1. USGS georeferenced topomaps.
Go to MassGIS and find the scanned USGS topo quad images. MassGIS serves most raster data sets (including the georreferenced topomaps) in 4x4 km tiles with an ID number. There is an index of these numbers by location available at this link: http://www.mass.gov/mgis/ix_oq.htm. To best determine which tiles you need, check this useful resource they provide: http://www.mass.gov/mgis/quad_imgs.pdf . It's in pdf format, so you'll need a program that can read pdf files, such as adobe acrobat reader or kpdf. You can change the zoom display (low left area of the window) until you are able to read the orthophoto numbers.
The next image is a hint to save you time--it's the footprint of the area of interest over the Massachusetts town boundaries layer:
Figure 1: FootprintDecide which numbers you need and write them down. You can get, as we did in the next image, one quad for Skinner park and one for Northamptom city.
Figure 2: USGS ToposGo to the download area for raster datasets http://www.mass.gov/mgis/dwn-imgs.htm.
Scroll down and go to "Scanned 1:25,000 USGS Topographic Quad Images". Find the images you want, download the .tif (image) and .tfw (text file header with spatial information). (NOTE: here you can either
right click the files and "save link as" or
drag the files directly to an open "window" of your search_data_lab folder)
2. Orthophotos
Get the 1:5,000 Black & White Digital Ortho Images (you already know the quad numbers from the previous section, they are the same as the topo maps).
Download the .tif and .tfw from the ftp site: ftp://data.massgis.state.ma.us/pub/ortho5/
3. Roads layer
Get the layer Executive Office of Transportation-OTP Roads. You will need both Hadley and Northampton towns: when you double click the ".exe" files in the MassGIS page, a little window comes up offering to extract the compressed data. Specify your work folder and proceed. It will download and extract the files simultaneously.
Note: If you are using linux? you will need to use the program called Cabextract to get the information. It's available in most repositories, and the source code is also available here. Once you've installed the program, simply open up a command prompt, navigate to the location of the file, and type the following:
Cabextract eotroads.exe
4. Bring the data layers into QGIS.
Open QGIS.
Add raster (ortho and topo files) and vector layers (roads layer) from your work folder.
Assign projection data to all layers, give them a more recognizable name: (this link from a previous lesson will help you with some of the tasks you may want to do: http://linuxlab.sbs.umass.edu/introFossgisUmass/index.php?title=An_example_of_regional_web_resources:_Massachusetts%2C_USA_digital_data#Bringing_the_data_into_QGIS). Rearrange layers in the table of contents. Change the display colors if you want.
Figure 3: MapExplore the data, zoom, pan, activate the different layers, play around.
5. Print a map with your downloaded data.
Go to file-->print