Ander's Geo Quest

It always seems impossible until it's done. 

Final Project

This week was the Final Week for GIS 4043 - Geographic Information Systems. 

I only had a few hiccups which are noted in the StoryMap. 

"Same day different times"

I enjoyed making the StoryMap. The way I can make the maps flow together (if your viewing on desktop) making it seem like only small changes were happening between them was my selling point. 

Also being able to include more info per section was nice. 

I'm excited to learn more of what I can do with StoryMaps.

ArcGIS StoryMap

Transcript

I took the "write as if your speaking to the class" to heart. 

I wrote this as if I was standing in a lecture room with everyone - Not as a zoom.

Honestly the most tedious part was the process summary. Only because I got into a flow and forgot to fill it out as I created the data. So I had to go backfill it. I purposely kept the data I created separate from the data that was provided so I would have a better track of it all. Which obviously worked in my favor. Especially with a project this large. I think the next large project I have I will create separate folders for different groups of data. And I will be more conscious of what I am naming some of the created data. 

I received my Textbook for the Cartography Course and Lab that starts next week and I have never seen a more beautiful textbook! It makes the instructional designer in me so happy. 

See you blog readers in the next course! 

Don't forget to Recycle!

Save the Manatees!

Quote Reference:

Nelson Mandela 

Photo Reference: 

Included in credits on StoryMap

Everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things.

UWF Campus Map & Eagle Nest Protection Area

 Add XY Data Points and Geocoding

Manatee County, Florida School Locations

 Are you saying the Map is wrong?

Oh, dear, Yes. 

Vector Analysis

This week covered Geodatabases, Attribute, Spatial, and Location Query's and explored the Calculate Field and Statistics tools in the attribute table. 

I did not struggle with the first part of the lab. 

The 2nd part of the lab - I attempted all the Overlay Tools to see which one would deliver the same result as the Union Tool. 

On the first time using the Erase tool - I put the input and output in backwards and had to work through that. I ended up trying other tools and doing some research before I came back to the Erase tool and swapping the input and output. 

I set the area in hectares values to whole numbers. I started in a Natural Interval and switched to Manual. I included the count of possible sites in each range. I used the bright yellows for the smaller areas so they would be easily visible. Increasing greens for the larger areas. My color theme was based of the Forest Service Logo which I used to mark the location on the inset.

DeSoto National Forest - Possible Camp Sites

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*Special Note: The lecture this week making a reference to The West Wing (my favorite TV show of all time) episode featuring the Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality is very serendipitous for me because I can trace back my growing interest in GIS to around the time I first watched this episode of The West Wing back in 2016. It is now one of my favorite episodes of The West Wing and I look forward to it in my annual rewatch of the series. 

 ArcGIS Field Maps and Projections

This week I got to leave the computer desk and go explore the great outdoors with ArcGIS Field Maps! 

Due to my work schedule and the bad weather I only had a short window to collect data. While I was mostly familiar with my neighborhood - I wasn't sure which feature would provide the best representation of the necessary data. So I collected data on all the Street Lights, Fire Hydrants, Street Signs, and Storm Drains in my neighborhood.

Screenshot from ArcGIS Field Maps Identifying information edited out for privacy.

After going through the data I collected - Street Lights provided the best representation for the required ranking of the data. 

Field Maps was straightforward. The initial setup was a bit cumbersome but with more practice this I believe this will become a fairly fast process depending on the parameters needed. 

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about how to collect the data and share it through multiple outlets (ESRI, Google Earth, and Map Package). 

I also learned how to project our GIS data and change coordinate systems. I did not struggle with the process but I will be spending more time learning about coordinate systems to build more confidence in this area. 

I had to create a layout of our different projections. In the process of "Owning My Map" I've learned that I favor blues, greens - "cool" colors and prefer to balance out heavy elements. I struggled a bit on where to place the North Arrow and ultimately decided to place it in the Legend box to communicate that it was for all 3 maps. For the Scale Bar I selected 600 miles for the whole numbers and so it would flow over to the 2nd box to convey the same message as the arrow.

"A map is a contract between the cartographer and the map-reader."

Cartography

UWF Main Campus Map on Human Geography Map

 

GIS Orientation

The first lab is designed to familiarize and navigate the multiple drives and applications that are necessary for our future course work. 

After working through a few tech issues with Google Drive and Argo Apps - I was able to dive into ArcGIS Pro. 

I was familiar with most of the content covered. My main struggle was with the scaling of the layout. All my initial work was done through the Virtual Desktop on ArcGIS Pro (3.0.3). 

I was having issues with scaling through the virtual desktop so I opened my project in ArcGIS Pro (3.2.1) on my personal desktop and was able to scale correctly. 

Cities and World Countries Population on World Navigation Map (Dark)

Lower Point Size (3 pt) on Cities Symbology