Tutorial Ch. 14,15,16

All Done.

Tutorial Ch. 10,11,12,13

All Done.

Tutorial Ch. 8,9

All Done.

Tutorial Ch. 3,4,5,6,7

All Done.

Getting to Know ArcGIS Ch. 1,2

    This is probably the my favorite reading so far in this class.  In this reading it focuses more on actually using the GIS program, that we are using, itself and not so much the concepts behind it.  In chapter 1, entitled “Introducing GIS,” it talks a lot about the ability of being able to take a single map and break it down heavily, possibly into just one object type such as just roads.  It says that in GIS that the program does not just use this map or that map, but all the maps that are available.  I think that this is really cool to think about.  It talked about how every map is divided up into layers, which make up a collection.  Each map is made up of vector data, which is made with certain parts.  These include:

• Polygons
• Lines
• Points

Polygons are areas that can picture very large volumes.  Lines and points are for objects that are too small to be polygons.  Points are exact locations, where lines are very thin long areas.  Maps are also in different scales depending on how large the area is that a person wants to view.  The map is also divided up into a XY plane which is used to have exact locations for everything on the map.  In the real world these are called longitude and latitude.

In chapter 2, which is entitled “Introducing ArcGIS Desktop,” it explains that there is a lot of different types of GIS software out on the market.  Some of these include:

• ArcView
• ArcEditor
• ArcInfo

These systems are divided into two groups which are:

• ArcMap
• ArcCatalog

I did not know that there is different forms of GIS software out there.  Is the ArcGIS software that we will soon be using, one or all or even a completely different program from these other Arc software programs.

Mitchell Ch. 5, 6, 7

     In chapter 5, which is entitled “Finding What’s Inside,” talks about what is in a GIS map that you do not see pictured directly on a map.  The main non directly visual part of a map is the exact numerical data of the map.  This is entered into a database, such as a spreadsheet, before it is made into visual data on a map.  This keeps data very organized and together so that it can be worked with easily.

A couple of terms that I learned while reading this chapter were discrete and continuous.  Discrete means that a part of a map is unique and identifiable, like a city.  Continuous means that a part of a map is a seamless, or undefined, geographic object on a map, such as elevation change.  Another technique that I learned was that you can take a given area and only map whole objects that are inside of it, or just the parts that go through it, or even the whole parts that are associated with part of it being in there.

In chapter 6, which is entitled “Finding What’s Nearby,” talks about how to use GIS maps to relate what is near a certain place, object or area.  This can be done a couple of different ways.  For example:

• By lines connecting the two
• By shadings that change their color as distance increases for an area
• By radius circles
• By symbols that represent a numerical distance
• By shaded travel ways by distance

Like everything else in GIS the creator of a map must know what to use on a map to make it work and picture what is trying to be conveyed.  For example if you have a location and you want to know the radius of traveling twenty minutes from it in any direction.  At first a straight line radius circle would be produced around the area, but this may not be realistic in the real world.  Instead by mapping a only by pathways would give a more realistic area from the original location.  In some places in a typical circle you may not be able to get to in twenty minutes, and also you may be able to get farther in straighter, more direct routes.  In real world applications, such as map-quest, this is all that they do.  They determine what the realistic distance between places is and how long it would most likely take to get there.

In chapter 7, which is entitled “Mapping Change,”  discusses why maps change and how to map the change on them.  Maps mostly only picture a certain point in time, and for maps to stay up to date they have to be constantly updated.  Maps can picture this change on them by either having certain areas as different colors depending on the time that the data was taken or ignoring that there was a change picture it the same way as the original data.  Also the data can either be communicative, like all the places where fire have happened in a town in history, or circular, like within a month seeing all the data for specific hour of the day.  This ability over time seems to be a great way to do research, with the ability to divide data up on a time scale, and just not having a boatload of data that is not on a time scale at all.  Even though this is not the only way to do research, it does put a whole new perspective on a data set.

Project Status

-Galapagos-

I wandered around the Internet for a while and found a couple of places that had data on the Islands. The only problem is that the data was not access-able for me to view. Also I did not find a ton of different data sets and of the ones I did none were about animal populations.

-Alum Mapping-

I have not done any further investigating on this topic because Dr. Krygier wants to do this together, so that the university does not think that some guy is not wanting random information on people. I would like to look into this more in the future because this seem like the most doable project currently.

-Genealogical GIS-

I talked to my dad about the book that we own and he said that it does not really have locations of people at a given year, but it has most birth and burial places of individuals. I thought that this was cool and that it could work out. The book contains about 500 family members in it, going back a couple hundred years. The only problem is that he can not find the book. This project is pending on if the book is found or not. Also no large scale genealogical data on the Internet was found, just individual places, such as certain counties that would not help me, is all that I found.

Mitchell Ch. 2, 3, 4

     In Chapter 2, which is entitled “Where Things Are,” discussed maps and legends and how they relate to one another.  The chapter explained that a legend works best when it has no more than seven colors to separate the map by.  If there are no than seven then this causes the viewer not to have too many differences to look at once and to make the map easier to read.  Also having larger areas makes less changes in shaded areas on a map which makes it easier to read.  Many parts to maps seem to have a trade off, either it is easier to read with less data and can look nicer or it can be very detailed and can become hard to decipher.  A balance must be reached on a map.  Also putting short text labels on the map as well as having color differences instead of shapes for data points can make a map easier to read.

In chapter3 , which is entitled “Mapping the Most and Least,” discusses what needs to go on map and a better understanding of the balance between what is and is not needed.   There are a few different ways to picture information on a map so that it can be viewed.  These include:

• Graduated symbols
• Graduated colors
• Charts
• Contours
• 3-D perspective views

Each of these different style maps have advantages and disadvantages to them.  It is up to the creator of the map to decide which style map is most appropriate for each group of data.  Another example of a balance that must be reached for a map to be most efficient is the size of the plotted data.  If the points on a map are to close in size it can be hard to distinguish between them, but if they are correlated by size of the data with the point size it can obscure individual locations.  Another very important part is organizing the data on aGIS database is break off intervals.  These include:

•  By natural breaks
• By quantiles
• By equal intervals
• By standard deviation

In chapter 4, which is entitled “Mapping Density,”  explains how different mapping concepts, can be applied to one another to produce new and different layers to a map.  For example on a map any given area can be used with the data points on it to produce a density for that given area.  So a given map can have data points on it as well as contour lines to give even more information.  For the contour lines it is good to have the smallest boxes possible to have the smoothest lines on a map.  Unfortunately like everything else there is a trade off, the smaller the boxes the longer the data takes to process.  Also for contour lines they need to have a large enough radius to be able to be picked up and connected to other points around them.  So if for example there are two similar data points a mile of each other and the defined radius is only one forth of a mile then the data will not be connected.  One other fact about contour lines is that when the lines are closer together then there is a more rapid change in data than when they are farther apart.