One of the first things you will need to do after starting up the AWhere application to work on a given mapping project is to load some basic map layers into the interface…at minimum, so that you have one or more spatial reference layers for the area of interest you are working with, or maybe you need to load a map layer to which you want to connect a spreadsheet of data (e.g. basic political boundary layers). This forum post offers some of the options you have available for you to load basic boundary map layers into AWhere.
Sample (Default) Data Set - You'll see that when you start AWhere, it loads a default sample data set of the contiguous U.S. (i.e. the lower 48 states). But, you are not required to use that particular default data set; you have the option of loading any other data set into AWhere…for example, a data set containing the basic political boundary layers for your area of interest, be that the whole U.S., a single U.S. state, the political boundaries of the whole world, or another country. So, where do you find such data sets to load? Find the answers below.
Load a 'Template' data set – Several ‘Template’ data sets are included/installed with AWhere. These are small data sets containing (at most) just a few political boundary map layers of certain geographic areas of interest. These template data sets are designed to help you get started quickly, especially if you only need a couple of basic political boundary layers to get started. You can access and load those by clicking on the ‘File’ menu and selecting ‘Open Database’. On the Open Database window that appears, click on the ‘Templates’ tab and select one to open. Templates are provided in the form of AWhere Exchange (.amap) files (if you are unsure what that is, click here). After loading a template data set, be sure to save a new AWhere database (.awh file) somewhere on your computer if you want to save any value-added work you have done (i.e. you are not saving changes to the actual template database, you are making a copy of it, and saving the copy as a new AWhere database). If you are unsure what an ‘AWhere Database’ is, click here .
Download Data Sets from the AWhere Inc website – AWhere Inc. has numerous, free data sets* available for our users (trial users are limited to three data set downloads, while fully-licensed users have unlimited data set download access). These downloadable data sets are provided in the form of AWhere Exchange (.amap) files, and once downloaded onto your computer, you can simply double-click on the .amap file, and it will load into AWhere (assuming AWhere is installed on your computer). Be sure to ‘save as’ an AWhere Database (.awh) file after loading the .amap (see the previous 'click here' link for more on that).
There are several categories of data sets that we have available for download…please visit the Data Set download page of our website to browse those (click here). Of particular interest might be the ‘Country Boundary Data Sets’ and/or the ‘Foundation Data Sets’.
· Country Boundary Data Sets – We have these available for every country in the world. These are small data sets containing only the national boundary map layer of the selected country, and, in many cases, one or more sub-national administrative boundary map layers (e.g. Provinces, States, Districts, Regions, Municipios, Departamentos, etc). (Is your area of interest larger than one single country…see the note** below).
· Foundation Data Sets - These are more extensive than the above ‘Country Boundary Data Sets’, in terms of the amount of and variety of data and number of map layers included in them. We have these for the U.S., every state in the U.S., and for many (but not all) countries in the world. We've already done a lot of the value-added work on these data, so you take it from here. Most of these foundation data sets that AWhere Inc provides to our users will likely contain data that are categorized via various folders, or themes, such as Climate, Topography, Agriculture, Demographics, Political Units, Hydrographics, Ecology, Infrastructure, Natural Resources, and more. Some of these data may be of absolutely no use or interest to you, and that is fine. You are not in any way limited to working with only these categories of data in AWhere. Also, you are not limited to working with only the original data held in these data sets, you are free to continue to add to any AWhere data set that you get from AWhere Inc; whether that is by adding more map layers, importing a table of coordinates, importing additional AWhere Exchange (.amap) files, or by using the "Connect to My Data" tool to link your own data (e.g. spreadsheets, tables, database queries) to existing map layers in the data set (click here for more about data connections).
Find Data on the Internet - If you are not able to find the map layer(s) that you need via any of the above data resources provided by AWhere Inc, your next step is probably to begin seeking out data on the internet. Please refer to this forum post for a listing of potential data sources that you might check into > http://forums.awhere.com/forums/thread/113.aspx
*Note - AWhere Inc is not a data repository, it is not necessarily our aim to continuously update, validate, or keep current all of the various map layers in our various Foundation data sets or Country Boundary data sets. We collate these from public sources, and provide these simply as a courtesy to our users. You may encounter some instances of out-dated boundary lines or dated data in some of these data sets...in particular, the Foundation data sets. Please read the 'Disclaimer' statement at the bottom of each data set download page on our website.
**Note - Is your area of interest larger than just one country, but smaller than the entire world? We do have several 'regional' data sets available for download from the 'Foundation Data Sets' section of our Data Sets Download webpage (e.g. Europe, Continental Africa, Central America, New England). We can create 'custom' regional Foundation data sets for a fee...contact our sales department (sales@awhere.com) to ask about pricing. Also, for one solution on how to create a map layer of those national boundaries in just your region of interest, click here.
For several other options on how to initially load some map layers into AWhere, refer to the Help documentation included with AWhere (via the ‘Help’ menu), and look for a help topic page titled “How Do I Load some Data into AWhere?”