Property Plan Development. What tools to use?

James P. Bipps

5 year old buck +
I am in the process of revising my property plan. I tend to use aerial maps, print, and draw on them with a pen. Works great for my purposes, but does not send well via email for others to see. Any recommendations for an app or a way to do it on my iPad that I can then send via email? Any costs involved?

Thanks
 
This is a good question that I'm hoping will trigger some good discussion. Here is what I do:
I use OnX maps for taking screenshots of the area if interest (they just happen to have the most recent photos of my property)

I then save/paste the screenshot as an image file and open the image file in a photo editing program. If you don't have one or are intimidated, you can also do this in Microsoft powerpoint.

I then add shapes, outlines, labels etc. to the image and save/send it.
 
Have you tried Google Earth? Theres a lot of drawing tools you can use on there, plus get measurement for acres, feet etc.
 
Google has ok tools but aerial pics are at least 7 or 8 yrs outta date for my area. Duckduckgo has more current views tho, think they share with some Apple database. I've saved pics off there and go into Paint to make notes. For aerial view overlaid on a contour map I use local county GIS web page but that view is even older than Google. But everything above is free
 
I use tools that came on my lap top. I simply use a website for my county (called Beacon) that has all the county GIS information. I simply get there by visiting my county GIS site. I am not sure if all states have such a thing.... I tend to use their sat images. I then use a "snipping tool" that is simply a windows accessory to get the image I want and then I simply dump that image into another microsoft accessory "paint". I then draw what ever I want. I typically save the base file of the sat image so I don't have to pull a new one every time. I then simply make different sketches and the like. I also do the same thing when I add little notes and things to my photos as well....for clarity or illustration. I tend to save them a jpeg files which also reduces the file size as well.
 
Since the OP mentioned he's on an iPad I'll just add that opening a JPEG in Viewer gives you all the basic editing options that I think you'd need. I use SHIFT + Command + 4 to grab images from Google Earth. Then I open them on my iPad or desktop Mac and use the Viewer editing tools. I've attached a pic....clicking on the little icon circled in Red will then reveal all kinds of basic image editing tools...circled in black.

I do also use a basic photo editing suite for more complicated stuff. But the Mac's options I think are adequate.

Screen Shot 2021-02-22 at 2.04.10 PM.png

Then you can use it to go crazy like the pros!

Screen Shot 2021-02-18 at 7.16.52 AM.png
 
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I am in the process of revising my property plan. I tend to use aerial maps, print, and draw on them with a pen. Works great for my purposes, but does not send well via email for others to see. Any recommendations for an app or a way to do it on my iPad that I can then send via email? Any costs involved?

Thanks

If you are techno-savvy, you can buy a personal use license for ARCGIS for $100/year. It is the most powerful GIS tool out there, but also, the most complex for using advanced features.
 
If you are techno-savvy, you can buy a personal use license for ARCGIS for $100/year. It is the most powerful GIS tool out there, but also, the most complex for using advanced features.
I am not techno-savvy, I guess. Our county GIS map has some drawing tools that I am finding cumbersome. I’ll play with that for awhile on my iPad. Thanks.
 
Here’s my initial attempt. I’ll keep trying. I get better the more I play with it.

C82EFAEF-4FAE-46A4-871B-8372EC9B17D8.png
 
I am not sure how long this feature has been around, but I just noticed that OnX has an imagery on demand feature. Apparently you can get images for a 4000 acre area that are about a week old for $60 if you are already an Elite member. That doesn't seem too bad, but I would be curious if they would be any higher resolution than what they normally offer.

I have also commented about this in another thread, but I have been using World Imagery Wayback a bunch. In some cases, the images are only a few weeks old. Most of what I have seen is less than a year old at the oldest. You can scroll through time and see what your farm looked like over time. Here is a random farm in Iowa.
 
Apple maps is about the most current imagery I've found for free. I'll screen shot it on my phone, email it to myself, download it, edit it in paint on windows. Eazy peezy.
 
Apple maps is about the most current imagery I've found for free. I'll screen shot it on my phone, email it to myself, download it, edit it in paint on windows. Eazy peezy.
That’s interesting. I never use apple but I checked it after your post. My property is at least 2 year old image. I don’t know what the most current is but onx just updated and so far they are the leader in the clubhouse for me. Granted they aren’t free
 
That’s interesting. I never use apple but I checked it after your post. My property is at least 2 year old image. I don’t know what the most current is but onx just updated and so far they are the leader in the clubhouse for me. Granted they aren’t free
Check out the world imagery way back I linked above. My farm is from March 2023. It is free and you can see past images of your farm.
 
