Goal:

The goal of this project was to capture the 100 foot elevation contours of a section of a 1:24000 quad map and convert it into digital format. The topo map I chose to convert is the South East Beaver Quandrangle, MN. The final map produced includes the section I converted from topo to digitial as well as river and road layers.

Process:

I took the following steps to complete this project:

1. Identified control points on the topo map.
2. Traced contour lines with tracing paper & pencil.
3. Scanned traced lines and generated a jpeg image.
4. Converted x,y coordinates to points.
5. Georeferenced the new jpeg image.
6. Digitized the contour lines utilizing on screen digitizing and ArcScan methods.
7. Merged lines across section boundaries.
8. Image clean up.
9. Converted lines to polygons.
10. Assigned attributes to the polygons such as elevation data.
11. Downloaded and applied supporting map layers such as road and river data layers.
12. Designed the map layout with appropriate features.

Outcome:

The map produced is shown below. All separate map layers were combined to form the final map. Appropriate color ramp was utilized to show elevation changes with ramp colors specifically chosen to enhance accessibility. Additionally, an image of the state of Minnesota with map location was added for enhanced spatial awareness.