Mapping

Percentage of Town Area Sloping North

Percentage of Town Area Sloping North

Generally speaking, north sloping property is considered less valuable due to being colder with less sunlight, which is bad for agriculture, solar production and general human happiness.

Final USGS DRG Topographic Map Update

Final USGS DRG Topographic Map Update

Back when I was in Boy Scouts, we often used 1:24k quadrangle topographic maps from the USGS. These maps from the pre computer age, manually drafted, they are no longer updated in favor of GIS data sets and the computer created National Map product. Some of the trails and landmarks not in the GNIS dataset never made it over to the new maps - especially on state land. And the National Map topographic maps are hardly the works of art that many the old topographic maps were. 

You can download both the historical and modern maps for free here http://prd-tnm.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html?prefix=StagedProducts/

One thing that always surprises me is that the Mid Hudson library system has no books on Geographical Information Systems

One thing that always surprises me is that the Mid Hudson library system has no books on Geographical Information Systems. πŸ“š 

Seems so odd with GIS being such a big topic these days and powerful GIS software like QGIS widely available – with mapping, GPS and aerial photography such a big part of our lives today. YouTube, free web classes and internet documentation is great but it sure would be nice if they had books that one could read about at the library.