Final Digital Portfolio
- Class Readings: (I apologize for only having published notes on the readings I exclusively did.)
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/schuurman-chapter-1-notes/
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/introduction-terminology-and-conceptual-frameworks-for-spatial-analysis-from-geospatial-analysis-a-comprehensive-guide/
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/mitchell-ch-1/
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/mitchell-chapter-3-presentation/ (Presented Reading)
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/getting-to-know-arcgis-ch-1-and-2/
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/getting-to-know-arcgis-ch-3-9/
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/getting-to-know-arcgis-ch-10-15/
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/getting-to-know-arcgis-ch-16-20/
- Delaware Data Inventory Review Assignment
http://jbreiers.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/delaware-count-data-review/
- And a link to our cooperative project blog, we apologize for any lack of upkeep.
http://owuanthromes.wordpress.com/
Delaware Count Data Review
- Precincts layer: Shows the different electoral precincts within Delaware County, as well as highlighting those specifically in the city of Delaware, and the various polling locations across the entire county.
- Places of Interest layer: Shows several ‘landmark’ locations across the county, such as daycare centers, police stations, schools, cemeteries, medical centers and so on; also has several other features, such as buffers for day care and schools, it also shows law enforcement districts and fire department districts; which are fairly similarly divided areas.
- Address Points layer: Has a point for every address location of the county, even locations that do not have a building in the present location; so long as an address is attached to it, it is mapped.
- Delaware Landmarks layer: Similar to the Places of Interest layer, but also shows parks, represented by an area feature.
- Historic National layer: Shows, as points, the locations in Delaware County that are nationally recognized historic landmarks
- Historic Local layer: Shows, as points, locations in the county that are locally recognized historic landmarks, several points are the same as the Historic Nation layer
- Road Right of Way layer: Maps every major road in the county, each is a detailed outline of the road itself
- Road Center Line layer: Draws out the center line of all major roads in the county, as such each road is only shown as a single line, can be used with Road Right of Way layer to get a more detailed view of county roads
- Railroad layer: Somewhat self-explanitory, maps the locations and directions of the county’s railroad systems
- Zip Codes layer: separates the county into sections, based off of postal zip codes, the largest segments are notably in or near the center of the county.
- Woodland layer: Shows, as area features, the location of all decidedly woodland areas in Delaware county; this layer most likely has numerous intersections with the parks from the Landmarks layer
- Wetlands Layer: Shows, as area features, the locations and expanse of wetland areas across Delaware county.
- Watersheds layer: Shows the location and separation of the various watershed across the county; interestingly, there seems to be a gap in the area on the western-most part of the county
- Townships Historical: Shows the location and separations of the original 18 townships of Delaware county in the distant past, these townships are surprisingly large; and fairly regular in shape, which suggests the populace of the county was more evenly spread, or at the very least, spread out sparsely over the entire county
- Townships layer: Shows the current locations and separations of townships in the county, these are far less regularly shaped, though do still resemble the original forms of the townships. There is also a ‘township clip’ layer, which shows segments of townships from a central portion of the county.
- TaxDist layer: A layer showing the various areas of ‘tax districts’ for Delaware county; it very closely resembles the Townships layer.
- School Districts layer: Displays the areas of the various school districts situated, in part or whole, of Delaware county, several segments of districts from other counties can be seen along the boarders.
- Parks layer: Shows locations of parks throughout Delaware county, as well as a buffer, useful for determining what sort of locations could be nearby.
- Parcels layer: Separates Delaware county into its various land parcels.
- Municipalities layer: Shows the municipalities that are located within the boarders of Delaware county, as such municipalities of other counties can be seen along the boarders.
- Zoning layer: Shows the difference between historic and non-historic areas in the center of the county, this layer does not show the entire county, only a single, focused area.
- Hydro layer: Shows the hydrosphere, particularly the rivers and streams, of Delaware county, there are several buffers included to determine locations near all, or one of these.
-Hydro Detail layer: A far more detailed version of the Hydro layer, showing more minute details and features.
- Floodplain layers: Details the floodplains of the county, also contains a small buffer around these floodplains and a background image of the entire county and its rivers and streams.
- Floodways layer: Shows the floodways of Delaware county, seems as though this may be meant to be used with the Floodplains layer.
- Farmlots layer: shows the location of various farmlots across the county, the entire county it shown, but it is likely that several of these locations are not even intended to be farms.
- Economic Development layers: shows various areas of different economic growth in the county, the actual meaning of these layers currently eludes me.
