Scanning and Digitizing Resources

Digitizing maps converts geographic features on a paper or scanned map into a digital format for further editing and analysis in GIS software. In order to do so:

1. A paper map needs to be scanned and saved as a tiff file as a scanned image map
2. A scanned image map needs to be georeferenced and saved as a GeoTiff file
3. Import a GeoTiff file into any GIS software to digitize features such as points, lines, polygons, etc. and save as a vector file such as shapefile

ArcMap

You can access this software on computers in the DDSS Lab and elsewhere on and off campus.

Supports:

• Georeferencing. See tutorials created by University of California, Berkeley, George Mason University, Brown University, and Texas A&M University Libraries
• Digitizing. Learn about tracing features with a mouse or tracing features without using a mouse

Learn more about how to prepare to digitize a paper map.

QGIS

This software is free and open source and is also available on computers in the DDSS Lab. 

Supports: 

• Georeferencing. See a tutorial on georeferencing topo sheets and scanned maps or other tutorials on georeferencing using QGIS
• Digitizing. Learn more about digitizing map data