-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Using OCR and GIS to create shapefiles
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2013 10:24:08 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: [log in to unmask]
To: Air Photo Maps, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship <[log in to unmask]>


Maybe we should call this Optical Feature Recognition--since you're not
looking for the text, but rather the lines.

The feature built into ArcMap for this is ArcScan.  I'm not sure what
level of license you need, but it's a pretty standard extension.  The
main issue is getting it to recognize the features that you want it to
while ignoring things like neatlines and other layers.  I tried this a
few years ago, but in the end decided that the pre-processing of the
scanned map and the post-processing cleanup required to make sense of
the lines and polygons was excessive.  All of my work since has been
with heads-up digitizing of features.  I'm not sure if there's been huge
improvements to the ESRI product since I used it.

There are companies that specialize in "feature extraction" from remote
sensing imagery.  (There was a story in Wired Magazine this June about
an effort in Mogadishi that also does social mapping:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/06/fa_mogadishu/).

I still hold out hope for automating the process.  I'm reading Matt's
ReadMe right now, and if you can get that stack working, I think it
might be worth a try.  I'm still a big baby with the technologies described.

-jon

Jon Jablonski
Map & Imagery Laboratory
UC Santa Barbara

----- "Angie Cope, American Geographical Society Library, UW Milwaukee"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Fwd: Using OCR and GIS to create shapefiles
> Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2013 09:30:26 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Paige G. Andrew <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Air Photo Maps, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
> <[log in to unmask]>
> CC: STEPHEN WOODS <[log in to unmask]>, Deryck Holdsworth
> <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> I am forwarding the question below to this fantastic group on behalf
> of
> my colleague, Stephen Woods. Please do reply to the list so others
> benefit from your collective wisdom, and I'll be sharing feedback
> with
> Stephen as it comes in.
>
> Thanks everyone in advance!
>
> Paige
>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> From: "STEPHEN WOODS" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: "Paige G Andrew" <[log in to unmask]>, "Deryck Holdsworth"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 6:59:43 PM
> Subject: OCR and GIS
>
> Deryck and Paige,
>
> I was wondering if you knew someone who has successfully used Optical
> Character Recognition (OCR) to create shapefiles to put into GIS?  Or
> if
> you knew someone who I could talk to who would know?
>
> Thanks, Stephen Woods