Aerial imagery is a tricky subject to address. There are a lot more sources now but the time series is still limited. Weekly or monthly shots are virtually impossible to acquire for the consuming public. Think darkness and cloud cover and haze. Clear air days are rare over most of the United States. When it is captured the issue becomes resolution. One meter might be captured but how its rendered depends on the viewing device software and the capabilities of the device itself.
 
Check out the world imagery way back I linked above. My farm is from March 2023. It is free and you can see past images of your farm.
That’s cool thanks. Onx is lord up to date on my place by a few months but the time lapse deal is really cool
 
I am in the process of revising my property plan. I tend to use aerial maps, print, and draw on them with a pen. Works great for my purposes, but does not send well via email for others to see. Any recommendations for an app or a way to do it on my iPad that I can then send via email? Any costs involved?

Thanks
Google Earth Pro is still an awesome free tool. Simple for the beginner but powerful with its inability to import other georeferenced files for the advanced user.
 
Google Earth Pro is still an awesome free tool. Simple for the beginner but powerful with its inability to import other georeferenced files for the advanced user.
Google earth hasn't updated their aerials for my area for years. I have better luck using the county GIS or Tax maps.
 
Google earth hasn't updated their aerials for my area for years. I have better luck using the county GIS or Tax maps.
That’s the beauty of it. I can use Google Earth to display maps from the web too, including the most recent aerials that my state provides access to.

On the toolbar, Add, then Network Link, then paste the URL of an acceptable format. Voila. I can email these along with all my markups, save on Google drive and access on my phone…
 
Google earth hasn't updated their aerials for my area for years. I have better luck using the county GIS or Tax maps.
I don't know how to make this simple and I don't know about every situation. End of disclaimer.
A large percentage (99?) of imagery you see in Google Earth and in every other GIS'ish application stores some version of imagery on your computer. It makes moving around from one place to another faster if the application can grab a copy of imagery first from RAM and then from your hard drive. Otherwise the app calls the server, delivers some information about your area of interest, clips and processes one or more image versions and delivers it back to you computer or cell phone. It takes time and loads of bandwidth.

Google is aggressive in mining all the public sources of aerial imagery to use in their georeferenced apps. For a fact, there's no aerial imagery for anywhere in the United States over 3 years old and I'd bet almost all of the country, every square foot, has been photographed in the last two years.

My bet is that old imagery you're looking at is what's been stored in a cache in your device. You can and should clear it. Then, the application is forced to call the imagery server for the latest.

Here's a link to how to do it:

https://freegeographytools.com/2009/using-the-google-earth-cache-basics

PatinPA - Pennsylvania I presume? The state of and Penn State have been among the most aggressive in collecting, acquiring, and providing aerial imagery.

Here's one place to look. As it is with a lot of these things it takes some motivation to learn how to arrive where you want to be.

https://maps.psiee.psu.edu/ImageryNavigator/
 
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I don't know how to make this simple and I don't know about every situation. End of disclaimer.
A large percentage (99?) of imagery you see in Google Earth and in every other GIS'ish application stores some version of imagery on your computer. It makes moving around from one place to another faster if the application can grab a copy of imagery first from RAM and then from your hard drive. Otherwise the app calls the server, delivers some information about your area of interest, clips and processes one or more image versions and delivers it back to you computer or cell phone. It takes time and loads of bandwidth.

Google is aggressive in mining all the public sources of aerial imagery to use in their georeferenced apps. For a fact, there's no aerial imagery for anywhere in the United States over 3 years old and I'd bet almost all of the country, every square foot, has been photographed in the last two years.

My bet is that old imagery you're looking at is what's been stored in a cache in your device. You can and should clear it. Then, the application is forced to call the imagery server for the latest.

Here's a link to how to do it:

https://freegeographytools.com/2009/using-the-google-earth-cache-basics

PatinPA - Pennsylvania I presume? The state of and Penn State have been among the most aggressive in collecting, acquiring, and providing aerial imagery.

Here's one place to look. As it is with a lot of these things it takes some motivation to learn how to arrive where you want to be.

https://maps.psiee.psu.edu/ImageryNavigator/
Thanks FarmerDan,

My county GIS took photos this year. I'll try to clear the cache on my google earth though thanks
 
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