Use the Import Polylines Dialog to specify which attributes from the shapefile are used for the label, description, and type fields in the imported objects.
Each attribute from the shapefile is listed, and the value of that attribute for the first object in the shapefile is listed in parenthesis.
Convert To
Select whether the polylines should be converted to shapes or tracks.
Attributes
- Label
- Select an attribute from the shapefile to be used as a label.
- Description
- Select an attribute from the shapefile to be used as a description.
- Type
- Select an attribute from the shapefile to be used as the shape or track type.
- Type Prefix
- Enter a phrase which describes the categories of objects contained in the file. The type name that ExpertGPS generates for each object will consist of the Type Prefix, followed by the value of the Type attribute. In the example above, the type would be "Road - Class 5".
Extent
The upper right and lower left bounds of the polyline data is displayed. ExpertGPS automatically determines whether the data is in an X,Y grid or in latitude,longitude format and displays appropriate coordinate formats below.
Coordinate Format
Select the coordinate format that was used when creating the shapefile. ExpertGPS will use the coordinate format you select as the default coordinate format.
Tip
- Shapefiles often use cryptic digits or letters to classify objects. The shapefile used as an example
above uses a single digit in the CLASS attribute to encode the following Massachusetts Highway Department road types:
1 - Limited Access Highway
2 - Multi-lane Highway
3 - Other Numbered Route
4 - Major Road
5 - Minor Street
If this file was imported into ExpertGPS, the imported shapes would have meaningless types "1", "2", "3", "4", "5".
To give the shapes more meaningful types, add a Type Prefix, like "Road - Class".
This will produce the following types: "Road - Class 1", "Road - Class 2", "Road - Class 3", "Road - Class 4", "Road - Class 5"
If the end users of this GPX file are not familiar with the road classification system used, you should later use the Edit Shapes command to rename "Road - Class 1" to "Highway", and update the other shapes accordingly.
