Contents - Index

Importing zones

The M2Assistant maintains zone boundary information in a file named M2Zone.m2a.  When you first open an EMME/2 database, a zone boundary file is created in the same folder as the EMME/2 database. There is one zone boundary file for each EMME/2 database and the file format of a zone boundary file is the same as an ESRI shape file.

You can create the zone boundaries either using M2Assistant (by adding zones and editing the zone points) or by importing and converting an existing MapInfo MIF, ESRI shape file, or EMME/2 annotation file.

If you wish to import and convert an existing file, the first step is to add the file as a new layer. To do this, right-click in the list of layers on the left, choose the Add Layer... menu option and select the file to be imported. This file should now appear in the list of available layers.

If you added a MapInfo MIF file,  right-click the MIF layer and choose the MIF to Zone... menu option. Upon confirmation, the existing zone file is replaced by a new one using the contents of the MIF file. Similarly, if you added an ESRI shape file,  right-click the SHP layer and choose the Shape to Zone... menu option. Again, upon confirmation, the existing zone file is replaced by a new one using the contents of the shape file. You can import and convert an annotation file using the same procedure.

When converting the selected file to a zone file, the M2Assistant will automatically match zone boundaries to the centroid which falls within the boundary. However, in order to function correctly, the following rules apply:
  • The coordinate system of the GIS file and the EMME/2 network must be the same.
  • The zone layer must contain one zone boundary for each centroid.
  • The coordinates of each centroid must fall within the boundaries of a zone.
  • No more than one centroid should be within a zone boundary.