Please note that not all Geographic Data Viewer sites will have all the functions described herein.

You can measure distance on maps using the Measure Distance tool. Select the tool, click on the start location (A) and then click on the end location (B). As you move the cursor, you can see how far the pointer is from the start location in the Segment length box. The distance between the two points is given.

If you are interested in the length of a line with multiple stops (more nodes), simply add additional nodes. The length of the new segments will be added to the previous total. In this example, you can see that four stops were added. The total round trip distance is 7.3 kilometers. Once you have drawn the route, you can print the map.

Remember this tool! The Clear Selection tool clears/unselects any selected features, distance measurement lines, etc. This tool is the equivalent of a few good shakes of an etch-a-sketch. Unless you want to print a map with features selected (they usually appear shaded yellow) it is a good idea to hit this button before you create a print page.

You would make the roads layer active and hit the Find button. This only works if the right layer is active. The panel you see here will pop up. After you type in "Heather" (you don't know if "Road" is abbreviated to "Rd" in the database so you leave it out), you click the Find String button on the panel. The computer searches the database and highlights the feature on the map.

This feature only works for strings of information that include text. This means it will find "Nest" or "Nest2120", but not "2120". Remember it like this: if you can punch what you are searching for into a pocket calculator, the computer probably won't find it (but it never hurts to try).

In this example, you will select all the records in the contour layer that have a value greater than 80 meters. First, you select the Field 'Value', then select the greater than sign in the Operator box. At this point you can enter a value into the Value box, or click the Get Samples button to see a list of the values that exist in the database.

You select 80 as the threshold value. You then click the Add to Query String button. At this point you could add more criteria to our query string, but let's not get carried away. When the Execute button is clicked, the computer runs the expression and the results are displayed on the map and the corresponding attribute table displays.

To do this, you select the layer of interest and then pick how you want to select the features.

First, you can draw a selection rectangle using the Select by Rectangle tool. Every feature touched by the rectangle is selected and the associated attributes display as a table.

Second, you can select features using the Select by Line/ Polygon tool. You can use this tool to draw a multi-segmented line across the landscape. This is depicted in the diagram (right). When you click the Complete Line & Select button, all the features of the active layer that touch the line are selected. An attribute table will display.

You can also use this tool to draw a polygon around the area you are interested in. When you click the Complete Polygon & Select button, all features within or touching by the solid shape will be selected. As always, an attribute table will display.