[H-GEN] GIS viewer wanted

[mick]

On Mon, 28 May 2007 09:02, andrew laidlaw wrote:
> One of our helpful bureaucracies has provided me a .zip archive with
> Geoprahical Information System (GIS) map data inside it.  There are 8 files,
> of different types.  

> 2 pdfs, 1 htm and one each of type: .avl .dbf .prj .shp and .shx.

>I don't want to get too involved in the intricacies of GIS software, just
> view and browse the map information.  The default open application seems to
> be GRASS?  I downloaded (3 hours) and installed an old version (5.0.3), but
> it seems to want to be told a lot of data (coordinate systems etc) before it
> will even initiate a session, whereas all I want is the equivalent of <File>
> <Open>.     

> Another application seeming relevant is Arcexplorer.  The download from
> their website terminated early, after 2 of 20MB, leaving the main file
> present, but empty.  Also, they had binary versions for suse10.0 and suse
> 10.2, but not for the suse 10.1 that I'm using.   

> My questions:

> Am I missing something with the Grass script based interface - Is there a
> simple way to get grass 5.0.3 to open and display these files (I got nowhere
> with their documentation)?  

there is quite a lot to miss with grass (especially for the casual user.

> Will downloading grass 6.x help?

grass 6 is a slight usability improvement but probably not worth the effort 
for a 'one-off'
 
> Can Arcexplorer to the job?
> If so, which version and where do I get it?

Unless I've missed something somewhere Arcexplorer is windows only

> Is there a small open downloadable GIS viewer, and where can I get it?

QGIS ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/qgis/ ) is a linux package that will 
handle the .shp ( and maybe the .shx, I think the .shx is 'part of' the .shp) 
that is fairly simple for casual use.

ATM I use and ancient beta of mapinfo (which sometimes mostly works in wine) 
for this kind of work and have a demo cd of the arcgis suite I'm about to 
try.

hope this helps
/]/]ik