NAME
wdb2merc - Convert Textual WDB datasets to binary Mercator Projected files
SYNOPSIS
wdb2merc.pl <WDB-path> <output-path>
wdb2merc.pl -h|-help
DESCRIPTION
Reads the latitude/longitude coordinate values from textual WDB dataset files I(available at> http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/data/WDB/) and converts them to Mercator projected distance values (in meters), writing the the values out in a packed binary format that is faster to load, and compresses the data approx. 35%.
The datasets are also scrubbed of some bad data (I checked my globe several times, but couldn't find longitude -544 degrees...).
The resulting binary files are used by GD::Map::Mercator to render map images.