What's New on the Project Site

By Bill Allen

First, for non-programmers: The one thing most likely to interest you here is the cross-platform PullSDTS utility that can be used to inspect USGS SDTS files, to view and convert SDTS DEMs, and to extract files from TAR and tarball (.tar.gz and .tgz) archives. For more information and articles on 3D landscape and GIS topics at the user level, please visit the 3D Artist magazine site.

Much of what is in these pages is presented at the level of people new to programming and new to Python. Some of it should also be useful to more experienced programmers and Python users.

Everything here is part of now two personal programming projects:
1) To develop a custom utility to aid in organizing and manipulating large swaths of 10m USGS DEM data in its native UTM NAD27 form. The utility itself (working title, "DEMpy") isn't available yet. However, bits of knowledge gained in developing it are being shared here while the project progresses, and basic features are being delivered with the PullSDTS utility.
2) To develop a utility to view NASA asteroid 3D shape and 2D image archive files.

What's New

PullSDTS

Python Notes
Tkinter Notes
Code Samples

File Formats
SDTS Notes

Glossary
Index


: Year 2002 Happenings
14 March: > New "Tkinter 3D" page added.
21 Feb.: > Short note added about faster data buffering.
5 Jan.: > PullSDTS 2.0 beta 2c4 posted with several small but important fixes in how ranges are handled in 2D RAW export.

: Year 2001 Happenings
27-28 Dec.: > PullSDTS 2.0 beta 2c2 and 2c3 posted with a small fix in two modules to be compatible with Python 2.2.
18 Dec.: > New page posted with a walkthrough of a heightfield project using Pull 2's RAW export feature along with Photoshop and Bryce 5.
6 Dec.: > PullSDTS 2.0 beta 2c posted with new DEM RAW 8- and 16-bit heightfield export feature.
24 Sept.: > PullSDTS 2.0 beta 1b posted with new DEM grayscale view feature.
16 Sept.: > PullSDTS 2.0 beta 0j posted.
> Some updating done to "SDTS Notes"
10 Sept.: > New expanded "Mac Tkinter" section added to the "Tkinter Notes" page to catalog the differences between Windows and Mac implementations, and to give some ideas on working around the differences.
> The first public version of PullSDTS 2.0, posted as beta 0i. It handles much better what Pull version 1 did, provides reports on SDTS and GeoTIFF files, and does .tif.gz compression and extraction, while DEM viewing, conversion, and export functions are yet to come.
7 Sept.: > Revisions began today on various pages to start integrating new info and development from recent months, which will soon include the appearance of an early beta of PullSDTS 2, as soon as we've got it running correctly on Mac.
> Info updated on embedded Python scripting for 3D graphics applications.
> Two free scripts are available here for putting a simple GUI interface on the BMRT command line .rib viewer/renderer for Windows and Linux.
30 May: > A significant revision of tkDemo#1 on the "Tkinter Notes" page.
29 May: > RenderMan RIB gets its own section on the "File Formats" page.
25 May: > Some expansion of the section on "Getting Started with Python & Programming."
4 May: > New "File Formats" page added, with a re-introduction of notes on opening TAR and gzip files.
26-28 April: > These pages have been reworked to now use standard HTML4 coding with little CSS2 styling in order to provide more consistent and more satisfactory viewing results across all browsers and user settings.
8 April: > PullSDTS 1.5 posted with improved TAR handling and new features including a configuration file.
7 April: > The largest part of the the "Python Notes" page, concerning GUI programming with Python's Tkinter module, was split off today into its own "Tkinter Notes" page.
6 April: > The "Python Notes" and "Code Samples" page sections on opening TAR and gzip files, including the original pre-GUI PullSDTS utility, were withdrawn today along with related Python code. The key elements will be rewritten into a coming file formats page.
16 March: > PullSDTS 1.4b posted with a fix for some impolite behavior on Mac.
15 March: > "Time with Python" expanded into its own section to explain the compensations that must be made in using time.ctime() to get correct date/times for files extracted from TAR.
14 March: > PullSDTS 1.4a posted with corrected file date/time handling.
10 March: > PullSDTS 1.4 posted with new compatibility for Mac OS9 and ability to handle GNU TAR files.
3 March: > PullSDTS 1.3a posted with a number of small improvements including better error handling and reporting, but, most importantly, the ability to handle TAR files with the original TAR header format.
2 March: > An update for tarDump to allow dumping from TAR files with the original TAR header format.
1 March: > The pullSDTS utility in version 1.3 gets a graphical user interface (GUI) to make it more generally accessible, and gets its own support page. Recognition for the .tgz tarball file extension also has been added.
26 Feb.: > ImageEmbedder script added as a Tkinter demo that's also a useful utility for creating embedded PhotoImage objects.
20 Feb.: > New "Tackling Tkinter" section begun.
19 Feb.: > Improved pullSDTS 1.2a posted.
17 Feb.: > New tarDump script and explanation posted to show how to safely inspect both a .tar file and, in SDTS transfers, the TAR's constituent .ddf files.
16 Feb.: > New Topic Index first posted.; > Improved pullSDTS 1.1a posted.
9 Feb.: > Code and explanation posted for a basic, gum-and-bailing wire script to turn an SDTS DEM's main DDF into a .raw file Photoshop can read.
7 Feb.: > This "What's New" page first posted to cover in one place all developments on this project site.; > A section that explores DDF Data Records begun on the "SDTS Notes" page.
6 Feb.: > The first GIS utility here for general use posted in a workable but initially primitive form: pullSDTS.
5 Feb.: > A section exploring DDF Data Definition Records added to "SDTS Notes".
3 Feb.: > SDTS Notes" page first posted, starting with an expansion of a section originally begun on the "Python Notes" page, and including the first of several example scripts (a DDR leader viewer) related to studying and parsing USGS SDTS DDF files.; > Poser added to the list of (now three) 3D applications that use Python for embedded scripting.
29 Jan.: > Glossary page added to cover 1) GIS terms and 2) terms related to GIS and general programming. (Listings are limited to terms used in these project pages.)
27 Jan.: > This project site created, including initially its home, Python Notes, and Python Code pages.