I've written some scripts that allow various levels of usefulness (mainly for UK users it has to be said)
To download scripts, click and save to disk. Then, open a script window in ArcView and do "Load text file". Or, copy and paste them..
If you want the ones that aren't here just now, please email me. Just to sneak this one in before the fun starts, however, the original av/rpc client C bits that disappeared from ESRI's web page some time ago are available here.
Takes two themes - a point and a polygon. Codes up all points according to which polygon they fall into. Great for analysis. Like doing "Select by theme" for every individual polygon. Timesaver! Except, this was one of the first scripts I made - and then I found out about Spatial Joins..
For UK map users (or anyone who wants a grid in meters), this will draw a simple OS grid at the interval you specify on screen, e.g. at 100m, 1000m etc. Also, pads for layouts. Handy! Does it properly (i.e. 1000 intervals at 100000, 101000, 102000 etc - not like the ESRI version that does your extent wherever you are)
You have OS Landline drawn on your screen - why trace round a property in order to digitise it? Simply highlight the arcs in Landline, click a button and, hey - presto! A polygon appears that can be pasted into your editing theme. This doesn't have to be used on Landline - any arc theme will work as long as the line ends match. If the line ends don't match (and you've only selected one line), you can now attempt to 'auto-close'.
Want to get a quick area/length from a bit on screen? Why not draw round it and press a button to get a report? Works with polygons, rectangles, lines and circles. Saves having to digitise to a theme and then populate area and length fields. UPDATED 9/4/98
You type in an Ordnance Survey (UK) OS Grid reference, e.g. NH-1234-5678 and it translates and goes to. Quick for folks who don't translate. (This is available on the how
Adapted from the one on the ESRI page. Can be turned on/off from the menu. When you pan around Landline, this negates the area of interest button as it re-AOIs according to the area you're looking at. Warns that some library themes have no high-scale cutoff.
Ever have one of those shapefiles where polygons that should be one entity are split, and thus have multiple entries in the table? No more - simply tell it the unique field name and all polygons that are split are combined. Useful when your data came via another program that didn't combine entities.
NB: while this will pretend to work with point files, you shouldn't use it with them as a point cannot be chained to another (unless the entire shapefile is multipoint). If you want to AutoUnion on points, use the summary feature.
Means you can export a shapefile and attributes to an X/Y/atts text file. Handy when you don't want to have to edit the theme and populate an X/Y field yourself or if you can't modify the file to insert the co-ordinate fields.
For anyone who has to support easily-bored/lost users, why have them navigating all over the network trying to find the themes they need? Install this extension and tweak the .ini file and you get a tiny window that pops up and categorises stuff. They pick the theme off the list and click a button and it appears on their view all symbolized (if you wish) and named perfectly. Time-saver! Needs either the dialog designer installed or the run-time libraries.
To get round a bug in AV3.1 and generally to work faster, here's a small extension that will actually load the tiles in an image catalogue (load it as a table instead of a theme) directly into the view. Supports TOC placement.
The Random number generator in AV isn't that random. If you look for 1000 numbers between 1 and 3 inclusive, you'll notice that it heavily favours 2. This DLL plus AV script makes choosing random numbers a much more random affair.
Converting UK AddressPoint from NTF using ESRIs Map Manager is a bit slow. First, you need to process the individual tiles and then append them all into one file. Not any more. Get this ZIP file that contains a batch file and a couple of support programs and now you can convert an entire NTF CD into one NTF file that can be run through Map Manager. Saves appending or unnecessary work. Before, one CD per hour. Now, one CD in 3 mins.
Change the paths within the adpntf.cmd before you run it.
The following aren't scripts - they're standalone programs for Windows 95 or NT.
This program will convert UK Ordnance Survey Landform Panorama DTM data (in NTF format) to a text file you can add as an event theme. It's not pretty, just does the job and shuts up. Now does batches, conversion to Grid and from Grid to TIN. Minimal effort...
