使用Excel纬度和经度表创建点Shapefile

Question

This should be very simple: I have an Excel table with pollution detection sites, and their corresponding Latitudes and Longitudes. I want to create a point shapefile for this table.

I have written a script to create the file, but cannot figure out how to create the points in it:

#Creates Observation Site Shapefile

import arcpy
import fileinput
import string
import os
from arcpy import env
env.workspace = "F:\GEOG 487B\Project"
env.overwriteOutput = True
outpath = env.workspace
newfc = "sites.shp"
infile = "site_loc.xls"
arcpy.CreateFeatureclass_management(outpath, newfc, "Point")

The shapefile is created, but the attribute table is empty. How can I get ArcMap to recognize my Latutude and Longitude columns?
The table is very simple: Column A = Site ID#, B = Latitude, C = Longitude

Thanks!!

Answer 1

I know there is a library which can read/write shape files. I've used it to read in National Weather Service Shapefiles in the past.

http://code.google.com/p/pyshp/

From the examples on that webpage, writing points into a shape file looks fairly easy.

Answer 2

My answer is probably late, but you can use Make XY Event Layer and then save the output layer to a shapefile or feature class with eg Copy Features . You can also do this without Python by right-clicking your xls sheet in ArcCatalog > Create feature class from XY table.