GIS File format conversions [closed]

Question

I want to code in python or any other language to create a software to convert the following files to each other:

• GeoJSON File;
• Tiff File;
• Shapefile;
• KML/KMZ File;
• Grid netCDF File;
• ESRI Grid File; and
• Well Known Text File.

I am new to GIS and python field I have no idea about how to proceed.

We are planning to use QGIS to implement this conversion.

Answer 1

You can use the gdal and ogr command lines utilities.

More info at:

• http://www.gdal.org/ogr_utilities.html
• http://www.gdal.org/gdal_utilities.html

For example, to convert between two vector layers (Shapefile to KML) you could use the following command line:

ogr2ogr -f KML output.kml input.shp

Another option is to call this same line from python in the following way:

import os
import subprocess

os.chdir(r"directory with the files")

result = subprocess.call('ogr2ogr -f KML output.kml input.shp')

In the case of raster files you can use the gdal_translate utility. For example to convert a GeoTIFF to a NetCDF file you can use:

gdal_translate -of NetCDF input.tif output.nc

or calling it form python:

import os
import subprocess

os.chdir(r"directory with the files")

result = subprocess.call('gdal_translate -of NetCDF input.tif output.nc')

Note: be aware that the are multiple creations options for each one of these utilities and that not every format support the same things. You should check out the documentation for the ogr2ogr and gdal_translate utilities.