MX also allows the user (via the Files Menu) to define as an input a network .ufs or a .gis file (5.7) which may provide useful extra zonal information on the matrix (matrices) being examined. Thus either may supply the necessary sector definitions which (see 5.1.7 or 10.2.5.3) are originally set within the node co-ordinate data sets on a network .dat file or the .gis file. Equally text names for zones are only given within gis files.
A further application of an input network file is to define the zone “names” (see 10.2.2) when they have not been predefined as part of an input .ufm file. This option is particularly useful when the matrix is being input from a .dat file and the zone names are not known a priori (see 10.5). Post 11.1 the zone names are applied to rows within all levels of a stacked matrix (previously they were only applied to rows in the base matrix).
Alternatively, to transfer network zone names into a matrix: (1), read the matrix into MX so that it becomes the internal matrix, (2) input the network .ufs file, (3) choose to transfer the network zone names into the internal matrix (if the network has the same names the choice is never presented) and (4), dump the internal matrix into a .ufm file.