At 08:53 PM 11/2/01 +0100, Uffe Kousgaard wrote:
>Shape files doesn't have a style at all, so what you are referring to is
>whatever Arcview picks by random, when it opens a table. Of course MapInfo
>can't translate that.
(Original message at bottom.)
This used to be true but was changed by ESRI about two years ago in version
3.1 of ArcView. A "shapefile" consists of at least three and as many as
eight files with the same name in the same directory but with different
extensions. The "core" part of the shapefile, consisting of the files with
.shp, .shx, and .dbf extensions, contains only geometric and attribute
information, but no symbol ("style") information, as Kousgaard correctly
attests. (This much of the shapefile format is clearly documented and
"open".) However, the symbol information can be represented in an optional
file with a .avl ("ArcView Legend") extension. This is an ASCII file
containing information about point styles, line styles, fills, point sizes,
line thicknesses, and colors, along with what attribute(s) will be
represented and how their values will be classified into bins. The .avl
format is not documented but is easy to figure out. Colors are given in
RGB and thicknesses in points, but all other styles are indexes into
standard ArcView symbol "palettes." Any software wanting to reproduce the
ArcView symbols would therefore have to recreate its palettes, or some
approximation thereof. It would be possible--and not very difficult--to
write such software, so it's still worth casting an eye about for such a
solution.
--Bill Huber
www.quantdec.com
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Friday, November 02, 2001 8:25 PM
>Subject: MI-L Opening ESRI shape files in MapXtreme and MapInfo Pro 6.0
>
>
> > When I import shape files in MapInfo 6.0 the original line and point
>styles are
> > not translated, you get a standard star for a point no matter what style
>was
> > used in the shape file.
> > I noticed that MapXtreme indicates it can read ArcShape files however MapX
>will
> > not keep any of the original styles of the shape file. I was wondering if
>anyone
> > has a solution for viewing shapes files in MapXtreme without having to
> > translating the shape file to Mapinfo format and manually changing each
>layer to
> > match the orginal shape file styles.
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