Note: See this series of posts for info on converting shapefiles to KML format.
In two previous posts, I covered several multi-step hacks for converting Google Earth KML files to shapefile format, since there wasn’t a single-step free approach to my knowledge. Well, there is now, and it makes the process a lot easier.
kml2shp comes in zipped format with no install - just unzip it and the associated .bpl files into the folder of your choice. If you get an error message stating that you’re missing a .bpl file, you can download them at this page. You can put the bpl files either into the same folder as the program, or you can put them into a common search path folder like Windows\system32. Run the program, and open the KML file of your choice:
The shapes will be displayed in the window; for comparison, here’s the original KML file display in Google Earth:
Click on the Export SHP button at the top, and get this screen:
For coordinate systems, you have the choice of sticking with Google Earth’s native lat/long or converting to UTM, and there’s a long list of available datums to use. You’ll have to export points, paths, and polygons separately. Click on the disk icon in the lower right to specify the file path and name; while the path and name are displayed in the text box at left, you can’t specify or modify them there. Click on Accept, and the shapefile (.shp, .shx and .dbf files) will be created. The name associated with the KML feature will be exported into the DBF file, under the field “NAME”. Here’s a plot of all three shapefiles from MapWindow, using the NAME field to label them:
The program also has the option to convert KML files to DXF and GPX format, but it doesn’t preserve the name associated with the KML shapes. For KML to DXF, the other option I’ve posted about doesn’t preserve the name either, so this is a more convenient method. But for GPX, you’re better off using some of the other programs described in earlier posts that do preserve the name.
Other posts in the KML To Shapefile Conversion series
- Converting Google Earth KML Files To Shapefile Format
- Another Way To Convert Google Earth KML Files To Shapefiles
- The Last Word (For Now) On Converting Google Earth KML Files To Shapefiles
what about other properities of my kml file? i mean html from markers infowindow that could be a set of values. is it possible to transfrom shp with many columns to kml with markups including values from my table?
As of right now, kml2shp doesn’t import any other data from the kml file to the shapefile attribute data table except for the name. I suspect there’s too many ways to enter data in a KML file to make such a converter practical.
Several of the shapefile to KML converters I’ve blogged about have the ability to export attribute data along with the coordinates to the final KML file.
Hi Leszek
Thanks again for a wonderful tip. I used the tool and it worked quite fine for me.
Cheers
Askan.
THANK YOU, GREAT ADVISE, GREAT TOOL, SLIM, SIMPLE, AND TO THE POINT!!!!!!!
EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR.
Cool tool if all you need are point locations, but not very useful otherwise if you need any kind of attributes. If google can read the attributes correctly, why can’t a conversion do this?
Lovely, only tested it and it seems to work quite well and very user friendly.
Hello, I’m hving a bit of trouble using this application.
Whenever I open the kml file in the klm2shp main window it shows a view of the extent that’s zoomed way in only one feature (I can only see a small section of a boundary line from a file containing polygons for 89 parks).
I see no way to zoom out to the full extent that would show all the features, so when I convert to shp. it only converts the one line I was viewing before (althugh it keeps atribute data for al 89 features).
Help anyone?
Thanks.