[gdal-dev] Convert E00 into Shape

[Frank Warmerdam]

Chris Howell wrote:
> Please excuse this question if it has already been answered in some way 
> shape or form. I had difficulty finding an good answer to it on the web 
> little alone on the GDAL site. What is the best way to convert from an 
> E00 into a shp format. Most of what I've read suggests I need to use an 
> avenue script however I was wondering if there was an easier way via 
> something provided in FWTools or anything like that. Any light you 
> anyone could shed on this issue would be must appreciated.

Chris,

In theory you can do it with ogr2ogr.  But there have been some problems
observed with reassembly of polygon geometry from E00 files with E00 so
you would want to check carefully if things seem to be working properly.

E00 is a topological format, but OGR assembles the polygon geometries
on the fly from lines to give a "whole polygon" view.  Topological
relationships between features should be preserved as attributes referencing
the FIDs if that is important to you, though these relationships will be
mostly lost in a transfer to Shapefile which does not support the "integer
list" attributes required to keep some of them.

If ogr2ogr fails, you can use the avcimport.exe program
(http://avce00.maptools.org) to convert e00 to a binary arc/info coverage
which ogr can read without polygon assembly problems.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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