ESRI_TECH_SUPPORT [help, please] shape to AtlasGIS
Phil Hurvitz
phurvitz at u.washington.edu
Tue Sep 11 22:13:34 PDT 2001
Alright, here's the final scoop, hopefully we can put this one to bed.
First, those of you who have ESRI tech support requests, please go to and
read the tech support guidelines at
http://gis.washington.edu/ESRI/tech_contacts
If you need tech help, compose a message that includes all pertinent
information (include everything indicated, including the specific command
you are using, clicking, typing, etc., and the specific error message you
are getting) and send that message to esri at gis.washington.edu. This
should forward to the 4 designated ESRI tech support contacts on campus.
We will get the mail and take the proper action, whether that is getting a
local solution or bouncing up the chain to ESRI. But we need ALL the
information in order to either act locally or bounce up the chain.
Next issue, the shpagf executable:
I don't know whether we have Atlas 4 or not, as
https://wagda.lib.washington.edu/gis/uwonly/esri/esrimed.htm
only says "Atlas GIS" without a version number. If we don't have 4, we
should probably get it as part of the site license.
I believe we do have the Data Automation Kit as part of ArcInfo 4.0
("PC-Arc/INFO").
However, even without Atlas 4 or the DAK, it should still be possible to
convert shapefiles to Atlas layers using shpagf.exe.
You can download shpagf.exe from ESRI at
http://www.esri.com/software/arcview/avsoftware.html ( go to
http://www.esri.com, follow the link to Free Resources, then to ArcView
GIS, then find "shpagf" on the page.)
When you get the zip file, unzip it to the dir of your choice. You will
find there are 3 files. shpagf.exe is the execuatble. COORDSYS is a
binary file containing coordinate system definitions. SHPAGF.TXT is,
believe it or not, a file containing explicit directions on how to use
shpagf.exe. Read that file before doing anything else. Then you can run
the executable on a shapefile.
Here's what I did (on a Dell Inspiron 7500 running Windows 2000).
I placed a copy of the ESRI sample data usa\states.* in a temp dir, along
with the 3 files from shpagf.zip (using Windows Explorer & WinZip).
According to the instructions, in a command prompt window (alias DOS
shell, DOS window, DOS prompt) I did the following:
shpagf coordsys
to view the coordinate system definitions and their codes. I got a long
list from which I found
LL27 NAD-27 Latitude/Longitude
which matches my shapefile coordinate system (I think; I'm too lazy to
look up the metadata for just a test).
I also did a
shpagf states
to preview the number of records, bounding coordinates, and field names in
the states shapefile's attribute table.
Since this data set is maybe stored in Lat/Long NAD27 (when you do your
own data, you need to be absolutely sure what your data are stored in), I
used the command
shpagf states usa ll27 state_fips state_name
to create the Atlas layer "USA" using coordinate system "NAD-27
Latitude/Longitude", and the original field "state_fips" to become the
"_ID" field in the layer, along with the original field "state_name"
becoming the "_NAME" field in the Atlas layer.
I don't have Atlas, so I can't test whether it did the right thing or not,
but it did create 2 files (in my case USA.AGF and USA.AIF, which I presume
are the 2 files Atlas needs to make a layer).
The whole kit and kaboodle (shpadf files, states shapefile, and USA
output files) is zipped and stored at
http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz/outgoing/phurvitz/shpagf.zip
if anyone would care to see if it created the Atlas layer properly.
Now I'll get back to nursing my little bottle vacation....
-P.
******************************************************************************
Phil Hurvitz, MFR | GIS Specialist | College of Forest Resources | 355 Bloedel
Box 352100 | University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-2100, USA
tel: 206.685.8179 | FAX: 206.685.3091 | e-mail: phurvitz at u.washington.edu
WWW: http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz
******************************************************************************
On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Harvey Greenberg wrote:
> I'm stumped. I suspect from the silence that the rest of the UW
> tech support team must be either vacationing or nursing little babies, so
> I will cc this to the UW discussion group for help in converting your
> shapefiles to Atlas GIS agf files.
