USA Building Footprints Map

[yogazoo]

Guess that's OK if you're invited.  Kinda scary privacy wise if you aren't.

True, but it's all publicly available data and it's super handy.

That's interesting to hear about NJ and their datasets. Once states can see the benefits of having private land owner parcel data (for tax reasons) they'll come around. It saves Montana almost $9 million annually. If any of you get the ArcNews publication there was a piece about Montana's Cadastal in the most recent publication. Anyway, interesting stuff. GPS maps will only get better and more detailed as more Lidar and meter type resolutions become available.

If anyone out there has Arc10 you can now create a routing path using only aerial photography. It uses the contrast of roads vs non roads. It's an amazing algorithym and it's definately the future of road datasets. CHeers!

[Seldom]

Here in Utah our cadastral maps identify parcels by Parcel ID numbers.  It takes another trip, to the courthouse or its website to find who holds the deed.

ESRI software is a little rich for my blood.  But I update GM regularly.  That routing feature sounds neat, but to get the most out of it you'd need very current, and presumably expensive, photo data.  Also, wouldn't you need to do a lot of hand editing (Chickadee Lane intersecting Rooster Road)?

Does Arc10 saveas MP?

[yogazoo]

Here in Utah our cadastral maps identify parcels by Parcel ID numbers.  It takes another trip, to the courthouse or its website to find who holds the deed.
Does Arc10 saveas MP?

These days you can find anyone online in a matter of seconds anyway, adding an extra layer between parcel and owner name in the cadastral layer is frivolous. But if it makes Utah feel better. There are many more pluses than minuses in attributing the data with an owner name.

The minuses being conspiracy theorists who fear the black helicopters will think that somehow the cadastral layer will give them away.  

Does Arc10 saveas MP?

No but GPSmapEdit and just about every other program can convert shapefiles data to mp format. And yes your right, naming all of the lines of the roads would be challenging but there are so many powerful tools in ArcGIS you could generate attributes in relation to other road layers and leave the ones not caught in that process as unnamed road (usually dirt road anyway). I'm not saying this road generation technique would be condusive to the average user but some company (NavTeq) somewhere will eventually produce high detail road and trail layers based on the algorythm

[Boyd]

I think the point is that most of the mapmakers on this site are not GIS professionals, but serious amateurs who enjoy creating and sharing their work. the ArcGIS products do look very cool, but sort of in the same league as the Trimble high end GPS units. No way for most of us to justify their cost. I also use Globalmapper which seems to have a nice mix of features that will accomplish most of what I need for mapmaking. But with an entry price of ~$300 (not to mention periodic upgrades), many people here can't justify that cost either. The tutorials on this site are great, in that they provide freeware alternatives for every aspect of mapmaking. But of course you get what you pay for - a program like Globalmapper offers a much more streamlined workflow than a collection of freeware utilities.

I have been playing around with ArcPAD however, which is a pretty cool mobile application - I was able to run an old version on my iPAQ 310 under Windows CE, and the newest version runs really nicely on my HP Slate 500 tablet under Windows 7. The trial version is fully functional except it times out after awhile (20 minutes maybe?). But if you can break your work up into small chunks - it's free. Scroll down to ArcPAD Evaluation to download (you may need to create an ESRI account for this to work) http://www.esri.com/apps/products/download/index.cfm?fuseaction=download.all

I don't think that ArcGIS has a similar demo version, do they?

[Seldom]

The minuses being conspiracy theorists who fear the black helicopters will think that somehow the cadastral layer will give them away.  

I can think of scarier things than black helicopters.  Inlaws for example.