G.I.S. maps

Tom_in_CA

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I know I've seen it discussed on the forums before, but can't seem to find it right now: Does anyone have a link to a good G.I.S. mapping service ? Such that a person can find private versus public property boundaries, etc... I think they tie into each county assessor's parcel maps, so you can even see property owners (whoemever's paying taxes on the land). And can discern public vs private dirt roads, and so forth.

I have the onX HUNT app on my smart phone, but have never been good at navigating it. And it only covers CA anyhow. What is a good (and free) GIS mapping for other western states ?

thanx !
 
I'm afraid I haven't found anything free yet - even the onX Hunt app charges beyond the 7 day free trial. I think they have it at $29.99/year for an individual state or $99.99 for all 50. It's the most reasonable pricing I've found so far for a mobile app - the $29.99 isn't bad especially for states the size of CA, but you get a raw deal in Rhode Island and Connecticut :laughing:

Another good app is Landglide for iOS systems, but it's only free for 7 days also. I liked the way it operated - a little more user friendly than onX, but the cost was also $99.99 per year for all 50 states, and no option to reduce that by settling for an individual state.

Of course, it's always free by just going online and accessing individual county assessor's sites on a laptop or desktop machine, but that doesn't usually help in the field. In my experience, the GIS maps on the county assessor's sites don't play well with the mobile versions of web browsers and are therefore impossible to navigate, so at least a laptop is required. And it's just too unwieldy to lug a laptop around with me.

I haven't been able to justify paying for any of the app services yet to gain mobile access to GIS property info...I'm too cheap to bring myself to pay even the $30/year to get onX coverage of Ohio when I know that I can get it for free if I plan my research ahead at home. As my free time starts to allow me the time to do more hunting, I can imagine developing a justifiable need for mobile access, though.
 
Not sure if they exist in CA, but we use Pictometry. Just google it and see what you can find. I use it everyday.
 
I'm afraid I haven't found anything free yet - even the onX Hunt app charges beyond the 7 day free trial. I think they have it at $29.99/year for an individual state or $99.99 for all 50. It's the most reasonable pricing I've found so far for a mobile app - the $29.99 isn't bad especially for states the size of CA, but you get a raw deal in Rhode Island and Connecticut :laughing:

Another good app is Landglide for iOS systems, but it's only free for 7 days also. I liked the way it operated - a little more user friendly than onX, but the cost was also $99.99 per year for all 50 states, and no option to reduce that by settling for an individual state.

Of course, it's always free by just going online and accessing individual county assessor's sites on a laptop or desktop machine, but that doesn't usually help in the field. In my experience, the GIS maps on the county assessor's sites don't play well with the mobile versions of web browsers and are therefore impossible to navigate, so at least a laptop is required. And it's just too unwieldy to lug a laptop around with me.

I haven't been able to justify paying for any of the app services yet to gain mobile access to GIS property info...I'm too cheap to bring myself to pay even the $30/year to get onX coverage of Ohio when I know that I can get it for free if I plan my research ahead at home. As my free time starts to allow me the time to do more hunting, I can imagine developing a justifiable need for mobile access, though.

thanx ! Great answers. Although .... I was hoping for dazzling and free, haha. Will look into what you are saying. Thanx.
 
Not sure if they exist in CA, but we use Pictometry. Just google it and see what you can find. I use it everyday.

Pictometry ? Isn't that just for 3D images of satellite fly-over view ? It doesn't show property owner boundaries and names/entities, do they ?
 
These are county specific but might help if you can get them in the counties you're wanting... especially in counties that have less than stellar info online.

My assessor produces a "plat book" yearly and for $50 (which is highway robbery but it's the only game in town) a person can buy a copy with all of the property ownership info for the county. The positives are one can see who owns what and the property numbers are also included, so if you can find a parcel on the ground you can look it up by section, township, & range and get the ownership data.

The bad: My particular county does not include lots under 10 acres, does not include city lots at all. Those still have to be researched at the court house.
It also does not have info regarding road rights of way, easements, etc.

However, it is good to toss in the truck for quick on the fly ownership research, and does include city, county, school, and other publicly owned parcels located in the county.

I'd like to find a good GIS map source too, as far as I can tell they're few and far between for my part of the country. I found a gateway on the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service website but no maps available. Figures.
 
.... I'd like to find a good GIS map source too,.....