>
> ~harvey
>
> Richard Morrill wrote:
>
> > Two other approaches I'm checking on, first if we have a copy of atlasGIS
> > 4.0, then it evidently has an ability to read shp files, or IF we have
> > somewhere ESRI's "Data Automation Kit" which also includes this and more. Do
> > you know of this?
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Harvey Greenberg" <hgreen at u.washington.edu>
> > To: "Richard Morrill" <dickm1 at mindspring.com>
> > Cc: <esri at gis.washington.edu>
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:08 PM
> > Subject: Re: ESRI_TECH_SUPPORT [help, please]
> >
> > > Well, I know less than about DOS than anybody else. My guess is that
> > either
> > > 1) They want you to boot your computer in DOS mode.
> > > 2) It doesn't work, and we need to go formal.
> > > 3) Somebody else knows, maybe at uw-gis-l
> > > (See http://gis.washington.edu/uw_gis_l/index.html)
> > > or other groups (http://gis.washington.edu/ESRI/tech_contacts/).
> > > I am passing your last message on to my three compatriots.
> > >
> > > > Hi again
> > > > Well, I went into MS-Dos mode, and followed all instructions, but then
> > get
> > > > an error message (back on a windows screen) that this has to be run in
> > dos
> > > > mode, which I had done.....; if it's not one thing, it's another.
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: "Harvey Greenberg" <hgreen at u.washington.edu>
> > > > To: <dickm1 at mindspring.com>
> > > > Cc: <esri at gis.washington.edu>
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:31 AM
> > > > Subject: Re: ESRI_TECH_SUPPORT [help, please]
> > > >
> > > > > I haven't used that specific utility, but
> > > > > In ARC/INFO lingo, the projection is "geographic".
> > > > >
> > > > > This is not a formal incident unless the four of us are stumped.
> > > > >
> > > > > ~harvey
> > > > >
> > > > > dickm1 at mindspring.com wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I guess I need to go through you to get some ESRI support I need.
> > I'm
> > > > =
> > > > > > a professor in Geography at UW, and have been using Arcview and
> > Atlas =
> > > > > > GIS and its predecessors since they were invented. Since for some =
> > > > > > purposes I like Atlas GIS better than Arcview, but since I have way
> > more
> > > > =
> > > > > > geography from Arcview including the 2000 census geography, I was =
> > > > > > pleased to discover than I can presumably convert from Arcview shp
> > files
> > > > =
> > > > > > to Atlas GIS agf files, and downloaded the shpagf program.=20
> > > > > >
> > > > > > However, in the Dos command line, I'm required to identify the
> > current
> > > > =
> > > > > > projection of the shp file I want to convert. But all the files I'm
> > =
> > > > > > working with have no projection, and the units are in decimal
> > degrees, =
> > > > > > and the directions do not address this possibility. Can you address
> > this
> > > > =
> > > > > > question to the appropriate help? Thanks very much
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Richard Morrill
> > > > > >
> > > > > > morrrill at u.washington.edu
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > --
> > > > > hgreen at u.washington.edu 162 Johnson Hall 206-685-7981
> > > > > http://duff.geology.washington.edu/
> > > > >
> > > > > Harvey Greenberg
> > > > > University of Washington
> > > > > Department of Earth and Space Sciences
> > > > > 63 Johnson Hall (Box 351310)
> > > > > Seattle WA 98195-1310
> > > > >
> > >
>
> --
> hgreen at u.washington.edu 162 Johnson Hall 206-685-7981
> http://duff.geology.washington.edu/
>
> Harvey Greenberg
> University of Washington
> Department of Earth and Space Sciences
> 63 Johnson Hall (Box 351310)
> Seattle WA 98195-1310
>
>
>
>
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