GPS World

Tag: LandWorks

  • LandWorks upgrades Web AutoMapper service with USLandGrid

    LandWorks Inc., a developer of innovative land management solutions, has improved its Web AutoMapper online service that translates land legal descriptions into GIS-ready map polygons.

    The updated Web AutoMapper features a new interface that is easier to use, including a job detail webpage that lets users review and edit polygons before purchase. Clients can now have their property polygons mapped against USLandGrid’s national land base, with the option of buying land grid townships containing the mapped property.

    “These changes make the Web AutoMapper even easier and more cost effective to use,” said LandWorks President Jerry Bramwell. “Anyone with a need to create land maps can do so in just a few minutes at minimal cost.”

    For about 20 percent of the cost of manual mapping, Web AutoMapper has simplified land records mapping in the oil and gas, renewable energy, mining, banking, utility, pipeline, state/local government, telecommunications, transportation, water and real estate sectors. The cost to map a legal parcel description with Web AutoMapper is $2 per polygon with the USLandGrid offered at $7 per PLSS Township.

    “The USLandGrid data provides the tie between a legal description and the geography of that parcel of land,” said USLandGrid Vice President of Sales Anthony Ford. “Producing polygons this way allows you to get your land positions on a map for critical analysis using the GIS.”

    “LandWorks selected USLandGrid for inclusion in Web AutoMapper because it is the best basemap available for any industry or profession to use in mapping property legal descriptions,” said Bramwell. “An important benefit of the USLandGrid is that its data layers are continuously updated as more accurate survey data becomes available.”

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    LandWorks first introduced Web AutoMapper in 2013 as an inexpensive, fast and easy method of processing many types of standard property descriptions and converting them into digital map polygons. Legal descriptions that would take days or weeks to map manually can be processed in minutes with this online software-as-a-service application.

    A customer simply logs onto Web AutoMapper and creates an account. The user then submits an Excel spreadsheet containing one or hundreds of legal descriptions in Jeffersonian Township/Range or Texas Survey/Abstract formats. Within seconds, Web AutoMapper provides an onscreen report detailing which polygons can be generated, which cannot, and shows an overview of the mapped polygons aligned to the USLandGrid.

    If the customer decides to proceed, a credit card is provided. For customers who don’t already own the Grid, they have the option of buying it by the township along with their mapped polygons.

    Web AutoMapper generates a zip file of the purchased polygons and USLandGrid townships either in Esri shapefile or file geodatabase format in NAD 83 or 27 for direct download into Esri ArcGIS software as well as other popular mapping systems, such as IHS Petra, IHS Kingdom and LMKR GeoGraphix.

    As a cloud-based application, Web AutoMapper brings the full power of the standalone LandWorks AutoMapper software to every level of digital map user via the Internet. Introduced in 2002, the onsite AutoMapper package is purchased by an organization and sits behind their firewall as a production-grade GIS mapping tool. The software is used extensively by organizations that own or lease many land rights and must keep their property records up to date, such as local governments, energy companies and natural resource management entities.

  • LandWorks introduces spatial alignment tool at Esri UC

    LandWorks Inc., developer of land management software, has advanced its integration with Esri technology by creating a new Spatial Alignment Tool that runs as an ArcGIS Desktop extension and automates polygon editing tasks for land mapping professionals and land asset managers.

    LandWorks will demonstrate the product at booth #2404 at the 2016 Esri User Conference, June 27-July 1, at the San Diego Convention Center.

    The new software can be used in any country and in any industry that maps land boundary polygons using Esri’s ArcGIS Platform.

    Previously, when a more accurate version of land grid (Public Land Survey sections, Texas abstracts, etc.) or tax parcel data was made available by a data vendor, any polygons in an updated area of the grid had to be manually realigned to snap to the more accurate grid. With LandWorks’ Spatial Alignment Tool, manual realignment is no longer necessary.

    “Land grid and parcel data providers typically deliver quarterly updates to customers. The labor intensive task of realigning mapped land polygons to the updated version has been a long-term challenge that many companies choose to forgo rather than implementing the more accurate version of the land grid or parcel data,” said Jerry Bramwell, President and CEO of LandWorks. “With our new Spatial Alignment Tool, what once required months to complete now takes hours, resulting in more accurate land agreement polygon boundaries without the high cost of manually snapping them to the updated grid or parcel data.”


    The Spatial Alignment Tool works with any vector land grid or parcel data. Users need an original source land/parcel grid and an updated source land/parcel grid. The tool detects vertex movements between the original land/parcel grid and the corresponding updated layers, then automatically aligns the selected polygons based on those detected changes.

    Users can easily adjust the tolerance and alignment settings if not satisfied with the results. Once the alignment process is complete, users can review the aligned polygons before committing them to the enterprise geodatabase.

    In addition to easily maintaining the accuracy of GIS data for better analysis, the new software also saves companies significant time and money if they choose to switch land grid or parcel data suppliers for quality, supply or budgetary reasons.

    “Traditionally, companies have been hesitant to change land grid or parcel data vendors because of the seemingly Herculean task of transferring the polygons from one land grid or parcel layer to another,” said Bramwell. “Automating this task using the Spatial Alignment Tool now makes switching suppliers a viable option.”

  • LandWorks Tightens Integration with Esri in Land Management Software Upgrades

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    LandWorks Inc., a developer of innovative land management solutions, has introduced Release 5.20 of its three primary software suites — LandWorks Property Management, LandWorks GIS, and WebMaps Enterprise GIS. All three have been re-written for easier use, enhanced industry-specific functionality, and tighter integration with Esri GIS solutions.

