Guide to ArcGIS (10.

0)

4th January 2013 / 16th January 2015

Some pointers to use - with particular reference to the Officer Basin interpretation exercise. ArcGIS
(ArcMap 10) is a large and complicated piece of software and this guide is rather limited. There are
many resources available for ArcGIS an extensive help, various online resources, forums, unofficial
manuals, YouTube tutorials etc. One particular resource is an Introduction to ArcGIS for geological
mapping a reference manual for a course by Clare Gordon (School of Earth and Environment); this
is available under Learning Resources in the 5145 section of the VLE.

Overview
ArcGIS is a general name for a suite of software produced by ESRI especially ArcMap 10. The
software allows the integration and display of a wide variety of geographic data; there are also
various data processing capabilities which are not referred to here.
ArcGIS is available on all PCs in the School of Earth and Environment. Copies for private computers
(for University use) can be purchased from the University for 16.

Starting and Viewing Data

Unzip the folder ArcGIS_Folder and double-click Officer_Basin.mxd ArcMap should start.

Select Catalog
view

Table of
Contents

Tools toolbar
Map window

Catalog view

Experiment with selecting and unselecting layers, expanding data layers and dragging them to
change order; layers at the top of the list are drawn on top. Right-click
on an individual layer and the options (right) should pop up. Zoom To
Layer is an easy way to change the view to show the whole of a layer (or
to find the layer). Otherwise use the control tools in the Tools toolbar.
Only a small selection of toolbars is visible; select more under
Customize=>Toolbars.

Right-click the Data Frame

Lambert_Officer_Basin and select Properties.
Coordinate System shows the map projection
of the ArcGIS Data Frame and other
information. This is the Geoscience Australia
standard Lambert Conic projection the same
as the gravity and magnetic data grids.
Right-click one of the data layers e.g.
AUS_adm1 and select properties. The map
projection (see Source tab) is not necessarily
the same, but ArcGIS understands map
projections and will map the stated map
projection onto the Data Frame. If projections
are not stated, they will be considered to be
the same as the Data Frame.
Clicking the symbol below the Layer name in
the Table of Contents brings up the Symbol
Selector. Symbols which are the same for the
whole layer can be modified here for points,
lines and polygons.
To access more symbols, click
Style References and chose
from a range of symbol sets.
It is best to chose Geology
24K for drawing a geology
map, although the symbols
are not perfect. Note that
some of the geology symbols
(e.g. thrust faults) have
ornament on one side of the
line and hence are
asymmetric; in these cases,
the direction in which the line
is drawn is critical. If the (e.g.)
thrust symbols are on the wrong
side, delete the line segment and
draw it in the other direction.
Right-click a polygon or image layer
and select Properties. Under the
Display tab, the transparency of the
layer can be set. Try ~50%.

Add more data layers using the Add Data

button. Add the magnetic data image

Magnetic_lc_V5_800.tif. Creating pyramids
speeds up the display. The spatial reference is
unknown, but as the projection is the
same as the
Data
Frame, it
will match.

Right-click the Data Frame and select New Group Layer to create a new group to put magnetic
images in (as with the gravity images).
Add sedbasdd.shp and dtbase.bil which
represent outlines of sedimentary basins of
Australia and an image of their depth;
depthleg.gif is the legend for the depth
image.
Put them in a Group Layer together.

Look at the Properties of sedbasdd.shp. The co-ordinate system is

undefined, but from the extent it is clear that the projection is
geographic (longitude and latitude).
To set the co-ordinate system, select the shapefile from the Catalog,
right-click and select Properties.

Select a predefined co-ordinate system.

In this case a Geographic Coordinate
System (double-click to get a list)

Select Australia and New Zealand and

then Geocentric Datum of Australia
1994.prj

Use the identify tool

sedimentary basin.

to find information about each

Right-click and select Open Attribute Table to view the data for
all basins.

It is possible to colour
sedbasdd based on one
of the attribute table
fields e.g. BAS_TYPE.
Select the Properties of
the layer and the
Symbology tab.
Select
Categories=>Unique
values then Value Field
= BAS_TYPE and click
Add All Values
In addition, the basins
can be labelled.
Select the Properties of the layer and
the Labels tab. Select the field to use
for the label and the label size and font.
Use the scale range to avoid labelling
when zoomed out too far.

Tick Label features in this layer or right-click in

the Table Of Contents and select Label
Features

Similar schemes can be used based on

attributes of other data layers.

