Creating a vector dataset from a Shapefile

You can easily create vector dataset layers by uploading shapefile data to the platform.

An important point to note is that a Shapefile consists of more than just the a single SHP file. At a minimum, you will need to upload:

* The SHP file

* The DBF file

* The SHX file

There may also be additional files present in your Shapefile dataset (prj, sbn, sbx, and cpg files are also commonly used). Make sure that you upload all of the files in a shapefile dataset to get a successful processing result. The files that are associated with a shapefile dataset will have the same base filename (e.g. myfile.shp, myfile.shx, myfile.dbf, etc).

If there are attributes associated with the Shapefile, then these will be extracted and will be made available through the Dataset Query tool when using the viewer.

Creating a new Shapefile vector layer

From either the Company Dataset Manager, or the Project Datasets panel (if adding directly to a point cloud), choose the New Dataset option, then choose Vector Data as the type of the new dataset.

Once you select Vector Data, additional file upload options will become available. Use either the Add Files or Add Folder option to upload all of the files for your Shapefile dataset. IExample below.

Now specify the coordinate system of the Shapefile data - you can normally just choose "The SRS is specified in the uploaded files" for Shapefiles if the PRJ file is supplied, but you can override this with one of the other options if needed.

Click the Create button to create the new vector layer. This will generally only take a few moments, and you will receive an email notification to tell you that your new dataset is ready. You can then preview the data in the Dataset Manager and/or attach the new layer as a dataset on an existing point cloud. You can also edit the default display style for the layer as described in this article