MapInfoer's I understand that this is not the forum for new product promotion but in this case I feel that it may help the specific issue. In MapInfo Professional 7.0, we have implemented three new features that can address some of the issues here.
1. In Universal Translator, if a projection file ([filename.prj) is provided with the shape file, there is now an option to auto-detect the projection during translation. 2. In MapInfo Professional 7.0 there is a new option in the File Open dialog to open Shape files as read only directly - no translation (the option of save as TAB is still there). 3. The newly added preferences for styles in MapInfo Pro 7.0 helps a great deal in this area - the user can now set his/her preferred default styles for points, lines/polylines, polygons and text objects. During Data creation as well as opening none native files such as Shape files. The objects will inherit styles from this default styles. While this is not duplicating the styles stored in AVL and other places such as project files, it can assist in applying some style standards to these files. If you wish, you can download the BETA version of MIPro 7.0 (which has the functionality 2 and 3) from www.mapinfo.com/mipro_beta ______________________________ Moshe Binyamin, Product Manager MapInfo Corporation www.mapinfo.com Ph: (518) 285-7237 Cell: (518) 365-5915 eMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] At 12:22 PM 3/20/02 -0500, jelena puzic wrote: >Does anyone know how to translate ArcView 3.x shp files into MapInfo so >that the original ArcView coloured polygons retain their colour on >translation? Is it possible to somehow export the ArcView colour palette used? Shape files do not contain any color information. Sometimes, an ArcView user will create an "AVL" (ArcView Legend) file to accompany the shape file. This is a text file describing how ArcView classifies the data and how each data class is to be symbolized. It is fairly complex because it is designed to handle all kinds of legends, including charts, pie charts, dot legends, and so on. Although its structure is not documented, it's not hard to figure it out if you know the ArcView object model. In principle an AVL file could be read by a MapBasic program (or some other program) but the return on one's programming time would not be very high. In almost any case it would be far easier to recreate the symbols manually. Another option would be to write an ArcView script to output the color and class information in an easy-to-parse format and a corresponding MapBasic program to read that info back in. If some solution does not already exist, I would be happy to collaborate with anyone who wants to write the MapBasic portion of such a legend importer. --Bill Huber www.quantdec.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
