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2. 2.1
GIS Fundamentals
Most would acknowledge that the two dominant commercial GIS producers in the United States are Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) and Intergraph. Estimates usually indicate that together they produce at least half of the GIS software in the country. ESRI will be the focus of this chapter, with the ESRI desktop application ArcView being utilized for the software application of this course. Jack Dangermond, the President of ESRI, Inc. since 1969, is well known to GIS users because he established the company in that year, then subsequently developed and launched ARC/INFO in 1982. Dangermond continues to refine ESRI software, and his efforts qualify him as one of the s original thinkers in the development of spatial analysis systems. (Lakhan, 2)
GIS Fundamentals
Unfortunately, GIS is often developed in the wrong order and more attention is given to the dazzling hardware and software, rather than trying to fit the data to the computer technology. The statement garbage in; garbage outcan be applied to the data collection process for the organization and the people who utilize and implement that data. The greatest piece of software, and the computers with the greatest amount of memory and speed, will not improve the information from data that is poorly gathered and inputted into the system.
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GIS Fundamentals
primarily because of its flexibility and very wide range of applications both within and outside of GIS. (ESRI, Inc.) Query and Analysis Manipulating data to produce insight and new information. Simplifying the data or the world and its processes to understand how things work. Once you have a functioning GIS containing your geographic information, you can begin to ask simple questions such as: Who owns the land parcel on the corner? How far is it between two places? Where is land zoned for industrial use? And, analytical questions such as: Where are all the sites suitable for building new houses? What is the dominant soil type for oak forest? If I build a new highway here, how will traffic be affected? Visualization Presenting data in various ways for easy understanding of maps and reports (Davis, 23). For many types of geographic operations, the end result is best visualized as a map or graph. Maps are very efficient at storing and communicating geographic information. While cartographers have created maps for millennia, GIS provides new and exciting tools to extend the art and science of cartography. Map displays can be integrated with reports, three-dimensional views, photographic images, and other output such as multimedia. (ESRI, Inc.)
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GIS Fundamentals
Figure 1.2. Basic Graphical User Interface of ArcView. The Menu bar provides access to ArcView operations through pull-down
menus. The Button bar provides quick access to commonly used operations. The Tool bar contains tools that perform operations requiring input from the mouse. (Also, when you click on a tool, the cursor changes to reflect the tool you have chosen). When you place the cursor over a menu choice, button, or tool, the Status bar displays a one-line description of the operation it performs. The Status bar also reports measurements and displays a progress bar for lengthy operations. (ESRI) Below are examples of ArcView sessions showing all the available types of documents in a GIS project. View document Table document Chart document Layout document Script document Project A project is a collection of associated windows, or documents, that are displayed during an ArcView session. The Project window contains all of the other documents associated with the project (views, tables, charts, layouts and scripts). All of these associated documents are accessed through the active project window. Projects are text (ASCII) files stored with an .aprextension. Projects contain pointers to the physical locations of associated documents as well as user preferences (colors, GUI, window sizes & positions). The user preferences stored with the project affect only the way the data is displayed not the data itself.
GIS Fundamentals
View A view is the graphic representation of spatial information and can contain any number of layersor themesof spatial information (see Chapter 4). The different themes associated to a view are listed in the Table of Contents, a sizable space located along the left side of the View window. As seen in the example below, Major Roads, Schools,and Census Block Groupspolygons would be the selected themes in a single view.
Table A table is ArcView representation of tabular data. Tables contain descriptive s information about a specific subject. Each row, or record, defines one entry in the database (e.g., one Census Block polygon); each column, or field, defines a single characteristic for the entry (e.g. Area). Any dBase, INFO or ASCII file can be displayed as an ArcView Table (see Chapter 2).
GIS Fundamentals
Chart Charts provide graphic representation of summarized tabular data. Charts can also query data from the table from which it was built. Six chart types are available: line, bar, column, X,Yscatter, area, and pie. (NOTE: the same chart types as in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software). The example below depicts GIS data of high school sizes on a bar graph.
Layout The layout document is used to combine all other documents (views, tables, and charts) into an output document (usually a hardcopy map). Any previously composed view can be placed into a layout. Within the layout a north arrow, scale bar, legend and other graphics can be added (see Chapter 6).
GIS Fundamentals
Figure 1.7. A layout combining views, tables, and charts for map-making purposes.
Script Script windows are for writing and displaying Avenue scripts that customize the ArcView user interface or perform user-designed tasks. From the button bar you check syntax, debug, and run your script. Avenue is ArcView object-oriented programming language. With Avenue you s can modify the appearance of ArcView, create new programs, make complex tasks simple, and communicate with other applications such as ARC/INFO, a relational database manager or a spreadsheet. Using scripts, ArcView can be customized for specific user needs and for specific applications and tasks. The figure below is an example of the Avenue scripting language.
GIS Fundamentals
Exercises
In this section, the student will learn to open ArcView projects and themes, and use some of the buttons and tools associated to the View document.
1A.
Click on OK in the first dialog box (on the left of the page). Click on No when the second dialog box pops up, and an empty view window will open.
GIS Fundamentals
1B.
After navigating to the right path (Your Drive:\Chapter 1\data), the Add Theme window will appear as follows.
NOTE: When you choose to add a theme to a project, it may be from: a Feature Data Source (ArcView shape file, ARC/INFO coverage) an Image Data Source (Digital Photos, etc) In this exercise, we will deal only with Feature Data. You can choose to add one or multiple themes. To do this hold the Shift Key down (for multiple selection), and click on the themes: Detroit.shp, Roadhwy.shp, and Schools.shp Click on OK.
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GIS Fundamentals
1C.
The order of themes within the Table of Contents dictates the order in which the themes are drawn in the view. The top theme in the Table of Contents is drawn last and is the top layer of the view. The order of the themes can be rearranged by clicking on a theme with the mouse and then dragging it to a new position in the Table of Contents. Notice the order in which the themes are in your View Window. Click on and drag the Detroit.shp to the top of the Table of Contents. Notice the change in the mapby interchanging the order of the themes as directed. Drag the theme Detroit.shp back to the bottom list. Many functions in ArcView require that one or more themes are active.An active theme is that which responds to the View GUI. The legend for an active theme appears raisedin the table of contents. Themes can be made active by clicking on the name of the theme in the Table of Contents. Multiple themes may be made activeby holding down the Shift Key and clicking with the mouse on each required theme. Make the Detroit.shp theme active. Click on the Zoom to Active Themebutton.
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GIS Fundamentals
1D.
Move the pointer to the polygon located in the middle of the Detroit.shp theme (which should be the active theme). The polygon is now selected, and become highlighted.
Click on the Zoom to Extent of Selected Featuresbutton. The View will focuson the selected polygon. Click on the area. Clear Selected Featuresbutton to un-select the previous
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GIS Fundamentals
Click on the Zoom to Previous Extent button to retrieve the previous aspect of the view. Additional feature theme functions include the Identify Feature tools. Find Feature, and the
The find feature button allows you to find a particular feature in a view, table or chart. In a view all the themes you want to search should be active. The string (text or numeric) you wish to search for is typed in the dialog box. This provides a search of any occurrences within the project window. Make the Schools.shp theme active. Click on the Find Feature tool. A dialog box pops up. Type in Denby HS. Click OK. The High School location is highlighted in the View.
1E.
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GIS Fundamentals
Bibliography
Davis, Bruce E. GIS: A Visual Approach. Santa Fe: Onward Press, 1996. ESRI Web Page. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. Http://www.esri.com. Lakhan, V. C. Introductory Geographical Information Systems. Chelsea: Summit Press, 1996.
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