maps&comps
Adding cartography to your skill set:
putting a new street on a map
By John cirincione, SRA
HAVE YOU EVER HAD
TO FIND A NEWLY CONSTRUCTED STREET THAT
WAS MISSING ON THE
MAP? Ever had to use your
“best guess” to pinpoint the
location of the newly proposed
road and manually draw it on the
map for a report?
Many map products on the
market would require waiting
for the next update. But with
practical tool applications available in map software, you can
easily add a new street on the
map and even make it searchable with decent GPS-routable
capabilities.
Think of your map software
as a visual database where various types of information other
than street names (subdivision
names, project names or any
other points of interest) can be
stored and easily accessed.
To add a new street to a map,
follow these simple steps. For
illustration purposes, we used
the Draw Tool Box Feature in
DeLorme. You may find that you
already have a similar tool along
with many others on your existing map software to fix or solve
problems.
John Cirincione, SRA, is the director
of business development and
alliances for JVI Appraisal Division,
LLC, in Lake Mary, Fla. He serves as
the Appraisal Institute’s technology
and data standards representative.
STEP ONE
Ascertain
the approximate area of
the missing
or newly
proposed
street.
STEP TWO
Add the
newly proposed road
to the map.
Touch, this app allows you
to customize data gathering
and critical-item checklists;
draw floor plans, including
arcs and angles; and add
notes, comps, voice recordings and photos — all with
an intuitive touch-screen
interface. Projects created
on DaVinci for iPhone can be
seamlessly (and wirelessly)
synchronized with your computer’s Win TOTAL software,
and vice versa.
STEP THREE
Make sure the map displays “New Name
Street” as a standard newly searchable
street using the “Find” (or comparably
named) tab. The new street not only gets
added to the map, the new name also goes
into the the database.
www.alamode.com
Free download at i Tunes
STEP FOUR
Access the GPS-routable capabilities for
the newly named street. (You can place
the street with greater accuracy by using a
“bread crumb trail” as a tracing guide after
driving on the street with a GPS receiver
interfaced with a portable computer.)
CORRECTION
In the last Maps & Comps column (“Off-the-Shelf GIS Mapping Tools,” fourth quarter
2009), the author inadvertently omitted the source for the three-step development
of a GIS system. The information was from a 2005 PowerPoint presentation by David
McKittrick, account manager, DeLorme. Valuation regrets the error.
Was this helpful?
Let us know at valuation@
appraisalinstitute.org.
