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Continuing from where we left off the last workshop, having discussed Spatial Models in Decision-
Making Context and Understanding Geographic Data and Metadata, lets look at some of the
fundamental ways that we can transform geographic data with its Geometry and Attributes into
graphics that convey an understanding of some of the critical aspects of a setting where decisions
and their possible consequences may be explored.
In this exercise we will start out at the web site of MassGIS. MassGIS is an agency that knows
how to organize and share information! Downloading a few datasets from MassGIS and opening
them in ArcMap will help us to explore the way that Feature Classes represent tabular collections
of georeferenced shapes, each associated with a row of Attributes. All of this can be expressed
with a complex of files that are collectively known as a Shape File
This first workshop in GIS is probably the most technically difficult of all of them. There are a lot
of brand new concepts to discuss that yo have never seen before. These are some of the
fundamentals of handling data-sets and representing data-sets as graphical layers is fundamental
to useing using ArcMap and other GIS applications. Even though software interfaces for working
with data and layers try to present these as simple graphical metaphors, their behavior can seem
unpredictable and mysterious and frustrating until a person understands ta few subtleties about
how data,layers and maps are related. It is necessary to break through these topics if we want to
build collections of data and map documents that we can work on, back up, put away, share and
restore to continue working another day.
Workshop Outline
Part 1: An introduction to Layers and Maps
• Begin with a folder organization strategy.
• Tips for reliable file-systems
• Download Data and Metadata
• Explore a feature class and its attributes in ArcMap
• Arcmap Layers and their Properties
• Adjusting Symbology Properties for a Layer
• A Layer is like a Jacket for a data-Set
• Create a new Layer
• Saving and Opening Layer Files
• Applying Symbology and Labeling Styles from MassGIS Layer Files
• Save Your Map
• Zip and Date your project for Easy Re-Use, Sharing, Back-Up and Recovery
• Check your Archive and Map for portability
Part Two: Clipping a Concise Study Area out of a Very Large Data-Set
• Download the massachusetts_project_starter kit
• Extract and Inspect the Starter Project Files
• Reparing Path References for a Map Document (what to do when you see the red
exclamation marks.
• Save your Map Document with Relative Path References
• Take a Look at the layers extracted for the Hudson Area of Interest
• Prepare to Extract an Area of Interest
• Create New Shapefiles by Exporting the Features within your Map Window
• Applying MassGIS Layer Properties to a Clipped Layer.
• Fixing Draw Errors
• Copy Layer Files and Metadata
• Create and Check the References for your AOI Compilation Document
• Delete Statewide Layers and Data
Preliminaries
1. With Windows Explorer, create a folder for our project. Keep your project files near
the top level of your hard drive. Create the folder: Computer Local Disk
C:\temp\your_study_name. Within this folder make a subfolders named
arcdocs, scratch and sources. Within the sources folder create a new folder
named massgis_2018. The reason for this folder structure will become clear as we
add data from more sources.
2. Right-click on the download link at the top-right of the MBTA Rapid Transit page.
Save the file into your scratch folder.
3. Massgis issues their data as self-extracting zip archives. Right-Click the archive or
double-click it to extract its contents.
4. While we are on the MassGIS metadata page, lets use our browser to save the
complete web page into the same folder as the data. Doing this now is easy. If we
aren't scrupulous about saving metadata as we gather data, experience tells us that
it will be nearly impossible to understand the essential provenance or attribute
references of the data at a later date.
5. Use Windows Explorer to take a look at the files we have acquired. You should have
a folder and an .html file. The folder contains images and styling information used
by the .html file.
6. Right-click the html file and see that it opens up in your browser.
References
• A quick Tour of ArcMap
• Adding Layers to a Map
• The Table of Contents
• Identifying Features on the Map
• Overview of Tables and Attribute Information
References
• A Quick Tour of Map Layers
• Symbolizing Features to Show Categories
• Specifying the Text of Labels
Using the Symbology Properties of a Layer
References
• Saving Layer Files
1. Right-Click on your MBTA group layer and choose Save as Layer File.
2. You can save your layer file in the same folder with the MBTA_Arc<.shp and
MBTA_Node.shp shape files.
