~nijtmans/img.html">Img extension</A>can also
+be helpful, if your raster data are not limited to GIS maps.
+Note that
+current version of patch, accompaniing this extension, allows to make <B>offsite</B> of raster maps transparent. In future, this would be requirement, but
+for now, while fGIS is not fully functional. I don't like to force you to
+ apply patches which could break your
+other Tcl scripts or extensions.
+
+<H2>Distribution policy</H2>
+Once <I>f(</I><B>GIS</B><I>)</I> would be released, it would be distributed
+under <A HREF="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU Public license</A>.
+Pre-alpha versions are freely downloadable, but can be used for evaluation
+only unless you are planning to take part in development. If <I>f(</I><B>GIS</B><I>)</I> is useful for you even in such limited state, <A HREF="mailto:vitus@ice.ru">contact me</A> and I would consider marking some parts of project alpha,
+thus allowing their redistribution.
+
+</HTML>
+
+
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