[gdal-dev] mdb to shape conversion: no geometry exported

[Boris.Vasiliev at forces.gc.ca]

Hi,

I would like to convert an ArcGIS .mdb database to shape files but,
unfortunately, the geometry is not exported.  This issue was raised
before in this mailing list, but I could not find a solution. Hence, a
new post.

In particular, ogrinfo returns valid layer names albeit with some
warnings

> ogrinfo PGeo:polling_geo

# ERROR 1: importFromWKT() failed on SRS 'GEOGCS["GCS_'.
# ERROR 1: importFromWKT() failed on SRS 'GEOGCS["GCS_'.
# INFO: Open of 'Pgeo:polling_geo'
#           using driver 'PGeo' successful
# Districts
# Subdivisions

The conversion raises the same warnings but does not fail

> ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" -a_srs "+proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84
+datum=WGS84" districts.shp PGeo:"polling_geo"

The conversion creates districts.{shp,dbf,shx,prj}.  

The .dbf file contains the correct data; however, when I load the .shp
file into QGIS the layer is empty.  Similarly, when I import the shape
file into GRASS, GRASS shows 0 lines, polygons and points.  I tried
setting the new layer type option, -nlt, to GEOMETRY, POLYGON, and
LINESTRING but this did not help - shape files contain no geometry.

The ogr2ogr version is 1.6.2, released 2009/07/31.

Is this a known issue with .mdb files?  Are there any diagnostic tools
which may indicate what is wrong with the .mdb file and why geometry is
not exported?  Is anybody aware of possible fixes?

Regards,
Boris.