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11. Finding and Converting Topographic Data for New York State from CUGIR

Finding Your Data

The Cornell University Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR) has a wealth of information on New York State including topographic information. This tutorial will walk you through finding and downloading this information.

1. In your web browser, navigate to the CUGIR website: HTTP://CUGIR.MANNLIB.CORNELL.EDU.

2. First, search for "topography" on the CUGIR website.

3. Select the 7.5 Minute Topographic Maps (2000).

4. The next page offers a list of all the topographic maps available for New York State. If you do not know which map you need, you can select it by using a map rather than the list of names. To do this, click the link in the image above.

5. On the interactive map, click to zoom into your area of interest. Then, select the area for which you need to download information. For your future reference, the name of the map will appear when you hover your mouse cursor over the map. After you select your area, three files will be listed for you to download. The first is the 7.5 Minute Topographic Maps from 2000. These files are georeferenced (geo) tiffs. The second is the elevation dataset in the form of a DEM (Digital Elevation Model). The last file is a polyline shapefile of water features for your area. Download the files you need.

The next section of this tutorial will walk you through using DEMs in ArcMap.

Using DEMs in ArcMap

6. Download the DEM information from the previous page. This file will be saved as a .zip file. Unzip the whole .zip file, then unpackage the .gz file within the file. You should now have a .dem file ready to use.

7. Open ArcMap.

In ArcToolbox, navigate to the Convert DEM to Raster tool, which is found in the "Conversion" toolset. Double-click on the tool to open the DEM to Raster dialogue box.

8. In the dialogue box, navigate to your .dem file under "Input USGS DEM file." Click OK.

9. Your DEM file should now be converted to a raster that you can use in ArcGIS. It will automatically be added to your map project like the image below.