topic Re: Problem importing shapefile in ArcGIS Community Analyst Questions

Problem importing shapefile

AllenRisley — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:57:54 GMT

Hello,

I have a shapefile that I am trying to upload to Community Analyst. It is a polygon file of school districts, the zip file is 1.5MB. When I click on the "Import" button, nothing happens. I am able to successfully import this zipped shapefile into ArcGIS Explorer Online, which tells me that the file is not damaged (at least, not for ArcGIS Explorer Online). I have been able to successfully import other zipped shapefiles into Community Analyst.

File is attached.

Any idea what the problem is?

Thanks,

Allen Risley
Cal State University San Marcos

Re: Problem importing shapefile

Jason_RobinsonRobinson — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:18:47 GMT

Hello,

I have a shapefile that I am trying to upload to Community Analyst. It is a polygon file of school districts, the zip file is 1.5MB. When I click on the "Import" button, nothing happens. I am able to successfully import this zipped shapefile into ArcGIS Explorer Online, which tells me that the file is not damaged (at least, not for ArcGIS Explorer Online). I have been able to successfully import other zipped shapefiles into Community Analyst.

File is attached.

Any idea what the problem is?

Thanks,

Allen Risley
Cal State University San Marcos

Alan,

I'll take a look at the attached .zip and see if I can identify the problem there.

Regards,
Jason R.

Re: Problem importing shapefile

Jason_RobinsonRobinson — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 22:46:18 GMT

Hello,

I have a shapefile that I am trying to upload to Community Analyst. It is a polygon file of school districts, the zip file is 1.5MB. When I click on the "Import" button, nothing happens. I am able to successfully import this zipped shapefile into ArcGIS Explorer Online, which tells me that the file is not damaged (at least, not for ArcGIS Explorer Online). I have been able to successfully import other zipped shapefiles into Community Analyst.

File is attached.

Any idea what the problem is?

Thanks,

Allen Risley
Cal State University San Marcos

Allen,

Looks like the issue was due to the amount of polygon vertices as when there are too many this can cause the error you received. Not quite sure what the exact number is but I used the Simply Polygon (ArcEditor/ArcInfo) tool in ArcToolbox to reduce the number of vertices. I tested this simplied version of your shapefile and was able to upload it without any issues. Just an observation but looks like polygons 13-15 are identical.

Regards,
Jason R.

Re: Problem importing shapefile

AllenRisley — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 22:53:32 GMT

Thank you Jason, that did the trick!

It would have been good if an error message had popped up to tell me that. I have had messages come up when the file size is too large or the number of points/polygon is too high. Maybe vertices can get an error message as well?

Thanks again,

Allen

Re: Problem importing shapefile

Jason_RobinsonRobinson — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:02:28 GMT

Thank you Jason, that did the trick!

It would have been good if an error message had popped up to tell me that. I have had messages come up when the file size is too large or the number of points/polygon is too high. Maybe vertices can get an error message as well?

Thanks again,

Allen

Allen,

I completely agree that the Import File tool should provide a message that a particular zipped polygon shapefile cannot be uploaded due to the fact that it exceeds the maximum number of vertices that Community Analyst can handle. Would also be good to add that actual specific number of vertices allowed in the 'Import tips' also. I have gone ahead and submitted an enhancement request: NIM082809 - Add warning message when using the Import File tool to import polygon shapefile that the file will not upload due to exceeding the maximum number of vertices as well as providing the exact number allowed in Import Tips.

Regards,
Jason R.

Re: Problem importing shapefile

AllenRisley — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:53:27 GMT

Back again - I'm having problems again importing Shapefiles into Community Analyst. This time, they are Congressional District boundaries for the State of Colorado. I started with the original boundaries, received the error message:

"Unable to read polygons from shapefile. Invalid data."

I went back and ran the Simplify Polygon tool, since that had worked before. After running this and uploading a new file I still get this error message: "Unable to read polygons from shapefile. Invalid data."

I'm attaching both .zip files - maybe you can help me figure out what's wrong with these?

CO_CGD_112.zip - original boundary file

CO_CGD_112_v4.zip - simplified boundary file.

Thanks in advance!

Allen

Re: Problem importing shapefile

Jason_RobinsonRobinson — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 16:56:11 GMT

Back again - I'm having problems again importing Shapefiles into Community Analyst. This time, they are Congressional District boundaries for the State of Colorado. I started with the original boundaries, received the error message:

"Unable to read polygons from shapefile. Invalid data."

I went back and ran the Simplify Polygon tool, since that had worked before. After running this and uploading a new file I still get this error message: "Unable to read polygons from shapefile. Invalid data."

I'm attaching both .zip files - maybe you can help me figure out what's wrong with these?

CO_CGD_112.zip - original boundary file

CO_CGD_112_v4.zip - simplified boundary file.

Thanks in advance!

Allen

Allen,

I checked out the CO_CGD_112.zip and noticed that the scale is 1:35 so even measuring it it is like .002 miles across roughly so the issue appears to be this data. Are these congressional district polygons?

Regards,
Jason R.

Re: Problem importing shapefile

AllenRisley — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 17:47:37 GMT

They are Congressional District polygons for Colorado. I started with the shapefile "cgd112p020.shp" that I downloaded from NationlAtlas.gov - metadata is here: http://nationalatlas.gov/metadata/cgd112p020.faq.html

I don't know how the scale was set to 1:35. How would this happen?

Re: Problem importing shapefile

Jason_RobinsonRobinson — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:02:14 GMT

They are Congressional District polygons for Colorado. I started with the shapefile "cgd112p020.shp" that I downloaded from NationlAtlas.gov - metadata is here: http://nationalatlas.gov/metadata/cgd112p020.faq.html

I don't know how the scale was set to 1:35. How would this happen?

Allen,

Maybe some projection issue. I can see Albers as the projection in the layer properties. I've gone ahead and attached the congressional districts for Colorado to this post (.zip). You should have better luck with this shapefile.

Regards,
Jason R.

Re: Problem importing shapefile

AllenRisley — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:07:43 GMT

Hi Jason,

I get the same error message when I try to import your file as well: "Unable to read polygons from shapefile. Invalid data."

Are you able to successfully upload it to Community Analyst?

Thanks,

Allen

Re: Problem importing shapefile

AllenRisley — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:40:56 GMT

OK, I took the original U.S. Congressional District file and fixed the projection problem. Then I selected the Colorado districts and exported a shapefile. That file successfully imported to Community Analyst.

I'm concluding that the problem was a projection problem. I think the file you created may have too many vertices - when I overlay it with the full U.S. file that I have, your file is much more detailed.

Thanks for your help!

Allen