M.A.G.M.A. and DirtyRockhounds Members
Member profiles:
Bill Harbour
I'm a GIS/IS Manager for Baldwin County Alabama. GIS is geographic information system. All those online maps that you see...GIS people prepare those. We deal with GPS, digital map data and digital maps in various coordinate systems. We also utilize aerial and satellite photography. The GIS is also a very good system for analyzing the attributes of various maps features. To see GIS go to http:\\www.esri.com . You can see the software and types of analysis we produce. The GIS can do what is called multivariant analysis where all sorts of information representing map features is analyzed for a product map. Say you want to try and predict where crime will be hottest..you can take into account all kinds of factors and produce a maps that might tell you where to move manpower and resources.
North Carolina has very good online GIS data. I've downloaded property ownership, topo maps, etc. I could make much better use of that data if I lived closer though. ESRI makes some free software that will allow you to view the GIS data that you can download. You can get that free software from http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/about/arcexplorer9.html
Try downloading some of your county data if it's online and use the software to view it.
Bill
