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NGS Linetool
Posted by jhframe on January 8, 2014 at 3:09 pmWhere’d it go? I used to access it here, but that no longer works. A search of the NGS site turns up a couple of references in presentations, but nothing about the location of the tool itself. 🙁
john-hamilton replied 10 years, 8 months ago 4 Members · 7 Replies -
7 Replies
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Howdy,
Most likely it is an orphan. Without external urging for its adoption, it will mostly likely be lost to users.
Contact the NGS information center and get others to do so. They respond to users!
Given its limited resources, NGS has to make choices. Supporting software involving database access is not trivial. Without sufficient interest programs will be abandoned.
For those unfamiliar with the tool, it allows users access to leveling data in the NGS data base. Users can retrieve information about level lines graphically or by line number. They can retrieve the NGS format level observations as well as files including interactions withe the NGS data base. You can do adjustments of these files including changing constraints.
While the NGS LOCUS tool does perform adjustments, the Linetool tool’s graphics based on ArcMap? are not part if LOCUS.
Hope this is responsive,
DMM
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NGS Linetool… a subminute
google search using NGS LOCUS Tool Kit
found this:
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Jim: yes, it appears to be gone (since last year sometime). I complained to several people, saying that it was difficult to do releveling when I don’t have access to the old leveling. Not sure if my complaint went anywhere.
linetool enabled one to extract old leveling lines from the database. This (to me) was useful for seeing what marks were directly connected, what the historical leveling differences were, when leveling was done, etc, and I could compare raw versus raw rather than just compare published elevations.
Another VERY useful tool that recently went away was access. This was an old command line program via telnet to the database, where one could extract triangulation/traverse/astronomic/GPS observations as well as published positions, etc. It was useful to me for the same reasons, I could see raw data, what was connected, etc. Very useful when working with older conventional data, except it was lacking vertical angle information. And also when looking at older GPS data, it could be used to get connections, dates, etc. It would not give B and G files, though.
As far as I know there is now no way for people outside of NGS to extract raw observations from the database. The NGS philosophy was always to make as much data available to the public as possible. I believe they have now failed at that task.
I believe NGS is transitioning to a new more modern database (Oracle?). I certainly hope they will provide a means for users to do queries to extract raw data, which can be very useful for analysis.
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NGS Linetool… a subminute
LOCUS is an adjustment program for leveling observations, and it is useful. But, it doesn’t give access to the raw data or the metadata (dates, etc).
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When I worked for NGS in a non-HQ office I frequently had problems accessing resources. The IT folks and especially the IT security folks made access near impossible. I retired over five years ago. It has only gotten worse. The last time I tried I was unable to use their public FTP site.
These changes are not initiated by NGS. The attitude has not changed but the constraints under which they work.
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I agree Mike that security has a lot to do with this. I used to use access over plain-old telnet, then a few years ago they made the change to SSH telnet (more secure). They called in late 2013 to say that they were getting rid of the server it resided on due to security.
This is why I think hacking (or attempted hacking) should be severely punished. Maybe castration.
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