| Title: | Importing Google Earth Data into ArcView 9.2 |
| Authors: | Jason Parent, University of Connecticut |
| Date/Time: | Tuesday, September 23 ~ 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
| Abstract: | Google Earth is a free software package that allows users to view the latest available satellite imagery and GIS layers for any location in the world. The software also allows users to digitize polygon, line, and point features which can be exported as a KML file. These digitized features tend to be of limited use to GIS users since KML files cannot be directly read by a GIS. Tools do exist that convert KML files to ESRI shapefiles. However, the tools we have come across tend to be either non-intuitive, designed for the older versions of ArcView, or require the purchase of an ArcGIS extension. We present a tool, for ArcView 9.2, that allows GIS users to easily convert KML files to shapefiles. The tool is a Python script that converts a KML file to one or more shapefiles (depending on the feature types present) while retaining the attribute information of the features. The script has been imported into an ArcToolbox to make it easier to use in ArcGIS. We also present a technique that facilitates geo-registering of Google Earth screen captures for use in a GIS. Registration of the screen captures makes them useful as reference data in a GIS. |
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