    “In Release 5.20, we rebuilt the software from the ground up with a combination of C# [Sharp] .NET and a service-oriented architecture,” said LandWorks President Jerry Bramwell. “This modern architecture allows for integration of live Esri GIS maps and builds a foundation for hosting in the cloud.”

    Deployed extensively for land asset management and mapping in the oil and gas, utility, mining, pipeline, renewable energy and government sectors, the upgraded LandWorks software suites are expected to appeal to an even wider audience. In addition, their applicability within organizations will expand beyond land management to project planning, acquisition and development.

    The flagship LandWorks Property Management (LPM) suite is a complete solution for land asset management designed for easy storage and retrieval of data relating to any type of land right. In the new LPM version 5.20, clients may open an oil and gas lease or right-of-way agreement and instantly access a live GIS map displaying the relevant polygons. Direct integration with Esri’s ArcGIS Server gives the client full web-based GIS functionality from within the LPM interface and the ability to update the live map with new information on the fly.

    “LPM is the only land asset management software with embedded live access to Esri GIS maps,” Bramwell said.

    The LandWorks suites, used worldwide, also have been internationalized to support the language, date, currency and measurement formats preferred by individual end users based on their locations. A large mining company with operations in multiple countries, for example, may deploy the LandWorks suites across its enterprise. End users in Portugal, Spain and Canada are able to view the same information presented in Portuguese, Spanish or English.

    In addition to a more intuitive interface with a modern look and feel, LandWorks has added new functionality to the software products designed for greater ease-of-use in specific industries. The ability to make land royalty payments for mining and wind energy operations has been expanded. LPM and LandWorks GIS have been enhanced to better manage and present linear-based land rights.

    “The enhancement of our products to better manage land rights associated with linear assets will make the LandWorks suites more attractive to transportation and telecommunications industries,” said Bramwell.

    LandWorks has built new modules to the LPM suite to extend its usability across the entire land management workflow. LPM now manages land-related projects of any type or size including acquisition, surveying and encroachment investigation.

    The three LandWorks suites comprise a total of 18 individually licensed software products, many of which can function alone or interface with LPM. LandWorks GIS integrates the Esri GIS functionality into LPM. WebMaps Enterprise GIS Suite extends web-based mapping via ArcGIS Server across the enterprise to all departments, not just the land department.

    “All LandWorks software products currently reside behind the client’s firewall, however, we will soon offer hosting in the cloud as an additional licensing optional for our clients,” said Bramwell.

  • LandWorks Adds Linear Project Routing to Online Property Mapping Service

    LandWorks Inc., a developer of land-management solutions, has added linear project mapping capabilities to its online Web AutoMapper service, which converts land legal descriptions into GIS-ready map polygons. Web AutoMapper clients can now download digital parcel polygons with ownership information for every property crossed by a linear right-of-way project.

    The linear mapping capability in Web AutoMapper facilitates the planning of any linear infrastructure development project – pipelines by energy companies, electric transmission lines by utilities, roads and highways by departments of transportation, and buried fiber networks by telecommunication companies.

    “Web AutoMapper makes it faster and less expensive to map a proposed right-of-way or corridor project,” said LandWorks President Jerry Bramwell. “In minutes, project planners can download all of the digital parcel and land ownership information needed to select the safest and least costly route.”

    To use the service, the client logs onto Web AutoMapper and creates an account. The user then uploads a shapefile of the proposed linear project route from their GIS or mapping software. Web AutoMapper prompts them to enter start and end points for the route. Customers are also given the option of having their route mapped with or without a buffer on either side.

    Within minutes, Web AutoMapper overlays the route onto the nation-wide tax parcel grid developed by Digital Map Products of Irvine, California. Web AutoMapper then provides an onscreen map showing every property crossed by the route or within the user-selected buffer around the route. Paying with credit card or a customer account, the customer downloads the Digital Map Products parcels for only those properties affected by the proposed route. The parcel polygons are delivered in either shapefiles or as a file geodatabase for seamless ingest into the GIS or other mapping software.

    Also included in the Web AutoMapper deliverable is a Line List Report identifying every property crossing in order from the starting to end points of the proposed route. Both the parcel polygons and Line List Report contain important attributes for each property, such as landowner and address details, obtained from county tax records.

    “The linear mapping capability in Web AutoMapper serves as an easy-to-use cost-estimating tool for major infrastructure development projects,” said Bramwell. “The planner receives all of the land ownership information that will be needed to acquire rights-of-way for the project.”

    In many cases, the ownership information in the parcel file will help planners identify certain types of properties — such as hospitals or schools — where rights-of-way may be impractical or simply too costly to acquire, said Bramwell. This allows the planners to look for less expensive alternatives while the project is still in its early phases.

    Some linear projects require the developer to notify land owners within a certain distance of the proposed route. The buffering option in Web AutoMapper enables the planners to easily obtain land ownership information for properties within the regulated proximity to the line.

    LandWorks introduced Web AutoMapper in 2013 as a fast and easy method of processing many types of standard property descriptions and converting them into digital map polygons. The cloud-based application is used extensively by organizations that must manage large tracts of land and keep property records up to date for activities related to oil and gas, renewable energy, mining, banking, utility, pipeline, state/local government, transportation, telecommunications, water and real estate sectors.