Where does everyone get their Vicinity Maps for their plans? I have been using Google Maps or Bing, but the road names are really too small.
Thanks
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Solved by michael_robertson. Go to Solution.
Don't know about other states but the Florida DOT provides SID aerial photos and their county maps (in dgn and pdf format) on their Survey & Mapping webside for free in electronic format (or you can order prints for a charge).
We have a Microstation file that I converted to cad format which is from the county. It has all the roads, road names, lakes, rivers etc. as linework. Most of our work is done in county so I just open up that file, copy out the linework I need, put this in model space, scale it down by x.005, and in paperspace, i set it with a viewport.
In Texas, we have a few sites that offer the TxDOT dgn files for the centerlines of the roads, per county.
I downloaded all the counties that we work in, imported them into seperate files and attached them to a master file, which I then use with the Map commands to query in the roads around our project site. The roads have object data assigned to them, so I can then Annotate them with the Map commands.
Sometimes a surveyor doesn't use a coordinate system, them I have to resort to Google Earth, but only for finding the site, which I then import the google data so that I can query around that area with the Map commands.
Adam, I am also in Texas. Where did you find the dgn's for other county's?
Thanks guys! GDOT doesn't seem to have anything but PDFs (at least all I found in my first search). Hopefully I can find some CAD files.
Unfortunately, the PDFs they do have are a not all up to date. The PDF they have for the job I am working on right now is just a little out of date, 1996.
I typically create them using ArcMap then export to an image and attach to my drawings. Most of the same data formats can be used by Civil 3D since Map3D is built-in. See below for a few data sources that I found using Google.
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2009/tgrshp2009.html
See the link for "Georgia Highway Shapefile" on this page;
http://www.mapcruzin.com/free-united-states-shapefiles/free-georgia-arcgis-maps-shapefiles.htm
For maps that don't require a lot of detail I use Mapquest. The amount of detail varies with zoom scale so you can make a series of maps with varying detail to get you to the site. I use a screen capture utility to capture the maps to our local server. You can always edit the captures to add notes, trace a route and so forth or you can do the markups in Autocad.
Just type in the address of the site and you get a decent map that's ready to go.
Something to keep in mind for almost all mapping sites, their copyright and usage regulations forbid there use for derivative works without permssion and/or credits unless for personal usage. (That's one of the differences between Google Earth & Google Earth Pro).
Here are a few usage links:
http://earth.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=21422
http://www.mapquest.com/terms-of-use
Have seen this come up on some larger projects and design firms.
Thank you for pointing out that important caveat Michael.
I researched this more, there seems to be some discrepancies in the Google Permissions.
See this page first
http://www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/pro_features.html
note the FAQs " Can I use the Google Earth imagery in my presentations, reports, website, etc.?" and "Do I need the Pro version?"
Those answers lead me to believe, like Michael stated, Earth Pro is required to use the imagery. However, there is no mention of using Earth Pro exclusively in the Geo Permissions. Click on the Geo Permissions link http://www.google.com/permissions/geoguidelines.html#fairuse in the first question, and scroll down to the "Print" section there is a subsection titled "Basis for contractors' or environmental consultants' reports:" I believe civil engineers would fall under this category.
It seems as if the Geo Permissions state, if you site the image as described you can use them.
What do you guys think?
I want to be legit, and have no problem purchasing Earth Pro, but it seems unclear whether or not we are required to do so simply for vicinity and aerial images.
If you're "Map" savvy, you can access the US 2009 Census information for free from the geocommunities GIS Data Depot (GeoComm.com) and use the display manager to label street names at varying scales. I would use this second to any DOT-based information - the DOT's usually give more information on functional class (local/county/state) versus the census lines. From the Census data, look for "all edges" and then you want to get the data with "roadflg=Y" so you don't get the streams/rivers/railroads, and such. Then you just have to label the road features based on the field "FULLNAME"
You can also bring in free Digital Orthophotos from the national seamless map server, 1m resolution (typically) directly into C3D.
I'd be happy to show anyone interested - toddhATctcivilDOTcom.
Since no one mentioned it, don't forget that with C3D we can use WMS (Web Mapping Services). This allows you to connect to a service that has pre-made base maps and display them in your drawing. There are thousands of such servers out there. ESRI hosts several and you can connect to the National Map as well. Google Earth and Google Maps may have services now but I don't know if they impose restrictions on thier use.
The downside is the graphics are not embedded in your drawing so if you lose connection to the service the maps will not load. Still you could use a capture utility to create an image and insert that. Once you find a service that you like you will always have ready access to vicinity maps.
The TxDOT urban files (county road maps), in DGN format from the TNRIS website.
http://www.tnris.state.tx.us/datadownload/download.jsp
The site has a ton of other free data.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a website that subscription members could log on to, zoom to the area they needed then do a capture to paste that image right into their project?
Hint-hint....... you need anyone to oversee that project?
Why limit it to a subscription service? Can we have a screen capture tool to bring any image right into our dwg? How about capturing WMS images?
I have a CAD file with parcel lines for Escambia & Santa Rosa counties here in NW Florida. (and I will share it)
When I have to do an area either on the edges or out of the area I use USGS Quadrangle maps, not potential copyright issues. (Link here: http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/index.html ) - the site has an archive that goes back over 100 years in some areas, 1940s in most.
I think TIGER provides road layers or shapefiles. I think that is where I got mine.
https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-geodatabase-file.html
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