- Census Tract layer: Self-explanatory, shows the division of census tracts for Delaware county.
- Census BlockGroup layer: Shows the groupings of various blocks, these groupings provide a larger, more generalized area.
- Census Block layer: Shows all blocks of Delaware county, more difficult to read, but provides more detailed and specific information.
-Building Outlines layers: Shows the outlines of the buildings in Delaware county, from a distance they almost all appear as points, but closer views show clearer defined shapes; there are multiple layers for multiple years.
- Annexation layer: Shows locations of annexations in Delaware county, most appear focused in the center and southern-most parts of the county.
- Ponds and Lakes layers: Show the locations of ponds and lakes throughout Delaware county, all are represented as areas; there are multiple layers for multiple years.
- Natural Heritage layer: Not entirely certain as to the purpose of this layer, all features are represented as points, features are widespread and sparse.
- Master Poing Coverage layer: Not entirely certain as to the purpose of this layer, all features are represented as points, there are many of them spread throughout the county, almost filling it in entirely, they are most densely packed in the center and southern parts of the county.
- Bench Marks layer: May represent ‘benchmark locations’ of Delaware for GPS navigation, though this is only a guess based on the available data.
- Archeological layer: Most likely shows locations of archeological work being done withing Delaware county, this is only a guess based off of the available data.
- Subdivision layer: Details the locations of subdivisions in Delaware county.
- Soils layer: Most likely shows the various types, densities, and/or distributions of soils in Delaware county, this is only a guess based off of the available data; the area featured appears to extend beyond Delaware county itself.
- Public Land Survey System layer: Shows a separation of areas within Delaware county defined by the Public Land Survey System, most of these are very defined and regular squares, though near the western boarder shapes become largely irregular.
- Orthophoto layer: A detailed overhead photograph of the entire county, as of 2010; it is separated into a northern and southern segment.
- Orthophoto Detailed layer: An even more detailed and defined overhead photograph of Delaware county from 2010, divided into a northern and southern segment.
Getting to Know ArcGIS: CH 16-20
Ch 16: Editing Features and Attributes
- Editing pre-existing features is as important as adding new features; often changing their attributes as well, this can be done automatically in a geodatabase in ArcMap, but other features must be updated manually
- Exercise 16a-16c: Deleting, modifying, splitting, merging and editing attribute tables of features
Ch 17: Geocoding Addresses
- Geocoding is the process of creating features from addresses and names or similar information
- Exercise 17a-17c: Creating address locators, and matching and rematching addresses
CH 18: Making maps from templates
-Templates contain multiple layers of data on them to begin with, as such, you may not even need to add data to them for some cases, or can use them as great basemaps
- Exercise 18a-18c: Opening a map template, adding x/y data in maps and drawing graphics on a map
CH 19: Making Maps for Presentation
- Exercise 19a-19d: Laying out a page, adding titles, north arrows, scale bars, legends, final touches, and setting print options
CH 20: Creating models
-ModelBuilder interface diagrams solutions to analysis issues, particularly useful for spatial analysis problems that are complex
- Exercise 20a-20c: Starting, building and enhancing models
Getting to Know ArcGIS CH: 10-15
CH 10: Selecting Features by Location
- There are 4 types of spatial relations that features can be selected by; distance from a selected point, points contained in a specified area, lines that intersect with other specified lines, and adjacency to other features.
- ArcGIS had 13 defined spatial relations, all of which are variations of the 4 types of relations, ie. Containment in an area, but not touching the boundary
- Exercise 10a-10b: Using location queries and attribute queries
CH 11: Prepping Data for Analysis
- GIS projects almost always begin with at least one dataset and a method to process it, which often creates a new dataset, even if it is only a modification of the old set; this is known as geoprocessing
- Several issues arise in processing data, such as having too detailed or general data, or in other cases too little and even too much data to properly map
- The problem of having too much data can easily be simplified by ‘dissolving’ data, the process of generalizing features with common attributes into one feature
- Exercise 11a-11d: Dissolving features, creating graphs, clipping layers, and exporting data
CH 12: Analyzing Spatial Data
-Most problems in GIS involve comparing spatial relations between features, a process known as spatial analysis
- Geoprocessing tools can be used fro this analysis, and not only data preparation
- Buffer: an area of set, uniform radial distance from a feature
- Overlay: Identifies overlap of features in two layers, can join them into a single union or only show the intersect
- Exercise 12a-12c: Buffering features, overlaying data, and calculating attribute values
CH 13: Projecting data in ArcMap
- Latitude and Longitude mark location on earth in relation to the equator and prime meridian (which runs through Greenwich, England)
- Latitude and Longitude are measurements of angle, not distance, as such they are measured in degrees, minutes, and seconds
- To make a map, the spherical earth must be presented as a flat surface, a process called map projection
- There is no completely accurate way of projecting a map of the entire earth, so there are multiple types of projections, each of which stays accurate to one or two attributes of the earth, allowing distortions of other attributes
-Exercise 13a-13b: Projecting data and defining projections
CH 14: Building Geodatabases
- There are various formats of spatial data that can be read and managed in ArcGIS
- Shapefiles are single features classes, ie. all cities in a set area
- By contrast, Geodatabases are sets of multiple feature classes
- Exercise 14a-14c: Creating geodatabases, feature classes, and adding field and domains
Ch 15: Creating Features
- Points are simple to create on a map, a ingle click is all that is needed to place them
- Editing sessions can be used to both create new features and edit existing ones
- Exercise 15a-15b: Drawing features and using Feature construction tools
Getting to know ArcGIS CH 3-9
CH 3: Exploring ArcMap
- ArcMap is an application of ArcGIS to display, investigate, and edit maps in a variety of ways; with several tools to interact with the data.
