The DBDB-V bathymetry consists of DBDB5 data (5 minute global data) with
regions of higher resolution.  The following is a list of the bathymetry 
files that have been received from the Naval Oceanographic Office; these
files are in the charter format. A code to read the
charter format and write it out in a grid format is chrtr2grid.cc.
The source code was compiled and output an ArcInfo ascii grid generate format.

Point of Contact:  Cheryl Ann Blain  (blain@nrlssc.navy.mil)
                   NRL Code 7322
                   Naval Research Laboratory
                   Stennis Space Center, MS 39529
                   601-688-5450  (ph)
                   601-688-4759  (fax)
 

According to Cheryl Ann, there is not much metadata on
this dataset.  The "V" stands for variable, which means
that this gridded data product has variable resolution 
in different areas.   There may be 5 min, 2 min, 1 min and
0.5 arc minute data, depending on location.   Here's what
unclassified material she was able to read me out of a 
classified document.

Scattered data were digitized off of bathymetric charts at
5 min data:
10 points/inch using nominally 1:4,000,000 charts

1 & 2 min data:
21 points/inch using nominally 1:1,000,000 charts 

0.5 min data:
21 points/inch using nominally 1:500,000 charts 
with supplemental data from undefined sources

Scattered data were converted to grids using 
a minimum curvature algorithm.

The person responsible for generating this data set was:

Richard J. Sandy 
Director, Seafloor Databases Division
Naval Oceanographic Office
Stennis Space Center, Mississippi

See also:

Sandy, Richard J., "The Navy's Bathymetric Databases... From the Sea",
Sea Technology, November 1996, p 53- 53.

Processing notes:

DBDBV data was in a propriatary data format called charter.  Source code ( chrtr2grid.cc) had to be compiled and the data was then run through the conversion software.  Data was extracted into ArcInfo ascii grid generate format. 

The data was converted into an ArcInfo GRID format using the Arc asciigrid command. ASCIIGRID <in_ascii_file> <out_grid> {INT | FLOAT}

The Arc Grid was than transformed into a point coverage. 
GRIDPOINT <in_grid> <out_cover> {pat_item}


Latitiude, Longitude values were then added to the point file with the addxy command.
ADDXY <cover> {POINT | NODE}
ArcInfo stores coordinates in a separate file so in order to unload data in x,y,z format you have to add latitude and longitude values to the attribute table of the file.  This makes dumping out the x,y.z file easy using the unload command. 
UNLOAD <out_file> {latitude longitude depth} {DELIMITED | COLUMNAR <format_file>
we now have delimited files in x,y,z format ready for use.

These are the DBDB files processed:
Input,

0.5 minute bathymetry:


    FILENAME            REGION DESCRIPTIONS
                        blat   blon   elat  elon
    0708_34.fin.Z       41.25,67.5 , 42.4 , 70.0
    0708_4.fin.Z        42.5 ,65.0 , 45.0 , 70.0
    0709.fin.Z          45.0 ,60.0 , 49.0 , 70.0
    0710_2-3.fin.Z      49.0 ,60.0 , 51.0 , 70.0
    0808_11-12.fin.Z    42.5 ,70.0 , 45.0 , 72.5
    0808_2.fin.Z        40.0 ,70.0 , 42.5 , 75.0
 
Output of process,


db0708_34.gen   
db0708_4.gen    
db0709pt.gen    
db071023.gen    
db0808_2.gen
db8081112.gen

output files,
navy1.xyz.gz
navy2.xyz.gz
navy3.xyz.gz
navy4.xyz.gz
navy5.xyz.gz
navy6.xyz.gz