This dataset (formerly known as the Digital Chart of the World) contains non-airport vector data for all of North America, including landmass (shorelines), lakes, rivers, cities, towns, roads, railroads, rivers, landcover, and many other coverages that we are not using yet.
After unpacking the file, you can burn it directly onto a CD-ROM and work from that, if you prefer. If you're building scenery outside North America, you can download one of the other three vmap0 CD-ROMs instead:
There is other, higher-resolution vector data available for the United States, including the Digital Line Graphs (DLG) from http://edc.usgs.gov/geodata/. The http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/wessel/gshhs/gshhs.html has much more detailed ocean coastlines than vmap0, but its inline water bodies are highly inaccurate -- the shores of the Great Lakes, for example, are sometimes several kilometers off, stranding airports in the middle of the water.
To use VMAp data:
Accessing Vector Product Format data in ArcView 3.2
Vector map level 0 (VMAP0) CDs, from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), have a wide variety of digital spatial data for the world, including elevation, hydrography, population, political boundaries, transportation, utilities, and vegetation. To use the data with ArcView 3.2, you must use the ‘VPF Viewer’ extension. The following brief instructions pertain to use of this extension.
1. Locate the appropriate CD (refer to list below). For each edition of the data set, there are 4 CDs covering different parts of the world. 2. Open ArcView and under File/Extensions select VPF Viewer. 3. Open a View and add the ‘library reference’ theme: <CDROM drive>:/vmaplv0/rference/libref. 4. Zoom in to the area you’re interested in. 5. Add a theme: <CDROM drive>/vmaplvo/sasaus/hydrography/inlandcrsl (for example) 6. Click on the vpf viewer icon (added to the toolbar when you activated the VPF viewer extension - it looks like a square with a line around it) and drag a box around the area in which you want the theme(s) to be drawn. The data should display (it may take some time if you’re doing a large area or multiple themes).
Tips: 1. You can save the data to a shapefile so that you can use the data without needing the VPF viewer or the CD (To do this, select “Convert to shapefile” from the Theme menu, navigate to your chosen directory, and give it a name). 2. If you draw a box (at step 6) but the theme does not get displayed in the area you’re interested in, you are probably using the wrong CD. The drawing on the CD box which shows the area covered may not be exactly correct at the boundaries.)
The Map Library has the 1997 and 2000 editions of these data sets.
Contents of 2000 edition CDs: CD ROM MR 227 EURNASIA - Vector map level O (VMAPO) - covers Europe, Northern Asia, and Northwest Africa CD ROM MR 228 NOAMER - Vector map level 0 (VMAP0) - covers North America, Greenland, and Iceland CD ROM MR 229 SASAUS - Vector map level O (VMAPO) - covers Southern Asia and Australia CD ROM MR 230 SOAMAFR - Vector map level O (VMAPO) - covers South America, Africa, and Antarctica
Contents of 1997 edition CDs: CD ROM MR 200 EURNASIA - Vector map level O (VMAPO) - covers Europe and Northern Asia. CD ROM MR 200 NOAMER - Vector map level 0 (VMAP0) - covers North America CD ROM MR 200 SASAUS - Vector map level O (VMAPO) - covers Southern Asia and Australia CD ROM MR 200 SOAMAFR - Vector map level O (VMAPO) - covers South America, Africa, and Antarctica
