convert KML file into shape file or CSV file
rusers.sh wrote:
Hi all, Does anybody know how to import a KML file in R and them save it as a shape or CSV file. Take the following KML file as an example, http://www.nature.com/nature/googleearth/avianflu1.kml I have tried several extentions of ARCGIS,e.g.KML2Shape,KMLCSVConverter,KMLCSVConverter and XToolsPro, but unfortunately failed to do that. I didnot find a method to solve it in R. If this cannot be done in R, i'd like to see your alternative method to do that. Any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
The way to do it in R is with the rgdal library (install.packages("rgdal")
-- psuedo code --
library(rgdal)
readOGR("pathtofile",layer.kml)
writeOGR("pathtooutput",driver="ESRI Shapefile",layer=output.shp)
-- end of fake code example --
but if you have the rgdal library that means you also have GDAL/OGR
installed and could just us the command line on your system:
ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" nameof.shp file.kml
In this particular case, I tried with the file you linked. Turns out
it's not a valid KML file, at least according to OGC standards.
After failing to get any of my GIS tools to read it I checked it using
http://kmlvalidator.com/home.htm
It returns several Errors.
There's a good chance the file still works in Google Earth but nothing
else seems to be able to figure it out.
Alex