Was thinking, with all the technology available, there must be some better way than scanning in a road map to place in a drawing as a Location Map, usually @ 1"=1 Mile. My procedure thus far is to take a General Highway Map of the county, scan it in, figure out how many DPI it takes to make a 4"x4" map at the required scale and crop it accordingly. To just insert the entire map in a drawing makes the file ridiculously large, ergo the need to crop it to what I need each time. This method does turn out crisp in the final plot, but seems like a lot of steps.
Anyone else have a preferred method of placing a clear, and informative, location map in their drawings? I've tried using google maps with just road view, but that ends up looking a little "cartoony" for my personal taste when zoomed to the required scale, and often ends up looking a little fuzzy in the final plot. Is there perhaps some other online map source that works well in this situation? Thanks in advance,
Matt
Just a word of caution to you about using images from online sources. Most if not all online maps are copyrighted to someone. This means that in order to use it for commercial purposes (I think preparing a plan or map to be sold to a client meets this definition) you need to have permission from the owner. I have seen numerous plans using online imagery and mapping products that I am willing to bet that no one ever received permission to use it on their plan.
I tend to use public domain GIS parcel data and then add in key street names. If that's not available, my next option is to use a scanned image from those online maps and trace the road network from there then delete the image.
Good Luck,
Dan
I use the TXDOT transporation shape files. I have a file made for each county (AutoCAD) that has all of the survey lines, county roads, and highways. They also have the city streets. I wblock out what I want, insert, scale, and voila, location map. Maybe you guys have something like that?
Excellent Post :good:
Looking forward to the responses...
I go here:
Just zoom into where you are, switch the view to mytopo and click on the landscape hiper-link. It will open a new tab where you can save the image and insert it into CAD.
We use quad maps. We have georeferenced vector dwg's of most of the quads in this area. Easy to open up and just copy out the area needed and clip the rest. We have used the raster image quads in some areas though.
We use AllTopo from Igage (www.igage.com). Not free, but the program is great in many aspects. They have all the topo maps and even historical maps. You can seem together maps or cut out a area you want. Well worth the money. We actually have two states.
If I might be so bold, I'd encourage you to check out the ArcGIS Map Services video showing some new functionality released with Carlson GIS 2012.
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Ladd Nelson
I just hold the map in one hand and the mouse in the other and wing it.
