[UW-GIS-L] Work flow for scanning and on-screen digitizing paper maps

[Jim Lutz]

I'm looking for advice on creating a smooth work flow for scanning paper maps and generating polygons from data on the maps.  I have 640 square maps, each representing a grid cell.  The data on the maps comprises about one to twenty polygons each.  The polygon data on the maps was drawn by hand, so the edges are not perfectly straight.  The "on the ground" corners of these maps are well known, so the georectification should be straight-forward.  I'm wondering if, given the nature of the data, it would be more expeditious to generate each polygon by hand, or to look into vectorizing software.  If anyone who has experience with lots of manual data entry would share information or would be willing to chat, I would be most grateful.

-Jim

James A Lutz, PhD
University of Washington
College of the Environment
http://faculty.washington.edu/jlutz Ph:(206)616-3827