GEOG 370 – Spring 2010
Lab #1: Introducing the Fundamentals
PART 1: UNC Server, ATN Labs, ISIS Basics, and Drives
PART 2: Meeting ESRI and ArcGIS via San Diego, CA
PART 3: Projections and Cartographic Visualizations
Due Dates:Monday Labs: Monday, Feb. 8 at 1pm
Tuesday Labs: Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 2pm
Thursday Labs: Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 3:30pm
Important Note for Lab #1:Your success in future assignments (and the course) will require you to understand the basics of the UNC Server and ArcGIS. If you don’t understand these fundamentals, the remaining assignments will be difficult. So, allow yourself plenty of time to learn and understand the material.
Assignment to be Graded:
- Complete the questions throughout the lab in a Microsoft Word document entitled lab1.doc.
- Include your name and email address at the top of the page.
- You will find where to save and submit this file as you complete PART 1.
PART 1
A. Meet ISIS
There are countless folders on ISIS, most of which you'll never have to worry about. There are two however, that are important.
- The folders where you will go to get the data for the lab.
- The folders where you will put your completed lab report.
Where you get your data and where you put your completed lab report are both in the course space.
B. Course Space
The address for this class’s course space is: J:\isis\html\courses\2010spring\geog\370\006\
You can use the My Computer icon to navigate to the class course materials. Double click the icon. Then essentially follow each piece of the address. Click on the J:\ drive, then “isis”, then “html”, then “courses”, then “2010spring”, then “geog”, then “370”, and then “006.”
This is the main folder for our class. The data that you will use for labs is found in the “data” folder. In the “students” folder, you will create a folder named after yourONYEN. You will save your lab reports here. *NOTE: Submissions via email or blackboard are NOT necessary.*
C. Mapping the Drive
In a sense, mapping the drive is similar to creating a shortcut to the course space. You MUST do this for every computer on which you do work for this class because of the structure of ArcMap! Not mapping the drive may cause ArcMap and other programs to crash. The program might crash anyways, so be sure to save your work regularly as you complete your lab.
Click on the AFS Client (the lock icon on the lower right hand side).
Note: If you do not see the lock icon, click “Start,” click “Programs,” click “Open AFS,” and click “Authentication.” The lock icon should appear in the lower right hand side of your screen near the time.
Click on the Drive Letters tab and select the add button.
Select drive letter M and type in the path:
\afs\isis\html\courses\2010spring\geog\370\006
Your screen should look like this before you select OK.
To be sure that you mapped the drive correctly, go to your desktop, select “My Computer”, and select the M:\ drive. If you see folders appear that are entitled “data”, “students”, etc. then you have mapped the drive correctly. If you see nothing, go back and check your spelling on the path for the M:\ drive.
1) Data
Data for the labs will be stored in
J:\isis\html\courses\2010spring\geog\370\006\data
Or once you have mapped the M drive: M:\data
2) Your Folder
Your folder for submitting lab reports will be stored in
J:\isis\html\courses\2010spring\geog\370\006\students\yourONYEN
Or once you have mapped the M drive: M:\students\yourONYEN
*DO NOT save your work on the computer's local hard drives (C:\ or D:\)!!!
QUESTION 1: Where will you find the data for the labs? (Tell the full path.)
D. Creating Your Folder
Go to your desktop, select “My Computer”, select the M:\ drive, and select the “students” folder.
Within the folder space, right click, and create a new folder named after yourONYEN. You must change the permissions of this folder so that only you, the TAs and instructor can see it.
Right click on your new folder, select AFS, select Access Control Lists. This will open the “Set AFS SCL” window, which looks like this:
Now select the add button, type in your name and add a check mark after all permission types. (See graphic below).
Select OK. Now repeat this process 3 more times for the following onyens: mrlipsco, ddcraig, and esnow.
Select the first set of permissions that grants access to the entire class (1001.geog370-006) and click the Remove button.
ASSIGNMENT!! Print screen the “Set AFS ACL”window with the proper permissions deleted and added as specified above and include for question 2. To print screen the entire screen, press the “Print Screen” key on the upper right of your keyboard. To print screen only the active window, hold the “Alt” key and press the “Print Screen” key on the upper right of your keyboard. Paste into lab document.
