I am involved in a research group that studies the water quality in the triangle area in North Carolina. One of the step is to convert different formats(JPEG, PDF, etc.) of water pipe map into usable map layer in ArcGIS. We are using adobe illustrator and photoshop to manually select out the water pipes and then put them into ArcGIS for classification; but this step takes very long. We are wondering what other methods do you recommend to complete this step?
An example of map is attached below. How do we make faster the step of identifying the water pipes in the map and convert it into a feature class in ArcGIS? In this case, we only care about the pipes. In other cases, we care about the boundary of a polygon in the map. How would we do that?
If you have any idea, please feel free to message me. Thank you in advance!
Did anyone ever get back with you on your situation. I would for a small town in East Texas, and we're trying to bring it into the 21st century. Most of the cities data on sewers, water lines, zoning, city limits, etc., is all in paper form, or in the minds and memories of a few city employee's who know the town like the back of their hand. I have a few pdf's with zoning and city limits, but am trying to analyze and convert the data, rather that arduously recreate it in GIS. Any tips you may have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks