Introduction to GeoMedia

Introduction to GeoMedia/GMPro
UNIGIS UK

Introduction

This practical class is designed to introduce to Intergraphs GeoMedia which is provided to all our students. It takes you through a small GeoMedia workow in order to introduce GeoMedia. As you work through this think a little about the way this particular software product is designed and how concepts have been used within it. A software package on its own, as we shall argue strongly in the rst unit (EG4200 Introduction to GIS), is NOT a GIS. A GIS comprises much more than that. Different software products have different design philosophies and you should try to get a feel for these when you explore the packages. The aim of the exercise in this example is: to identify cities in Louisiana which could be used as relief cities for those populations within ood zones.

Create a Geoworkspace

Start GeoMedia by clicking on the icon (big blue G or yellow smiley). You should be presented with the welcome screen on which you should nd the option to Create New Geoworkspace. Click on this. We use the Normal.gwt template to create a new document. Geoworkspaces and Warehouses are two of the concepts you need to understand in order to be able to use GeoMedia. The geoworkspace is a le/set of les which contains all the work you do with GeoMedia including your connections to data.. The warehouse is essentially a spatial database. There is a little more to it than this but we start with this straightforward description. When GeoMedia opens the workspace you should see a screen something like that shown in gure 1 - containing a Map Window and within UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network 1

Introduction to GeoMedia

Figure 1: A new Geoworkspace

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Introduction to GeoMedia

this a Legend Window. The Legend is an important feature in using GeoMedia. Save this new Geoworkspace straight away - go to the File menu and choose Save Geoworkspace - call this one Floodspace. This creates the workspace on disc and enables subsequent saving. In the E409 MMU computer Laboratory your disc space is labelled i: (on the gaia server and will have your login number as its name. You must save all your work in this space.

Connecting to a Data Warehouse

Having opened a space to work in we now need to nd some data. In order to work with data we have to connect to a warehouse. this is an important part of the GeoMedia design philosophy. 1. Go to the Warehouse menu on the main menu bar. Bring it down and select New Connection. This should start the wizard for connections. 2. Choose Access as the type of data server. Click on Next. 3. Now give your connection a name in the Dene a connection name box - call this USAdata. 4. Use the Browse button to nd a warehouse called USSampleData.mdb and then click on Next. (This is an Access database le - it could easily be in some other format e.g. Oracle.) 5. Select Access all features in the warehouse and click on Next. Select Let the wizard open the connection as read-only and click on Finish. Your Geoworkspace should now be connected to a Warehouse. The connection is part of your Geoworkspace. This dataset contains major features for the USA.

Adding Feature Classes to a Legend

You now need to add some features to the map. The data contains features such as Louisiana which is in the Feature Class States. It also contains features such as New Orleans which are in the feature class Cities. 1. Select Legend from the main menu bar and then choose Add Feature Class. 2. Select your connection (USAdata) in the Connection box and then highlight the feature classes StateNameLabels and States in the box underneath. UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network 3

Introduction to GeoMedia

3. Then click OK. You should now see a map of the USA with states labelled in the map window.

4.1

Changing styles of Feature Classes

Click on Legend on the main menu bar and select Properties. Click on the Entries tab if it is not already showing. You should see two rows, one for each feature class we have added. Highlight the StatesNameLabel row by clicking on its leftmost cell. Now click on the Style button at the bottom of the dialog box. In the dialog which appears, set the size to 8 point, font to Bold and check the Size remains constant as display scale changes option and then click OK. Now in the Display box nd and click on StateNameLabels. In the list which appears choose By Scale. Now click on the Scale button at the bottom of the dialog box and make the Minimum: 10,000,000 and the Maximum: 1,000,000,000. Click OK on this box. Now click OK on the Legend Properties dialog box. Zoom in and out of the map using the magnifying glass buttons on the bar at the top. In order to reset to full window size, click on the Fit all button (square with four arrows pointing to the corners). Now try changing the colour in which the state polygons are drawn. Double click on the rectangle symbol to the left of the States entry in the Legend. Click on Color and change the colour.

4.2

Naming Legends

Legends can contain a great deal of information - in a sense they are your workow. They can, therefore, be saved to allow their re-use. Go to the Legend menu on the main menu bar and select Name Legend. Give your legend the name FloodreliefLeg.

Coordinate Systems

The data in the warehouse may be stored in one projection whilst the Geoworkspace you are working in may be using a different projection to display the data. The display should currently be using the Albers Equal Area coordinate system. We might want to change this to the Cylindrical Equirectangular projection (or vice versa). To do this, 1. Go to the View menu on the main menu bar and select GeoWorkspace Coordinate System. 4 UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network

Introduction to GeoMedia

2. In the dialog that appears you need to set base storage type to Projection. This should be under the General tab. 3. Now go to the Projection Space tab and choose Cylindrical Equirectangular from the list. 4. Now click on the Projection parameters button. For Longitude of origin enter -100:00:00:000 and for Latitude of origin enter 40:00:00:000. Click OK on this sub-dialog 5. Now click on the Geographic Space tab. Set the Geodetic datum to be WGS84. Go to the View menu and select Display properties to make the Nominal map scale 5,000,000. Now click Close. Now go to the View menu on the main menu bar and choose Fit All. The map of the USA should now look a little atter and wider.

