Shape File Usage - Open Source Mapping

Shape Files
Shape Files, more accurately, ESRI Shape files is a GIS format is storing geographical data as shapes (points, lines, polygons, etc). In addition to ESRI's ArcView products many commercial programs will accept this format.

Shape File to KML
For this project, I want to convert all data to the KML file format. I have been using the translator program ogr2ogr.

Typical Sequence

Down load the shape file from the ATC
Unpack the tar file into its own directory. The shape file package actually contains multiple files, in addition to the "*.shp" file itself.

Run the ogr2ogr or other translator program. In this example the command would be

ogr2ogr -f KML at_centerline.kml at_centerline.shp
-f KML	KML is to be the output format
at_centerline.kml	This is the output file
at_centerline.shp	This is the input file

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