Simplifying GIS maps and features

In this article, we will describe how to simplify maps made in GIS.

While there are no hard limits to the size of the file uploaded for diagrams, evaluations, constraints or boundaries. It is recommended that evaluation and constraint files be limited to 5000 features in geoJSON. When diagrams are uploaded using the API, any file more than 4MB is automatically rejected while files from 3-4 MB size are simplified.

Recommended GeoJSON file size:

  • Boundary files: 200kb each

  • Constraints file : 150kb

  • System evaluation files: 1.5 MB (max) each.

  • Diagrams: 300kb

A limit is recommended for of a number of reasons:

  1. Data transfer: Since the data is replicated for all the participants joining the project, for fast and quick data transfer, it is recommended that the file is kept to a low feature count to ensure ease of understanding as well.

  2. Fast processing and display of results: All impact and other computation is done on the client side in the browser and there can be a large variance on the hardware that is used by the participants, including, processor, graphics card, etc. If the feature count is really high, the performance and user experience can degrade significantly.

Other Tools to simplify Shapefile features:

  1. MapShaper