Working with Shapefiles

Nearly a standard are the well-known ESRI-Shapefiles that consist of -at least - a .dbf-File, a .shp-File and a .shx-File.

These files mostly have already a topology.

If you have installed postgresql a tool called “shp2pgsql” will exist on your computer. You can transform your data into the sql-format doing:

shp2pgsql /home/mydata/roads.shp newtable >/home/mydata/roads.sql“

For test-purposes you can take data from British Columbia (nrn_rrn_bc_shp_en.zip). You get it from the GeoBase “National Road Network” dataset.

Please be aware: Don`t use OpenStreetMap-Shapefiles, as thew will create some problems because of their structure.

That sql-file that was created by shp2pgsql you need to bring in your routing-database.