You Ask: “What Is GIS About?”

And So You Ask Again: “What Is GIS About?”

More of What GIS Is About

Next Steps: Seemingly Independent Things You Need to Know

Determining Where Something Is: Coordinate Systems

Determining Where Something Is: Latitude and Longitude

Geodesy, Coordinate Systems, Geographic Projections, and Scale

Projected Coordinate Systems

Geographic vs. Projected Coordinates: A Comparison

Two Projected Coordinate Systems: UTM and State Plane

Physical Dimensionality

Global Positioning Systems

Remote Sensing

Relational Databases

Searching (and Indexing) in General

Another Definition of GIS

Computer Software: In General

Understanding the File Structure for the Exercises

Anatomy of the ArcCatalog Window

Setting Some Options

The Catalog Tree

Connecting to a Folder

The Toolbars and the Status Bar

An Optional Step

Exploring Basic GIS Data Storage Models

Copying Data over to Your Personal Folder

Examining the Table

Deriving Information from the Table

Sorting the Records

Finding Values in a Table

Identifying Geographic Features and Coordinates

Looking at GeoGraphics

A First Look at Metadata

Using ArcCatalog to Place Data in ArcMap

Using the Area on the Disk for Your Own Work

Copying Data over to Your Personal IGIS Folder

Searching for GIS Data

Exploring Soils

But Something Is Missing

Is the Newly Found Data Applicable?

Making a Personal Geodatabase Feature Class from a Coverage

Looking at the Landcover Personal Geodatabase Feature Class

Further Examining the Wildcat Boat Facility Area Data Sets

Seeing the Results of the Join

A Button for Instant Help: What’s This? (for ArcGIS Desktop version 10.0 only)

Getting Instant Help for a Tool or Command (for ArcGIS Desktop version 10.1)

The Help System and Documentation

ArcGIS Help across the Internet

What’s Next?

The Original Form of Spatial Data: Maps

Moving Spatial Data from Maps to Computers: Forces for Change

Spatial Data

Limiting the Scope

Spatial Data for Decision Making

Sets of Spatial Data: The Database

Spatial Databases: Inherent Difficulties

Information Systems

Uses for a Geographic Information System

The Basic Difference between ArcCatalog and ArcMap

Exploring Data from the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS)

Preliminaries

Seeing the GPS File in ArcMap

Looking at the GPS Track in the Context of a Variety of GIS Data

A Potpourri of Types of Geographic Data

Displaying Layers from Vector-Based Datasets

Housekeeping: Saving and Restoring a Map

Selecting: Both Map Data and Attribute Data

Using the Measure Tool and the Identify Tool

County Boundaries and Polygons

TIGER/Line Files

The Table of Contents: Display vs. Source vs. Selection

Digital Raster Graphics and Cell-Based Files

A Look (Optional) at How DRG Color Values Are Put Together

Experimenting with Different Ways of Seeing Data

Digital Orthophotos

More TIGER/Line Files

Another Tie between Attributes and Geographics

More Housekeeping: Shutting Down and Restarting ArcMap

Digital Elevation Model Files

Comparing the DEM and the DRG

Contour Line Files

TINs are Three-Dimensional Datasets

Elevation Based on Massive Sets of Data: The Esri Terrain

The Summarizing Procedure

Some Geological Data

Rasters of Land Cover Data

You Are Not Alone (Assuming you have an Internet connection)

Next Steps on Your Own

The Next Chapter

GIS and Cartography—Compatibility?

Products of a Geographic Information System

Overall Requirements for Utility

Classification of GIS Products

Documenting Products

Thoughts on Different Types of Products

Don’t Ignore Character-Based Information

Don’t Hesitate to Sort Information

Consider Hard Copy

Consider Balance in Product Content

Elements of Product Design

Units, Projection, and Scale

Thoughts on Resolution and Scale

Making Sure There Is a Base Map

Measure of Quality Assurance

The Decision Maker–Product Interface

In Summary

The Data View and the Layout View

Controlling Your View of the Map: Zooming

Understanding the Panning and Other Controls

Adding Other Map Elements

Adding Data to Data Frames

A Summary of the Graphic Indicators

Tinkering with the Map—Scale Bars

Legends

Layer Files

Layer Packages

Styles

Adding and Using a Style

Reports

Charts and Graphs

Graphics

Making Graphics out of Geographic Features

Why Is Spatial Data Analysis So Hard?

How the Computer Aids Analyzing Spatial Data

Complexity of Spatial Data

Structures for Spatial Data

Storage Paradigms for Areal Data

Fundamental Bases of Geographic Data Mode

The Raster Data Model

Vector Data Model

A Multiplicity of “Storadigms”

Vector-Based Geographic Datasets—Logical Construction

Zero-Dimensional Entities in a Two-Dimensional Field: Points

One-Dimensional Entities in a Two-Dimensional Field: Lines

Two-Dimensional Entities in a Two-Dimensional Field: Polygons

Three-Dimensional Entities in a Three-Dimensional Field: Triangles and Multipatches

Specific Esri Spatial Vector Data Storage Mechanisms

The Geodatabase Data Structure

Geodatabase Software

Polygons within Polygons—Perimeter and Area Calculations

Geodatabases—Layout in the Computer

Geodatabases—Logical Construction

Geodatabases—Feature Shape

Nested Polygons in Geodatabases

Geodatabases and Attributes

Objects—First Acquaintance

The Shapefile Data Structure

Shapefiles—Layout in the Computer

Summarizing Vector Dataset Features

Summary of Logical Structures of Vector-Based GIS Datasets

Raster-Based Geographic Data Sets—Logical Construction

Raster-Based Geographic Data Sets—Layout in the Computer

TINs

TIN-Based Geographic Data Sets—Layout in the Computer

Spatial Reference

Concerns about Finding and Collecting Data

Looking for Data on the Internet

Steps in Developing the Database

GPS and GIS

Anatomy of the Acronym: GPS

What Time Is It?

Looking at Reference Systems

Looking at Coordinate Systems

Using the Reference System to Discover the Boundary Coordinates of a State Plane Zone

Primary Lesson

A Plan for Digitizing and Transforming

Getting Started

Loading an Image File as a Layer in ArcMap

Loading the New, Blank Shapefile into ArcMap

Adding Line Features to a Shapefile by Using the Editing Facility in ArcMap

Converting a Shapefile to a Geodatabse Feature Class and Giving It Real-World Coordinates

Converting the Shapefile to a Geodatabase Feature Class

Moving the Foozit Court Feature Class into the Real World

Preliminaries

Making the Feature Class That Will Be the Object of the Digitization

Georeferencing

Moving the Sketch to UTM Zone

Digitizing the Line Boundaries of the Islands

Making Polygons of the Digitized Lines

Making Multipart Polygons

Five islands divided by county and agency

Merging Multipart Polygons

Making Copies of the Feature Class

Using “Clip” to Remove Overlaps from the Feature Class

Using Topology to Remove Overlaps from the Feature Class

The Concept of the Edit Sketch

Making Sketches with Snapping

Experimenting with Editing Polygons

Experimenting with Editor’s Union

Experimenting with the Editor’s Intersect

Experimenting with the Editor’s Buffer Capabilities

Using Undo, Redo, Copy, and Cut

Working with Line Editing Again

Creating a 3-D Feature

Organization

Environment and Measurement (Spatial Data)

Measurements (Non-spatial Data)

Recording Data

Team Assignments

Undertaking the Data Entry Process

Making a Table That Contains the Coordinate Data

Making a Table That Contains the Student Data

Populating the Student_Info Table with Data

Joining the Two Tables to Make a Single Table

Seeing the Results of the Join