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The ubiquitous Environmental Systems Research Institute better known as ESRI, is a leading purveyor of GIS software: they are the Microsoft of the GIS world.

The core GIS product ESRI sold for years was ArcInfo. ArcInfo used to be a nasty, command driven software package that was difficult to learn and use. ESRI developed ArcView as a simple GIS package intended, initially, to allow users unskilled in the intricacies of ArcInfo to view ArcInfo maps: ArcView had a more user-friendly menu driven interface. Over the years, ESRI added more GIS functions to ArcView, and ArcView version 3.2 became a very popular GIS software package, with Windows, UNIX, and Macintosh versions.

Several years back, the entire array of ESRI software was re-programmed for the Windows environment, and the result is ArcGIS: an integrated set of GIS software components, including ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and ArcToolbox. ArcMap is where you perform GIS analysis and make maps. ArcCatalog helps with managing data, and ArcToolbox helps with data conversion and additional data management. In this course, we will focus on using ArcMap to process our U.S. Census data, link it to digital base maps, and to create a series of population change maps.

With the new computers came a new version of ArcGIS, version 9.3. New features are outlined here. For the most part, the new version should not be much different than the previous version for this class project. If something is different than the exercise says it should be, please let me know.

This Lab consists of an introduction to the main components of ArcMap, enough to familiarize you with the software so that you can use it in Labs 5, 6, and 7.

Lab 4 Goal: Familiarize yourself with ArcGIS basics, complete a pair of maps of Ohio demographic data, define some jargon, and explore the ESRI WWW site. Comment on all of these tasks in your Luxurious Lab Blog.

We will only touch on a few of the many capabilities of ArcMap in this preliminary exercise. You will grow more familiar with ArcMap over the course of the semester, and do not be afraid to use the help (built into the software), your instructor, or other students.

1) Start ArcMap (on the desktop or under programs in the Start menu).

2) A dialog box appears: Start using ArcMap with A new empty map. You can also open an existing map here (if you have one...but you don't at this point).

3) A morass of icons and windows appears. Like most Windows software, you can move the tool bars in different configurations. The window to your left will list map layers (when you add them) and is called the table of contents.

The word Layers should be in the table of contents and is a data frame. A data frame holds a series of map layers, and information common to all those layers, including the map projection and coordinate system of your map layers. The maps will be displayed in the large window on the right.

4) Right-click on the data frame called Layers and a menu will pop up:

• scroll down and select Properties...

• Click once on the General tab and change the name of the data frame to World. We will return to this data frame menu to change the map projection later.

5) Add a map layer to your data frame called World. There are several ways to do this:

• right-click on World and select Add Data...

• ...or select the Add Data icon (a black cross over a yellow diamond) from the tool bar.

• Navigate to the Data - ESRI folder and find a world map in the ESRIDATA_2000 folder called countries.lyr. The map should show up in the table of contents and you should also see it.

• Right-click on the map name and go to Properties... and then the General to change the name of the layer to something like Countries. The pop-up menu and properties of a map layer are different than those associated with the data frame.

6) Change the map projection. The map projection (how the surface of the spherical earth is flattened out) affects all layers in a frame, and is changed in the data frame properties box.

• Right click on your World data frame, and select Properties.

• Select the Coordinate System tab, then in the Select a coordinate system window, navigate to predefined then projected then world then select a map projection. Yes this is convoluted. Hit ok and you should see your world map projected.

7) Add another map layer (from the same world folder). Notice that you can turn layers off and on with the check box next to the map layer name.

8) Save your work: the map document (.mxd) file contains all files and settings for a project - all the layer files, etc. Save the file in your ArcGIS folder (create one if you don't have one).

9) ArcGIS allows you to access the table of attribute data associated with each map layer. Right-click on one of your layers and select Open Attribute Table to view the table. Click on a row of data, and that country should be hi lighted on your map: thus the map and the data are connected. You may also select the identify tool (the same letter I in a circle), click on a country, and see the data associated with that country.

10) Close all attribute tables and deselect any countries you selected (from the Selection menu choose Clear Selected Features).

11) Map the data in the attribute table:

• Right-click on the world map layer and select Properties....

• Select the Symbology tab.

• Click on Quantities (which allows us to map quantitative data associated with the map).

• Select Graduated Colors and choose a particular data set to map. The options are in the pop-up window named Value.

• Create a world map, showing one of the attributes in the table.

• From the FIle menu select Export Map... and save a .jpg of the map, 100 or so dpi is fine for the resolution. Save the map in a new folder in your class folder called Blog Maps and upload it to your lab blog, including it in the entry for this exercise.

12) Finally: map out a US State by Census block groups:

• Turn off the layers in the World data frame (check boxes next to layer)

• Under the Insert menu select Data Frame to add a new data frame to your table of contents. This is important, as we will want a different projection for Ohio than for the world.

• Change the name of the data frame to Ohio

• Add US Census block group data and major roads to the data frame: use the data in the ESRIDATA_2000 folder: EastUSA, SouthUSA, or WestUSA folders. The files are CensusBlockGroup.lyr and MajorRoads.lyr

• Select out Interstate Highways from all the state roads:
  • From the Selection menu select Select by Attributes

  • Layer: Major Roads

  • Method: Create a New Selection

  • Build the query as thus: "HWYNAME" LIKE 'I%'
    • This means to select any highway name that has the letter I at the beginning of the name, thus I-71, I-90, etc.

  • Once selected, right-click on the Major Roads layer, and select selection and select Create Layer from Selected Features. This will make a new layer, which you can rename and re-symbolize.

• Map out two different attributes using the Census data and include the interstate highways on each. Please use a different color scheme for each map (so one might be a range of blue values from light to dark, the other reds from light to dark).

• From the FIle menu select Export Map... and save both your maps as .jpg files, 100 or so dpi. Save the maps in the Blog Maps folder and upload them to your lab blog, including them in the entry for this exercise.

  
  

13) Explore ArcGIS a bit and document two interesting things you figure out how to do with the software. You may do these things to your world data, your state data, or you may want to use the Delaware County Data (in the Delaware Data folder on the C drive). Use the Help in ArcGIS (it is helpful) - and many functions (such as Buffering or Geoprocessing have wizards to help you. Document these two features, and note your results on the lab blog.

14) Define the following list of ArcGIS terms in your Lab Blog:

• Map Document (.mxd files)
• Table of Contents
• Data Frame
• Map Layer
• Attribute Table

15) Go explore the ESRI WWW site and explore a bit. Find two issues of interest to you - anything at all - and note them in your Lab Blog. Also, Jot down a few thoughts about your initial impressions of ArcGIS in your Lab Log.

E-mail: jbkrygier@owu.edu

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