Making Shape2Earth Easier

Some recent changes to Shape2Earth for MapWindow has made it even easier to convert shapefiles to KML for viewing in Google Earth. In the past, it was necessary to download MapWindow, and then install Shape2Earth separately as a plugin. The new install package bundles MapWindow Version 4.7.5 with Shape2Earth in a single installation.

Shape2Earth is a very powerful and easy to use system for creating thematic maps for Google Earth using open source GIS.

A new video on YouTube shows you just how easy it is.

Converting KML to Shapefiles

An update to the free and open source KML2Shapefile extension for MapWindow GIS has been posted. There are a number of fixes to and enhancements to make conversion faster and easier.

KML has really taken off as a format for posting geospatial data on the Web. Bringing that data into a GIS offers a lot of analytic options for a great price.

Kml2Shapefile for MapWindow GIS

Kml2Shapefile has been released as an open source KML/KMZ to shapefile converter. It is a plugin for the free MapWindow GIS. It needs a bit more testing. There are a lot of KML files out there.

I was going to provide the option to reproject the data, but decided the the user can do that easy enough in MapWindow after the shapefile has been created.

Kml2Shapefile will split the geometries out of KML into separate shapefiles (points, lines, polygons) and supports Z values and multipoints.

Currently, you can save the following as attributes:

1. Placemark name
2. Placemark snippet
3. Placemark description
4. Description HTML tables (needs more testing)
5. Lat/Long of point data
6. Elevation of point data

The ability to save custom schema's will come later. I thought it was best to get this our for testing.

Shapefiles for Web Mapping

KML is becoming a standard way to display geospatial data on the internet. With all of the really good web mapping platforms available today, you can take your pick on how you would like to show off your GIS data to a large audience.

Shape2Earth can get your GIS data on the web quickly by converting your shapefiles to KML for display in Google Earth, Google Maps, or Bing Maps.

Here is a quick example of showing off GIS data in Google's App Engine platform with Google Earth. It's important to note that this capability is essentially free. Google will host your spatial application. All you have to do is put it together.

Shapefiles in in Google's App Engine (select the Shape2Earth layers on the right).

Shape2Earth Users Guide

Shape2Earth has a much needed Users Guide on line to help get people going converting shapefiles to KML. Shape2Earth is very easy to use, but there is a lot that can be done with it in conjunction with MapWindow, and this guide should help those without a GIS background.

There is still some work to be done on the Guide, but I thought that getting the current information out there was more important than having 100% of the content filled out.

Shape2Earth 2.0 is also under works. It is mostly a redesigned form that takes into account lessons learned from Shape2Earth 1.0 for MapWindow. Shape2Earth 2.0 will still work with MapWindow to take advantage of its advanced GIS capabilities, but will also be able to run independently. The core management and conversion has been moved into Shape2Earth Engine. This will make it much easier for things such as batch converting of shapefiles, and embedding Shape2Earth into other applications

Shape2Earth for MapWindow GIS 4.7 Released

Shape2Earth for MapWindow 4.7 has been released. Shape2Earth is the quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to convert shapefiles into Keyhole Markup Language (KML) for viewing in Google Earth.

This version of Shape2Earth offers a number of improvements, including:

1. Better handling of complex geometries
2. Ability to add custom balloon styles
3. Exporting of selected data, or data in a specific area
4. Sorting of spatial features into KML Folders based on an attribute
5. Higher accuracy on geo-referenced Google Earth image captures

Shape2Earth has been downloaded over 32,000 times in the last 18 months, and has been found to be exceptionally useful and cost effective by local and federal government agencies, as well as industry leaders in a multitude of professional specialties.

Download Shape2Earth and try it on your own data today.

Shapefile to GeoRSS for Google Maps

The most recent version of Shape2Earth includes a functional prototype for converting shapefiles to a GeoRSS format. It currently works with simple lines and points. Attribute data can be selected to be embedded in the GeoRSS feed.

Select the attributes you wish to export to GeoRSS

Attributes can be embedded in the xml, listed as a table, or both

GeoRSS is a very popular format, and is particularly useful for serving data to web mapping applications such as Google Maps.

View the Google Map/GeoRSS sample to see how point GIS data can be viewed.