How do you load prerandomized plot info into UFORE?

melimel · Post by **melimel** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 3:45 pm

In the instructions manual for “Creating a New UFORE Project” on page 7 there is the part where you need to specify the plots via the “Generate Plot” button or it seems the program will not let you proceed.

I chose to “Load from Plot Generator” because our plots were already generated using ArcMap 9.1. My intent was to provide the UFORE program with the plots we already randomized within our study area. The manual asks for .doc files for the Plot and Strata info and a .prj file for the Projection. My GIS person could not figure out what kind of .doc was needed for the Plot and Strata info.

Does anyone have any idea what to enter into here? To me, .doc means a word file. If it does in deed need a word file, what kind of information should be in it and how should it be formatted?

Any help or leads are much appreciated.

Look forward to getting some answers that will allow me to proceed with the set up.

Thanks so much!

Post by **i-Tree Support** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:37 am

The Manual asks for *.doc files but the UFORE Shell will accept *.txt files without problem. Please see the following FAQ for details: http://forums.itreetools.org/viewtopic.php?t=51

And remember, if you are looking for quick answers to questions that may have been asked before, you can try using the Forum's search function or browse the FAQs.

I hope this helps.

melimel · Post by **melimel** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:03 pm

Thank you for attempting to help me troubleshoot this. I will create my files as suggested and give feedback on the outcome.

melimel · Post by **melimel** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:40 pm

Okay, well, I set up the .txt files as suggested and attached both .txt's and the .prj. When I hit 'OK' it gives me a message "Run-time error '13': Type mismatch".

I have double checked and the .txt files are set up the way suggested below and I named the .prj file the same as my project title; as suggested by the UFORE manual.

Any suggestions???

StormyJerry · Post by **StormyJerry** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:19 pm

We're not sure at the moment!

Could you please give us a bit more detail?

--Are you sure the names of the files do not have any unacceptable characters or spaces in them? And the two extensions are correctly named without typos or any extra spaces
--What dialogue box were you in when you hit "OK" and got the error message?
--Did you try shutting down the project and closing out the UFORE Shell, then opening it and trying a second time?

Thanks.

StormyJerry · Post by **StormyJerry** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:32 pm

From the UFORE programmer comes this:

1) It doesn’t matter what the file's name is, as long as the file content is in text format. The content of the file can not be a Word Document file or anything else.
2) The file can not include the use of Tab. It only accepts values and empty spaces. I am pretty sure the error reported is from Tab.

I would suggest you look at your *.txt files again, make sure you used only empty spaces to separate the values (not the tab key), resave the files, and try again.

Please let us know what happens.

melimel · Post by **melimel** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:48 pm

I did not use the tab key at all when I entered in what you all suggested and I did try to get it to work over and over again but it kept giving me the error message. I will try again tomorrow. The only other thing I can think is if you like, I can send you those 3 files and you can literally see if there is a formatting issue. I noticed that with the .csv file it inserted commas into my data though I am guessing this is desired. I am not a programmer so my innitial reaction was that I thought it looked weird.

I will let you know what happens tomorrow.

Thanks for getting back with me so quickly.

StormyJerry · Post by **StormyJerry** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 9:32 am

I've sent you a Private Message describing how to get those files to us so we can examine them and try to replicate your error.

I hope we can figure this out for you--I know how frustrating this sort of thing can be!

StormyJerry · Post by **StormyJerry** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:22 pm

You have separated the columns in your text files with commas, but the files are only allowed to contain spaces and values. No punctuation of any kind (tab, comma, semicolon, etc.) can be included.

Please redo your text files, carefully following the procedure spelled out in the FAQ, and making sure your result is formatted exactly like the example. Then you should have no further trouble.

Good luck, and thanks for your interest in i-Tree!

melimel · Post by **melimel** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 8:57 am

Thank you for all of your help. I will set my files up again as suggested. I think the error came in when I changed the .xls (was a .dbf) to a .csv. The .csv automatically put commas in between the columns excel had. It may be important next time to let others know to delete those commas when they are going through the process. For the lay people like me, somethings need to be spelled out and because converting the .xls to .csv added commas, I just kept it that way thinking that was how it was supposed to be.

I will let you know the outcome once again. Maybe I should cross my fingers

Cheers!

StormyJerry · Post by **StormyJerry** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:34 am

Thanks for the feedback! i-Tree and its users profit enormously from user comments like this.

When we tested the procedure here, we did not get commas, but we will now take another look and revise the FAQ as needed.

Thanks again--and we are sorry if our procedure caused the trouble.

melimel · Post by **melimel** » Wed Mar 14, 2007 9:42 am

I apologize to be the bearer of bad news but it still did not work. I took all the commas out and set it up exactly as is displayed on the link you provided above with your first response.

I have 1-3 digit plot numbers so I tried to just leave them as is and submit the .txt that way which was rejected. I then added 1 or 2 zeros in front of the 1-2 diget numbers to get them to line up equally with the 3 digit numbers so there would be even spaced columns. Again, no luck!

Thank god for paper forms!

I was able to get the UFORE to work when I told it to manually generate plots. However, I noticed it will not let you change the plot number. Since our plots have specific numbers it is ideal we have it set up to match our plots. Do have a suggestion for a work around?

StormyJerry · Post by **StormyJerry** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:25 pm

We're working on your file format problem, and will get back to you later on that. In the meantime, let's answer your second question.

The UFORE Shell adds plot ID numbers sequentially when you have them created during setup. After you have added the plots you want, then go to Tools--> Edit Field Data. In the edit form, you can highlight any plot and change its ID number. Changes are automatically saved.

Hope this helps--thanks for your enduring interest in i-Tree!

StormyJerry · Post by **StormyJerry** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:11 am

OK, the problem was in the Points Report file, where you had an extra empty line introduced between the second and third line that should not be there, as the FAQ tries to make clear in words and example. Once that space is removed, the file loads normally.

The take-home message for everybody is that the format must be followed exactly as described in the FAQ (now modified following your feedback, thanks!) or else you will get an error message and the Shell may crash.

Are we done??!!

melimel · Post by **melimel** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 1:11 pm

You guys rock! Somehow I am not surprised it ultimately was something so obvious as that. Though there were other issues so we at least were able to tackle all of those before we were ultimately stumped.

Thank you for all of your (you and the i-Tree team) help! Sighhhh.... now our team can proceed as planned.

Quick question, what if there is a species in the field that is not listed in the 'plants.usda.gov' website with a code. What code do we use?

I know the questions are endless!

Thanks again for everything. Have a fantastic weekend.

How do you load prerandomized plot info into UFORE?

How do you load prerandomized plot info into UFORE?

It's the commas!

Got it!