Converting between vector formats¶

FeatureCollection.read_file reads any OGR vector format; to_file(path) writes by extension, and to_parquet writes GeoParquet. CRS and attributes carry through.

Target	Call	Notes
GeoJSON	to_file('.geojson')	text, web-friendly
Shapefile	to_file('.shp')	legacy, multi-file
GeoPackage	to_file('.gpkg')	single-file SQLite
GeoParquet	to_parquet(...)	columnar, fast ([parquet] extra)

Setup¶

In [1]:

%matplotlib inline

import tempfile
from pathlib import Path

import numpy as np

DATA = Path('../../../examples/data')
WORK = Path(tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix='pyramids-convert-'))  # scratch dir for outputs
DATA.is_dir(), WORK.is_dir()

%matplotlib inline import tempfile from pathlib import Path import numpy as np DATA = Path('../../../examples/data') WORK = Path(tempfile.mkdtemp(prefix='pyramids-convert-')) # scratch dir for outputs DATA.is_dir(), WORK.is_dir()

Out[1]:

(True, True)

In [2]:

from pyramids.feature import FeatureCollection

fc = FeatureCollection.read_file(DATA / 'coello_polygons.geojson')
len(fc), fc.epsg

from pyramids.feature import FeatureCollection fc = FeatureCollection.read_file(DATA / 'coello_polygons.geojson') len(fc), fc.epsg

2026-07-11 14:37:32 | INFO | pyramids.base.config | Logging is configured.

Out[2]:

(4, 32618)

Plot the source polygons before converting — every format below stores these same four features.

In [3]:

fc.plot()

fc.plot()

Out[3]:

<Axes: >

GeoJSON → Shapefile and GeoPackage¶

The extension selects the OGR driver.

In [4]:

shp = WORK / 'polys.shp'
fc.to_file(shp)
gpkg = WORK / 'polys.gpkg'
fc.to_file(gpkg)
(
    len(FeatureCollection.read_file(shp)),
    len(FeatureCollection.read_file(gpkg)),
)

shp = WORK / 'polys.shp' fc.to_file(shp) gpkg = WORK / 'polys.gpkg' fc.to_file(gpkg) ( len(FeatureCollection.read_file(shp)), len(FeatureCollection.read_file(gpkg)), )

2026-07-11 14:37:33 | INFO | pyogrio._io | Created 4 records

2026-07-11 14:37:33 | INFO | pyogrio._io | Created 4 records

Out[4]:

(4, 4)

Read the GeoPackage back and plot it — the geometries and CRS carried through the conversion unchanged.

In [5]:

FeatureCollection.read_file(gpkg).plot()

FeatureCollection.read_file(gpkg).plot()

Out[5]:

<Axes: >

GeoJSON → GeoParquet¶

GeoParquet is columnar and compresses well. It needs the [parquet] extra (pip install 'pyramids-gis[parquet]'); the cell falls back to a note if it is missing.

In [6]:

pq = WORK / 'polys.parquet'
try:
    fc.to_parquet(pq)
    outcome = ('wrote geoparquet', len(FeatureCollection.read_parquet(pq)))
except Exception as exc:  # pyarrow / parquet extra not installed
    outcome = ('parquet extra missing', type(exc).__name__)
outcome

pq = WORK / 'polys.parquet' try: fc.to_parquet(pq) outcome = ('wrote geoparquet', len(FeatureCollection.read_parquet(pq))) except Exception as exc: # pyarrow / parquet extra not installed outcome = ('parquet extra missing', type(exc).__name__) outcome

Out[6]:

('wrote geoparquet', 4)

Notes¶

• to_file infers the OGR driver from the extension; to_parquet is the GeoParquet writer.
• Shapefiles truncate field names to 10 chars and split across .shp/.shx/.dbf/.prj — prefer GeoPackage or GeoParquet for new work.
• See also: GeoTIFF ↔ NetCDF and Other raster formats.