this is the sdts translation tools faq.

this contains the answers to frequently asked questions. there is a
seperate faq for sdts/dem files. see dem/SDTSDEM.faq (in a parallel
directory ) 
also see sdts.txt in this directory

you can reach me at skatz@blm.gov
or by phone (303)-236-0101

sol--

1. the BASE NAME is the first 4 characters of all the files ending in .DDF

2. the Layer ID is the 2 NUMERIC digits in position 7 and 8
   of several .DDF files. usually there is only one  O1  .
  
   look for the xxxxLE##.DDF file to identify the vector line data

   occasionally you will find additional layers, eg 02 , 03 etc
   these will each require a separate run of the program. be sure
   you use a different output file name, otherwise you will overwrite
   the previous output file.

   the equivilent for the SDTS/DEM files appears to be the characters L0
   (EL ZERO) found in the xxxxCEL0.DDF file. if you find a file like this
   in your directory, the SDTS/DLG programs in this (SDTS/DLG) directory
   will NOT work, and may NOT give you an error message. As I work on the
   programs, I'll be adding error check for this problem. The current
   versions of sdts2dlg and sdts2dxf have been fixed.  


3. to run most of these programs you MUST be in a DOS window and in the 
   directory where the data is stored 

   a - the program must either be in the same directory as the data, 
   b - or the program must be in the path so that it will be found
       when you type the name on the command line
   c - or you enter the complete path to the program on DOS the command line.

WARNING: if you run the program from the WINDOWS command line, please 
   don't call me with problems. i am getting tired of telling folks
   that it has problems working that way  :-) 

   on the other hand, i got this email message from
   Sean Montague <couloir@rocketmail.com>, July 8, 1998
   He was using SDTS2DEM but it may relate to DLG files.

     I just ran your program in both dos mode and I double
     clicked on the application file in explorer from
     which a dos window appeared.  In dos mode it took
     approximately 20 minutes to convert, from the dos
     window it took 30 seconds.  I'm using a 233 mhz
     computer.  It seems strange that the program runs
     faster using explorer.  After I converted each dem
     into a grid, I did the same dem twice, they seem to
     be exactly the same.  Do you know of any problems
     with using you program through explorer.  I would
     appreciate any comment on this.  

   I too would like some comment on this. If you have Win95
   or WinNT, could you try it and let me know what happens. sol--



4. other translator programs are referenced on
           http://www.avenza.com/link2trans.html

5. no, i don't have any other sdts translator programs, what you see
   in this directory or parallel directories is what i have.

6. yes, sdts2dlg.exe and dlgbld.exe work under windows 95. 
   be sure you have dosxmsf.exe in the path, or in the directory.
   also see FAQ 3. 

   there is a problem running blddlg.exe on a NT computer.


7. the message "Can't find xxxxNE01.DDF" means that there isn't a point
   file in this dataset. it is just a informational message. 

8. the dos programs have problems with the large hypsography data sets. often 
   crashing. Nick Ullman has been kind enough to compile some of these program
   on a windows 95 machine using visual c ver. 5.  you can find these programs
   in sdtsvc.zip   this is the solution recommended by the usgs sdts team. you
   can read their message in hypso_bug.txt file, in this directory.

9. if you got the data from the usgs/sdts site and it still has a
   tar.gz extension, you must first gunzip the file and then untar the
   file. winzip will do this for you. or you can get the dos utilities
   gunzip.exe and tar.exe by doing a web search. all the programs here work
   with files ending with .DDF      


10. there is a file explaining how to connect the attributes in the .DDF files
    to the major and minor code in the output of sdts2dlg. although it is 
    specifically written for arcview, it is useful for anyone working with
    SDTS/DLG files,

              see       sdts_av.txt 


    also see the work on processing SDTS/DLGs into ArcView by 
    Deb Southworth,  deb_southworth@mail.fws.gov

            http://www.fws.gov/data/gisconv/sdtsovr.html


11. Most of the programs will run with the required information on the command
    line. if anything is missing from the command line, it will start 
    prompting for the missing information. This means you can set up a batch
    file and convert many files without having to wait to answer prompts.