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<DIV><SPAN class=281325911-11022004>I am a new to GIS/CAD and am looking for a
suggestion for software to use for the following project. I have an 18
acre site which is being developed into an arboretum/display garden. The
site has been surveyed and approximately 150 monuments have been set such that
all landscape features and all trees, shrubs, and so forth can be located to
within a couple of centimeter or so by simply using a tape and measuring their
location from any two of the monuments. I assume at some point use of a
differential GPS instrument could also serve this purpose...but
horticulturalists and gardeners are more traditional folks and like tape
measures. The data is entered into an Excel spread sheet and the
coordinates are calculated in the State plane coordinates. Other data is
also entered concerning the particular object such as a name, size, color, and
so forth.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=281325911-11022004></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=281325911-11022004>The goal is to import the Excel data (plant
or landscape feature name, number, bloom time, and so forth) into a mapping
program that can display on a monitor or in a print out the data. The
desire would be to have the different data types in layers so the print out can
emphasize all or various features laid over the basic survey location of the
objects. The out put also needs to be available in scales from a full 18
acres to areas as small as 0.005 acre. The print out would have a symbol
for the object with printed number or name if the zoomed view and size of the
print out permitted. Obviously at larger scales the data points would
become gray shading.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=281325911-11022004></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=281325911-11022004>I certainly will appreciate some suggestion
on both freeware and not so freeware that will work for these purposes. If
the program will handle all data entry directly and eliminate the need to use
the Excel spreadsheet that would be great. The software should be usable
on a PC with Windows or Linux. Most things I am seeing under a GIS heading
do not appear in their simple descriptions to have one initially creating the
'four corner's of one's own map and then working with it.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=281325911-11022004></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=281325911-11022004>Bob</SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>