Johnson County Map Server Help Page

Contents

1. Navigation: Zoom In, Zoom Out, Pan, and Re-Center the map
2. Getting information from the map (Info Tool)
3. Finding things on the map (Search and Jump To...)
4. Controlling what is displayed on the map (Layer Control)
5. Measuring distances and areas
6. Printing, Sharing & Saving a map view
7. Adjoiner buffer list
8. Technical information

To Zoom In - Select the tool from the tool bar and then either:

• Click on the map to zoom by a factor of 2 and re-center the map on your click point.
• Or hold the mouse key down to drag a box over the area on interest.

To Zoom Out - Select the tool and then click on the map.

• Click on the map to zoom out by a factor of 2 and re-center the map on your click point.
• Or hold the mouse key down to drag a box

Mouse Wheel Zooming

• Roll the mouse wheel forward to zoom in closer
• Roll the mouse wheel back to zoom further out

To Pan - Pick the tool.

Drag your mouse to pan the map.

Next and Previous Views

After you have moved around on the map by panning and/or zooming,
the and buttons will allow you to quickly move backwards and
forward through your views.

The "JumpTo ..." drop-down list provides a means to quickly re-orient the map to various areas in the County. Pick the desired area from the list and wait a moment while the map re-draws.

Zoom to Longitude / Latitude
Select the tool from the tool bar and enter the longitude and latitude of the location that you wish to center the map on.
Longitude and latitude may be entered in various ways:

Format	Longitude	Latitude	Notes
Decimal Degrees	-107.0726	43.7380	negative sign before longitude is not required
Degrees Minutes Seconds	107 04 28.65	43 44 16	degrees minutes and seconds separated by a single space  seconds can have decimal fractions
Degrees Decimal Minutes	107 04.4592	43 44.18	degrees and minutes separated by a single space  minutes can have decimal fractions

The longitude and latitude that you enter must be on either the NAD83 or WGS84 datum (generally used in GPS and newer maps) and not NAD27 which was used on the original USGS topo maps. Entering a NAD27 longitude / latitude could cause the map postion to be off by several hundred feet.

Select the tool from the tool bar and then either:

• Click on the map
• Or hold the mouse key down on the map and drag a box over the area on interest to select multiple lots or parcels.

A pop-up info window will display information on the parcel(s) you picked. Your browser must allow pop-ups for this site. Most of the information shown in the window comes from the County Tax Roll.

Finding things on the map

The MapServer can find properties by:

• Street address
• Legal description (Subdivision and Lot, or Township, Range, Section)
• Property owner name
• Parcel ID Number (PIDN) or Tax Roll Account number

Searches can be entered either as free-form text in the search box, or in the "advanced search" by clicking the search button.

1. Search by Street Address
   • You may enter a street address number (not required), and a street name. Generally it is best to leave off the "Road", "Street", "Ave", etc. In the free-form text search, a full street name is required. In the advanced search, a partial street name works (this is handy if you are not sure of the spelling of a street name). You will be presented with a list of addresses matching your search. From the list you may pick an address to map.
2. Search by Legal Description
   • You can enter a subdivision lot number (optional) and a subdivision name. You will be presented with a list of matching lots. From the list you can pick a single lot to be mapped.
   • Township, Range, Section searches generally take the form of: T20N R90W SEC 4. The free-form text search (the search box in the map window toolbar) may return more results.
3. Search by Owner
   • You may search by property owner name. A list of matching property owner names will be presented, from which you may select a property to be mapped.
4. Search by Parcel Number
   • PIDNs are formatted as: 51822742206500 however a partial PIDN works also
   • Tax Roll Account Numbers must begin with a letter followed by 7 digits (all padding zeros must be included) e.g. R0012345

After you have used the "Map It" button to highlight a selection from any of the above searches, the selection will remain highlighted until another searches is run, or until it is "Unselected" by clicking the button.

Map Layers

There is too much information to show all of at one time, so the map is organized in "layers" of data. A list of available layers is displayed to the right of the map. There are labels, foreground layers, and background layers. The foreground layers are lines and hatches, which are more or less transparent, so you can turn on as many as you want. The background layers are opaque, so it is only possible to turn on one background at a time.

Many of the layers are scale dependent, especially the labels. This means that even if a layer is turned on it may not be displayed if the scale is too large or small (if you are zoomed in too far, or zoomed out to far). For example, street address numbers simply can't be read at scales smaller than 1:10,000 so they are not displayed. If you do not see a layer that you have turned on, try zooming in a bit.

Measuring Distances and Areas

Approximate distances may be scaled from a map using the "Ruler" tool . Select the tool, and then click a starting point on the map. As you move the mouse the bearing and distance of the line are shown on the left side of the bottom status bar. Subsequent clicks on the map allow you to measure cumulative distances along a route or around a polygon. Double click to terminate a distance sequence.

Approximate areas may be calculated by using the "Area" tool . Clicking points on the map will draw a polygon. Double click to finish the polygon, and the total area will be displayed on the left side of the bottom status bar.

Printing, Sharing & Saving Maps

Printing: The print link places the current map view into a new browser window without the toolbars, legend, or other map elements. Use your browser's print options to print the window. Before using the print link, you should size your browser appropriately for landscape or portrait orientation. e.g. if you want a portrait orientation, adjust the size and shape of your browser window so that it is taller than it is wide before clicking on the print link.

Linking: To bookmark or email a particular map view, click on link. This will copy a new URL into your browser's address bar that defines the layers and location that you are looking at. You can bookmark (Add to Favorites) the address to return to the view at a later time, or you can copy the URL into an email. Be sure to get the whole URL, it is quite long! If you don't like such a long URL, you can use a free service of tinyurl.com to shorten it.

Saving to your computer: Saving a link, as described above, is usually preferable to saving the map image. If however you do need to save the image, first use the print link to open a print window. Printing to PDF is usually the most reliable method of saving a map image, but requires that you have a PDF writer installed on your computer. If you do not have a PDF writer, the print window can be used to save the map as a GIF or JPG image. Right click on the map and select "Save Picture As" or "Save Image As". Your browser may not correctly identify the image type, so you may have to help it. If you have aerial photography turned on, try saving as JPG. If you do not have aerial photography on, try saving as GIF. If neither of these options work, try BMP. Also note that not all picture viewing software reads all image formats correctly - if your picture viewer says "Invalid format" or something simular, try opening the file with a different program.

Adjoiner Buffer List

The buffer tool creates a list of all parcels within a specified radius of a parcel(s) and also shows all of the parcels within the radius on the map. This can be used to create an adjoiner notification list.

1. Before the buffer tool can be used, one or more parcels must be selected (highlighted). Parcels are selected by using the Map It link on either the Info Tool window or the query Results List page.
2. With a parcel(s) selected, click the buffer tool. You will be prompted to specify a buffer radius. All parcels within your specified radius will be selected even if only a very small part of the parcels lie within your buffer
3. A mailing address list suitable for use in a Mail Merge is created, and the map window is updated.
   • The buffer radius is shown in blue.
   • The parcels within the buffer radius are outlined in orange.

Technical Information

Firefox may not move the active window to the front if that window is already open. To change this behavior:

1. Open the Firefox Options panel
2. Select the Content tab.
3. Click the Advanced... button to the right of "Enable Javascript".
4. Check to enable the Raise or lower windows option.

The Johnson County Web Map Server was developed by Greenwood Mapping, Inc.
The system is powered by MapServer, OpenLayers, and PostGIS Open Source Geospatial software.