*NOTE:Now you have created a folder that only the four of us can use. During the final project, you may end up granting permission to one another using this process. DO NOT share permissions prior to April. (As the folder administrator, I can see all permissions.)
QUESTION 2: Paste a print screen of Set AFS ACL window. Resize if necessary to be sure instructor can read the text of the box.
E. Lab Subfolders
For each lab, you should create a new sub-folder in your student space so that you are able to keep all of the assignments organized by lab. The location of each assignment should be something like this:
J:\isis\html\courses\2010spring\geog\370\006\students\your ONYEN\lab1\
Or M:\students\yourONYEN\lab1\
J:\isis\html\courses\2010spring\geog\370\006\students\your ONYEN\lab2\
Or M:\students\yourONYEN\lab2\
etc…
*NOTE: If you want to differentiate between two words use “_”. For example: project_file. DO NOT use spaces in any folder or file names. You will understand why later.
F: Home Directory
Your home directory is where you store your personal files and your web pages. When you signed up for your onyen you were given 10 megabytes of storage in your home directory. When you sign up for web publishing services, you can get an additional 5 megabytes for a total of 15 MB of storage.
In ATN labs on campus you can always find your home directory on the H:\ drive. When you sign on with your onyen on a lab computer, H:\ is automatically mapped to your home directory. If you want to store files in a location that is not accessible to other people, then place it in your “private” folder:
You can also make files accessible to anyone over the web, who has the proper URL by placing them within a folder within your “public_html” directory. In order to save things to your personal web space, you will need to subscribe to ATN's web services. This will give you 5MB of web space and setup a folder in your home folder called "public_html".
Anything you put in this folder will be available for anyone to see over the World Wide Web provided they have the URL address to the files. The url for your web page is: *NOTE:The “~”goes before yourONYEN!!!
Files that are stored on your H:\ drive or in your J:\ class folder should be accessible to you at any ATN lab on campus. If you wish to access your files from off campus as if you were on campus, this can be accomplished by downloading the AFS Client tool from help.unc.edu and installing it on your computer. This will allow you to use your ONYEN and log on from your home computer and navigate the folders just as you are able to in the ATN labs.
QUESTION 3: What is the drive letter of your home directory (i.e., your ATN home directory, not your GEOG 370 class directory)? Where do you save your lab reports?
QUESTION 4: If you were working on a computer in an ATN lab and wanted to save your work to a location where only you and no one else could see it, where should you save it? (Excluding flash drives.)
QUESTION 5: If you had a webpage at UNC, what would be the URL for your web page?
G: Flash Drives
IMPORTANT: The use of personal flash drives is STRONGLY recommended for this course. Data and lab instructions may be copied onto your flash drive, and you may save your work and lab report on a flash drive as you work. Course space would only be necessary for obtaining data and submitting your lab documents by saving them into your student folder. Now that flash drives are more common than they were about 5 years ago or so, 2 GB flash drives are much less expensive and more easily obtained. As for a recommended size, 2GB should be quite enough space to save all the data, instructions, and lab reports that you need for this course.
PART 2
Introduction to GIS
ArcGIS is made of several components: ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and ArcToolbox. They represent data, data analysis, and data output/mapping. Extensions are add-ons that increase the capabilities of ArcGIS. Digitizing and raster analysis are examples of extensions. Another point to note about ArcGIS is that it gives you the ability to convert data between one format and another, and to reproject data.
ArcGIS is the GIS package we will be using throughout the course. ESRI, the company that produces the software, has a set of courses online that are designed to train people in the use of their software packages. For this assignment, you will take the first module of their “Introduction to ArcGIS” online course. The first part of the module is free; however the rest of the course costs $125. For this assignment, you will only have to complete the free portion, and we will NOT be completing all of Module 1 for this lab.
Steps
1)Visit the ESRI Virtual Campus Site at:
2)On the right side of the page, click on Log In.
3)Then click “Create New Account” and fill out the form provided for you.
4)Write down your user name and password. We will not finish this module in one lab.
5)Click “Create My ESRI Global Account”
6)Confirmation will be emailed to you. Check your email and click on the link provided in the ESRI email.
7)Now you can login and enter into the actual course page.
8)Click “My Virtual Campus Courses”
9)Click “Course Catalog” and search for “Learning ArcGIS Desktop”
10)Click on the first selection(Learning ArcGIS) and click “Try It Now” on the right.
