A while back, I posted on the Shape Checker utility, a program that can supposedly fix damaged shapefiles. I say “supposedly” only because I haven’t been able to check it out myself, fortunately never having had that problem, but Simon Jackson in the comments says he’s used it several times successfully. I’ve found another similar tool, the Shapefile Repair Tool. It claims it will:
- Read and validate SHP and DBF files.
- Retain null shapes.
- Fix misnumbered and out of sequence SHP records.
- Correct invalid shape types.
- Correct a DBF record count mismatch is by either padding the DBF file or truncating extraneous records.
- Write a new shapefile, and a log file to document the changes.
Two caveats on my end. First off, it requires .Net 1.1 to install and run, and Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decided that Windows Vista would not support .Net 1.1. applications. So you’ll have to install it on a Windows XP system, or do without. Second, while I can vouch for the fact that it installs successfully on a Windows XP system …
…I still don’t have a bad shapefile to test it with! If you try it, and it works for you, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!
Other posts in the GIS Tools series
- Converting E00 Vector Data To Shapefiles - A Free And Fairly Painless Approach
- Simplifying Line And Polygon Shapefiles
- Converting US Census TIGER Data Into Shapefiles For Free
- Converting Shapefiles and ArcINFO Coverages To AutoCAD DXF Format
- Converting Point Shapefiles To Text/Spreadsheet Format
- Converting Text/Spreadsheet Files To Point Shapefile Format
- An Easier Way To Convert Shapefiles to Text/Spreadsheet Format
- Converting Text/Spreadsheet Data To Line/Area Shapefiles
- Full Resolution Raster Map Combining, Subsetting And Export With The TatukGIS Viewer
- Viewing Vector Data In The TatukGIS Viewer
- The LizardTech Stand-Alone MRSID Viewer
- Converting Raster Area Images Into Polygon Shapefiles
- SAGA GIS 2.0 Released
- ILWIS GIS Is Now Open Source
- AVHRR Analysis Add-On For ILWIS
- Advanced Image Mosaicking With Regeemy
- A Free GIS Viewer (And Cheap GIS Editor) For Windows Mobile Systems
- Updates For MapWindow And Saga GIS Programs
- Updates For Two Open-Source GIS Programs
- Putting Together A Basic Linux GIS Workstation
- Free Online Courses For Open Source GIS
- GIS-Oriented Linux Distributions
- Tabular Terrain Elevation Data
- Quick Data Gridding With QuikGrid
- A Good Introduction To Geospatial Data Analysis
- Converting Digital Elevation Models To Shapefile/DXF Contours
- Fixing "Broken" Shapefiles
- A Simple DBF Editor
- Two Online Vector GIS/GPS/KML Conversion Utilities
- Another Shapefile Repair Tool
- Quantum GIS (qGIS) Version 0.10 Released
- Online Raster Map Georeferencing/Registration With Map Rectifier
- Using The Demo Version Of Global Mapper As A Raster/Vector Data Viewer
- New Stable Release Of MapWindow GIS
- The Big List Of Free Metadata Software I
- The Big List Of Free Metadata Software II
- GIS On A Stick
thankfully have’nt had to resort to the tool for awhile now, but it has saved me in the past. Just have a check of your “repaired” shp to ensure theres the correct # of features.