Licensing options for this format begin with FME Professional Edition.
The TOBIN TDRBM II Data Distribution Format Writer allows FME to write TDRBM II Data Distribution Format files.
This chapter assumes familiarity with the format specification. You can locate the TOBIN TDRBM II Data Distribution Format Specification Version 2.4 1-28-1998 at http://www.tobin.com/marketing_pages/documents/data_formats/tobin_tdrbm2.html.
Overview
The TOBIN TDRBM II Data Distribution format, commonly called TDRBM II, provides an enhanced graphical representation of TOBIN Survey information.
This format is an ASCII text-based format that supports the storage of point, line, polygon and text features as entities (features) in its data files. In the TDRBM II file structure, entities are composed of sequential groups of structured column-aligned attribute records. Each entity consists of one header Record (Record Type 0), followed by zero or more annotation records (Record Type 2), and a sufficient number of coordinate records (Record Type 3) to specify the boundary of the entity. Each record begins with a single character indicating the record type. This attribute field can take the value of “0”, “2”, or “3” and specifies the type of the information contained in the record as either header, annotation or coordinate information. User-defined attributes are not supported by this format.
All header records have similar formats but differ slightly depending on the value of the Name Format Type (column 4) attribute value of the header record of an entity. This value corresponds to the survey system of the data as described within the TDRBM II specification and can take the value of exactly one of the following integers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. In turn, this value determines the type of information stored in columns 5 to 32 of a particular header record.
All annotation records have the same format and can store up 32 right-justified ASCII characters.
All coordinate records have the same format. Each coordinate record stores a pair of coordinate values and represents a line segment. Consequently, a series of sequential coordinate records can be interpreted to construct point, line, or polygon boundaries.
Note: This chapter uses the terms entity and record in the manner outlined by the TOBIN TDRBM II Data Distribution Specification Version 2.4 1-28-1998.