Creating a Warehouse

We need to create a new Warehouse now because we are interested only in Louisiana and so need to remove the unnecessary US data. We also need to be able to write into the warehouse in order to create new features and so we require a read/write connection. Go to Warehouse on the main menu bar and choose New Warehouse. In the dialog which appears choose the Normal.gwt template and make sure that Document is selected and then click on OK. Give this Warehouse the name Floodproject, set the type to Access and Save it (on the i: drive. GeoMedia should automatically connect to this newly created warehouse via read/write.

6.1

Filters and Importing Data

We want to use the data for Louisiana alone. GeoMedia allows us to edit a database visually using the map window. This is done using spatial lters. We do this by dragging a rectangle around that state (which will include pieces of the neighbouring states) and then importing this data into our new Warehouse. Go to the Warehouse menu on the main menu bar and choose Dene Spatial Filter by Fence. Drag a rectangle around Louisiana making sure that you have all of the state. (You may rst need to zoom in to do this.) In the dialog box which appears, give the lter the name Louisiana and choose the Inside option. (See gure 2.) Click on OK Now close the dialog box. UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network 5

Introduction to GeoMedia

Figure 2: Dialog box for Spatial Filter

To import the data you need to go to the Warehouse menu and choose Import from Warehouse option. Set the source connection as your USAdata (click Next to move on), the target is the Floodproject connection and you want to select all (the double arrow) the feature classes and then click on the right double arrow. Ignore any error message. Click Finish to complete. An Import Statistics box should appear showing the transfer. this will show you how many features in each feature class have been imported. Click on the t all button. You should now see only Louisiana.

Analysis

We now need to start some analysis. First add rivers (use the Legend menu) to the legend before we forget. In analysing data you may need to look at it rst - this may be done as follows: 1. Click on Window and then New Data Window and then nd the Floodproject connection. Click on the + sign to reveal all the features. 2. Choose Counties and click OK. 3. You should see a Data Window with all the attributes for the counties - scroll around to check to see how many you have from outside Louisiana. 6 UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network

Introduction to GeoMedia

4. You can manipulate this data a little - e.g. to sort population data, click on the POP column heading and then go to the Data menu and select Sort Ascending. Close the Data Window. In GeoMedia can perform two kinds of query on a spatial database: Attribute queries and Spatial queries.

7.1 Attribute Queries

Go to the Analysis menu and select Attribute Query. Choose Floodproject in the Select features in box (nd it and then click on the plus sign to expand it) and choose Counties. You will now construct an SQL query by using the dialog box and the mouse. This is important - think about this bit. Click on the Filter button. In the Attributes Window select STATE NAME and click the down arrow below that box to send STATE NAME into the box below. Now click on the = sign in the Operators section. The = sign should automatically appear in the SQL box below. Now click on the Show Values button (click OK on the warning message) and then select Louisiana. Click on the down arrow to send Louisiana into the box below. Now click on OK. Give this the name LAcounties in the Query name box which appears. Make sure that both the Display query in map window and Display query in data window options are checked. Click OK. The Map Window will now show only Louisiana counties. Note how the query is added to the legend. Queries are not feature classes but they can appear in the legend. The results from a query can become a feature class. The Data Window lists the County data. Repeat but this time for Cities and name the query LAcities.

7.2 Spatial Queries

Click on the Analysis menu and choose Spatial Query. This time the Select Features in box should be set to your LAcounties query. In the That box choose touch. Set the Features in box to Rivers from Floodproject. Name this query counties-on-rivers. Click on OK. The relevant counties should be highlighted in the map window. Task: Now work out how to run a query (name it cities-on-rivers) to nd all the cities within 3 miles of a river. (Be sure to use miles).

7.3

Output query as Feature Class

As noted above, query output can become a feature class for later use and manipulation. UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network 7

Introduction to GeoMedia

Go to Warehouse on the main menu bar and choose Output to Feature Class. In the Select Features to output box expand Queries to nd the cities-on-rivers query. The connection should be set to floodproject. Name this impacted-cities in the Feature Class box. Set the Display feature class in map window option before clicking on OK.

