converting/ making shapefiles

[Jim T. Bowen (GAIA Consultants Inc.)]

Peter,

If you have ArcView, ArcView can read CSV files as event themes
(points).  You can then 'Convert to shapefile' inside ArcView. 
Obviously if you have a lot of these, a little avenue script would be of
use.  Going from Shape to CSV can be done with a little script as
well.   Grab the XY locations and write them to a csv.

Since the shapefile format is available, you might be better off writing
some C or VB or ?? to achieve what you are after.  Perhaps someone has
already done this?

Lines and polys become more complex and would require more coding. 
Although, you could easily read in the vertices as points (event theme)
and then write a small script to convert to a line.  A standard CSV
would not work well for polys; indeed, you may want to explore another
text format (e.g., generate files or E00 format).


Cheers,
Jim

"Peter H.M. Jacobs" wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> has anyone heard of a tool to convert shapefiles into comma separated value
> files and visa versa
> 
> Regards
> 
> Peter Jacobs