Patch Analyst Hexagon Regions failed

[KristinaHick]

Hi al,

I am trying to use the Patch Analyst ArcGIS extension to create a hexagonal grid over my polygon shapefile which contains vegetation data. I am using the "Create Hexagonal Regions" function but I keep getting an error message "cannot open input .shp file". I initially was attempting this on a file that was in a geodatabase but I also tried it on the file exported on it's own at a shapefile. I was able to complete the hexagonal grid on a shapefile that was just the boundary of my region of interest, but it's coordinate system was undefined and so it wasn't layered over my boundary region. I also wasn't able to project it into the proper coordinate system. I'm using the Canada Albers Equal Area Conic coordinate system. I've had no problems using spatial statistics functions in Patch Analyst.

This is my first time using Patch Analyst so thanks for your help!

[DanPatterson_Retired]

if the file didn't have a defined projection then you will  have to determine what it is and not what you want it to be.

If it was initially a geographic one (ie perhaps a GCS NAD83) define it as such using the Define Projection tool, before using the Project tool

[KristinaHick]

Thanks for your help. However, even when I define the projection and project it to the proper projection, my hexagonal grid is still not layering over my initial shapefile.

The bigger problem I'm having is the error (cannot open input .shp file) message when I try to apply the hexagonal grid to my vegetation shape file. Any thoughts?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

something is amiss with the coordinate systems of one or both.  You can only resolve that by examining the extents of each file and see if they make sense with what is defined.

cannot open input shp means something is wrong with the file.  try opening from a new location and/or into a new project.  If it doesn't load, then it never will

Since the Patch Analyst is not an esri product, you will have to consult the author and see if they are still supporting the product and whether your current version of arcmap is supported.