maptools

Online Map Tools ~ for on-the-fly mapping

Sometimes you need to grab a latitude & longitude fast, or pin down an elevation, but without the firing up the entire GIS arsenal (or even another application outside of your browser). Here are online tools and ideas to do just that.

• NEW! ArcGIS Explorer Online -- browser-based ESRI mapping and visualization tool with a rich suite of basemaps and has built-in measuring tools. If you have an ESRI global account (free) then you can save and share your maps as well. A few things are missing here (shapefile and KML import) but has potential to be my new favorite.
• Earth Tools--a collection of online tools to find places, find sunset/sunrise times, elevation, time zones over Google basemaps
• Acme Mapper-- Easy interface to search for feature names, use Google's basemaps or USGS topoquads or DOQs, measure between points, and find coordinate information in decimal degrees or UTMs
• Google Maps/My Maps-- Not just for looking up restaurant directions; adding tools to My Maps increases the power. My favorites: Area and Distance Calculator, Elevation Contours, Place Finder, and if you were ever curious (Dig a Hole through the Earth)
• New to My Maps? Google Tutorials: Creating Maps, Collaborating on Maps
• BioGeomancer-- besides a place searching capabilities, also supplies a calculated maximum uncertainty value (according to MaNIS, HerpNET, OrNIS guidelines) that can be edited

Drop me a line if you have a suggestion to share.

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Last Updated: 30 June 2010.