Contours again.

[Bob Basques]

Armin Burger wrote:

>Bob,
>
>you could also try just creating a spatial index for the shapefile using s=
>hptree. 2 minutes looks like there is no existing spatial index and more o=
>r less all features of the shapefile are read all the time.
>
Yes I think this is correct.

>Maybe this ind=
>ex already speeds up things sufficiently.
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>Instead of splitting up the contour lines into seperate shapefiles that ha=
>ve then to be put together with a shapeindex, it might be an alternative t=
>o intersect the contour lines with a regular grid. E.g. like the sheets fo=
>r topographic maps or a rectangular one with arbitrary extent you create o=
>n your own. That way very long lines with huge amount of vertices are spli=
>t up into smaller chunks.
>
I actually started out with something like that in the AutoCAD world.
Each tile (1/2 sq. mile) was brought together into a single coverage.  I
didn't do any joins on the linework, I just let them be seperate
entities.  I figured that was better than joining them anyway.

> The time to read such features is much less than=
> for the large ones, but you still have everything in a single shapefile.
>
>If you want just display the values as integer, it might be the easiest wa=
>y to add a new integer column in the dbf file and copy the values from the=
> float column. And then use the new integer column  for the labeling.
>
>
Good idea, although I think I'll just get rid of the old column
afterwards.  I tried some things with the data writer(AutoCAD Map) but
nothing seemed to help with the labelling.

I think your idea will work though.  I can load the DBF up and add a
column easy enough.

Thanks for the suggestions

bobb

>armin
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>>All,
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>>Well I tried out a composite file before asking this question.
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>>I just ran a 550+meg SHP file for our Contour data.  There is only one
>>attribute in the DBF, which is the elevation.
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>>a Typical request takes around 120 sec to complete.  so I'm going to try
>>and tile the shp file out into smaller version and use a tile index on
>>top of that.  Are there any pitfalls I should watch out for during the
>>process of tiling a SHP file?
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>>Also, how do I label with a INTEGER vs a REAL for the elevations.  I'm
>>getting  14 decimal places in the labels.  :c)
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>>Thanks
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>>bobb
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