Oh, and if you tick the 'VistaPro' box, it will generate a file you can convert to a VistaPro DEM. Instructions are 'in the box'.
Update: 21/6/99. Right. Now I've tried this on demo polylineZ, pointZ, polygonZ and multipatch files. They check out OK, though the globe (polygonz) included in 3D analyst is odd. It has a content length of 118 for the first polygon, but if you do the maths, it should be 116. Four bytes at the end of the each record are useless, but because content-length steers away from them they are no problem. I'd still be VERY interested to know why shapefiles exist like this though. Anyway, the checker handles this now. Please give this a go (in /debug mode) on backups of your Z/M/Multipatch files and let me know what happens. Thanks. Also, why not take a look at a very strange shapefile (3kb zipped) and see just how screwed up, but legal these things can be.
Update: 12/7/99. Broke a bit in multipoints with counting content length. Fixed it.
"Number of shapes does not match number of table records"? Look familiar?
As long as your .shp is in order, this program will re-generate your .shx which is the shapefile index (not the spatial index). Also, if you have too many or too few records in the dbf, it will add or delete records to match the shapefile. Thus, you can completely fix this problem automatically..
If your dbf file is completely missing, then this will generate a new one with unique ids so that at least you can keep your spatial data.
If you have a broken shapefile, please take a note of the size and ask me if you can send it to me. I'm interested in developing this and want to get it to fix as much as possible. I'm fed up having to recreate shapefiles that are being worked on or having to go to most recent backups when there's usually just a small problem.
At the moment, it will also recover shapes up to the point of premature file end. It also now handles premature end (before data begins) in the dBase file as well giving the option to delete and recreate.
It will also detect 'garbage' information in the .shp and let you know how many bytes you could save if AV regenerated it. On some shapefiles, this can be a siginficant saving. (6k on globe.shp in the 3D Analyst examples)
Run this on a copy of your damaged .shp/dbf. That way, you've still got the original broken one if this can't fix it. Which is nice...
The older non-3D/m/Z version is available here.
Any thoughts on how to improve this? Let me know...
Got a database with point information in UK OS national grid format? Try using this to convert them. I won't bore you with the details, but basically there are two demo files included in the zip file. As pointers, experiment by right-clicking on the 'Original text column seperator' part (the text, not the box) and once you've loaded your file in, right click on the columns to seperate them out. It loads in a few lines as a sample (don't export field headers - it doesn't use them). You mark the columns you want to export and give them field names in AV with the right mouse button. It can handle seperate fields for the Grid Ref (ie, NH in one field, 123 in the other and 456 in another) or all combined into one (eg, NH123456). Does all the work for you.
Give it a try and let me know if you can get it to do something useful. It comes in really useful here.
Takes AddressPoint held in Access using ODBC. You type in a postcode or use wildcards to find an address, click a button and it appears in ArcView. Much quicker than using AV for such queries. Written with Delphi3.
I wrote this in Delphi. It matches ANY existing database to OS AddressPoint. It knows how clever it is. You teach it how to work on-screen using a 'rule-painter' and it runs through the file battering away. Codes hundreds of addresses a minute. I've never found the Geocoding in AV to be of any use to UK users, so this plugs the gap (more than!)..
It can handle multiple parts in one field, e.g. "20 Smith Street, London" in one field. You teach it how to get smart. Works a treat, but I haven't written any instructions on how to set it up (yet). Also, I might be interested in selling this one, so if you have any database you want to match to AddressPoint then contact me for details. Delphi3 again.
That's it at the moment. All this stuff is FREE for any use... although if you want to send me any gifts / money / computers / motorbikes parts (ZX9RC1 please) / cars / holidays / caribbean islands (registered post only please), then I wouldn't insult you by returning them ;-)
However, the downside is that you (the 'user') assumes all responsibility for using everything I've done here. In other words, if something breaks and you decide it's my fault - then it isn't. It's yours. Your downloading assumes you are happy with that agreement. Suits you Sir!
