# Draftsman Types - Where can I get contours? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2006, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draftsman-types-where-can-i-get-contours/344929 "2006-02-17T11:30:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ficer67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Ficer67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ficer67)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draftsman-types-where-can-i-get-contours/344929/1 "2006-02-17T11:30:11Z")
I am digitizing contours off of USGS quad maps right now. Tracing over them in CAD. This works, of course, but there must be a better way of getting these contours for my projects. Any ideas are appreciated. Ficer67 ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draftsman-types-where-can-i-get-contours/344929/2 "2006-02-17T13:50:35Z")
Does your county or city have a GIS department? You may be able to get them there (we sell ours). ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draftsman-types-where-can-i-get-contours/344929/3 "2006-02-17T22:04:45Z")
If all you’re interested in is the USGS maps, you can obtain these digitally from many firms. We use [this](http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/). You might also check out this website: > **[Free USGS Topographic Maps Online - Topo Zone](https://www.topozone.com/)** > > FREE topographic maps online 24/7. View all of our high-quality shaded relief USGS topo maps, Forest Service maps, satellite images, and custom map layers for free. However, in my business, we generally have to obtain more detailed contours for our water and sewer design projects. (We typically do this work for municipalities.) Basically, you first determine if the municipality already has the data, typically in the municipal Engineering or GIS departments. If this fails, you have to obtain the data yourself by field survey, or for larger projects, by aerial mapping by a firm like [this](http://www.e-topo.com/). Neither of these options are cheap. Both options generally start at about $10,000 and go up from there. ---
**Author:** ![Ficer67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Ficer67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ficer67)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draftsman-types-where-can-i-get-contours/344929/4 "2006-02-19T14:34:18Z")
As a matter of fact, I have used Topozone before. Louisiana State University sponsors a programs called Atlas [http://atlas.lsu.edu/](http://atlas.lsu.edu/), which allows me to download all of the quad maps for Louisiana, in tif format, free of charge. This is good. But I have to take it to the next level. What I am doing manually is to trace over the contours of each quad map in CAD, for each of our projects. If there is no better way, I am going to keep doing this. However, I suspect that people have done this already. There ought to be a way that I can get a copy of these CAD drawings. So how ‘bout it people, ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draftsman-types-where-can-i-get-contours/344929/5 "2006-02-19T15:48:02Z")
> [@Ficer67](#): > > So how ‘bout it people, What are you downloading. 7.5 min quads? What contour interval do you need 40’? There are programs that will auto digitize .tif’s based on the color of the cell. I have not had great luck with them though (its’ been a few years, I bet they are better now). It might help. [I Googled Auto Digitize](http://www.bossintl.com/html/didger-new-features.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/draftsman-types-where-can-i-get-contours/344929/6 "2006-02-19T22:27:52Z")
Check out what you can [download from the USGS](http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod/digitaldata.html). Apparently they’ve stopped offering DEM (Digital Elevation Model) files, but you can still download DLG (Digital Line Graph) quads that include what you’re after, hypsography. I used to use them for hydrography. They downloaded as gzip compressed SDTS (Spatial Data Transfer Standard, IIRC) format files and I used a shareware utility called [sdts2dxf](http://ioc.unesco.org/oceanteacher/oceanteacher2/02_InfTchSciCmm/01_CmpTch/05_OcSoft/03_Convert/Converters.htm) to convert them to DXF files that could be used in AutoCAD.