Forestry GIS (fGIS)

Forestry GIS (fGIS™) is a Mapping Utility for Resource Managers and a compact shapefile editing program, digitizer and GIS data query tool for Windows®. Designed for operational field managers like foresters and wildlife biologists, fGIS has essential tools tailored for precision mapping on a desktop computer. Use fGIS to customize layered views including aerial photos and other imagery, draw map objects, query and search spatial data, annotate maps for printing, and much more. The standalone program is unlimited, producing shapefiles and geo-referenced images compatible with commercial software in an enterprise GIS framework. Forestry GIS is meant to be part of a hierarchy of GIS tools, with ArcView/ArcGIS being one of the standards for advanced GIS users.

Forestry GIS (fGIS™) can be downloaded:

You'll find that fGIS is relatively simple to use:

* Open and view geo-referenced raster images including digital orthophotos and topographic maps in MrSID®, ECW, BIL, JPG, TIFF, GeoTIFF, BMP and PNG file formats.

* Open and view vector data in ESRI® shapefile (SHP) and e00 files, AutoCAD DXF™, MapInfo® MIF, Microstation® DGN, DLG-O, TIGER2000/line and TatukGIS SQL (ttkls) file formats. An advanced R-Tree index system allows easy viewing of large (100+ MB) data files.

* Create and edit point, line and area shapefile objects and their associated data attribute tables.

* Designate the direction and distance of the next leg of a line or polygon with the COGO-like Traverse Tool. Directions can be entered in decimal degrees or degrees-minutes-seconds (handy for plotting deeds or laying out a field data collection route).

* Split a polygon into smaller units by drawing a line with the Split Shapes Tool. Area and perimeter attributes of forest cover type subunits are automatically updated.

* Customize map properties including line width and color, area fills, label fonts and positions, image transparency, thematic rendering of data and more.

* Measure areas and distances. fGIS reports distances and areas in English units (feet, miles and acres) and metric units.

* Display data at user-specified scales.

* Extract geo-referenced images of selected portions of a screen display.

* Export part of a vector layer and save it as a new file.

* Manage large data sets organized in dBase tables with the "Load Library Layer" utility.

* Join dBase and Access tables to shapefile attribute tables.

* Create point shapefiles from comma delimited text files with x|y coordinates.

* Print the map with three flexible output options. The Simple Print command will add a map title, subtitle, footer and the scale to the page. The Send Map to Word command will send an image of the view at a user specified resolution and scale to Microsoft® Word. A third option through the Export Image tool will send the map to a technical illustration/page layout module called Diagram Designer. You can add headers, legends, annotations and non-spatial symbols from template palettes in the Diagram Designer module.

DNR Garmin

DNR Garmin was developed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to provide users the ability to directly transfer data between ArcView 3.x GIS and Garmin GPS handheld receivers. Using this extension a user can use point features (graphics or shapefile) and upload them to the GPS as WayPoints. Line and Polygon Graphics or shapes can be uploaded to the GPS as TrackLogs or Routes. Conversely, WayPoints, Tracklogs, and Routes collected using the GPS can be transferred directly to ArcView and saved as Graphics or Shapefiles.

This extension has a real-time tracking mode that allows users to follow their progress on the ground within an ArcView View document. This real-time track log can be saved as either points or lines as a set of graphics or in a shapefile.

DNR Garmin is a set of companion programs, one an ArcView 3.x Extension and one a Visual Basic (VB) program. The VB Program is the translator between the GPS and ArcView since ArcView cannot directly communicate with the COM port. The VB Program can be run in stand-alone mode, without ArcView.