The maps: two PDFs

The imagery map shows your boundary, paddocks, fences, tracks and water over aerial photos. It’s the one people recognise straight away, so it suits the office wall, the bank or a new staff member.

The clean map shows the same mapping without the photo underneath. It prints clearly on an ordinary printer and is easy to write on. That’s the one to mark up: for 6 months you can send corrections to what we mapped, within the agreed scope, and a phone photo of a marked-up print is enough.

Both are PDFs, so they open on a phone, tablet or computer without special software.

The numbers: a spreadsheet

The area spreadsheet lists every paddock by name with its gross area, plus the total property area. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, so you can sort it, add columns or paste it into a feed budget.

Baseline Plus adds a detailed paddock schedule with the effective area of each paddock and every deduction itemised.

The mapped data: GeoPackage, shapefiles and KML

A PDF is a picture of the map. The mapped data is the map itself: every paddock, fence and track as a shape with its name and area attached, which mapping software can measure, restyle, overlay on other data or edit. You get the same data in three formats, because different software prefers different ones.

GeoPackage (.gpkg)

A single file holding every layer. It’s an open standard from the Open Geospatial Consortium, and it’s the easier of the two to keep and share, because nothing can go missing from it.

Shapefiles (.shp)

An older format that most mapping software can read. Each layer is several files with the same name, at least .shp, .shx and .dbf, plus a .prj that records the coordinate system. Keep them together: copy only the .shp and the layer won’t open. Shapefile field names are limited to 10 characters, so some column names are shortened; the pack includes a list matching each short name to the full one.

KML (.kml)

One file per layer for Google Earth. If Google Earth is installed, open a file and your paddocks appear over Google’s imagery, which is handy for a quick look or to show someone. KML stores positions as latitude and longitude, so for measuring or editing use the GeoPackage instead.

Opening them

QGIS is free and opens all three. ArcGIS, used by many consultants and councils, reads them too. The GeoPackage and shapefile coordinates are in New Zealand Transverse Mercator 2000 (NZTM2000), the standard for New Zealand mapping. If you want to load the map into farm software, ask your provider which format it imports before assuming it will.

Also in the data ZIP

README.txt: what’s in the bundle and which coordinate system each format uses.
shapefile_field_map.csv: the shortened shapefile column names matched to the full names.
bundle_manifest.json: a checksum for every file, so a mapping consultant can confirm nothing changed or went missing in transit.

Focused map sheets (Baseline Plus)

Baseline Plus adds four focused map sheets: the same farm drawn for one job, chosen from those your source data supports. The options are:

Waterline map
Irrigation map
Effluent application map
Power map
Farm type classification
Ownership map
Soil order map
Drainage map
Title vs fenceline comparison

Some need records only you have, such as where buried pipes run. See what’s in Baseline Plus ($1,250 + GST).

Which file for which job

Job	Use
A map for the office wall, the bank or a new manager	Imagery map PDF
Marking up corrections	Clean map PDF, printed
Fertiliser orders and feed budgets	Area spreadsheet (effective areas with Baseline Plus)
A consultant or council officer using GIS	GeoPackage, or shapefiles if their software asks for them
A quick look over Google Earth imagery	KML
Keeping a master copy	All of it, including the data files, even if you never open them yourself

Keeping your files

The files are yours to keep. Baseline Forever adds a private online farm map that stays current while you subscribe, and if the subscription ends you get a ZIP of your delivered files.

What’s actually in a farm map pack?