[CAP] Need advice on FIPS code to Polygon conversion

[Bob Bunge]

Art,

We can certainly consider it.  NWS certainly doesn't have the resources 
to do the QC and there would certainly be some benefit for it.  To make 
it more interesting, in addition to US counties, NWS also needs 
something of this sort for both the NWS forecast and fire weather zones 
- both are used to define boundaries of various NWS alerts.

Bob

Art Botterell wrote:
> Particularly since we're going to be dealing with FIPS codes for however
> long SAME coding remains in use for Weather Radio and EAS, the idea of
> accumulating and publishing a standard library of simplified polygons
> for each of them strikes me as making a great deal of sense.
> 
> Bob, assuming such a collection existed, do you think NWS might be
> willing to publish it along with the various shapefiles and such on your
> website?
> 
> - Art
> 
> 
> Art Botterell, Manager
> Community Warning System
> Contra Costa County Office of the Sheriff
> 50 Glacier Drive
> Martinez, California 94553
> (925) 313-9603
> fax (925) 646-1120
> 
>>>> Mick Jagger <lists at jpw.biz> 9/14/2008 4:34 PM >>>
>> What's needed... and I'm sure somebody knows an efficient way to do 
> 
>> this... is a tool to take full-resolution GIS polygons and simplify 
> 
> 
> Here is a link that discusses this process along with a commercial tool
> and free tool to do it. 
> http://freegeographytools.com/2007/simplifying-line-and-polygon-shapefiles
>  There are a number of other simplification methods also.  I've done
> some simplification of polygons reducing multi-thousand point polygons
> down to under 100 for CAP alerts.  While the simplification cuts down on
> the amount of work required, I found there was still a lot of manual
> cleanup that needed to take place.  Checking that too much
> simplification didn't omit a section, making sure adjoining polygon
> areas match up by the same points, etc.
> 
> If there was enough interest, a common resource site for warning
> polygons could be setup with the manual cleanup work broken down into
> small work units that people could chip in to help cleanup in their
> "spare" time.
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