Institute of Geographical Information Systems GIS 801 Advance GIS

INTRODUCTION

ArcGIS uses a single scalable architecture and user interface. ArcGIS has three versions:

ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo. ArcView is the simplest version and has fewer capabilities

than the other two versions. All three versions use the same applications of ArcCatalog and

ArcMap and share the same extensions such as Spatial Analyst, 3D Analyst, Network Analyst,

and Geostatistical Analyst.

You can tell which version of ArcGIS you are using by looking at the title of an application.

For example, the title of ArcCatalog may appear as ArcCatalog-ArcView or ArcCatalog-ArcInfo,

depending on if you are using ArcView or ArcInfo. Both ArcCatalog and ArcMap have the

Customize menu. When you click on Extensions on the Customize menu, it displays a list of

extensions and allows you to select the extensions to use. If the controls of an extension (e.g.,

Geostatistical Analyst) are on a toolbar, you must also check its toolbar (e.g., Geostatistical

Analyst) from the Toolbars pullright in the Customize menu.

This applications section covers two tasks.

1. introduces ArcCatalogand ArcToolbox, and

2. introduces ArcMap and the Spatial Analyst extension.

Typographic conventions used in the instructions include italic typeface for data sets (e.g.,

emidalat).

What you need: emidalat, an elevation raster; and emidastrm.shp, a stream shapefile.
Institute of Geographical Information Systems GIS 801 Advance GIS

Task No 1: Introduction to ArcCatalog

This task introduces ArcCatalog, an application for managing data sets.

1. Start ArcCatalog 10.3. ArcCatalog lets you set up connections to your data sources, which may

reside in a folder on a local disk or on a database on the network. For Task 1, you will first

connect to the folder containing the Chapter 1 database (e.g., chap1). Click the Connect to

Folder button. Navigate to the chap1 folder and click OK. The chap1 folder now appears in

the Catalog tree under Folder Connections. Expand the folder to view the data sets.

2. Click emidalat in the Catalog tree. Click the Preview tab to view the elevation raster. Click

emidastrm.shp in the Catalog tree. On the Preview tab, you can preview the geography or

table of emidastrm.shp,

3. ArcCatalog has tools for various data management tasks. You can access these tools by right-

clicking a data set to open its context menu. Right-click emidastrm.shp, and the menu shows

Copy, Delete, Rename, Create Layer, Export, and Properties. Using the context menu, you

can copy emidastrm.shp and paste it to a different folder, rename it, or delete it. A layer file

is a visual representation of a data set. The export tool can export a shapefile to a geodatabase,

a coverage, and other formats. The properties dialog shows the data set information. Right-click

emidalat and select Properties. The Raster Dataset Properties dialog shows that emidalat is a

raster dataset projected onto the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system.

4. This step lets you create a personal geodatabase and then import emidalat and emidastrm.shp

to the geodatabase. Right- click the Chapter 1 database in the Catalog tree, point to New, and

select Personal Geodatabase, Click the new geodatabase and rename it Taskl.mdb. If the
Institute of Geographical Information Systems GIS 801 Advance GIS

extension .mdb does not appear, select ArcCatalog Options from the Customize menu and on

the General tab uncheck the box to hide file extensions.

5. There are two options for importing emidalat and emidastrm.shp to Taskl.mdb. For the first

option, right-click Taskl.mdb, point to Import, and select Raster Datasets. In the next dialog,

navigate to emidalat, add it for the input raster, and click OK to import.

6. Now you will use the second option, ArcToolbox, to import emidastrm.shp to Taskl.mdb.

ArcCatalog's standard toolbar has a button called ArcToolbox window. Click the button to open

ArcToolbox. Dock the ArcToolbox window so that you can see both the window and the

Catalog tree. Right- click Arc'Toolbox,and select Environments. The Environment Settings

dialog can let you set the workspace, which is important for most operations. Click the

dropdown arrow for Workspace. Navigate to the Chapter 1 database and set it to be the current

workspace. Close the Environment Settings window. Tools in ArcToolbox are organized into

a hierarchy. The tool you need for importing emidastrm.shp resides in the Conversion

Tools/To Geodatabase toolset. Double-click Feature Class to Feature Class to open the tool.

Select emidastrm.shp for the input features, select Taskl.mdb for the output location, specify

emidastrm for the output feature class name, and click OK. When the import operation is

completed, you will see a message at the bottom of the screen. (You will also see a message

with a red X if the operation fails.) Right-click Task1.mdb and select Refresh. Make sure that

the import operations have been completed.

Task No 1: Introduction to ArcMap

Data required: emidalat and emidastrm.shp,

In this task, you will learn the basics of working with ArcMap. Starting in ArcGIS 10.3, ArcMap

has the Catalog window button that lets you open Catalog directly in ArcMap. Catalog allows you

to perform many of the same functions and tasks such as copy and delete as in ArcCatalog.

1. ArcMap is the main application for data display, data query, data analysis, and data output.

You can start ArcMap by clicking the Launch ArcMap button in ArcCatalog or from the

Programs menu. Start with a blank map document. ArcMap organizes data sets into data

frames (also called maps). You open a new data frame called Layers when you launch

ArcMap. Right- click Layers, and select Properties. On the General tab, change the name

Layers to Task 2 and click OK.

