Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

NPHS 1510: Federal and International

ArcGIS

This section will give you a quick introduction to ArcGIS. Our focus here is to provide you with the capability of using data that is ArcGIS format.

Resources:

Ormsby, Tom; Napoleon, Eileen; Burke, Robert; Groessl, Carolyn; Bowden, Laura. Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop. ESRI Press, Redlands CA, 2010. ISBN: 9781589482609.

Your student version of ArcGIS came with a number of applications. We do not have the time here to teach you the intricasies of all of these very robust applications. Instead, we will focus on teaching you a tiny fraction of that which is available in a single application, ArcMap. By understanding some of the very elementary ArcMap capabilities, we hope you will get an appreciation for how GIS can be a tremendous asset to emergency decision makers.

Your full ArcGIS package includes:

ArcCatalog - provides the necessary tools which allow you to:
- Browse and find geographic information
- Record, view, and manage metadata
- Define, export, and import geodatabase data models and datasets
- Search for and discover GIS data on local networks and the Web
- Create and manage the schemas of geodatabases

ArcCatalog Main Screen

ArcGlobe - allows users to view and analyze very large amounts of 3D GIS data seamlessly and with extremely fast display speeds. ArcGlobe literally presents a globe of the earth over which users can navigate easily in three dimensions. ArcGlobe features include:

Display multiresolution image and terrain data.
Support vector data (e.g., points, lines, polygons, and 3D objects).
Convert two-dimensional representations to 3D on the fly.
Other features that are currently part of ArcGlobe include
Support for identify, select, find, and text/labeling
Animation functionality that offers a quick and easy way of creating 3D visualization (with options to export to a video format)
Various layer effects such as transparency, lighting, shading, and depth priority

ArcGlobe Main Screen

ArcMap - an integrated desktop application that allows the user to:

Create maps and interactive visualizations.
Visually model and spatially analyze a process or workflow.
Create interactive maps from file, database, and online sources.
Create street-level maps that incorporate GPS locations.
View CAD data or satellite images.
Generate reports and charts.

ArcMap Main Screen

ArcReader - a free, easy-to-use desktop mapping application that allows users to view, explore, and print maps and globes. Anyone with ArcReader can view high-quality interactive maps authored by a high-level ArcGIS for Desktop product and published with the ArcGIS Publisher extension.

ArcReader Main Screen

ArcScene - a 3D visualization application that allows you to view your GIS data in three dimensions. ArcScene allows you to overlay many layers of data in a 3D environment. Features are placed in 3D by reading height information from feature geometry, feature attributes, layer properties, or a defined 3D surface, and every layer in the 3D view can be handled differently. Data with different spatial references will be projected to a common projection, or data can be displayed using relative coordinates only. ArcScene is also fully integrated with the geoprocessing environment, providing access to many analytical tools and functions.

ArcScene Main Screen

Exercise:

After completing this lesson on GIS, explore some of the other applications available in ArcGIS. We spacifically reccommend that you look at ArcCatalog and ArcGlobe.