First a warning. NWI is notorious for getting some details wrong about wetlands. This isn't a fault, the NWI effort is astounding in its magnitude, but accuracy is only so-so.


You can get quick overlays of NWI units on aerials at http://www.fws.gov/wetlands/Data/Mapper.html

I knew this existed, but found out the item below and was amazed.

Even better, you can go to this site http://www.fws.gov/wetlands/Data/GoogleEarth.html and click on the kmz file and you will then have the option to turn on or off the NWI mapping for anywhere you are looking at on Google Earth. If that doesn't blow your mind, you are seriously jaded.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Patrick Murphy,

Coming from the other post:

Yeah...I was going to say it was just straight from the NWI mapper. It's been updated within the past year or so. I like it better, but it is still not as good as it could be. There is no way of putting a polygon on there to depict the project location and a few other things that annoy me.

Side note...the Web Soil Survey is probably the best out there in terms of functionality. You can even import shapefiles to get you Area of Interest. The NWI could take a few lessons from WSS.

Google Earth is nice. I use it all the time for upfront research on site conditions both present and historic. I strictly use the free version, and would be interested to know the if the benefits of the paid version (Google Earth Pro) are worth it.

Brandon,
Go to the site with the NWI kmz file. Load it and then zoom into anywhere with that layer turned on.

If you have ArcMap you can send the project boundary (or any other layer) shape layer to Google Earth via a kmz file and have that visible too.

To generate the kmz file in ArcMap/ArcGIS, open the ArcTool Box (a red toolbox icon), then click on Conversion Tools, then To KML, then Layer to KML. It will then take you to a window where you can select the layer to send to a kmz. A kmz is just a zipped up KML.

I honestly don't use GIS for my map production, but AutoCAD. I can still export KMZ from CAD of project areas.

For all my quick need to know information (soils, NWI, Quad maps, LRR, MLRA, etc) if have kmzs for google earth. I even download the mitigation bank service areas as kmz because RIBITS is a joke.

How do you export kmz's from AutoCad? I have Autocad MAP 2011 and can't find a kmz export option. Is it a separate add-on that you have to buy separately?

I use Civil 3D, so I'm not sure if it will be the same. It's pretty simple. Under the File menu select "publish to Google Earth". Then just go through the wizard.

Of course you have to setup the dwg with a real world coordinate system.

I found this related to autocad map.

CAD Google Earth

What is described seems very useful. I'm going to look into this with Civil3D.

Thanks Brandon,
Can't find the command in AutoCAD MAP 2011, perhaps in the next revision. Thanks for the link, it looks like MAP would be able to import/edit/export kmz files, but too many hoops to jump through for me since I have ArcMap and it is much simpler there.

I find that it is easier to create/edit/cleanup linework in AutoCAD and create polygon topologies, then export the shapes to ArcMAP and create the fancy maps there. AutoCAD was my native GIS, and ArcMAP is newer to me, but I keep learning.

I love how easy it is to share GIS info via Google Earth.