If you have an old map and you want to convert it to vector, you
have several options:
1. Esris ArcScan
2. Autodesk Raster-to-Vector Conversion
3. Trimble Ecognition
4. QGIS Edge Extraction
The nit-picky ArcScan doesnt like your 256 color scans. It wants
zeros and ones.
Please note: This step will influence how your vectors turn out.
Make sure to experiment with different settings. You will want to
find the happy-medium setting of not too many ones or zeros.
The ArcScan toolbar will be greyed out for now. At least until you
turn on the editor. Click Editor > Start Editing in the Editor
toolbar.
But after you have a binary raster and feature class ready to edit,
your ArcScan toolbar will be activated.
Step 6: Vectorize your image but first with a preview
Its time to see how well your vectorized features will look given
your image. You can see a preview by clicking Vectorization >
Show Preview in the ArcScan Toolbar.
If youre happy with how your preview looks, its time to generate
the features. You can save these features by
selecting Vectorization > Generate Features in the ArcScan
Toolbar. In the template, choose the line shapefile or feature class
that you have created in step 4.
The next thing to try is to physically alter the original image you
vectorized. To do this, you can use the raster painting tools by
selecting Raster Cleanup > Raster Painting Tools . This is good for
removing labels and connecting contour lines.