How to prepare and format my data before uploading it to GIS Cloud?
Before uploading the data into GIS Cloud, there are specific rules and suggestions you need to follow to ensure that the data you import is appropriately formatted and complete – to help fix, or even better, avoid potential errors and performance issues.
Before diving into it, please check out the following guides on data management as well:
- What file types does GIS Cloud support?
- Organize your data
- File Manager
- Database manager
- Create new layer
Attribute table formatting
The most basic rule regarding the structure of the attribute table is to keep things as simple as possible for the system to be able to recognize the data.
Column names must be written only in the English alphabet, contain only letters and digits and no special symbols, as well as avoid spaces but use underscore (_) instead.
- Start with a letter or an underscore (_).
- Use only English alphabet letters, digits and underscores.
- Use only lower case.
When importing a CSV or XLS file there are a lot of rules to follow. That is why we prepared a separate guide just for this topic. Learn more about it here.
Also, when importing or creating data tables, make sure to use the proper data type for each column. Here are the 3 basic data types:
String is used to represent text as well as numbers, the most flexible and commonly used field type. It is also mandatory for attaching media files.
Integer is used to represent only whole numbers. For data collecting it is best to use this type for the following location form items: Altitude, Altitude accuracy, Speed and Time.
Real is used to represent all real number values (whole and decimal). It is mandatory for representing latitude and longitude data. For data collecting it is best to use this type for the following location form items: Longitude, Latitude, Accuracy and Heading as well as Altitude and Altitude accuracy (for even more accuracy).
Geodata formatting
Geodata is information about geographic locations stored in a format that can be used with a geographic information system (GIS).
When importing spatial tables make sure the geometry information is recognizable. We currently support these geometry types:
- Geometry
- Point
- Linestring
- Polygon
- Multipoint
- Multipolygon
- Multilinestring
All coordinates have to be written in WGS84 projection format e.g., 13.2656,16.2657.
When importing a CSV/XLS, make sure the coordinates are written in WGS84 format as mentioned. If the coordinates are in some other e.g., local projection, reproject them first in WGS84, and then upload the table to GIS Cloud. Check the import parameters for X and Y. Select the correct fields for latitude and longitude, set their column types to Real.
GIS Cloud also offers Geocoding to translate addresses into coordinates and represent data on the map as well as importing Geotagged images.
Learn more about Geocoding and attaching geotagged photos in our user guides!