This map was originally digitized as part of the Moundville Mapping Project funded by the Alabama Historical Commission and directed by Vernon J. Knight, Jr. It is georeferenced to Moundville's master site grid, which is equivalent to the local UTM coordinates.

The initial digital file was created at the Center for Land Information Analysis and Mapping, Department of Geography, University of Alabama, in August 1992 using Intergraph software on a Unix platform.

In 2001, this file was imported into ArcView (using the CAD reader extension) converted to an ESRI shapefile. The shapefile was then edited and subdivided into smaller shapefiles, each containing a logical subset which can be treated as a separate theme in the overall map.


The following shapefiles are currently available:

* lines.shp - A layer of lines imported from the Intergraph CAD file (unedited).

* polygons.shp - A layer of polygons imported from the Intergraph CAD file (unedited).

These layers have not been edited because map 92-2 is a subset of 92-1. Shapefiles that have been further subdivided and edited may be obtained from the folder for map 92-1.


Other available files:

* 92-2.apr - ArcView 3.2 project file that displayes the available layers. This file must be placed in the same folder as all the shapefiles and CAD files to work correctly.

* 92_2.2D - Original Intergraph file for map 92-2. The original labels may be extracted and displayed from this file (see below).


Displaying and Editing Labels in ArcView

A complete set of the original labels on the map can be displayed in ArcView by enabling the CAD reader extension and opening the annotations layer of the original Intergraph file (*.2d). However, labels displayed in this way cannot be edited or changed. One must convert the layer into a shapefile in order to make editing possible. 

If the theme containing labels is converted to a shapefile and displayed in ArcView, the labels are no longer visible and each label is seemingly replaced by a line. This problem occurs because shapefiles have no exact counterpart to the annotations in CAD files. So the import routine uses a workaround whereby a simple shape (a line) is created for each annotation, and the annotation itself is placed in a field called "Text" that is associated with the shape in the theme's attribute table. The user may generate a label that shows the contents of the "text" field, but this must be done manually after the shapefile is opened. The steps in this process are enumerated below.


1) Import the annotations layer in the CAD (Intergraph) file by opening it in ArcView (View > Add Theme). The CAD reader extension in ArcView must be turned on for this action to be successful (File > Extensions). When browsing for the CAD file, be sure to click on the CAD file's icon before actually opening it. This action will cause the various layers in the file to be displayed immediately below the icon. Select the "annotation" layer and click "OK." This layer will then appear as a theme in the table of contents to the left of the map. Click on the theme's check box to make the labels appear on the map.

2) Open the attribute table associated with this theme (Theme > Table). Then open the table's properties dialog box (Table > Properties) and make sure that all the fields, including "Text," are marked as "Visible." By default, the text field is not visible until the user changes its status.

3) Go back to the map view, select the labels theme, and convert it to a shapefile (Theme > Convert to Shapefile). When asked whether to add this theme to the current view, say "Yes." Click on the theme's check box to make it appear on the map. At this point, each label displays only as a line; the words are invisible.

4) Open the theme's properties dialog box (Theme > Properties), select the Text Labels icon on the left side, and set the Label Field to "Text," the Alignment Relative to Line to "Above," and the Alignment Along Length to "At Start." Be sure to place a check in the "Scale Labels" box if you want the labels to retain the same absolute size even if the map's scale changes. (This is almost always the best option.)

5) Now you can use either the Auto-Label feature (Theme > Auto-Label) or the Labels tool (button with a paper label icon) to display the text labels (see Help for more information on how this works).

6) Controlling the size of the labels in ArcView is awkward and needlessly difficult. Essentially, the size of the label text is controlled by the zoom level of the map when the label is created. Experiment to see how this works. Once the labels have been created and scaled to your liking, be sure to save them as part of the project. Otherwise you'll have to create them each time you open the project.