HYPACK file formats

surveysays
surveysays Global Mapper User
in Vector Data
I was wondering if there was any chance of adding import/export functionality for some additional HYPACK file formats. Specifically, I am interested in:

-Border Files (.brd, but really it is just ASCII XY space delimited with the last record being a point indicating the inside of the "border" or polygon)

-Target Files (.tgt, space delimited with a text descriptors followed by X Y D Lat Long HH:MM:ss MM/DD/YYYY ... followed by more user-entered text)

It would be nice to see Channel (.chn) and Channel Plan (.pln) Files also supported, but the Border and Targets would be most useful for my interest in being able to streamline an internal dredge request and tracking web viewer.

And kudos for the current interface with HYPACK, the Matrix File capability (with .hcf color shader import) and .LNW have been very useful in the past years with GM!

Thank you!
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Comments

  • surveysays
    surveysays Global Mapper User
    I forgot about HYPACK TIN Files... but I don't know anything about their format as they look like gibberish to me if I open them with an ASCII reader.
  • bmg_bob
    bmg_bob Global Mapper Programmer
    edited December 2015
    I have added item #17062 to our task list so we can evaluate adding these formats.  It would be helpful if you could provide a ZIP archive containing sample files, and links to specifications or other information that describe the contents of the files.  In particular, it sounds like the TIN file is a binary format, so we would likely need a specification to be able to interpret the data.
  • surveysays
    surveysays Global Mapper User
    Thanks for the quick response Bob.  I have attached a zip file with some simple Border Files (.brd) a Target File (.tgt), and some Matrix Files in the same area for reference as GM already supports the Matrix (.mtx).

    I don't have a TIN sitting somewhere right now, is it okay if I upload that later?

    Thanks again, I love your software.  It's funny, a family member actually turned me on to it years ago!
  • bmg_bob
    bmg_bob Global Mapper Programmer
    Thank you for the samples.  I have added them to the bug.  Just upload the TIN whenever you have the chance.
  • surveysays
    surveysays Global Mapper User
    Here is a breakdown of the HYPACK Matrix File, as best I can tell.
  • surveysays
    surveysays Global Mapper User
    Here is the same area as some of the previously updated files, as a TIN.  It's not very "irregular" as it is a 3 foot grid, but the file format is there anyway.
  • bmg_mike
    bmg_mike Global Mapper Guru Moderator, Trusted User
    It looks like all of those except for the .tin files are simple text files that you can load with the File->Open Generic ASCII Text File menu command. The .mtx files should already directly load in via the existing Hypack Matrix support.

    As the .tin format is a binary format there isn't a way to import those without us decoding the format and adding support. I will add notes to our existing bug for these Hypack formats to guide us when we add support.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    geohelp@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/
  • surveysays
    surveysays Global Mapper User
    Yeah, I am an idiot.  I don't know why I uploaded the Matrix data as, like you said, it's already supported.  I guess I was just so proud that I knew off-hand what each line is :b

    The Border Files aren't fully supported by Generic ASCII Text.  There is an additional XY coordinate at the last line in the file that denotes the "inside" of the polygon. 

    Is there currently a way to skip the last row of a Generic ASCII Text import?  Or use it to denote the inside of a polygon within the set of points imported?
  • geomannie
    geomannie Global Mapper User Trusted User
    Is not Excel your friend here? I often pre-condition ASCII data this way before importing to GM.
  • surveysays
    surveysays Global Mapper User
    Excel or any number of things would work to let me trim things down, yes.  I am handing data off to other employees, and minimizing copies of semi-equivalent datasets has been my goal.  Folders get really messy when there are three files all containing the same thing, yet in a different format.

    We recently had some confusion among the data end-users, in which we wasted quite a few hours (time = $) on explaining our cryptic copy/paste/edit/read/convert/export process to a new team member.  Which made us realize how ridiculous the whole process was. 

    So as a dutiful gov't employee I have been attempting to streamline our processes of collecting/transferring/sharing/disseminating hydrographic data among multiple offices.

    I am not a huge customer base, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask the question as BM support has always been great. :)

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