topic Best way to digitize hand-drawn range maps? in ArcGIS Hub Questions

Best way to digitize hand-drawn range maps?

BrittanyBankovich — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 18:26:28 GMT

Hi all,

I am looking for an efficient way to digitize hand-drawn range maps (I have about 200 of them). They are all drawn on the same basemap--a polygon of my state. I thought I could possibly scan them all, save as tifs, and georeference them using a polygon shapefile of the state. If anyone knows of a quicker, better alternative please let me know. I am open to any and all suggestions!

Re: Best way to digitize hand-drawn range maps?

NeilAyres — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 19:24:52 GMT

Unfortunately, I think you have sketched out the correct workflow. There is no auto-magic way of doing this.

You still have to reference a series of locations on the scanned map image, with its real world location (your county boundary corners or whatever).

It would be difficult to automate because the scanning process could not guarantee the exactly same pixel coordinate for a GCP everytime. (You might have put the map through the scanner at a slightly different angle perhaps etc.)

Re: Best way to digitize hand-drawn range maps?

DanPatterson_Retired — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 19:35:35 GMT

Do you have ArcScan? If you do, you can reduce the time to complete the task depending on the complexity of the raster line work

Exercise 1: Interactive vectorization—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Re: Best way to digitize hand-drawn range maps?

RebeccaStrauch__GISP — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 19:35:35 GMT

It looks like the ArcScan extension still exists too, and might help one you get the items scanned and georeferenced.

What is ArcScan?—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

I haven't used it for a long time, so you will have to read up on it.