ArcMap 101 Exploring Peoria

We are about to attempt to learn some things about Peoria, Illinois through several layers of information that were gathered from many sources by a student named Matthew Boch ('04). This exercise will introduce:

• Several types of data that can be juxtaposed and displayed with GIS.
• Interfaces for exploring spatial data in maps and tables -- ArcMap, and ArcCatalog
• Interfaces and conventions for viewing Metadata, the data about the data which tells us such things as what it is supposed to represent.

Along the way, it will be tempting to imagine that we are actually exploring the city of Peoria itself. Please keep in mind that we know nothing of the city! GIS merely lets us explore information given to us by Mr. Bock. Each layer of information was obtained from some other source (or completely fabricated.)

We want to understand something about Peoria; but first, we have to understand a few things about a collection of geographic data. In this will will gain an appreciation for Metadata -- the data about the data. Many of the layers of inrformation provide us with information regarding the time period being represented, the the puropses for which the data have been collected. Mr. Boch has done a good job of compiling the data and metadata: organizing it neatly and providing a simple table of contents as an overview. This scholarly work permits us to understand the data, and it is this understanding, along with GIS tools, that provides some level of confidence to what we think we may learn about the city and the places within it.

This introduction to GIS, GIS Data Types and Metadata, will also introduce some of the documentation that you will rely on to learn more about how to use GIS. The tools we will use today are documented in these books published by the software maker:

• Using ArcMap
• Using ArcCatalog

You will also find the on-line help available within these programs to be very good. This tutorial will refer to these sources often. You will, no doubt, have to spend a few hours playing with ArcMap and trying the techniques from these manuals to get comfortable with the concepte we will introduce here.

Once you understand these ideas, you will be ready to begin your own GIS database by exploring the resources documented in the GSD's GIS Manual Page,

• Beginning a GIS Database
• Elements of Cartographic Style
• Guidelines for Digital Representation Portfolios

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The overall path of this tutorial will take us through the following territory:

1. Download Matt Boch's data archive and extract its contents to your C:\temp folder.
2. Explore the archive using windows explorer.
3. Explore the data and its metadata using ArcCatalog. Using ArcCAtalog Chapter 3 and Chapter 9
4. Explore the data using ArcMap Using ArcMap Chapters 3,5, 6, and 10
5. Consider some informal metadata.
6. Create context maps to explain the situation of Peoria Using ArcMap Chapter 8
7. Export a Map to MS Word for your portfolio

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Explore the data using Microsoft Explorer

Lets pretend that you just paid Matt $500 to prepare a database for you. Open Microsoft Windows Explorer and browse through the files. Did you get your money's worth? Look at his readme.txt file. How does this perform as a guide to the data?

Look in the data folder and in particular into the folder named streetmap. Lots of files -- difficult to figure out what is what. What if matt had simply given you a folder full of files like this?

Look at GIS data files using ArcCatalog

Open ArcCatalog and go to the streetmap folder in Matt's archive. Notice that it does not show you all of the redundant files that Explorer does. ArcCatalog treats all of these related files as one database. This makes things simppler to look at, and much simpler if you need to move or rename a dataset.

Now lets look at some good Metadata! Chapter 9 of the ArcCatalog user guide will tell you how to look at standard metadata. How reliable is the street information that Matt has given us? Use ArcCatalog to find the localstreets shape file within the streetmap folder. Take a look at the metadata. You can find out lots of important things about the quality of the street representations here that will help you guage your confidence in this representation of Peoria streets.

Consider the different levels of metadata in this collection of information. Matt has provided a structure of folders, and a simple text-directory of collection, and individual databases have their own metadata.

Explore the data in ArcMap

Now for the fun part. We will explore the data as layers in an integrated geographic database and try to learn something about Peoria. In lab we will explore the following techniques that are covered in Chapters 3,5,6 and 10 of Using ArcMap. For a more suscinct documentation, you may look up the following keywords in ArcMap's online help:

• Table of Contents
• Layers
• Data View
• Layout View
• Zooming
• Panning
• Bookmarks
• Identifying Features
• Attribute Tables

A Map, A Layer, A Database, Some Metadata

Lets begin simply. We have a question about states. We know that Peoria is in the state of Illinois. Use Matt's readme file to figure out which of his data files relates to US States. Open the layers and the shapefile. ...to be continued

Consider some Informal Metdata

In looking at the attributes of the census data, you will see that they are fairly incomprehensible. If you look in the Census folder with ArcCatalog, you will find no formal metadata there. ArcCatalog only opens metadata that is in a specific format. But if you look in the Census folder with Explorer, you will find Peoria.doc. Which is a very basic Data Dictionary that is made by the application that Matt used to extract his census data. So, not all metadata will be found in ArcCatalog, and Some metadata is better tan none at all. Matts census data would be worthless without this data dictionary.

Question to Ponder How do you rate Matt's data archive in terms of providing a logical organization and useful metadata?

Make a Map Layout and export it to MS word

Your assignments in this course will be turned in as Adobe Acrobat pdf files with text and maps. The requirements and technical tips for doing this are covered in the GSD GIS Manual pages, Guidelines for Digital Representation Portfolios and Elements of Cartographic Style The techniques for dealing with map leyots are dealt with in Chapter 8 of Using ArcMap.