access to public information about land ownership

[raven]

The LIDAR data is being collected for emergency planning -- mapping slides among other purposes. The only additional costs are for distribution.

Cost collection is a smoke screen -- mostly interagency accounting -- some of it via contractors. Private uses of the data are minimal, except for public watchdogs.

In short, the facts have a liberal bias.

[Adventure Mapper]

How about ArcExplorer?

It might work. I've been reluctant to put it on my computer for fear it would mess up my licensed copy. Also, it used to have some significant restrictions. I do have a notebook computer where I will try it out. Thanks for the suggestion.

[kepPNW]

Recently a few people have asked me for maps that show land ownership so that they can avoid trespassing (or at least know when they are doing it). The difficulty of getting this data varies from easy access on-line to difficult access by formal request for a CD/DVD. In the Columbia Gorge area I have never found it to be essentially unavailable as it is in Orange County, CA.

For the sake of the thread, here are the three main sources on the Washington side...

• * Clark County GIS
  * Skamania County GIS
  * Klickitat County GIS

[Adventure Mapper]

Cost collection is a smoke screen -- mostly interagency accounting -- some of it via contractors. Private uses of the data are minimal, except for public watchdogs.

This is certainly the case in Sierra Club vs. Orange County. See the beginning of this thread.

[Adventure Mapper]

For the sake of the thread, here are the three main sources on the Washington side...

Thanks for bringing us back on track.

These sites are great and they'll be a great help to many Gorge explorers and land owners. However, I prefer to get the underlying vector information. That way it is easy to load it into my GPS receiver so I can see property boundaries when I'm out bushwhacking.

[kepPNW]

I prefer to get the underlying vector information. That way it is easy to load it into my GPS receiver so I can see property boundaries when I'm out bushwhacking.

I'll bite. It's pretty easy to lay in a raster map on (most?) Garmin units. How are you converting the vector shapefiles (presumably?) to something GPS compatible?

[Eric Peterson]

I prefer to get the underlying vector information. That way it is easy to load it into my GPS receiver so I can see property boundaries when I'm out bushwhacking.

I'll bite. It's pretty easy to lay in a raster map on (most?) Garmin units. How are you converting the vector shapefiles (presumably?) to something GPS compatible?

Hmm, having fun right now myself trying to get a 38 MB .kml/.jpg to display inside my
Garmin! Checking further and it seems the Garmin maximum .jpg size is 3mb, so it
looks like I have to split the big scanned .jpg into parts, ugh.

[kepPNW]

I prefer to get the underlying vector information. That way it is easy to load it into my GPS receiver so I can see property boundaries when I'm out bushwhacking.

I'll bite. It's pretty easy to lay in a raster map on (most?) Garmin units. How are you converting the vector shapefiles (presumably?) to something GPS compatible?

Hmm, having fun right now myself trying to get a 38 MB .kml/.jpg to display inside my
Garmin! Checking further and it seems the Garmin maximum .jpg size is 3mb, so it
looks like I have to split the big scanned .jpg into parts, ugh.

Nasty! Especially re-registering each part...

[Adventure Mapper]

How are you converting the vector shapefiles to something GPS compatible?

One way is to convert polyline shapefiles to .gpx tracks as if someone had walked around each piece of property. (If the properties are polygon areas it is necessary to convert them to polylines first.) I do this with Global Mapper. The problem with this method is that for urban fringe areas and large rural areas there will be too many .gpx tracks to download to the GPS receiver.

Another way is to use cGPSmapper and SendMap20 to download vector maps into Garmin GPS receivers. Garmin makes using custom vector maps difficult but it is perfectly legal and IMHO perfectly ethical. My custom maps are entirely made of public domain, non-copyrighted data. And, unlike software where you buy a license, with hardware you can do whatever you please with it. And, I have a licensed copy of cGPSmapper.

[Adventure Mapper]

Hmm, having fun right now myself trying to get a 38 MB .kml/.jpg to display inside my Garmin! Checking further and it seems the Garmin maximum .jpg size is 3mb, so it looks like I have to split the big scanned .jpg into parts, ugh.

Raster images are good for many things but property boundaries are better placed in your GPS receiver as vector data. If property polygons are named then you can ID them directly in the GPS receiver. Also, line weight remains reasonable as you zoom in and out.

I don't have a Garmin that supports raster maps right now but I have used one and I believe there was some way to tile a large raster image. Global Mapper will make .kmz files and allow you to set some tileing parameters. Global Mapper also makes the geo-referencing either unnecessary or very easy.