Henry County GIS Atlas

How to make a map with the GIS Atlas

This is the image that you will see when the map first displays on your computer. As you can see, there are a number of buttons that do many things. If you hold the mouse cursor over a button for a moment, it will “pop up” a description.

This image shows some of the buttons we will use for this exercise.

Click on one of the Map Layer buttons to turn on the Water Features layer and the Streets layer.

Find the Zoom Window button as shown below.

Click on the Window Zoom button. Click on the screen with the left mouse button and while holding it down, drag a window around the area that you want.

You will see a red box as you draw the window.

The map will zoom into that area. It might take a moment or two, so be patient ! The map will look like this next image when it is done.

You will see that the aerial photograph, streets and water features have automatically displayed. You will also notice that the lake “polygon” covers the photograph. You might want to turn this “layer” off, or you can fade the layer to transparent as shown in the next image.

In this next section you will learn how to use additional tools menus.

In the image below, you have zoomed into the area that you want to see. You have turned on some of the layers that you want to see. Now turn on the Parcel layer so that you can use the Identify button.

Now find the Identify button as shown in the image below.

When the Parcel layer displays, your map will look like this. You can then click inside a parcel to get the parcel’s ownership and descriptive information like the image below.

In this next section, we will learn how to find a specific parcel using the Search functions, select parcels with the select tool and print a map and the information you get from the select features tools.

Click the Search pull down menu and it will drop down to show the methods that can be used to search for a specific parcel, the PIN (parcel identification number), the Owner Last Name, or the Owner Address.

Click on the Search by PIN button and it will open a entry window in the Map Layers/Information window.

Click in the window and type the PIN in without any hyphens, dashes, or spaces. You can get the PIN from your Property Tax bill, from a Real Estate listing (sometimes called the Tax ID), or from a property search on the County Assessor’s website. Once you have entered the PIN, click the Search button.

Please be patient, the Map Server must search through all 36,000 plus parcels to find the number you have entered ! It will look like the left image as it looks for your parcel. If it does not find your PIN you will see the message in the image on the right. If you get that message, please check the number and try again. If you do not find it then, there are other ways to find your parcel that we will discuss later.

When the Map Server finds the correct PIN, the Information window will display the results of the search. As you can see in the next image, the Information window displays the PIN, Owner Name, and the Owner Address fields from the database.

Next to the Address field is a button that looks like a magnifying glass. If you click on that button, the Map Server will select and zoom to the parcel.

Your map should look something like this.

What if we need to know who owns all of the adjacent properties? You could use the identify tool to identify each one that you are interested in, or you could use the Select Features tool to select them. It looks like this.

Click on the Select Features button. Then, inside the map window, click on the screen and while holding down the mouse button, draw a box around the parcels you want selected. Click the OK button in the window to the right (Map Layers/Information window) as shown in the image below.

Your map should look something like this. The selected parcels are hi-lighted in yellow with the parcel information listed in the Information window. (I have smudged the names out of the Information window intentionally for this document.)

The information in the window cannot be printed from this program. However, if you want to save the information that is shown in the Information window, you can do so by clicking inside the window and while holding down the mouse button, hi-light the information. You can then click the right mouse button and select copy from the popup menu and paste it into a notepad or other word processing program. This is illustrated in the following two images.

Selecting the information from the window.

Pasting it into a notepad program.

You can then either save your results or print it out.

In this last section, we will learn how to print a map of our selected parcels.

When you have found your parcel and you have the map window positioned the way that you like it, you are ready to print.

Click on the Print button.

This will display in the Map Layers/Information window. Select the Standard option.

You will see the Please Wait animation while the Map Server is preparing your print request.

You will then be given a choice of print options. You can send the print document to a web page where you can print the page or copy and save the image, or you can export the file to an Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF file. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to take advantage of this option. Most people have the Acrobat Reader on their computer already. If you do not have this program you can find it here, http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html . In this example, select Open Printable PDF Page in the New Window. If a new window does not open, please enable popup windows from your browser options.

Your printable map should open in a new window and look similar to this.

At this point, you can print your map from this window or you can save the PDF file to your computer.

This button will save the PDF to your computer in the location that you choose.

If you choose to use the Open to Printable HTML page to New Window option, you can print from the HTML page or you can right click and save the image to your computer as a jpeg file to your computer where you can insert it into a word processing or other presentation program.

Congratulations ! You have made a map with the Henry County GIS Atlas. There are many other tools and options that we will cover in other instruction documents.

Thank you for using the Henry County GIS Atlas. We will be adding additional map layers and new tools and options as this website develops and matures. Feel free to drop me a line (or email) and let me know what you think about the GIS Atlas.

Bruce W. Atkinson

henrycogis.org

October 30, 2008