Georeferencing
Georeferencing allows the addition of data which are not specifically referenced to any co-ordinate
system. Common sources will be scanned images from publications or images on the internet.
These are an important resource and it is useful to integrate them, so that relative positions of
previously interpreted and newly interpreted features can be assessed. It is important, however, to
keep in mind the resolution and accuracy of the images.
The Figures folder has two images which have been screen-captured from the two papers provided.
These both appear to be plotted in a linear latitude-longitude projection and hence they are best
georeferenced in a geographic co-ordinate system.
Open Officer_Basin_LL.mxd and zoom in to roughly the area of Lindsay_Leven_1996_Fig3.GIF
Add the file; it is not a surprise that there is no
spatial reference. Add the Georeferencing toolbar
if it is not already there. Select the correct layer;
click on Georeferencing and click Fit To Display
Click Add Control Points
and click the first
corner of the figure and then an adjacent point.
Repeat this for all four corners.
Layer for
georeferencing

Click View Link Table

the figure.

Add Control
Points

View Link
Table

and edit the X Map and Y Map values to match the geographic corners of

Un-edited

Edited

Click OK
Select Georeferencing=>Auto Adjust or
Georeferencing=>Transformation=>Adju
st to fit the image into the desired
location. If Auto Adjust is already selected, the image will be distorted automatically.
Click Georeferencing=>Update
Georeferencing to store the new
reference location.
In order to display the newly
georeferenced image in the Lambert
Conic display, it is necessary to define
its co-ordinate system. Use the
Catalog in the same way as defining
the co-ordinate system for
sedbasdd.shp above.
The georeferenced image can then be
added to Officer_Basin.mxd.
Click + next to the
image name to
reveal the colour
table. Right-click
on colour 255 and
select No Color.
The image will
become
transparent.

The image
Haddad_et_al_2001
_Fig1.GIF can be
treated the same
way.
However, the map
does not fit the
coastline or state
boundaries.
Assuming the
coastline is correct,
select Add Control
Points and select
pairs of points
picking a number of
recognisable
features on the
image first and then
picking the same
feature on another
layer of data e.g.
AUS_adm1.
Four or five points
should be adequate,
but they should be
well distributed
around the image
and definitely not in
a line. Remove the
initial unhelpful
control points from
the Link Table.
The image then fits
much better and
can be added to
Officer_Basin.mxd.
A number of layers have now been added.
Now add some more gravity and magnetic derivatives from GETgrid.

Editing Adding Features to ArcMap

Suppose we have a geophysical data grid which we
want to use as the basis for drawing some
lineaments. First we need to create a file to put the
lineaments into in this case a shapefile.
Navigate to an appropriate folder in the Catalog;
right-click to select a New=>Shapefile.

Give the file a name and define whether it will be a

Point, Polyline or Polygon type; lineaments should be
Polyline, but if you want to label point depths (for
example) that should be a Point type.
Click Edit to select the co-ordinate system. In this
case the Australian Lambert Conic projection.

Select a suitable symbol for

the feature to be drawn.
In the Editor toolbar (select it
if it isnt available) click
Editor=>Start Editing and
select the feature to edit.

In the Create Features

dialogue, click on the
feature to be edited (here
Lineament_edge); Line
editing (see bottom of dialogue) is now selected.
Click a series of points to draw a line with a double click to
end a line segment.

Click Editor=>Stop Editing to stop

the editor and save edits.

Right-click the new feature in

the Table Of Contents and
select Open Attribute Table;
select Add Field from Table
Options
and specify
the name, type and size of the
new field in the table in this
case Text to contain names.

Start editing the feature again and it is then possible to type into the Attribute Table. Stop editing
when finished. For a digital GIS deliverable product, the information in the Attribute Tables is a very
valuable part of the product.

It is possible to use the added field to

Label the features:
and/or use Symbology to colour code
the lines; similar approaches can be used to distinguish contours based on their value.

Mapping
ArcGIS can produce a wide range of maps from simple
figures to professional posters.
These capabilities are mostly
accessed from Layout View as
opposed to the standard Data
View. Make sure you know
which View you are in!

Data
View

Layout
View

In Data View, select the elements required for the map and the area that the map should cover.
Select Map View and the display starts to look more like a map. Use File=>Page and Print Setup to
select the paper size and orientation and map page size; the map area may have to be dragged to fit
into the virtual paper.
The scale box in the Standard toolbar can be used to specify the
exact scale of the map.
Use Insert=>Legend to bring up the Legend
Wizard. Here the items to appear in the legend
can be selected, together with the look of the
legend box outline, background etc.
Other items typically found on a map can be
selected from the Insert menu scale bar, north
arrow etc.

To add a graticule (grid lines) to a map, select the

properties of the data frame (Lambert_Officer_Basin)
and open the Grids tab:
Select New Grid and select the type
(geographic or local co-ordinates) and
spacing.

Use File=>Export Map to

generate a map as .pdf or as
an image format that can be
imported into a document.