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Shapefiles - where to get them......


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Hi all

 

I would like to know if anyone can recommend somewhere reliable to purchase shapefiles. I am a garden designer and would like to use these in creating my site models so I can include accurate information of the immediate area surrounding my clients home and garden (maybe the surrounding 10 neighbors homes for example). Ideally the shapefiles will have relevant information such as contours and buildings with attributable z values for modelling the data accurately. 

 

Many thanks in advance for your assistance.  

 

Alex

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I think it will depend a lot on where you are located. In Los Angeles, I believe you can get relatively low resolution versions of this data for free from the LA County GIS site. It is likely that your local county/municipality has something similar.  But in the relatively flat portions of  Los Angeles, 10' contour lines will not do much over a typical residential lot.

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@AlexanderWalker - following on Pat’s advice, seeing that your profile says you’re located in the UK, the Ordnance Survey has a digital terrain model with height data of Great Britain (higher resolution datasets available for purchase, I believe). The lower resolution free datasets might get you started. HTH.

 

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/terrain-5

https://osdatahub.os.uk

https://osdatahub.os.uk/downloads/open/Terrain50

Edited by rDesign
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If you are in the UK....

 

For decent terrain data, the best source is LiDAR from DEFRA:

https://environment.data.gov.uk/DefraDataDownload/?Mode=survey

 

Not too sure on the extent of it - basically you have to draw in an outline of the area you are interested in then click 'get available tiles' to see what the options are.

 

There is also Scottish LiDAR data (which at present is more patchy) here:

https://remotesensingdata.gov.scot/data#/map

 

Both are free and as good as you can get in terms of terrain.

 

DTM is a Terrain model.  DSM is a 'surface' model which includes buildings (usually with 'sawtooth' edges due to the resolution of the data) and spiky pyramidal trees, for the same reason.

 

You don't get any vector-based outlines of roads and buildings, but aerial photography may be enough. Otherwise you will have to purchase OS Mastermap vector data in DWG or SHP format, which is fairly expensive but not too bad for the kind of small areas you are describing.  You can purchase this from a variety of OS mapping suppliers - just Google.

 

Hope that helps.

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@AlexanderWalker you might want to check out QGIS. I've been dipping my toes into this software, remarkable tool...quite the learning curve thought. Fortunately I signed up for an online QGIS course (on demand) which is broken up into logical sections.

 

http://www.regrarians.org/qgis-for-mapping-and-design/

 

I live in BC Canada where we have an online portal. https://governmentofbc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=d06b37979b0c4709b7fcf2a1ed458e03

 

QGIS easily exports shape files from DTM that are created within the software.

image.thumb.png.3253b0a40225c8c400c8d43c8167cab7.png

Edited by J. Wallace
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On 7/19/2022 at 5:30 AM, AlexanderWalker said:

I am a garden designer and would like to use these in creating my site models so I can include accurate information of...

 

Generally speaking, GIS data is not considered acceptably accurate for AEC work.

Useful for general contextual information?  Yes.

Something you would rely on for developing working drawings?  Highly unlikely.

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