NTF OGR Implementation Notes ============================ Products (and Layers) Supported ------------------------------- Landline (and Landline Plus): LANDLINE_POINT LANDLINE_LINE LANDLINE_NAME Panorama Contours: PANORAMA_POINT PANORAMA_CONTOUR HEIGHT attribute holds elevation. Strategi: STRATEGI_POINT STRATEGI_LINE STRATEGI_TEXT STRATEGI_NODE Meridian: MERIDIAN_POINT MERIDIAN_LINE MERIDIAN_TEXT MERIDIAN_NODE Boundaryline: BOUNDARYLINE_LINK BOUNDARYLINE_POLY BOUNDARYLINE_COLLECTIONS The _POLY layer has links to links allowing true polygons to be formed (otherwise the _POLY's only have a seed point for geometry. The collections are collections of polygons (also without geometry as read). This is the only product from which polygons can be constructed. Boundary Line 2000: BL2000_LINK BL2000_POLY BL2000_COLLECTIONS Similar to Boundaryline, but with different attributes, feature code is largely unused, and the _POLY layer doesn't have a seed point. BaseData.GB: BASEDATA_POINT BASEDATA_LINE BASEDATA_TEXT BASEDATA_NODE OSCAR Asset/Traffic: OSCAR_POINT OSCAR_LINE OSCAR_NODE OSCAR Network: OSCAR_NETWORK_POINT OSCAR_NETWORK_LINE OSCAR_NETWORK_NODE Address Point: ADDRESS_POINT Code Point: CODE_POINT Code Point Plus: CODE_POINT_PLUS The dataset as a whole will also have a FEATURE_CLASSES layer containing a pure table relating FEAT_CODE numbers with feature class names (FC_NAME). This applies to all products in the dataset. A few layer types (such as the Code Point, and Address Point products) don't include feature classes. Some products use features classes that are not defined in the file, and so they will not appear in the FEATURE_CLASSES layer. Product Schemas --------------- The approach taken in this reader is to treat one file, or a directory of files as a single dataset. All files in the dataset are scanned on open. For each particular product (listed above) a set of layers are created; however, these layers may be extracted from several files of the same product. The layers are based on a low level feature type in the NTF file, but will generally contain features of many different feature codes (FEAT_CODE attribute). Different features within a given layer may have a variety of attributes in the file; however, the schema is established based on the union of all attributes possible within features of a particular type (ie. POINT) of that product family (ie. OSCAR Network). If an NTF product is read that doesn't match one of the known schema's it will go through a different generic handler which has only layers of type GENERIC_POINT and GENERIC_LINE. The features only have a FEAT_CODE attribute. Details of what layers of what products have what attributes can be found in the NTFFileReader::EstablishLayers() method at the end of ntf_estlayers.cpp. This file also contains all the product specific translation code. Special Attributes ------------------ FEAT_CODE: General feature code integer, can be used to lookup a name in the FEATURE_CLASSES layer/table. TEXT_ID/POINT_ID/LINE_ID/NAME_ID/COLL_ID/POLY_ID/GEOM_ID: Unique identifier for a feature of the appropriate type. TILE_REF: All layers (except FEATURE_CLASSES) contain a TILE_REF attribute which indicates which tile (file) the features came from. Generally speaking the id numbers are only unique within the tile and so the TILE_REF can be used restrict id links within features from the same file. FONT/TEXT_HT/DIG_POSTN/ORIENT: Detailed information on the font, text height, digitizing position, and orientation of text or name objects. Review the OS product manuals to understand the units, and meaning of these codes. GEOM_ID_OF_POINT: For _NODE features this defines the POINT_ID of the point layer object to which this node corresponds. Generally speaking the nodes don't carry a geometry of their own. The node must be related to a point to establish it's position. GEOM_ID_OF_LINK: A _list_ of _LINK or _LINE features to end/start at a node. Nodes, and this field are generally only of value when establishing connectivity of line features for network analysis. Note that this should be related to the target features GEOM_ID, not it's LINE_ID. On the BOUNDARYLINE_POLY layer this attribute contains the GEOM_IDs of the lines which form the edge of the polygon. POLY_ID: A list of POLY_ID's from the BOUNDARYLINE_POLY layer associated with a given collection in the BOUNDARYLINE_COLLECTIONS layer. Adding a New Product -------------------- It is anticipated that over time the UK Ordnance Survey will define new product formats, and to get decent milage out of them this library should be updated to support them. While I will endevour to do this myself, it seems prudent to define how it is done in case I am not available to do it, or am unwilling to do it on a timely basis. To add a new product type the following steps are required: o Add an NPC_ code for the product in ntf.h o Add a case in NTFFileReader::Open() to translate the GetProduct() result into the NPC_ code. o Add a case in NTFFileReader::EstablishLayers() defining the layers found on this product. o Add translate functions for layers of this product. Generally they can be cloned from an existing translate function, and the attribute mapping in the NTFReader::ApplyAttributeValues() call can be modified. Occationally existing products will change slightly. This may result in a slight change to the detection logic in NTFFileReader::Open() and changes in the list of user attributes associated with the layer. If the differences are signifiant it may be necessary to define a whole new product family type (as is done for Code Point Plus vs. Code Point). Generic Products ---------------- In situations where a file is not identified as being part of an existing known product it will be treated generically. In this case the entire dataset is scanned to establish what features have what attributes. Because of this, opening a generic dataset can be much slower than opening a recognised dataset. Based on this scan a list of generic features (layers) are defined from the following set: GENERIC_POINT GENERIC_LINE GENERIC_NAME GENERIC_TEXT GENERIC_POLY GENERIC_NODE GENERIC_COLLECTION Generic products are primarily handled by the ntf_generic.cpp module whereas specific products are handled in ntf_estlayers.cpp. Because some data products (OSNI datasets) not from the Ordnance Survey were found to have record groups in unusual orders compared to what the UK Ordnance Survey does, it was found necessary to cache all the records of level 3 and higher generic products, and construct record groups by id reference from within this cache rather than depending on convenient record orderings. This is accomplished by the NTFFileReader "indexing" capability near the bottom of ntffilereader.cpp. Because of this in memory indexing accessing generic datasets can be much more memory intensive than accessing known data products, though it isn't necessary for generic level 1 and 2 products. It is possible to force a known product to be treated as generic by setting the FORCE_GENERIC option to "ON" using OGRNTFDataSource::SetOptionsList() as is demonstrated in ntfdump.cpp.