bbd

NAME
DESCRIPTION
CATEGORIES
EXAMPLES
CAVEATS
AUTHOR
SEE ALSO

DESCRIPTION

Sorry - parts of this documentation are still in German...

bbd is a simple format for describing points and polylines for geographic information systems.

Bbd files consist of newline-terminated records in the format:

    Name TAB Category SPACE x,y SPACE x,y ...

Coordinate lines (data lines)

Name

A descriptive name, for example the street name, or (for attribute layers) a description of the attribute category. This field must not contain any TAB characters.

If there is a main name and a descriptive part, then the latter should be separated by a | character. This helps for intelligent labelling, i.e. leaving out unimportant parts if necessary. Example: Ringenwalde|(Uckermark) could be labelled as Ringenwalde or Ringenwalde (Uckermark).

Category

The category of this point or polyline. If the category matches #rrggbb (where rr, gg and bb are hexadecimal values), then this denotes a color for the representation in the Perl/Tk interface. A prefix of F: denotes that the polyline should be treated as a polygon and filled with a solid color. Note that the polygon is always closed, but it is optional to make the first and last the same.

If the category matches forwardcat;backwardcat, then forwardcat applies to the street in forward direction and backwardcat applies to the street in backward direction. Either forwardcat or backwardcat may be empty; in this case the category applies only to the other direction.

The X category should be used if there is no category.

Other predefined categories are listed below. The category should not contain any spaces.

   DRAFT (not yet in use!): Change the category format to:

       <cat> = <onewaycat> ; <onewaycat> |
               <onewaycat>

       <onewaycat> = F=? <basiccat> (: <attrkey> (= <attrval>)?)*

       <basiccat>  = [^:;]+
       <attrkey>   = [^:;=]+
       <attrval>   = [^:;=]+

   Changes for data files:
     F:cat becomes F=cat
     ?::inwork becomes ?:inwork
     F:SW|IMG:church.gif|ANCHOR:s becomes F=SW:IMG=church.gif:ANCHOR=s
   Maybe (no, too much typing):
     #rrggbb becomes X:COLOR=#rrggbb

   cat is now really attr. Reflect in description, maybe also in
   variable names.

x,y

A coordinate. x and y should be integer or float values. The datum and grid of the coordinates should be handled by the software. It is recommended that x and y should denote the easting and northing in meters (as in GKK or UTM). A record may contain an unlimited number of coordinates, though there may be limitations in the interpreting software (currently the maximum number of points is hardcoded in BBBikeXS and checked in the rule check-line-lengths of data/Makefile). See also below for the map directive in Directive lines.

Directive lines

If a line begines with a hash sign followed by a color (#:), then the line is treated as a directive. There are global directives, line directives and block directives. Global directives should be specified at top of the file before the first data line and should be separated by the data lines with an empty directive line. Line directives are valid for the next line only. Block directives are valid for the specified block. Block directives are markes as such:

 #: directive_name directive_arguments ... vvv
 ... data lines
 #: directive_name ^^^

XXX make directive_name before ^^^ optional? XXX

The v and ^ markers could be repeated an indefinite number of times, but at least three times.

An colon (:) after the directive_name is always optional.

The following directives are defined:

type: bbd_type: This global directive sets the type of the bbd file. If given then it should be put into the first line to serve as a kind of "magic". A possible type would be bbr or bbbike route, once I get rid of the .bbr format.
map: maptype: This global directive sets the coordinate system of the bbd file. If no map directive is specified, then the proprietary bbbike coordinate system is used. For WGS84 coordinates specified as DDD use the maptype polar.
title: title string: This global directive sets the title or some descriptive text for the file.
version: RCS or CVS identifier string: This global directive introduces an RCS/CVS Id string.
by: source: Denotes that the information in the next block or line was provided by source. This may be an email address or full name of an author, an URL providing more information, a Message-Id of a mail or posting, a date, or a combination of all. An alias for by: is according_to:.
unverified_by: source: Same as "by:" for unverified data. "Unverified" means that there's no communication channel back to the information provider.
temporary:: The next block or line is just temporary. Typically the date information is included in the Name field of the data line, preferred in a ISO-date similar notation (e.g. YYYY-MM-DD - YYYY-MM-DD for a starting and an end date).
unsure: why: The next block or line is unsure information. The why text specifies an additional comment. An alias for unsure: is XXX.
alias: name: Define another known name for the next line. For now, only one alias is allowed.
oldname: when: name: An old name for the next line. when is a time specification (best: some kind of ISO dates, but this is not yet specified). Multiple oldname directives are allowed for one record.
section: section name: The next block is part of a named section. Sections may be nested.
append_comment: comment: Useful for preprocessing bbd data files to add a comment to each record in the block.
attributes: attribute, ...: Define additional attributes for the following line or block. The attributes may be used in a preprocessing script to generate additional layers. An alias for attributes is attrs.
note: string: A free text note, which shouldn't appear in the processed data.
see_also: string: A free text note, which refers to more information. This should be typically a URL.
add_fragezeichen: string: Some postprocessing code may add the following line with the descriptive text string to the fragezeichen file.
XXX: string: A note if something is unclear about the following line.

Comment lines

If a line begins with a hash sign (#), then it is treated as a comment. Empty lines are ignored.

EXAMPLES

    #: map: polar
    # a comment
    Dudenstr.	H 13.3857982559056,52.4850047136888 13.3822671967909,52.4849893166144 13.3765591649622,52.4849797043717 13.3721313913775,52.4849830887141 13.3708964575072,52.4850055627098
    Viktoriapark	F:P 13.3770529147335,52.4891642850551 13.376956820767,52.4876188211697 13.3778829456197,52.4875997186591

And a detailed explanation...

    Start of a directive
    v
    #: map: polar
       ^
       Coordinate system of this file is defined as WGS84, DDD

    Start of a comment
    v
    # a comment

(Note that spaces are insignificant in the following examples, but <TAB> and <SPACE> should be inserted)

                              List of coordinates (x,y pairs)
                              v
    Dudenstr. <TAB> H <SPACE> 13.3857982559056,52.4850047136888 13.3822671967909,52.4849893166144 13.3765591649622,52.4849797043717 13.3721313913775,52.4849830887141 13.3708964575072,52.4850055627098
    ^               ^
    Street name     Category (H = main street)

                                   List of coordinates for a polygon
                                   v
    Viktoriapark <TAB> F:P <SPACE> 13.3770529147335,52.4891642850551 13.376956820767,52.4876188211697 13.3778829456197,52.4875997186591
    ^                  ^
    Name of a park     Category (F = area (polygon, Fläche),
                                 P = park)

CAVEATS

Some category values may change. It is likely that either the blocking and/or city category values will change, as both use digits.

AUTHOR

Slaven Rezic <slaven@rezic.de>

bbd

NAME

DESCRIPTION

Coordinate lines (data lines)

Directive lines

Comment lines

CATEGORIES

STREETS

BLOCKINGS

CYCLE PATHS (RADWEGE)

RAILROADS

QUALITY

COMMENTS

AREAS

CITIES AND PLACES

MISC

OTHER STANDARD FILES

EXAMPLES

CAVEATS

AUTHOR

SEE ALSO