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Creating maps using Generic Merge Tool

Generic merge tool helps in creating custom grouped regions using any geojson shapefile, it is just as similar as zip code merge tool except this tool can be used on any geographical map.

Vitara Generic grouping tool

Generic grouping tool merges the individual regions on a map to form a single region based on a data file which contains grouping info.

Click on the link to access the tool:

VitaraMaps - Tool for grouping features

The below is screenshot is from generic grouping tool web page.

Example of generic aggregation:

In our example we will create CBSA regions grouped from US County level geojson file

US County level geojson file is shipped with VitaraMaps package, it can be found in plugins/VitaraMaps/custom/shapes/us-all-admin2.geo.json.

Please follow below steps to create CBSA groups merged from us-all-admin2.geo.json

Step 1:

To merge using the generic tool you need to convert your geojson file into topojson file format

open http://mapshaper.org/ to convert geojson file into topojson file.Below screenshot shows mapshaper webpage.

Step 2:

Step 2: click on select button and browse to the geojson file saved in your local machine.

Step 3:

click on import button.

Step 4:

Now the webpage displays your uploaded geojson file as a map.

Step 5:

Now click export button which is on top left corner of the webpage.

Step 6:

select required layer and file format as “topojson” and click export button as shown in below screenshot, a topojson file will be downloaded.

Step 7:

Now switch to generic tool webpage and upload the topojson file as shown in below screenshot.

Step 8:

Now we need to get the topojson object name from the downloaded topojson file. How to view json files in jsonviewer.stack.hu is described in the document above.

Step 9:

Enter the TopoJson Object Name fetched from json.

Step 10:

For the example we will use CBSA and fips codes grouping info in a csv file format.Upload the csv file into data field in our generic tool webpage as shown in below screenshot.

Step 11:

Now for Group By field add the column name on which grouping is done, in our case its CBSA column from the csv file.

Step 12:

now the next two fields are Data Prop and Shape Prop, these two are mapping fields by which a feature from shapefile and a row from data file are mapped. So in our case Data Prop is column name from our csv file which is FIPS and Shape Prop from topojson file which is fips (please see below screenshot, how to check shape prop is also described in zip code merge example).

Step 13:

Fill the data and click on Export button to merge and download the merged geojson file which can be used to create a new maplayer.

Step 14:

Once the geojson file is downloaded please refer to creating new map layer documentation to create a map layer using this geojson as a shapefile.

Below screenshot shows the merged output map file.