Map format conversion

Xastir supports several GIS standard map formats, but the great thing about standards is that there's so many of them. Xastir cannot possibly support all given the limitations of developer availability.

However, there are lots of good open source tools for converting maps from one format to another, and these can be used to get maps you can use in Xastir for offline operation.

The most fully-featured library for GIS data manipulation is the Geospatial Data Abstraction Layer (GDAL) library and the tools it provides.

Find it at its web site.

Most Linux systems have gdal available in package management. You may need to install both a library and a binary package to get the whole thing, and on some systems need a separate package to get the tools that are written in python. We have tried to enumerate those in our System Specific Install Notes page.

Vector map conversion with ogr2ogr

ogr2ogr and gdal vector are tools provided with gdal that manipulate vector data. You can use these tools to convert vector data in a format Xastir can't read into shapefiles that Xastir can use. See the documentation https://gdal.org/en/stable/programs/index.html

Raster map conversion wigh gdal

There are several tools provided with gdal that allow manipulation of raster (image) map data. See https://gdal.org/en/stable/programs/index.html for all the details.

Of particular interest may be gdal raster convert and gdal raster reproject.

Using GIS programs with Xastir

You can use a GIS program (QGIS, ESRI ArcGIS, GRASS GIS, etc.) to create, edit, or convert geographic information into a form Xastir can consume. You have to learn how to use those programs yourself, as the learning curves are often steep.