[IGS-DCWG-37] Re: Any DCs accepting .gz RINEX?

[Edouard GAULUE]

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IGS-DCWG Mail      22 Nov 10:00:24 PST 2004      Message Number 37
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Author: Edouard GAULUE

Dear colleagues,

My aim is not to restart last week discussion but I wrote this on friday 
and I did a mistake so I didn't send it to all DCWG list members.

IGN is ready to implement any recommandation.

But here some positions in reply to questions (IGN GDC service is lodged 
in a school in which we are giving formation on how to 
find/compress/uncompress GPS IGS, EUREF, and french GPS permanent 
network file ie. d.Z) :
* auditors have 2 problems: finding the file and uncompressing it
* learning how to find, compress and uncompress GPS files is presently 
seen as an investment and people we met would appreciate that things 
wouldn't change so much
* homogeneity in file names is seen as a force by auditors
* in fact, concerning compression formats, everybody say there shouldn't 
be any difficulties if there was a real "easy to use" Windows tool 
capable of converting any GPS file to any formats
* two years ago, we did student work on a tool to automaticaly 
uncompress d.Z files under windows. The result is not satisfying 
according to me (it's was just a student exercice and the result cannot 
be used for production purpose), but it's presented in our formation and 
some of our auditors are using it as "it's already better than DOS"
* when we proposed this work, we gave 2 possibilities: creating a totaly 
new tool with a Windows interface or just trying to create Hatanaka 
plug-ins for PowerArchiver or WinZip
* there is clearly two populations: researcher working on UNIX and base 
users working on Windows
* most of compress files I see in Europe are .gz for UNIX and .zip for 
Windows. Almost none .Z files seen as a proprietary format.

My opinion:
Concerning researcher and IGS community, history shows that there have 
never been any problem to understand and implement IGS modifications and 
recommandations even if, when I was a newcomer, everything looks so 
complicated to me.
Concerning base users there are two problems: finding data and then 
uncompressing them. Finding data can be made easier by homogeneity and 
compression/uncompression by a Windows tool.
I think if IGS want to touch base users (and by the way decision makers) 
it should promote the development of this universal GPS file converter 
tool. First, it would be a support of promotion for IGS and second, a 
"plublic" part as IGS would be well seen in the developpement of an open 
sources project in this connection, at least in Europe. People really 
worry on always changing and expensive private tools. Who develop it and 
with which money ? I've no answer but what about a working group ? As an 
exemple, the CERN (another scientific community) have develop a public 
tool for Windows Office file conversion to almost all formats.

On file compression change, I rather agree with Angelyn, but I think 
that homogeneity is really important so I would plead for a total 
conversion of archive. Hence, it would be necessary to well consider the 
amount of work it represents. Note also that being force to recompress 
all archives should permit to find plenty of errors (file position and 
denomination, empty files, ...), hence improving quality.

Regards, EG


-- 
Edouard GAULUE
RSI - ENSG - IGN 
6-8 avenue Blaise Pascal - Champs sur Marne
77455 MARNE LA VALLEE CEDEX 2 - France
Tel : +33 (0) 1 64 15 32 43
Mail : Edouard.Gaulue at ensg.ign.fr