11)Click on Module 1 and follow along in lab on the Learning Module.
12)Complete the trip to San Diego project and include a print screen of step 6.
13)Finish the first two parts: Exploring a GIS Map and Exploring ArcGIS Desktop. You do not have to do the Tornado Damage project for this lab.
NOTE: When we get to the exercises, the data has already been downloaded, and can be found in the data folder in the course data space (M:\data\lab1)
QUESTION 6: Paste the print screen requested in the trip to San Diego exercise.
QUESTION 7: What is a layer?
QUESTION 8: What is a feature?
QUESTION 9: Describe the different between large scale and small scale, including the level of detail and example ratios?
Note on Applications:
All machines in every lab should be able to run ArcMap, Arc Catalog, ArcToolbox, etc. There are two ways to start these programs:
(1)Go to “Start”, click “Programs”, click “GIS Applications” or “ArcGIS”, and find the program you need.
(2)Open a Folder on the Desktop and select the program you need.*
*Having a GIS folder on the Desktop will vary from lab to lab. (For example, the GIS computers behind the Reference Desk in Davis Library have a folder entitled “ESRI Programs” in which you can find ArcMap, etc.)
ArcCatalog
This program helps you manage and explore spatial data. Some features are exploring data folders, preview data before adding it to ArcMap, and creating new data. Open ArcCatalog and right click in the contents window. See the “connect to folder” option? It’s a button that looks like this: . This is how you will access data to use in ArcCatalog. The preview tab allows you to study the geography or the table associated with the data, and the metadata tab allows you to see technical information about the data set.
ArcToolbox
This component is used for data management and conversion.
ArcMap
This is the component used for creating, viewing, querying, editing, composing, and publishing maps; it is where most analysis is done and will be primarily what you use for this class.
Open ArcMap and choose “Black Presentation”. Look at the Table of Contents on the left, and the View window on the right. The Table of Contents will show the names of the data layers that you have added to your ArcMap file. The View window is the area where the map is displayed. Now right click in the tan area (by the save and print icons) near one of the toolbars to see what other options for toolbars are available.
QUESTION 10: What are the two views in ArcMap, and what can you do within each one?
PART 3
Important Note:In this part of the lab, we will work with some simple data layers to explore projection and to make a simple map. Mastering the concepts and skills in this lab is very important, as they will be the basis for much of the work for the remainder of the course.
Projection and planar measurement
Projection of the spherical earth to the Cartesian plane is central to cartography. There are many ways to express a sphere as a flat surface, and each is a sort of projection. In general, areas towards the equator are projected in cylindrical projections, the mid-latitudes are projected in conic projections, and the high latitudes are projected in azimuthal projections. Refer to your textbook for a complete discussion of projections. In this lab, you will learn how to set the projection.
The Layer in ArcMap
A data layer is composed of a particular geographic data set embedded into a single spatial data model. A layer may contain only one type of data, for example, point data. In ArcMap Desktop, there are two basic types of data: Feature data – composed of vector data, and Image Data – composed of raster data.They may be added and deleted from a map file.This has no effect on the data itself. Deleting a layer from ArcMap does not delete the layer from your hard drive; it only removes it from your ArcMap project.
All layers, once added, will appear in the view with default symbols. These symbols can be manipulated in a variety of ways to improve cartographic visualization. The symbol tools in ArcMap can do a great many things, but are complex and require practice to achieve mastery.
In ArcMap, the data layers that have been added to a project are displayed on the left hand side of the window in the "Table of Contents." To the right of the Table of Contents is the view window – in this window you can use the "Data View" or the "Layout View." Data View is used for examining the data in one Data Frame. If you have more than one Data Frame in your project, you can switch between the Data Frames and the data shown in your Data View will change accordingly. Layout View is used to examine the layout of all of your Data Frames. It is in this window that you will create your final map layout. In this lab, we will examine both the Data and Layout View.
Data Frame Properties and Coordinate Systems
In this section, we will examine a Data Set in several different projections and learn about the characteristics of the individual projections.
Close any open windows from the last part of the lab and restart ArcMap. In ArcMap, start with a new, empty map.
Either use the menu command (File -> Add data) or the icon shortcut to add a data layer. An "Add Data" window will pop up.