3. Just for fun, try adding your newly saved layer in your ArcMap document.
References:
• Group layers
• Scale Range
1. Use the Add Data button to add the layer, MBTA_Rapid_Transit.lyr from
sources\massGIS_2018\mbta_rapid_transit folder.
2. Right-Click the MBTA Mass Transit group layer and click Zoom to Layer
3. Now roll your scroll-wheel in and out to zoom way in and way out. Notice that the
line work and labels change their appearance depending on the zoom?
4. Double-click the group layer and each of the sub-layers to expose the properties.
For each, fo to the General properties tab and set the Show Layer at All Scales
option.
5. Now you can zoom in and out and appreciate how Transit Stops and their Labels
seem to behave intelligently. Cool!
Very Fancy Labeling. Zooming in and out on the Rapid Transit layers some more, you can see
that the labels simplify as you zoom out, only the terminal stops arer labeled. When you zoom in,
all of the stops are labeled. We don;t have time to go into label properties in this tutorial.
Nevertheless, we must point out that label properties are a very important means of
transforminmg data from stupis files into graphical symbols that are meaningful to human beings.
So even if we don;t yet know how to master these label properties, we should at least appreciate
how we can take the amazing layers created by others, like MassGIS, and use them in our own
maps.
References
• Saving a map with relative path names
References
• Using the ArcMap Table of Contents
1. In your ArcMap document, set the Table of contents to List by Source. Inspect
the path locations of all of your data. Now is tie time to delete any layers that are
not within your parent parent project folder, or to do whatever is necessarry to get
them into the right locations.
2. Quit ArcMap
3. Rename or delete your original project folder (containing both the Sources folder
and your Map_Docs folder) so that your source data will not exist anymore at their
former absolute path locations.
4. Now you can open your ArcMap document. It should open with all of the layers
referenced correctly. Check them all on and off.
5. If all of your layers fail to draw and have red exclamation marks, the likely answer
is that you forgot to check the setting for Store Ralative Path References for
Data Sources (See screen shot) Check that.
Techniques for trouble-shooting broken map documents and data archives are discussed in the
next section.
Don't do this!
There is one big gotcha in this procedure that people seem to miss. The massGIS layer
files use very elaborate styling for symbols and labels. If you try to draw all of the stae-
wide roads with this symbolization your computer will be challenged. So in the next set of
slides you want to be very careful not to apply the MassGIS Styled Layer properties to the
state-wide layers.
Use your Windows explorer to look into your Sources\hudson_massgis_2018 folder
and note that there are several very modestly-sized shapefiles inside. Compare the size of
these files with the corresponsing state-wide shape files.
Our goal over the next several steps, cobered below, will be:
References
• Repairing Broken Data Links
The slides below illustrate how to diagnose the relationship between the map document and the
data-sets that it is trying to reference.
dissapointed to see that there are not features in the map. This is a common problem
that we need to learn how to fix. We also need to learn how to prevent this from
happening bymaking sure always to set our map documents to reference dta awith
relative paths, so that these don;t break when the project is moved around.
1. Go to one of the layers and bring up its properties and examine the Source
properties. Note that Arcmap is looking for the data source in the old location,
which does not exist any more. Note the name of the shape file that is being
referenced. (See Screenshot.)
2. Now, use your file-system browser to find the shape file that should be referenced
by the layer. Note, this shape file must have the sasme feature-type (point,
line, or polygon) and the same attribute names and attribute values as the
shape file that was originally referenced by this layer, or else you will have
drawing errors. (see below.)
3. Once you have discovered the location of the correct shape file, push the Set Data
Source button on the layer's source properties to correct the reference. (See
Screenshot.)
4. If you have multiple layers that are broken because your map document or a folder
has has moved, you can correct all of them at the same time, by clicking the red-
exclamation point, and resetting the source for one layer, as above.
5. Having completed the above step, you should now see that all of the path
references have been healed.
