Using Command-Line Tools - Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools - page 163

Chapter 11

Using Command-Line Tools

Command-line tools provide a powerful way to manipulate data, espe-
cially when you want to process them in batches using a script. This
chapter describes some of the more common and useful command-line
tools and illustrates how to use them to perform common data manip-
ulation, conversion, and map generation tasks. We will take a look at
the following:

• Generic mapping tools (GMT)
• Converting and appending data using GDAL/OGR
• PostGIS

11.1 GMT

For a very brief introduction to GMT, see Appendix A , on page 269 . In
this section, we will take a look at using GMT to create nicely formatted
maps for displaying and printing. But before we can do that, we need
to make sure you have GMT installed. If not, take a look at Section B.5 ,
GMT , on page 293 for some hints to get you started.

The GMT commands create Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) output. If
you are using Linux or OS X, you should already have the tools you
need to view . eps files. On Windows you will need a viewer that supports
EPS. One such viewer is GSview, which allows EPS files to be viewed
and printed. For other options, use your favorite Internet search engine
to find a suitable application that works for you.