-Exercise 3a-3c: Earhart’s last flight
CH 4:Exploring ArcCatalog
- ArcCatalog manages geographic data before deciding to add it to a map, and allowing the creation/input of new data.
-Exercise 4a-4c: Browsing, Searching, and Adding map data
CH 5: Symbolizing Features and Rasters
- Symbolizing a feature is the act of assigning it a color, mark, pattern, and/or area so that it may be recognized on a map
- Symbols may have some direct relation to what they represent, or could have less-straightforward relations; some symbols are used simply for conventional reasons
-Exercise 5a-5d: Symbology
CH 6: Classifying Features and Rasters
- Feature attributes are either categorical or, more commonly, quantitative amounts.
- Values should always be divided into groups, unless using a small data set.
- The symbology for values is almost always scaled, considering that the values are scaled as well (graduated colors, graduated symbols, dot density, etc.)
-Exercise 6a-6d: Classifying features
CH 7: Labeling Features
- A label is simply any text on a map that names or describes features
- In ArcGIS other text can be added that does not quite classify as a label
- ArcGIS places labels automatically, although users can give general guidelines to their placement
- Dynamic Labels can be converted to annotations and moved at will, however
- Exercise 7a-7c: Using labels
CH 8: Querying Data
- GIS doesn’t simply map features, but can describe them as well
- Most information can be conveyed through symbols and maps, but there are limits, some information may require more than one map
- Features can be associated with more than their attributes; images, documents and web pages can be linked to them as well
-Exercise 8a-8c: Selecting and editing Features
CH 9: Joining and Relating Tables
- Attribute tables can describe much of a feature, but may not always convey enough information, or even information that cannot properly be mapped
- Joining tables adds one to another, creating one large attribute table
- Relating tables keeps them separate, but linked, any modifications to one table can directly affect the other
- Tables need a common attribute to be joined or related, not simply a single feature, but an entire field of values
-Exercise 9a-9b: Joining and Relating Tables
Project progress report.
Currently I have been brainstorming ideas for remaking the currently existing map; particularly in trying to re-define the idea of ‘gray spaces’ by defining them into more comprehensible areas. Such as industrial, commercial, and residential areas, as well as dividing out parts of campus.
We have also been taking into account possible human classifications, though that’s still running on rough concepts.
We’ve also determined that population density sill undoubtedly be one of the most important aspects of our part of this project. Determining what kinds of people live where and in what densities; and how that aids in defining what sort of environment is depicted in that area; doing this may or may not also have to take into account local wildlife, both in and outside of Delaware’s urban setting.
Getting to know ArcGIS: CH 1 and 2.
CH 1: Introducing GIS
- GIS maps are composed of Layers, which can be features (discrete) or surfaces (continuous)
- All features can be polygons (an area), lines, or points.
- All surfaces have numerical values as opposed to shapes, each different value is typically represented by a different color; often different shades of a single color.
- Features also have distinct locations and can be represented in different sizes, as opposed to surfaces, which encompass the entire map.
- Each feature also is linked directly to some kind of information, name, coordinates, population, elevation, etc.
- Newer features can be created by overlapping other features.
CH 2: Introducing ArcGIS Desktop
- ArcGIS has applications for map making, map editing, and spatial analysis, as well as database design and management.
- The various capabilities of ArcGIS can be expanded with specialized products.
