Only "geographic projection" is supported.

[dahemac]

I have used .shp files from GeoGratis lots without a problem.

Now I have downloaded river data for
Atlas of Canada National Scale Data 1:1,000,000 - Rivers (http://geogratis.gc.ca/api/en/nrcan-rnc ... d9594.html)
Atlas of Canada National Scale Data 1:5,000,000 - Rivers (http://geogratis.gc.ca/api/en/nrcan-rnc ... 77450.html)
Atlas of Canada National Scale Data 1:15,000,000 - Rivers (http://geogratis.gc.ca/api/en/nrcan-rnc ... 77661.html)

However the .shp files all give the same error.

/Volumes/Mac_Pro-750Gb/Reference/_Maps/GeoBase/Canada_Rivers/AC_5M_Rivers.shp/AC_5M_Rivers_medium.shp could not be added. Error trying to read file: Shapefile::Error: Only "geographic projection" is supported.

What is going on?

[daan]

That is correct. Shapefiles can be in any arbitrary projection, including ones not defined in Geocart. Geocart supports only those that are specified in geographic coordinates, not in projected coordinates. The reason is that there is no direct mapping between the myriad possibilities of the very general Shapefile format and the projections implemented by Geocart. We could build a huge table of correspondences and translation parameters and procedures in order to handle some of the more common cases, but until now no one has even asked or noticed. I assume that is because geographic coordinates are the usual case for Shapefile.

This limitation is noted in the manual in section 9.4 in the table describing database formats, under ESRI® Shapefile.

Apologies for the inconvenience. If you expect to work often with Shapefiles in projected coordinates, please let us know, along with which .prj definitions you might use.

— daan

[dahemac]

It just seems odd that the geogratis data for roads, watersheads and protected areas work fine (are of one type) and river data are of another. Thanks for the help.