I am completely new to GIS and I had hopefully a simple question regarding how to reduce the file size of my shapefile and associated database file. The files sizes are:
- Shapefile (.shp file format) is 50 mb
- Database (.dbf file format) is 50 mb
The attribute table information I have is:
- 12 fields
- length averaging 10-20 with precision averaging 0-1
- In total there is 417960 lines in the attribute table for each one of the 12 fields
With my data I also have a .prj file and .shx file. I have been trying to use QGIS 2.18.13 with GRASS 7.2.1 to convert the files into KML and also to change into NTD83 for use in IHS Accumap.
When I try to import the files into Google Earth the error message states there is over 2500 layers and even when viewing in restricted view it slows and crashes Google Earth. And IHS Accumap is very slow as well.
Best Answer
It could be something in your system set up or the steps you are following to convert shp to kml. I converted a 152mb of all USA counties shapefile with QGIS and loaded in Google Earth without any problems. My shapefile has about 3200 features (each of these show up as a layer in Google Earth).
Maybe the number of features is the issue, since my file has a smaller number - but probably not the overall size of your file. Can you try to convert a small subset of the features in your shapefile and see if you are able to get to the result you are after?
In case you are going about in a different way, I create the kml file by right clicking on the layer in QGIS and do a saveas