Loading shapefiles into Oracle Spatial

Question

Fellow Oracle Spatiallers!
Currently we edit Oracle Spatial data by checking data out into a shapefile,
making our changes off-line, and reloading the shapefile back into Oracle.
Instead of using the Oracle Spatial supplied tool, we decided to purchase
a utility called the "Spatial Loader" from a company called Geometry Pty Ltd
(http://www.geometryit.com). There are a number of reasons why we decided to
go that way which might become evident from the command line parameters of
this utility:
Usage: Shp2Spt [Arguments] [Options]
OR
Usage: Java com.geometryit.spatialloader.oracle.AdvancedJavaSpatialTranslator [Arguments] [Options]
[Arguments] must specify these values:
-o create
type of operation to perform
create creates a new table, must not exist already
recreate creates a new table, may exist already
init drops existing table, creates a new one
append appends data onto existing table
-f <shape_file>
the shape file or project to translate
-l <table,column>
target table and column for the geometry data
-D <database>
target database name
-u <username>
username for RDBMS
-p <password>
password for RDBMS
[Options] values are not necessarily required:
-s <server_name>
name of server with database
-port <port_number>
the port to connect to on the server
-ufi <column_name>
specify the name of the UFI field (unique ID)
-seq <sequence_name>
specify the sequence to use for the spatial data unique IDs
-a none
attributes mode
none no attributes will be transferred
all all attribtues will be transfered as found
file= file containing lines of the form:
<shape_attribute><space/tab><rdbms_column>
where
<shape_attribute> selects the column to be output
<rdbms_column> name of the column in RDBMS
-srid <id>
specify the Spatial Reference ID for the spatial data
(this must be set to use Spatial Reference Transformations)
-i [<level>] or -i rtree
create an index for the generated table
the <level> parameter is an optional integer
representing the depth of the quadtree created
if rtree is specified, the index created will be
an rtree
-c <commit_interval>
number of rows to commit after
-t <tolerance>
tolerance value for metadata
-r none
used to determine number of decimal places to round vertices to
if you use the tolerance-parameter option, specify the -t parameter before -r
-igc
ignore geometry collections
-sgc
split geometry collections
-sgd f
split geometry direction [forward | reverse]
-update-metadata <true/false>
update the Oracle Spatial Metadata table after loading data
-validate <true/false>
perform Oracle Spatial validation after loading data
-v
verbose mode on
-h or -?
display this help message
The main things I like about this tool are:
1. One step (no conversion to sqlloader form followed by a call to the sqlloader).
2. The ability to round the coordinates of the shapes in the shapefile by applying
the XY tolerance values held in the SDO_GEOM_METADATA table.
This is quite important because our editing package - due to double/single precision
issues - can actually move coordinates but those movements are sub the precision of
the actual data. By rounding to the nominate precision we can detect situations where
no actual change to the shape (and its attributes) was made and thus not create superfluous
revisions within the database.
3. It will correctly re-wind the coordinates of the outer/inner shells of polygons. This is
important as ESRI shapefiles are agnostic on the winding order: an outer shell coordinates
can be listed in either clockwise or anti-clockwise order.
4. You can specify the primary key (UFI) column (numeric) and an Oracle Sequence number such
that each new shape loaded can have its UFI assigned from that sequence.
Because of this flexibility, and the excellent support (it is a purchasable product) from the
developers, I can heartily recommend this loader to fellow Spatiallers. It is worth every
penny I spent on it. Try the free version on their website and if, like me, you like it,
purchase it!
regards
Simon

Answer 1

Hi Shuan,
As part of the zip file created for the next training course to be posted for Oracle Spatial on OTN (within the next few weeks) there is a free (unsupported, undocumented) version of a shape to sdo converter. This should work, but it is unsupported. It will create a layer that then needs to be migrated into 8.1.6 format.
If you need it quite soon send email to [email protected] and I can get it to you.
Hope this helps,
dan