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geojsonshapefiletopojson

Shapefile to Topojson conversion


I am trying to convert the Ghana admin1 shapefile that can be found here. My end goal is to obtain a TopoJSON as described in this question. I have used this command on a Linux machine:

ogr2ogr -f GeoJSON GHA_adm1.json GHA_adm1.shp

And it returns this:

Unable to open datasource `GHA_adm1.shp' with the following drivers.
... here goes a long list of drivers...

I am I doing something wrong? Should I install other "drivers"? But how? Thanks.


Solution

  • Download the GIS source

    GADM is the perfect source for administrative GIS files.

    GADM.org > Download page : select your country and format "shapefile" > ok.

    Or via terminal (replace New Ghana code GHA by your target country's iso code):

    # prepare folder
    mkdir -p ./map; cd ./map
    curl http://d3js.org/d3.v3.min.js -O -J
    curl http://d3js.org/topojson.v1.min.js -O -J
    # download data
    curl \
        -L -C - 'http://biogeo.ucdavis.edu/data/gadm2/shp/GHA_adm.zip' \
        -o ./GHA_adm.zip
    unzip -n ./GHA_adm.zip -d ./
    

    shp to topojson

    Use topojson command line, it's more direct. If you want to keep all properties :

     topojson -q 1e4 \
              -o out.json \
              -- in1.shp in2.shp
    

    You can also select attributes from the shapfiles, and rename them on the go :

     topojson \
        --bbox \
        --id-property none \
        -p name=NAME_1 \
        -p code=ID_1 \
        -p L0=NAME_0 \
        -q 1e4 \
        --filter=small \
        -o GHA_adm_w.topo.json \
        -- admin_1=GHA_adm1.shp admin_2=GHA_adm2.shp
    

    For GHA, there is no attribute in the .shp suitable for a good ID. NAME_1 have spaces which will give invalid id within your HTML.

    enter image description here

    Inspect json

    Use http://jsoneditoronline.org . Inspecting your json will give you clues of what data is available, and where (dot notation path). The topojson distillery help to preview any topojson and if the code is correct.

    D3js call

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    <style>
    .L1 {
        fill: #E0E0E0;
        stroke: #FFF;
        stroke-width:1px;
    }
    </style>
    <body>
    <script src="./d3.v3.min.js"></script>
    <script src="./topojson.v1.min.js"></script>
    <script>
    var mapIt = function(width, url){
        console.log("mapIt(): start");
        var height = width/960*500;
        var svg = d3.select('body').append('svg')
            .attr('width', width)
            .attr('height', height);
        var projection = d3.geo.mercator()
              .scale(1)
              .translate([0, 0]);
    
        var path = d3.geo.path()
            .projection(projection);
    
        d3.json(url, function (error, json) {
            var admin_1 = topojson.feature(json, json.objects.admin_1);
    
            /* Autofocus code comes here ! */
    
            svg.selectAll("path")
                .data(admin_1.features)
              .enter().append("path")
                .attr('d', path)
                .attr('class', 'L1');
        });    
    };
    mapIt(960,"http://somesite.org/data/NZL_adm.topo.json");
    </script>
    </body>
    </html>
    

    Focus

    A correct autofocus will need a small bit of code from Mike Bostocks, example here:

    // Compute the bounds of a feature of interest, then derive scale & translate.
    var b = path.bounds(admin_1),
        s = .95 / Math.max((b[1][0] - b[0][0]) / width, (b[1][1] - b[0][1]) / height),
        t = [(width - s * (b[1][0] + b[0][0])) / 2, (height - s * (b[1][1] + b[0][1])) / 2];
    
    // Update the projection to use computed scale & translate.
    projection
        .scale(s)
        .translate(t);
    

    EDIT: Should work now. Live demo: bl.ocks.org