Jump to the help you need by clicking on a question:
Parts of the screen
NorthStar Mapper's screen is divided into several parts, as shown in the
diagram:
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Navigation Menus
In the upper left-hand corner, use the 'Navigate To' menus to find an
area of interest. From the ‘Destination’ pulldown menu, choose County, Township
Name, City, or Township&Range number of the Public Land Survey. A list of all
available features of that type will then appear in the second pulldown menu.
For example, if you choose
‘City’ from the first pulldown menu, then the second pulldown menu will give you a list of
all cities in Minnesota. Once you select a city, the map window will zoom-in to
the area surrounding that city.
Township Names are the recognized civil (political) township names for
an area.
Township&Range numbers represent the township location as
found in the
United States Public Land Survey (PLSS). Minnesota lands were surveyed between
1848 and 1907. For example, Crooked Lake Township in Cass County has the Public
Land Survey address of Township 139 North, Range 26 West.
When searching by Township&Range Number, check the box next to the "Township
and Range (PLS)" map layer to show the boundaries of townships and also of
sections. The township/range/section label will appear in the middle of each
section.
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Many different map layers are available for viewing.
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Place Names – names of current and historic places (cities, towns,
townships).
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Roads – from the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Starting with interstates and U.S. highways at the state level, more, smaller roads are
displayed as you zoom into the map.
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Boundaries – cities, counties, civil townships, public land survey (PLSS), Indian
Reservations, state boundaries.
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Parks and Forests – national parks, forests, monuments and recreation areas; state parks and
forests.
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Water Features – lakes, rivers and streams, and watersheds.
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Land Characteristics – 1990s land use and land cover; elevation
with shading.
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Air Photos and Base Maps: You can turn on ONE of the air photos or
base maps
Hints for making maps
Click in the checkbox (gray box) next to a map layer name to turn
it on.
Some layers are automatically turned on as you enter the
application. Many map layers can be shown at the same time.
Map layers are grouped by theme and stored in group folders. By default
these folders are open to display all map layers, but they can be closed.
Use the "Refresh Map" button below the list of map layers to redraw the
map with the current layers selected.
Some layers only appear at certain scales (indicated by the magnifying glass
icon), or show more or higher resolution as you zoom-in
(for example, roads, rivers, and elevation).
To see the air photo or base map layers, you need to have the
opaque layers (land use and elevation) turned off. If they are turned on,
they will cover up whatever air photo or base map layer you have turned on.
Left-click on a layer to bring up another page with more information
about all the layers.
Whatever layers and area you have specified for viewing you can use to
create a map for printing or for pasting into a document.
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Click on the Legend button to open the Map Legend Window. Legends are displayed
for all map layers that are visible in the map window. To return to the
Map Layer window, click on the 'Map Layers' button.
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Report and Documentation Window
This window is used to display information about a map when you have used the
(Information) map tool.
To return to the Map Layer window, click on the 'Map Layers' tab.
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Use the Map Tools
Click on a picture of a tool with the left button of your mouse to make it
active.
Overview
Map |
Show an overview map of the state, highlighting the area
selected. The overview map appears in the upper left-hand corner of the screen and is
automatically turned on when you start NorthStar Mapper.
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Zoom In |
Zoom into the map to show a smaller area. After left-clicking on the zoom-in
tool, draw a rectangular box on the map-viewing screen with your mouse.
To draw the box, left-click your mouse in the upper-left-hand corner of the area
you want to zoom into, then drag the mouse down toward the lower right-hand
corner, drawing a box that is outlined in red. When the box includes your area
of interest, release the mouse. The map area will automatically be redrawn to match the box that you drew. As you zoom in, more layers may become visible on the screen.
|
Zoom Out |
Zoom out of the map viewing screen to show a larger area. Left-click on the Zoom Out tool, then left-click in the map viewing area
on the point from which you want to zoom out. The actual
extent of the zoom is determined by the system.
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Previous Extent |
Go back to the previous map area viewed. This option
can be used many times.
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Full Extent |
Show the full extent of the map (the entire state of Minnesota).
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Pan |
Move sideways around the map in any direction. Left-click on the Pan
tool, then left-click the mouse at a point within the map view screen,
and drag the mouse to pull a new area of the map into view. (There
are additional map navigation options built into the map window itself:
see the arrows at the top, bottom, sides, and corners of the map
window.)
|
|
Information |
Find out more about particular features on your map. Click on this icon,
then left-click on a spot on the map for which you want information. Information will
be returned for all of the layers you have turned on. This information is
displayed in the right-hand panel, where the map layer information is normally
displayed. To get back to the map layer information, click on the 'Map
Layers' button.
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Get Elevation |
Click on this icon, then left-click on a particular location on the map to get
an elevation reading for that location. The answer appears just below the map
window and is given in both feet and meters above sea level.
|
Share the View |
Save the web address for this particular map view.
