4 replies to this topic

[haris179]

how can i merge shape files of points, plines and pgons????????????? .

[Hans van der Maarel]

how can i merge shape files of points, plines and pgons????????????? .

Not...

At least not if you want the output to be a shapefile too, as the shapefile specs only support one type of geometry per file.

[Matthew Hampton]

well...

Hans is right - but if you really, really really needed to, you could manipulate the geometry such that they all share the same "type" of geometry. For instance, you could buffer the plines and points to create polygons that share the attribute data and then perform some sort of merge operation.

Depending on what you are doing - it may or not be an appropriate method and 'merge' is a pretty loaded term amongst all the boolean operations.

[BradGISOkla]

how can i merge shape files of points, plines and pgons????????????? .

Actually I believe the new open source tools will write and use multi geometry shape files. you could check out osgeo for an abundant open source list. One I have seen quite a bit of activity on is fwtools.
happy hunting.

[M.Denil]

The entirely natural desire to have points, lines, and polygons (not to mention routes and regions) in the same file is the reason god created coverages. Get thee to an ArcInfo license, haris179.

In these degenerate post-modern times, try creating feature datasets of the related files, and employing relation classes and topologies; both geodatabase and map.

The 'make everything a polygon' solution may work in some cases, but be sure that quick and dirty is the answer you want.