2. Next, add emidalat and emidastrm.shp to Task 2. Click the Add Data button in ArcMap,

navigate to the Chapter 1 database, and select emidalat and emidastrm.shp, to select more than

one data set to add, click the data sets while holding down the Ctrl key. An alternative to using

the Add Data button is to use the drag-and-drop method. ArcMap has the Catalog window

button that lets you open Catalog directly in ArcMap. You can add a data set in ArcMap by

dragging it from the Catalog tree and dropping it in ArcMap's view window.

3. A warning message states tlwt,one or more layersare missing spatiiilreference information.

Click OK to dismiss the dialog; emidastrm.shp does not have the projection information,

although it is based on the UTM coordinate system, as is emidalat. You will learn in Chapter

2 how to define a coordinate system.

4. Both emidastrm and emidalat are highlighted in the table of contents, meaning that they are

both active. You can deactivate them by clicking on the empty space. The table of contents has

four tabs: List by Drawing Order, List by Source, List by Visibility, and List by Selection. On

the List by Drawing Order tab, you can change the drawing order of the layers by dragging and

dropping a layer up or down. You can also rename or remove layers on the List by Drawing

Order tab. The List by Source tab shows the data source of each layer. The List by Visibility tab

shows the list of layers that are currently displayed in the active data frame. The List by

Selection tab lists the selectable layer(s) and selected features. The Options button offers

preferences and patches.

5. The Standard toolbar in ArcMap has such tools as Zoom In, Zoom Out, Pan, Global, Select

Elements, and Identify. When you hold the mouse point over a tool, a tooltip appears in a

floating box giving the name of the tool, and a short message about the use of the tool appears

in the status bar at the bottom of the ArcMap window.

6. ArcMap has two views: Data View and Layout View. (The buttons for the two views are located

at the bottom of the view window.) Data View is for viewing data, whereas Layout View is for

viewing the map product for printing and plotting. For this task, you will stay with Data View.

7. This step is to change the symbol for emidastrm. Click the symbol for emidastrm in the table

of contents to open the Symbol Selector dialog. You can either select a preset symbol

(e.g., river) or make up your own symbol for emidastrm by specifying the color, width,

and properties of the symbol. Choose the preset s y m b o l for river.

8. Next, classify emidalat into the elevation zones <900, 900-1000, 1000-1100, 1100-1200,

1200-1300, and >1300 meters. Right-click emidalat, and select Properties. Click the
Institute of Geographical Information Systems GIS 801 Advance GIS

Symbology t a b . Click Classified in the Show frame. ClickYes in the Compute Unique

Values dialog. Change the number of classes to 6, and click the Classify button. The

Method dropdown list shows seven methods. Select Manual. There are two ways to set

the break values for the elevation zones manually. To use the first method, click the first

break line and drag it to a data value near 900. Then, set the other break lines near 1000,

1100, 1200, 1300, and 1337. To use the second method, which is normally preferred, click

the first cell in the Break Values frame and enter 900. Then enter 1000, 1100, 1200, and

1300 for the next four cells. (If the break value you entered is changed to a different value,

reenter it.) Use the second method to set the break values, and click OK to dismiss the

Classification dialog.

9. You can change the color scheme for emidalat by using the Color Ramp dropdown list in

the Layer Properties d i al o g box. Sometimes i t is easier to select a color scheme using

words instead of graphic views. In that case, you can right-click i n s i d e the Color Ramp

box and uncheck Graphic View. The Color Ramp dropdown l i s t now shows White to

Black, Yellow to Red, etc. Select Elevation #1. Click OK to dismiss the dialog.

10. This step lets you derive a slope layer from emidalat. Select Extensions from the Customize

menu and check Spatial Analyst. Then click the ArcToolbox window button to open

ArcToolbox. Right-c1ick, ArcToolbox to select Environments. Change the Workspace (both

Current and Scratch) to the Chapter 1 database. The Slope tool resides in the Spatial

Analyst Tools/Surface toolset. Double-click t h e Slope tool In the Slope dialog, select

emidalat for the input raster, save the output raster as slope, and click OK. Slope is added

to Task 2.
Institute of Geographical Information Systems GIS 801 Advance GIS

11. You can save Task 2 as a map document before exiting ArcMap. Select Save from the File

menu in ArcMap. Navigate t o the Chapter 1 database, enter chap1 for the file name, and

click Save. ArcMap automatically adds the extension . mxd to chap 1. Datasets displayed i n

Task 2 are now saved with chap1.mxd. To re-open chap1.mxd, chap1.mxd must reside in

the same folder as the datasets it references. You can save a map document with the relative

path name option (e.g., without the drive name). Select Map Document Properties from

ArcMap's File menu. In the next dialog, check the box to store relative path names to data

sources.

12. To make sure that chap1.mxd is saved correctly, first select Exit from ArcMap's File menu.

Then launch ArcMap again. Click on chap 1 or select chap 1.mxd from the File menu.