12 replies to this topic

[ELeFevre]

Does anyone know where I can find a good feature layer of the world's oceans? I would like to find a file that has all of the major oceans as individual polygons with a name field. Any links would be great. If someone has one that they would be willing to share (any common format will do) that would be excellent. Thanks in advance. Erin.

[CHART]

I once looked for a simalar data set and came out empty handed...
I ended up using the names off the CIA worldbook maps
( https://www.cia.gov/...cs/refmaps.html )

It wil be interesting to know if a free data set exists.

I was looking for it at the time to make large water body labelling easier.

Hoping someone can find one for you (and me... )

[ELeFevre]

Jacques,

Thanks for the info. I'm amazed that I (we) can't find a good layer showing the oceans and a name field. Unbelievable. I guess we had better create one! I even dug through my ESRI disk and didn't find anything...but then again, I believe much of that data is from the Digital Chart of the World. Maybe it's on there and I over-looked it. Thanks for checking. Erin

[Hans van der Maarel]

Jacques,

Thanks for the info. I'm amazed that I (we) can't find a good layer showing the oceans and a name field. Unbelievable. I guess we had better create one! I even dug through my ESRI disk and didn't find anything...but then again, I believe much of that data is from the Digital Chart of the World. Maybe it's on there and I over-looked it. Thanks for checking. Erin

I did some quick searching in my data collection, but couldn't find anything.

Best I can do for you is the OceanSea layers from VMAP, but they need some cleaning up (they appear to have depth information too), which would take some time. Dissolving polygons with the same name should do the trick. Let me know if you're interested.

[benbakelaar]

I also spent a few hours searching for this dataset. Since I was working on my NYC project, I only needed the eastern Atlantic seaboard, which I ended up finding through some USGS department. However, it was just the seaboard - the right edge of the ocean polygon is a straight vertical line, however many miles off the coast

[Charlie Frye]

A few years ago I did the same, upon finding nothing, decided to do something about it and created the shapefile that is enclosed. There are fields for size class, shape type, and name. There is a .dbf with the descriptions for the water body types--if you bring this into a geodatabase, use this table with the table to domain tool.

This dataset has names of marine water bodies assigned to polygons and should be useful at scales from global down 1:250,000. Use the LabSize or Area fields to filter out small places. We tested the data in house for a number of maps and found and fixed spelling errors and have been using this for a couple of years now as is.


Okay, I can't get the ZIP file to load--what gives? (Nick says there's a 1Mb size limit--its 3.5Mb)

In the meantime, my colleague, Aileen Buckley has a link to it on her site:

Aileen's Communicating Geographic Information Website

About halfway down, there's a link called: Named Marine Water Bodies shapefile

The key to the type field is:

0 - Ocean
1 - Sea
2 - Bay
3 - Gulf
4 - Strait
5 - Channel
6 - Sound
7 - Firth
8 - Infamous Region (note these are the only shapes that do not tesselate; and are just an optional example)
9 - Inlet
10 - Bight
11 - Passage

Also, for anyone who is interested, I've worked on a world physiographic dataset (mountain ranges, deserts, etc.) It's not as done and I don't feel comfortable posting it yet, but if you're desperate, I'll be glad to send it to you as it would likely save you some time. Recently, I started something similar for Islands and island chains as well--same provision.

Thanks,

Charlie

Does anyone know where I can find a good feature layer of the world's oceans? I would like to find a file that has all of the major oceans as individual polygons with a name field. Any links would be great. If someone has one that they would be willing to share (any common format will do) that would be excellent. Thanks in advance. Erin.

[CHART]

Kudos to Charlie for his work.



about the data set you are working on, maybe something we can all colaborate to elaborate.... subject for the next NACIS?...


don't think it is possible to post a file (other then an image) to this forum...

[Charlie Frye]

I presented these at NACIS in Portland, ME--they're also written up in CP55 (pp 34-53).

I'm willing to farm out the datasets (physiographic features and Islands) for others to collaborate (use, refine, and augment). The format at the moment is Personal Geodatabase, but work and updates can be done with shapefiles as well (only a little extra effort required). If anyone is interested, email me, cfrye@esri.com and I can send you the datasets and you can give me updates, changes, alternatives, etc. back as updated data. The mechanism for tracking changes will be a field called "Editor" where you add your initials for any feature you add or change. If deletions are needed, then email me.

In fact if anyone wants to make further subdivisions (additional named features) to the named marine features dataset, just add a field called editor and do the same as described above.

I'm happy to accumulate changes and make the improved datasets available.

All that said, I have also been checking multiple (at leaset three) sources to ensure the name is in the public domain. There are a number of name/places that are not well agreed upon, so those bridges will get crossed as they're encountered.

Thanks,

Charlie

[ELeFevre]

Charlie,

This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you very much! Erin.

[Claude]

That's great. Thanks Charlie! Any idea why when reprojecting into a world projection like Robinson, it gets angular around the sides?

[Charlie Frye]

Any idea why when reprojecting into a world projection like Robinson, it gets angular around the sides?

The features don't densify (get more vertexes to accomodate curves) when projected. Here is a field calculator script that will do that for you:

Dim pCurve as IPolyCurve

Dim pGeom as IGeometry

Set pCurve = [Shape] 



if not pCurve.isEmpty then

  pCurve.Densify (pCurve.Length / 1000), 0

end if

Set pGeom = pCurve

To use this, you'll need to open the table in ArcMap and use the field calculator on the Shape field.

1. Set the Field calculator to Advanced mode
2. Paste this code into the field calculator
3. As is, this will add 1000 vertexes per line--that may be aggressive, so change the denominator in the 3rd to last line to something smaller.
4. In the Shape= text box below the code box type "pGeom" (it's the variable that is being set in the script).
5. Click OK.


Warning: If do not do this within an Edit session, the change is cannot be undone.

Thanks,

Charlie

[Claude]

Thanks Charlie, works like a charm

[Charlie Frye]

No problem, I should also note that that code for densifying these features, is also excellent for grad/graticule lines.

Thanks,

Charlie

Thanks Charlie, works like a charm