We strongly urge potential users to look over the information on the LandView main page to get a general idea of its capabilities. We plan to post a LandView 6 product brochure to this page by the end of the second quarter of 2004.

If after reviewing these materials, you are still not sure whether LandView provides the functionality you desire, we recommend that you download the LandView 6 demonstration program and tutorial.

The LandView 6 demonstration program is a fully functional version of LandView that is limited geographically to Prince William County, VA. The tutorial has several lessons containing exercises that will introduce you to the product's features. This way you can determine first hand whether the product will meet your needs.
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The LandView product was designed to be used by the general public to create maps for small areas like neighborhoods or sections of a city showing selected features like roads, EPA sites, Census 2000 legal or statistical areas (census tracts, block groups) see example. It also can create basic thematic maps based on Census 2000 data see example.

The LandView product uses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's MARPLOT^® mapping engine which is also used in a system of software applications called CAMEO^®. Front-line chemical emergency planners and responders use the CAMEO software to plan for and respond to chemical emergencies.

Consequently, MARPLOT is not suitable for producing more complex maps showing large areas. Producing those types of maps require both more powerful cartographic software and cartographic expertise on the part of the user.

Census Bureau cartographers have prepared various types of maps that can be found on our Map Products page.
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The LandView software has an "Estimate a Population within a Radius" function that calculates the population and housing unit counts within a user specified radius from a focus point the user sets on the MARPLOT map, or from coordinates entered on the Census 2000 Population Estimator form.

Two options are provided for producing the Census 2000 Population Estimate - one based on census block points and the other based on census block group points.

Census tabulation blocks are the smallest geographic unit for which Census 2000 data is published (approximately 8.26 million blocks). This estimate provides the closest areal approximation of census statistical geographic units to the specified radius and would generally be used for radii smaller than 25 miles.

The census block group points method (211,267 block groups) is used to tabulate the more detailed Census 2000 socioeconomic data shown in Demographic Profile tables 2-4 by census block group. Census block groups are used because socioeconomic data are not published at the census block level for confidentiality and sampling rate reasons. You can find a more detailed explanation of this function and how it works.
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LandView was designed by EPA to assist the public in assessing environmental hazards within their community as well as help the chemical industry prepare risk management plans. For this reason, EPA Envirofacts data is included along with the U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System data which provides data on schools, hospitals, religious institutions and other landmarks.

By using the MARPLOT mapping program search function an user can create a search collection of objects found within a specified radius. After building the collection of found objects (schools within 5 miles), the user has the option to mark all found objects on the map and then automatically retrieve records from the LandView database related to each marked map object.

Lesson 5 of the LandView 6 tutorial provides detailed information on how to conduct MARPLOT map searches.
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The MARPLOT mapping software stores information in its own file format. Technical specifications about this format are provided in the MARPLOT Technical Documentation.

We provide a software utility (SHP2MIE) that allows users to import shape files into the MARPLOT mapping software that are unprojected (a Geographic projection, in ArcView terms) or that are projected in either UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) or Albers. Here are the utility and relevant instructions.

We do not have a utility to export the MARPLOT map to shape file format.

Chapter 4 of the MARPLOT User's Guide has specific information on how to import and export data in other formats like MARPLOT simple point format or ArcInfo Generate format.
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The LandView product consists of two programs that are designed to run on Windows and Macintosh operating systems to meet the operational needs of first responders. First responders must have software that runs on their laptops in the field. For this reason, the LandView programming team designed LandView to run using DVDs for mass storage while yet providing optional Internet access to auxiliary databases.

Because the LandView product is not copyrighted, users are free to install LandView as a client server application on their local area networks. The LandView Help provides further details on how to install LandView to a local area network.
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The CAMEO application can be run without access to the LandView application. For this purpose, a free-standing copy of the MARPLOT application is downloaded from the CAMEO Internet site. By default, this version of MARPLOT installs in a c:\marplot directory. On installation of LandView, a second copy of MARPLOT is created within the LandView folder (c:\lv6a for LandView 6 and c:\lv5 for LandView 5). There should not be two copies of the MARPLOT application on the same computer. LandView must use the copy contained in the LandView application folder. The CAMEO application needs to be directed to the version contained in LandView, and the free-standing version of MARPLOT at c:\marplot needs to be deleted. Instructions for this procedure are on Page 4 of the LandView Tutorial.
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LandView can be set up to run on a local area network as a client server application or installed on personal computer hard drive. Technical details regarding how to do this are provided in the "Alternate LandView Installation" and "Network Installation of LandView" at the LandView 6 Help Internet site.
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The LandView 6 software runs on Macintosh OS Version 9.2 or later. LandView IV and LandView 5 will also run on the Macintosh OS.
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LandView IV is still offered to the public because it contains 1990 Census data and map layers of statistical and legal areas.

Although LandView 5 has been replaced by LandView 6, we still offer it for sale because it's cheaper than LandView 6 and as well suited as LandView 6 for certain applications like matching addresses to Census geography or preparing EPA risk management plans.
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The LandView 6 and MARPLOT^® software were created by agencies of the U.S. Government and are in the public domain. They can be copied, used and distributed freely without the requirement for royalty payments or further permissions.

To accomodate the file size of the LandView 6 data sets and maps, dual layer, single sided DVDs (DVD-9 format) were used to create the East and West discs. Each disc has the capacity to store up to 8 gigabytes of files.

DVD burners currently available to the public , use single sided, single layer DVDs (DVD-5 format) which can only store 4.3 gigabytes of data. Therefore, duplicating these DVDs is not an option.
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The price of the LandView 6 product is shown at LandView 6 "Ordering Information". To place an order refer to How To Order Census Bureau Data Products.
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Because the entire LandView 6 data set and maps contain over 66,000 files stored in 3,280 folders that require 12 gigs of computer storage space, we would have to divide the data into smaller county packages to create more manageable units for download. The effort required to do this exceeds currently available LandView programming resources. Furthermore, we do not believe that such a geographically limited version of LandView would be that useful for most user applications.

To meet the need for wide spread free public access to this software, we have distributed LandView through the Federal Depository Library system as well as through our State Data Center system.

From the Census Bureau's main page, select the "Related Sites" link in the dark blue column, There you will find links to both the Federal Depository Libraries and State Data Centers programs. Hopefully, you will find a conveniently located library where you can arrange to use LandView 6 for your research.
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LandView 4 is based on the 1998 TIGER/Line files, LandView 5 and 6, on the Census 2000 TIGER/Line data.
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The National DVD product was created for those users who require access to data and maps for the entire country over a local area network (LAN) or a local hard drive.

If you don't mind frequently exiting the LandView program to switch between the East and West DVDs or are comfortable with networking just the states on either the East or West DVD, you don't need the National DVD version. For more information on networking requirements see Network Installation of LandView
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The roads, hydrography, and railroad features in both LandView 5 and LandView 6 are based on the Census 2000 TIGER/Line files. This version of TIGER/Line is based on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). For Hawaii and the Pacific Island Areas, the Census Bureau used a variety of sources for building the original digital file in the late 1980s. Neither the specific identities of each of these sources nor their datums were recorded.

Because of the variety of sources contained in TIGER, it is not possible to provide a single number representing the horizontal accuracy measure. A fuller explanation of positional accuracy is presented in Chapter 5 of the Census 2000 TIGER/Line technical documentation [PDF] which may be downloaded.
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