BBs-gal, thanx for chiming in. I have the onX hunt app, but it only has CA. I wasn't aware, till now, when reading airmet-tango's post that it's because I didn't pay the USA wide cost. I must've only paid the $29 for single state that I'm in. Would like it for some neighboring states, as sometimes I go to NV, ID, AZ, etc.... Hence I might just break down and pay the $99 for all 50 states :)

HOWEVER: The onX-hunt app. is very difficult for me to navigate. It's one of those kind of tech. things where you have to have a 12 yr. old come show you how to do it, I guess.

I'm going to try the county assessors offices in the counties I'm heading to, to see how good their on-line material is. If that doesn't cut it, I'll upgrade my onX hunt app, and force myself how to use it better ;)
 
In this neck of the woods, the larger towns and cities each have their own and they are free.
The counties here do a pretty decent job also, since they collect property taxes too.
 
BBs-gal, thanx for chiming in. I have the onX hunt app, but it only has CA. I wasn't aware, till now, when reading airmet-tango's post that it's because I didn't pay the USA wide cost. I must've only paid the $29 for single state that I'm in. Would like it for some neighboring states, as sometimes I go to NV, ID, AZ, etc.... Hence I might just break down and pay the $99 for all 50 states :)

HOWEVER: The onX-hunt app. is very difficult for me to navigate. It's one of those kind of tech. things where you have to have a 12 yr. old come show you how to do it, I guess.

I'm going to try the county assessors offices in the counties I'm heading to, to see how good their on-line material is. If that doesn't cut it, I'll upgrade my onX hunt app, and force myself how to use it better ;)

Hah, I know what you mean about the tech things, yeah, user friendly, right :lol: All things considered, and as expensive as these plat books are, a hundred bucks for all the US on your onX-hunt app wouldn't seem all that bad.
 
Gis...

I happen to work in that field (hence my user name)...
I'm not sure what tax parcel data is publicly available, but you could try ArcGIS Explorer for your phone.

A laptop/pc option is PostGIS. Its free, and for the most part its a full featured GIS, but fair warning...its clunky to get around in.

I believe the USGS quad maps are available for free, but data formats and projections can be tricky. At one time, the federal government had a National Spatial Data Clearinghouse. I haven't looked into that in a long time tho. And last, but not least, pretty much every county in the US has GIS. The data isn't always available for download, but sometimes you can get lucky.

There are probably other options, but I'm spoiled because i get to use esri's top of the line software for work...i haven't needed to look it up. If I come across any good options, I'll be sure to post back here.
 
.... And last, but not least, pretty much every county in the US has GIS. The data isn't always available for download, but sometimes you can get lucky.....

thanx for chiming in gis-mapper. From a voice-of-authority no less :)

I just went to 2 counties where I intended to do some hunting, and it turns out that each one had in-house GIS mapping. Each one with different formats. So .... with all the counties across the USA not necessarily having the same formats, it's easy to see why trying to compile a nationwide one-stop shopping isn't an easy task for someone to try to do.

For example: One of the 2 sites, it was merely a matter of clicking on a spot on the map, and it brings up an instant box with property owners name . But on another county, no click-ability. And it was trying to prompt me to load some sort of program onto my 'puter. And then you have to laboriously scan left and right on sketchy dark satellite maps. Looking for teeeennnsssy #'s. Then type that # into a search box they provide. And THEN you get an owner's name. Thus 2 totally different systems, depending on the county.

So no wonder that 3rd party companies that have gathered all the data for a given state, and hosted it in a single type navigable format, would of course charge for the service. And it is no doubt not high on all the counties to ever have any reason to unify their types of computers and such.

It was probably only 20 or so years ago that a person was forced to physically walk into an assessor's office and view this stuff on micro-film and dusty binders. So I guess we should be thankful that most of them have gotten to where it's at least available on each counties website. Even if not in state-wide form for free.
 
For a country that has so many projections based on the UTM system, it is a huge job to compile everything into one system that will work. Also the disconnect between county GIS departments and the way they collect data, as well as the quality of data collected, just makes the task even harder

I am a GIS professional too, and there is nothing simple that I can actually recommend
 
Hey Tom,

Someone posted this link awhile back. You need to create an account but it's free to get any owner info. Not sure if it'll work in your neck of the woods but give it a shot. https://www.acrevalue.com/map/ mostly for farmland but who knows, may be able to get something useful out of it.
 
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