7.4

Deleting

We can remove the impacted cities from the cities query. If the citieson-rivers is not yet in your legend add it now. Highlight this legend entry and then go to the Edit menu and choose Select by Legend entry. Now select the LAcities legend entry. Now click on Edit again and choose Delete. This should subtract the impacted cities from the set of all cities. You can now delete the cities-on-rivers query from the legend by selecting it and pressing the DEL key. If impacted-cities feature class is not on your legend, add it now. You now have two feature classes of cities - cities which are affected by river oods and cities that are not affected.

7.5

Thematic Display

Task: You now need to add a thematic representation of the populations of the counties on rivers to the map display. This is done via the Legend menu. See if you can work out how to do it. Ask if you cannot. Task: You also need to create a (merged) buffer zone of 20 miles around the impacted cities. This is done from the Insert menu using the Buffer zone option. Try to see if you can do this. Task: Having done the above, perform a spatial query called reliefcities to nd all cities within 20 miles of impacted cities which are not themselves in danger of ooding. These will be the cities to which the endangered populations could be evacuated.

Annotating

Labels may be added by using the Insert menu choosing Label. Label the relief-cities with their [CITY NAME] (choose this from the Attributes box. In the Layout box if you press CTRL+ENTER when at the end of the [CITY NAME] line, you get a new line onto which you should type pop and then add [POP] from the Attribute box. The Output labels as option should be Feature class, the connection Floodproject and in the Feature Class you should type RCityNames. Click OK. Task: Now add a north arrow and a scale bar by using the View menu. 8 UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network

Introduction to GeoMedia

Figure 3: The impacted cities and their relief cities which are inside the 20 mi buffer zones

TAKE A BREAK (if we havent already)

Creating a printable map

First check that your relief cities are the correct ones, check that your LACities group excludes those cities on rivers and that your impacted cities are the correct ones. If there are any errors or if you feel you would like to revise what you have done above, then redo the project. you should have something which looks a little bit like gure 3. If you are happy that your GeoWorkspace is correct then Save it. Make sure that all is well with the map Window looks. You may need to scale the StateNameLabels to be independent of scale etc. Labels may be added by using, from the Main Menu bar, the Insert menu choosing Label. If you did not do this last week, add a north arrow and a scale bar by using the View menu. UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network 9

Introduction to GeoMedia

9.1

Editing Map Objects

The names of the relief cities May overlap - you need to tease them apart. To do this, rst select (with the North-West Arrow cursor) a name by clicking on it once. The text should change colour and it becomes a select set. Now go to the Edit menu and go down to Geometry and choose Move. The cursor should change and if you now click on the name you can drag it about, releasing the mouse button when you have it in a better position. This may need a few attempts. Move all the names so that you can read them all but you can still tell which city they refer to. You may also wish to use the Style dialog for the CityNames feature class in order to change the font - change to a serif font such as Times New Roman because we are aiming to print onto paper.

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Cartographic Output

We need to remove unnecessary items before going to map production. So rstly go to the legend and turn off all legend entries apart from (your names may be slightly different): relief cities city buffers impacted cities rivers counties on rivers by POP LA Counties. To do this right click on the entry and then choose Hide Legend Entry. This leaves the objects in the map but simplies the Legend. Save the Legend.

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Plot Layout

Select Window menu and then Layout to open up the Layout Window. notice how the toolbars and pull down menus change. you should have an empty sheet called Sheet1 onto which you will paste your map and then add other components. There are some pre-existing templates and GeoMedia allows you to create your own templates as well. We will use a template called A4wide.glt for this exercise. Go to the Sheets menu and select Import Layout and then choose A4wide.glt. The new working sheet 10 UNIGIS UK PgC/PgD/MSc by DL GIS Network

Introduction to GeoMedia

called A4 Wide will appear in the Layout Window. In addition a background sheet called A4 Wide - Background will also appear. You can toggle between these by using the View menu items Background Sheets and Working Sheets. Delete all the red text from the background sheet. Go to the A4 Wide working sheet and click somewhere in the main map area. This template contains smart frames for holding maps and marginalia. If you now go to the Layout menu and choose Insert Map Graphics and select Map Window method then your Louisiana map should appear in the map space on the Layout. you should probably select the Crop/ood map to t frame option. Check that the Plot Scale is correct too. If you now go back to the Map Window and make some changes to your Louisiana map then these should immediately be reected in the Layout Window. If you add additional features then you will need to update the layout by going to the Layout menu and select Update Map Graphics. You can change the things like the GeoMedia logo on the map by altering the Background sheet. Have a go at this. You can compose your own Working sheet by going to the View menu and selecting Working Sheets. Create a new sheet by selecting Sheets and then Insert Sheet. If you right click the name tab of this new sheet then select Sheetsetup you can name the new sheet, set the background sheet to use etc. Then go to Layout and select Design Map Layout which allows you to place frames for the map, legend etc into your working sheet. Have a little play around with these map production tools and create a decent map for output. If the system permits, print a (b/w) copy of your map.

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