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Drift Composition and Surficial Geology of the Trutch Map Area (94G), Northeastern British Columbia

Geological Survey of Canada Open File D3815

Files, Directories and Formats

The directory structure of this CD has been designed to facilitate simple and logical access to the data.

Compact discs are a cost effective way of distributing large quantities of data but do have some limitations. Data transfer rates of CDs are comparable to hard disks but access times are much slower. The slow access time can have negative implications for applications that require concurrent querying of several files. The speed of access to the data can be greatly improved by copying them to the hard disk.

For complete summary of the files and directories on this CD see the Directory Structure Listing.

The Root Directory

The root, or top level, directory of the CDs contains the following files:
 
Files in the Root Directory
Filename
Language Format Description
readme.txt English PC ANSI text General introduction to the CD
licence.txt English PC ANSI text Licence and copyright information
citation.txt English PC ANSI text Recommended citation
<Microsoft Windows Only>
autorun.inf System (hidden) Microsoft Windows 
95/98/NT 4
AutoPlay configuration file for Microsoft Windows. This file directs Windows to automatically run the intro.exe application when the CD is inserted into the drive.
 
The top level or root directory of the CD, \Trutch, contains the following primary directories and subdirectories:
 
Primary Directories and Subdirectories
Category Directory Subdirectories File Extension and Description
Documentation \Trutch\Doc 
\Trutch\Apps
\Html 
\Tutorial
.htm - files and images for the Trutch CD 
.htm - files and images for SurView tutorial
.txt, .gif, .bmp - files and images to support Intro panels
Data \Trutch\Data \Bob 
\Dxf 
\Fdl 
\Shp 
\Xls
.bob - SurView files 
.dxf - AutoCad DXF files 
.fdl - SurView files 
.shp, .dbf, .shx - Arc/Info shapefiles; .asx, SurView files 
.xls - Excel files
Software \Trutch\Apps 
\Trutch\Intro
n/a 
n/a
SurView.exe - Data viewing application for Microsoft Windows 
Intro.exe - Program that launches Intro panel at startup 


Documentation

The \Trutch\doc\html directory contains most of the documentation for the CD. The documentation is provided as a series of interlinked *.htm HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files which can be viewed with any Web browser or by most modern word processors. In addition, the *.htm files are accompanied by a selection of *.gif and *.jpg image files. The documention is available at the Intro panel by clicking the Documentation button. It is also available in SurView from the Documentation pull-down menu. The HTML documentation begins with Welcome.htm.

A SurView tutorial is provided in the \Trutch\Apps\Tutorial directory. This is the best document to use to learn how to display and query data using SurView. It is available through the SurView | Help | Tutorial (HTML) pulldown menu. More detailed documentation for this program, also available via the SurView | Help pulldown menu, is provided as a Windows Help file, SurView.hlp.


Documentation Files in \Doc\Html
Filename
Description
Welcome.htm Introduction
Contents.htm Table of Contents
Disclaim.htm Disclaimer and Licence
Projectn.htm Projections
Files.htm Overview of files, directories and formats
Credits.htm Citation and Credits
Geochem.htm Drift composition
Glacial.htm Notes on glacial history
Geochron.htm Geochronology
Heavies.htm Heavy mineral analysis
Legend.htm Surficial materials legend
Topog.htm Topographic base
Xrd.htm Clay mineralogy
Append1.htm Appendix 1
Append2.htm Appendix 2
Append3.htm Appendix 3
Append4.htm Appendix 4
Append5.htm Appendix 5
Append6.htm Appendix 6
Append7.htm Appendix 7
Append8.htm Appendix 8
Faq.htm Frequently Asked Questions


Software

SurView

The \Trutch\Apps directory contains the SurView application for Microsoft Windows (any version). SurView was developed at the Geological Survey of Canada as a viewing application for geophysical, geochemical and geological data. It is not a GIS, but it does allow the user to view, zoom/pan, query, change colours and print on any Microsoft Windows platform.

The SurView files are indicated in the following table
 

SurView Files
Filename Description
\Trutch\Apps\SurView.exe Microsoft Windows executable
\Trutch\Apps\SurView.hlp 
(SurView.gid, SurView.fts)
Microsoft Windows help file for SurView
\Trutch\Apps\System\ctl3dv2.dll '3D effects' module for Microsoft Windows (not required for Windows 95,98 or Windows NT 4)
 
 
You do not need to install SurView.  SurView is already installed and ready to run directly from the Trutch CD.  If you want to install SurView on your hard disk then see Installation, Configuration and Removal chapter of the SurView tutorial.

Intro

The \Trutch directory contains the Intro application which launches the opening panel from which you can view documentation or data. This application starts automatically when the CD is inserted. To avoid ejecting and re-inserting the CD every time you want the intro panel you can double click on Intro.exe. If you do this frequently Windows95/98/NT users can place a shortcut to Intro.exe on their desktop.


File formats

GIS file formats

Four file formats are used to ensure compatibility of the data with a wide range of GIS systems and viewers including SurView (included on the CD), ArcView, ArcExplorer (download free from ESRI), AutoCAD and MapInfo:
 
GIS Formats
Filename  
extension
Description
.shp
Arc/Info shapefile
.dxf
AutoCad DXF file
 
 
  1. *.shp, in \Trutch\Data\Shp\...

    Arc/Info shapefiles were created by exporting the coverage Arc/Info ARCSHAPE command.  The term "shapefile" refers to the collection of three files, with the extensions .shp,.shx and .dbf.  These three files collectively contain the data for an an Arc/Info coverage. The shapefiles can be viewed directly from the CD (no import required) by both ArcView and SurView.

    The \Data\Shp directory also contains .asx and .fdl files for each tile and theme and an additional \Luts directory containing .dbf lookup tables. These files are referenced only by SurView when displaying the shapefiles and are not necessary for importing shapefiles into other applications.

    For more information on SurView see the SurView tutorial.For detailed information on shapfiles see Appendix D.11 in the SurView help file, SurView.hlp, located in \Trutch\Apps (\Trutch\Apps on disc 2).

  2. *.dxf, in \Trutch\Data\Dxf ...

    These are AutoCad DXF files created in binary format. The DXF files are in the UTM (NAD 83) coordinate system. Layer names in the files are self-explanatory.

  3. *.asx, *.bob and *.fdl, in \Trutch\Data ...

    Files with the .asx, .bob and .fdl are used exclusively by SurView. Certain restrictions apply to these files when moving data to a hard disk for viewing with SurView. For details see the Data Files section of the SurView tutorial.

Data file formats

All the results of the analytical analyses are provided in spreadsheet form in Excel .xls format.


Directory Structure Listing


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