[Freegis-list] reading Arc/Info geo_dataset

[Markus Neteler]

On Tue, Jun 17, 2003 at 09:31:01AM -0400, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Steffens, Ludger wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >does anybody ever read an Arc/Info database (cover, grid ie.) with tools 
> >other than coming from ESRI, preferable with in C/C++ ? Is there a port to 
> >Linux?
> >I want to read some information from a grid with C/C++ like the Arc/Info 
> >describe-comand does. Is there a library doing such things?
> 
> Ludger,
> 
> The GDAL library includes support for reading Arc/Info binary grids without
> use of ESRI software.   GDAL also supports ESRI labelled BIL, and ESRI
> ASCII grid files.
> 
> The OGR (part of GDAL) library can read Arc/Info binary vector coverages
> as well as good read/write support for shapefiles.
> 
> I am not aware of any free tools for reading the new Arc8 "geodatabase"
> .mdb files though on inspection it appears the geometry is just the same
> format as geometries in a shapefile.

Being no expert, but is .mdb an MS-ACCESS derivate:
http://www.intevation.de/pipermail/freegis-list/2001-August/000569.html
?

If yes, the mdb-tools may be helpful:
http://mdbtools.sourceforge.net/

"The MDB Tools project is a effort to document the MDB file format used in
Microsoft's Access database package, and to provide a set of tools and
applications to make that data available on other platforms.
Specifically, MDB Tools includes programs to export schema and data to other
databases such as MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, PostgreSQL, and others."


Best regards

 Markus