I'm looking for a piece of software that an end-user (familiar with Word and Outlook) can use to click on intersections of streets and create a verbal description of the area with a metes and bounds type description.
In simple terms, the user should be able to click on 4 different intersections surrounding the area. The program would then generate something like, "The area bounded by a line starting at the corner of 4th St and A St, proceeding west along A St. to the corner of D St, proceeding south along D St. to the corner of 1st St., proceeding east along 1st St. to the corner of A St., and proceeding north along A St. to the corner of 4th St."
because of DC's messed up grid system, it would need to be able to handle areas with more than 4 corners, and be able to handle boundaries that extend across "dead" space (space with no roads).
Anyone know of anything like this that's relatively cheap and easy to use?
Dagonee
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Does not exist, afaik. Perhaps in some moderately high end map software, but map software gets expensive real quick.
I could be missing something, though, hopefully someone else will have better information.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I can't think of anything that can do this, off-hand -- even in high-end software. It's both enormously specialized AND fairly complex.
Posted by Traveler (Member # 3615) on :
I work in ArcInfo, ArcView, etc every day and I know that even that kind of mapping software can't do what you are describing.
I've never seen anything that can create the kind of verbal description you are looking for. You could generate the UTM coordinates or lat/long for the x,y of each point or generate a legal description for the area.
I guess there would be one way to do this..but you would have to do some development. The only way I can think of to do this would be to build a custom interface comprised of ArcView with the streetmap extension (unless you had a nice street layer) utilizing ArcObjects. You could create a custom form where the user could click on the streets in a specific order and then output the custom string.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I came across lots of software that goes the other way - takes a metes and bounds description and draws it on the map, which sounds much harder to me. I figured this would be easier, but all my experience comes from using the spatial data extensions for SQL DBs (Oracle and Postgres):
1.) Add an event for mouse click on the map. Get the coordinates of the click. 2.) Find the closest road (probably means find the closes point on a line in the road layer. Not a hard query. 3.) Find the closest point on the road that crosses another road. Again, not a hard query, even if you brute force it, since you can assume the user clicked close to an intersection. If they didn't, they just have to wait a minute. 4.) WHen the user clicks the next point, check to see if it's on one of the two roads from above. If not, raise an error. If so, draw the line down the appropriate road. 5.) Repeat until the loop is closed.
Are they any relatively cheap mapping packages that give you this kind of event interface? If not, I'm just gonna try to sell them on using Streets and Trips and getting driving directions from corner to corner.
Dagonee
Posted by ludosti (Member # 1772) on :
I'll try asking my brother if he knows of any software like what you've described (he worked for several years as a demographic mapper).