References
• Saving a map with relative path names
• Now to make sure that those bad ! Red Exclamation Marks do not occur: Go to File-
>Document Properties and check the box near the bottom of the page to reference
data using relative pathnames. (See screen shot)
• Now save your map again.
Take a Look at the layers extracted for the Hudson Area of Interest
To demonstrate the template and extraction process, I have extracted a set of the data layers for
an area focused on the town of Hudson. It wil be helpful to turn off the state-wide layers and
zoom to the Hudson area to see the results of this process before extracting data for your own
area of interest. Along the way we will learn about Bookmarks and Scale-Dependent Visibility
References
• Using Spatial Bookmarks
• Displaying layers at Certain Scales
• Setting and INspecting a Layer's Source Properties.
1. Look at the Data-Sets extraced for Hudson play stop < >
We have used a bookmark that makes it easy to return to our hudson extent. To fly
back to that extent, you can use this bookmark, as pictured.
Notice how the layers in the Extracted Layers group are using elaborate symbolization. This styling
is provided by the LYR files provided with the data-sets by MassGIS. These layers and more can
be found in each folder within the sources\statewide_massgis_2018 folder. We went through
the process of applying styles to layers through layer files in pat one of this tutorial. Check out the
Source Properties for these layers and see how they point to shape files in the
sources\hudson_massgis_2018 folder.
Prepare to Extract an Area of Interest
Now to extract a set of base data layers for your own area of interest! To begin with you need to
think about an area of about 2km x 2km that you will want to study for the next 5 maps. We will
extract data layers for 20km x 20km surrounding that area. You may want use Oliver to discover
an area of interest. Then you will set a bookmark for your context area. Then prepare a folder for
your extracted data. To simplify the process, I have created a template folder for an area of
interest that contains the empty folders that you will need. So you can prepare for your extract by
copying and re-naming the sources\template_aoi_massgis_2018 folder.
References
• Using Spatial Bookmarks
1. Copy the Template Folder and Rename play stop < >
Now use Windows File Explorer to copy the template_aoi_massgis folder and rename
the copy after the name of your area of interest.
References
• Exporting Features from a Layer
Now Extract the Features for each of the Layers in the Statewide Layers group.
Now that you see how this extraction works, you can go ahead
References
• Reparing Source Links for a Layer
• Working with Group Layers
1. Redirect Source Properties of your Roads Layer play stop < >
This slide shows how the Source property of your MassDOT Roads layer can be
redirected from the Hudson extract to the roads layer that you have extracted for your
own area of interest.
Now repeat this process for each of the layers in the Extracted Layers group. Don;t worry about
losing the Hudson extract, this has already been saved in the Hudson-oriented map document in
our ArcDocs folder.
Draw Errors!
Understanding the way Layer properties assign symbolization and labels to points or lines
or polygons using the values in certain attribute columns, you should not be surprised to
have problems if you assign try to link a layer to a shape-file that uses a different
geometry type, or that does not have the correct attribute column with similar values.
If you keep getting a little window on your ArcMap screen announcing mysterious,
unexplained Draw Errors, the reason is probably that you have used a point layer to
reference a polygon feature class or vice versa. Check the source properties of your
layers.
If you accidentally happen to try to point your Hydrography Line features with the shape
file for your Hydography Polygons shape file, your polygons won't draw correctly, and you
will see the annoying Draw Errors error message. The message will identify the
offending layer.
The sad part is that you will never get that layer to work even if you try to point it at the
right polygon layer. Not to worry! just delete the layer form ArcMap, open the .lyr file
again, and make sure to check the source properties to get the right shapefile name
before you go off and try to attach this layer properties to some random dataset.
If you have broken a layer by accidentaklly trying to point it the wrong shape-file, you can re-load
the MassGIS .lyr file. IN the next step, we will copy all of the ,lyr files from the statewide massGIS
folders to our own AOI folders. If you need to repair one of your layers, it wil be better to do it
after copying the LYR file to your extracted data folder.
Congratulations!
If you have done all of this, you have earned your data-wrangler merit badge! And are
ready to start workinf with a GIS laboratory focused on your own area of interest!