Elevation shapefile different than normal shapefile?
global_whater?
Global Mapper User
I have been banging my head against a wall trying to get my elevation data to work right. Any suggestions?
First I started off with lidar data of an area. I took a piece of that and created contour lines in global mapper and saved that as a shapefile. Secondly I had a .dwg file that was unprojected but the appropriate scale. I loaded the two files and dragged the dwg to the correct location. They are slightly different elevation pieces with the dwg being proposed changes of elevation in the future. The dwg does have the elevation in its metadata.
So then next I manually split and deleted the lidar contour data at the location of where these overlapped each other. The final result was the lidar contour data now is surrounding the new dwg contour data with no overlap. I now saved this as a new single shapefile.
At this point I tried to open a preview of this file in ArcCatalog and it wouldn't show it geographically but it showed it to me as a table. So then I took the polyline section of the .dwg file and turned that into a shapefile before processing the data and then did the same steps as above. Now this file will show up in ArcCatalog but my program still does not read the .dwg information as contour data.
Am I doing something wrong or is there something inherently different with contour lines than normal lines, and if so how do I convert normal lines to a contour format? Thanks.
First I started off with lidar data of an area. I took a piece of that and created contour lines in global mapper and saved that as a shapefile. Secondly I had a .dwg file that was unprojected but the appropriate scale. I loaded the two files and dragged the dwg to the correct location. They are slightly different elevation pieces with the dwg being proposed changes of elevation in the future. The dwg does have the elevation in its metadata.
So then next I manually split and deleted the lidar contour data at the location of where these overlapped each other. The final result was the lidar contour data now is surrounding the new dwg contour data with no overlap. I now saved this as a new single shapefile.
At this point I tried to open a preview of this file in ArcCatalog and it wouldn't show it geographically but it showed it to me as a table. So then I took the polyline section of the .dwg file and turned that into a shapefile before processing the data and then did the same steps as above. Now this file will show up in ArcCatalog but my program still does not read the .dwg information as contour data.
Am I doing something wrong or is there something inherently different with contour lines than normal lines, and if so how do I convert normal lines to a contour format? Thanks.
Comments
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The Shapefile format doesn't have anything to identify something specifically as contours. However, if you check the box to 'Generate 3D Features' when doing your Shapefile export and your data has elevations (like contours would), you'll get 3D lines in your Shapefile. Perhaps that is the trick to get them treated as contours in ArcCatalog?
For your original file with everything in it, can you load it back into Global Mapper and have it display correctly? If so, perhaps there is some issue with the file size or something in ArcCatalog, or perhaps you have to stand on one leg and spin in a circle to load it in ArcCatalog?
Thanks,
Mike
Global Mapper Support
support@globalmappersoftware.com -
Thanks for the reply. It's not a file size issue and at this point it's not an ArcCatalog issue. I think that there must be some kind of problem with the program that I am trying to get this elevation in. At least I know that shapefiles are what I thought they were.
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