The URL (web address) in this window can be copied and pasted to a file for
saving, pasted into another browser or sent to another user. Or you can right-click on the link and use your browser menu to bookmark, copy, or send this
link. You can use this
later to bring up this view – just as you currently see it – in another
application or save it for a graphic.
|
Print |
Create a map of the area and data themes currently displayed in the
map window. When you left-click on the print, a popup window will
display which asks for a title for the map. Enter a title in the
textbox. Left-click on "Create Print Page"
to open a new browser window with the Map Image, Overview Map Image, and
Legend displayed. You can then use the File/Print menu item to send the
display to your printer. Or use your browser's Save options to save the
page for future uses.
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Download Data |
Draw a box and download data for use in geographic information systems (GIS)
software. Note: For the download to work, you need to disable the
'popup block' for this application in your browser.
To download layers, left-click the icon to activate this tool. Then draw a box on the screen
around the area for which you want data.
A popup window will appear with a
list of all downloadable data layers. Check the boxes for whichever
data layers you want. Click on the 'Download'
button. The system will process (extract) your data
layers, create a zipfile of all of the layers, and in a new popup window ask you
whether to open or save the file. Check the 'Save' button. Browsers may differ
from here. Some browsers ask you where you want the file saved. Indicate a
download address on your computer and click ‘OK’. Others just save the file to
your desktop.
Vector data sets: Vector data sets (showing lines or polygons such as roads, rivers, lakes, city
boundaries, or park boundaries), are in shapefile format.
The "clip" option used will include all polygons
which are fully or partially contained within the bounding box. Partial
polygons are not clipped to coincide with the bounding box because some
attribute information associated with the clipped polygons might be corrupted.
Raster (grid cell) data sets: Raster data sets such as imagery or land
use are clipped to the bounding box, to the nearest whole raster cell. Output
formats are as follows:
- Air photos: JPG
- Land cover data: TIFF with
world file (.tif and .tfw) This option is currently not available.
- Elevation data: BSQ with world file (.bsq and .bqw)
This option is currently not available.
Due to the large size of raster data sets, the raster data zipfile has a size
limit of 25 megabytes (downloading air photos covering the area of a section or
a township should work, but the area of a whole county would be too large). If you exceed the limit, break your
download request into smaller map areas. It is also possible through other
applications to download most of these data sets for the entire state or to
download some imagery in county files.
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More Information |
See a page listing the source and scale of
each map layer. For full documentation about a specific
map layer, click the
symbol in the 'More Detail' column for that map layer. To get back to the 'More
information' page from a metadata report, use the back button in your browser.
Closing a metadata page or the 'More Information' page will bring you back
to the main mapping page.
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Help |
View this help page. |
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Type the scale you wish the map displayed at in the map window. Click
the "Go" button to re-display the map at approximately that scale. Note that the
scale is only approximate because the user can change the size and resolution of
the map display window.
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| Problem |
Solution |
| "Response from previous requests not
received" |
This message displays when NorthStar Mapper is still
working on an earlier request. In the status bar at the lower left of
the screen, you will see "Waiting for geoserver.state.mn.us..." or
"Transferring data from geoserver.state.mn.us..." Just click OK in the
error message box, and let the program finish what it's doing. When the
status bar says, "Done", you can click on something else.
A common way to get this error is to double-click on the map when the
Zoom-in, Zoom-out or Pan tools are active. Just click once and you will
not get the error.
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| "Unable to display MapService. (ERR0923)
Unknown ArcIMS Service NorthmapAQLite" |
This error means there's a problem with the service and
that MnGeo needs to restart it. Please contact Jim Dickerson at:
clearing.house@state.mn.us
or 651-201-2484. The error will also display between 5:30 - 5:40 a.m.
when the services are restarted each morning.
|
| "Form for posting request not found. Unable to
communicate with server" |
This error appears if you double-click the map when the
Information or Elevation tools are active. Hit the OK button to close
the error window and try again, this time using just one click.
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The map window appears distorted;
The upper half of the window shows a background layer such as air
photos, and the lower half shows the reference map;
The pan arrows are no longer at the corners of the map window;
The zoom and pan tools don't produce expected results. |
Any of these problems can result if you change the size
of the NorthStar Mapper window. To fix this, first resize the window
until it is the size you want, then hit the Ctrl key and
the F5 key on your computer keyboard at the same time. This will
reload NorthStar Mapper so that everything is in the right place. If you
subsequently resize the window, repeat the Ctrl and F5 key combination.
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| When trying to download data using the
Internet Explorer browser, a warnings are displayed saying that
downloads are blocked from this site, then "To display the webpage
again, Internet Explorer needs to resend the information you've
previously submitted. If you are making a purchase, cancel to avoid a
duplicate transaction. Otherwise click retry to display the webpage
again." |
Change your Internet Explorer security settings so that
under Tools/Options/Security Tab/Custom Level/Downloads, the setting for
"Automatic prompting for file downloads" is Enabled. |
| Buttons on my browser, such as Back
or Print, don't work right. |
Do not use your browser's buttons. Instead, use the
navigation tools and the print tool that are built into NorthStar Mapper.
|
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Credits
NorthStar Mapper is a service of the Minnesota Geographic Data
Clearinghouse at the Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo), Minnesota Department of Administration, State of
Minnesota.
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Email clearing.house@state.mn.us
or call Jim Dickerson at MnGeo at 651-201-2484.