Most of the methods in ClusterSeer require point coordinates, such as the locations of individual cases or centroids for area-referenced data (such as a county or census district). Point locations can be submitted as shapefiles, text files, or DBF files. Some of the methods, such as Anselin's local Moran, require polygons or areas as the geographic data. For these methods, shapefiles are the only acceptable format.
This file format consists of three separate related files, all with the same file name but different file extensions (*.shp, *.shx, *.dbf). Once you tell ClusterSeer where to find the *.shp file, it will look in the same directory for the *.shx and *.dbf files.
Once you select the file to use, ClusterSeer will prompt you to choose the columns in your *.dbf file that contain required data. Below, you can see the dialog for matching columns to required data for the Local Moran method.
Once you have selected the columns, ClusterSeer loads the data. If you cancel at this point, the procedure will cancel.
1. Error message: ClusterSeer will send you an error message if your data do not meet its shapefile requirements. Make sure to prepare your data with a GIS data editor so that it does not contain self-intersecting polygons. A polygon is called "self-intersecting" when two or more of its borders intersect anywhere except their endpoints. ClusterSeer will notify you which polygons have problems so that you may edit them in your GIS program. See troubleshooting.
2.Polygon overlap: If your polygons overlap, it may be difficult to view them when mapped or to select them for queries. ClusterSeer will not be able to display properly shaded areas where overlap occurs. Uniquely named polygons completely contained within another polygon will be correctly processed for analysis and display. Relatively smaller, non-uniquely named polygons will be discarded on import and excluded from the analysis.
