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I have several line text-files of (used in GMT) saved in the format (this is a small sample):

-111.29 42.28
-111.29 42.31
-111.29 42.33
>
-111.37 41.99
-111.38 42.02

I am trying to convert this to a Shapefile to use in QGIS. I know people convert from shp to GMT with ogr2ogr can you do this in reverse GMT to Shp? I tried using ogr2ogr and had no luck. Maybe I did something wrong or it is not possible with that tool.

I have tried to import this format in QGIS via the delimited text layer tool, but can only figure out how to get points when I need lines.

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  • Did you try : ogr2ogr -f "GMT" file.gmt file.shp ?
    – Pierma
    Commented May 23, 2016 at 22:15
  • I tried ogr2ogr -f ""ESRI Shapefile" thrusts.shp thrusts.gmt and got it to create at least a shapefile, but it was still points and didn't work past the first line's worth of data.. the code you posted would be the reverse from shapfile to GMT. Thanks for trying!
    – AlexGeorge
    Commented May 23, 2016 at 22:30
  • I never used GMT but when I create a text file with your exemple, I can load the file in qgis with lines (just with "Add vector layer").
    – Pierma
    Commented May 23, 2016 at 22:40
  • Alternatively to Delimited text, you can add the data with the MMQGIS plugin as well. It asks for the geometry type as well.
    – AndreJ
    Commented May 24, 2016 at 5:52
  • @Pierma when I try the add vector layer, It says I have an invalid data source. in the add vector box did you input "source type" as "File" and "encoding" as "system" and was your file a .txt extension. If i can get your method to work, it would be really easy! thanks
    – AlexGeorge
    Commented May 24, 2016 at 14:19

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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ogr2ogr -F "ESRI Shapefile" data.shp data.gmt

should do the trick. Note that if you want to create a 'proper' OGR/GMT file you should include header information - see GMT Cookbook - OGR/GMT-format chapter. Thus, you might need to add a > on the first line to make sure that ogr2ogr understands that there are multiple line segments.

Good luck.

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