HDMapper ShapeMaker

Q: How can I add customized shapefile information for police precincts, fire districts, roads, and town locations to my TAP coverage plots?

A: With TAP6.0.2174 or later and a Maintenance Subscription date of June 30, 2007, or later, you can use the ShapeMaker function to create new shapefiles or append to an existing file.

With TAP6.0.2224 or later and a Maintenance Subscription date of February 28, 2008, or later, you can use the ShapeMaker function to draw a circle or a square centered on a location.

Note that all values in this example are for demonstration purposes only. You should determine appropriate settings for your application.

The mapping function in the Terrain Analysis Package (TAP)™ software, HDMapper, uses standard ESRI shapefiles for all of the map layers. Because this format is widely used in a variety of industries, you may be able to find the shapefile information you need. Other departments, if you are in a large organization, may use compatible software, or you may be able to find useful shapefiles on the internet, either free or for purchase. (You can add any file in the standard Shapefile format based on latitude-longitude coordinates.) SoftWright offers street shapefiles for the US.

If you need to create your own shapefiles, the ShapeMaker function enables you to define objects (polygons, such as county boundaries; lines, such as roads; points, such as reference coordinates). The objects can then be written to a shapefile which can be used like any other shapefile in TAP or other compatible software

For example, suppose you want to create a closed polygon object to represent a target coverage area. Select the POLYGON option and click the Continue button.

You will be prompted for a shapefile to use. The shape you create will be added to the file you select, or a new file will be created:

Each shapefile is treated as a separate layer on the map. This may be important as you create new objects. All the objects you put into a single shapefile will be displayed anytime you load that shapefile. If you want to be able to add objects separately, you can put them into separate shapefiles, which can be added separately. In addition, all the objects on a layer will have the same properties (color, line width, polygon fill, etc). If you want to be able to assign different colors to objects, the objects should be put into separate shapefiles.

It is strongly recommended that you create new shapefiles for your custom objects instead of adding new objects to shapefiles you have obtained from SoftWright or other sources. If you feel it is necessary to add new objects to one of these files it is strongly recommended that you make a backup of the files (.SHP, .SHX, .DBF, and possible other extents sharing the same file name) before adding new objects. The files created by ShapeMaker contain only the basic information. Other existing files with more complex indexing or database components may be incompatible with ShapeMaker. Attempting to add ShapeMaker objects to such files may corrupt the files and make them unusable.

Also note that only one type of object (polygon, line or point) may be included in a shapefile. If you select an existing file that contains a different object type (for example, a file containing line objects, when you are creating a polygon object), a warning message will be displayed and the ShapeMaker process will be abandoned.

When you have specified the file name you want to use, click the Save button. A form will be displayed for the points to define the object (in this case, a polygon).

You can define points by clicking on the map, or by entering coordinates manually on the “Polygon Points” form.

When you want to close the polygon (by definition, polygons must be closed objects), click the right mouse button:

The location you click with the right button to close the polygon is not added, so it is not critical where that click is made.

Note that the last point (added automatically with the right-click) is the same as the first point, closing the polygon.

If you want to add more points to the polygon, select the last point on the list, then press the Delete key on your keyboard:

(Any point in the list can be deleted this way, by selecting the row, then pressing the Delete key.)

You can add points manually using the bottom row (the one with the asterisk, “*”, in the selection button on the left of the row). When you start typing in that row, a new row is added:

When you have entered the desired coordinates, click the pencil icon to accept the changes. The new row will be added to the list, and the new point added to the polygon object:

If you want to insert a point in the list, select a row and click the Insert button.

A new row will be inserted before the selected row, with the coordinate values duplicated:

You can edit those values to the desired coordinates, then click the pencil icon to save the record. The change is recorded to the list and drawn on the map:

The object shown on the map is made of temporary graphic lines, and moving other windows or forms over the HDMapper form may cause the lines to disappear and not be automatically refreshed. To refresh the lines on the map, click the Refresh button:

If you are entering coordinates manually and want to close the polygon, click the Close Polygon button to create a new ending record with the same coordinates as the first point:

When you want to save the object to the shapefile you selected, click the Save button:

You will be prompted for a description of the object. This is used to identify the object when the shapefile is used in a map:

(This description is used for polygon and line objects. If you are creating point objects, a description can be added for each point location as shown below.)

The object will be saved and the new shapefile will be added to the map as a new layer.

The properties of the new shapefile layer can be changed as with other layers in HDMapper:

You can create line objects in the same way (by selecting Line as the object type:

The main difference between lines and polygons is that lines are not “closed.”

Note that the point type objects include the ability to enter a description for each point. (Polygons and lines are considered as objects consisting of multiple points, so the entire object is given a description instead of each point.)

The HDMapper label function can be used to label the points with the descriptions entered.