Patent ID: 8402058

Claim:
A method of geodetic information acquisition comprising: identifying a file, the file comprising a plurality of records, the plurality of records comprising spatially referenced data in an unknown format; classifying each of the plurality of records as either free-form or fixed format; classifying the plurality of records into one or more header records and one or more data records; dividing each of the plurality of records into a plurality of fields; for any of the one or more data records classified as fixed format: deriving, from the one or more data records classified as fixed format, one or more patterns of fields consistent with one or more sets of the one or more data records; determining if the plurality of records classified as fixed format matches a known format based on the one or more patterns of fields; and if the plurality of records classified as fixed format matches a known format, extracting at least some of the spatially referenced data from the plurality of records in accordance with the known format; identifying one or more keyword fields in the plurality of records by comparing the fields of the plurality of records to a list of possible keyword fields; matching each of the one or more keyword fields to a value field for that keyword; and updating a database to store each matching of the one or more keyword fields to a value field for that keyword.