GIS (geographic information systems)
Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 11:39 pm
Don't know how many people here are familiar with GIS (geographic information systems), but I thought I'd ask, 'cause it's Friday night, the DTS people have all gone home, and I'm too lazy to Google it. (Aside: why is it that when you work in government, you start to speak in acronyms?)
I'm using ESRI ArcView 3.2 to create a shapefile based on another shapefile. I have to align all the vertices by hand to make the boundaries match, and it's a drag. There's a Snap feature that will apparently do this for me in a reasonably painless way, but I have no idea how to use it. All I've accomplished so far is to turn it on and off.
I don't suppose anybody's familiar with ArcView and can point me in the right direction about this?
And for those who aren't familiar with the technology: Many of the neat maps you see these days are generated by GIS software, of which ESRI is, I think, the biggest maker. GIS is awesome in that not only can you use it as a mapping feature, but you can store data related to those features so that it is directly attached to them. If you're mapping property, you can attach the street address, property ID, tax information, owner name, anything you want, as a hidden aspect of the file. Mapping roads? Attach the road size, county, state or federal designation, etc. Land use, aerial photos, streams, contours, all sort of cool stuff can be put together to create some very informative maps. I understand it's been used extensively in rainforest studies for years. The newer programs even map in 3D. Fairly straightforward, but this stuff is so much fun to play with.
I'm using ESRI ArcView 3.2 to create a shapefile based on another shapefile. I have to align all the vertices by hand to make the boundaries match, and it's a drag. There's a Snap feature that will apparently do this for me in a reasonably painless way, but I have no idea how to use it. All I've accomplished so far is to turn it on and off.
I don't suppose anybody's familiar with ArcView and can point me in the right direction about this?And for those who aren't familiar with the technology: Many of the neat maps you see these days are generated by GIS software, of which ESRI is, I think, the biggest maker. GIS is awesome in that not only can you use it as a mapping feature, but you can store data related to those features so that it is directly attached to them. If you're mapping property, you can attach the street address, property ID, tax information, owner name, anything you want, as a hidden aspect of the file. Mapping roads? Attach the road size, county, state or federal designation, etc. Land use, aerial photos, streams, contours, all sort of cool stuff can be put together to create some very informative maps. I understand it's been used extensively in rainforest studies for years. The newer programs even map in 3D. Fairly straightforward, but this stuff is so much fun to play with.
