Lab 9 (revised slightly)

So the last day of class, after asking how to make the animations, I found out you just need to go to ‘file,’ click ‘animation wizard,’ and click through to add each set of maps (choropleth, grad symbol, etc), order them correctly, and then select the delay time, which is set at default 25/100 of a second. I switched it to 1 second, and saved each set of maps.

That’s as far as I got, so it’s disappointing I wasn’t able to finish 100%. At least I got the gist of it though. I wish I were more computer savvy. I think this lab should maybe have been a bit more clear on the specific instructions for the laymen like myself. I never got tot the KMZ files and the process with the instructor/lead computer.

Lab 9..

I’ll be brutally honest in this blog posting… I’m sitting in the lab as I type this wondering how I’ll be able to finish this project in the 2 days before it’s due. I’ve exported all the maps and done everything I need to do…. except for the animations in this lab.

Without the instructor things are hopeless. I opened the shortcut to the GIF Animator on the desktop and tried to follow the instructions on my own, but I fell a little behind during the lectures, and need to be refreshed on how to create the various animations of my chloropleth maps, dot density, etc. If only there was more time.

I got as far as getting the 1900-1910 chloropleth map up on the screen in the GIF Animator program, but gave up shortly thereafter because I didn’t know what or how to do anything further. I know what animations are, and I’m sure everyone in the class does too, but unfortunately making them and putting them up on the web pages is a whole nother game. I know I’m supposed to put the step-by-step animation process here but that’s not going to happen.

I also looked up faq’s, hints, and help topics through google but was unsuccessful. I understand the fundamentals of animation, but not the details of being able to import/export them for my own maps, let alone get them on the web. help!!

After pretty much abandoning hope on this lab, I decided to make better use of the time I spent here and tweak the appearance of my www pages, minor stuff like background color, font, and added some content. Hopefully I’ve gotten the gist of the whole course though… as a matter of fact I believe I have.

Was there anyone else in the class who had the same trouble I did? I wouldn’t be surprised if so or not. Wish I had come to Krygier earlier for questions. I’m going to write more about this in my final evaluation.

Lab 8

This has been the most challenging lab so far for me, as I must have spent at least 2 entire weeks getting things all figured out. I followed all the instructions as best I could. This is when, using the layout feature, I saw how my map would actually look on a webpage as opposed to the ‘data’ view. Adding a north arrow, legend, and scale are what I expected the first time this project was mentioned, so it’s nice to see we’re adding them.

Adding and maneuvering a neatline was an odd step to me… everything seems much more complicated than it needs to be. In my personal opinion, the layout and data views should be the same thing on one screen.

Exporting the maps presented a bit of trouble too as I had to go into the layout properties and constantly update the legend with the right information/label. I understand that even a slight slipup here is hard to avoid and it could cost the organization of the whole process. While it is one of the toughest parts of the project, it’s also one of the most critical.

Lab 7

Data Classification was pretty straightforward and rudimentary so long as we have a professor instructing us with a big screen. In this lab we were introduced to ArcMap, where we are to store all the layers of data we got from the previous labs and tinker with how to display them.

Finding the lowest-low and highest-high figures for our state census was a bit refreshing since I had to use actual notebook paper to come up with good intervals/breaks. A tangible aspect helped.

Choosing the right color scheme added another dimension to the project. I’ve gotten used to the Garden State being associated with green, which is also my favorite color. So to show population gains I used shades of green. Any negative values in any decade were entirely given their own classification with my choice of a light brown. I never used Open Office for anything.

Importing the data for the lowest low within the classification process got a bit rough, especially repeating the process over and over for each set of years. I still didn’t have trouble with any 99999999′s in the data, though.

I’m confident with my classes, color schemes, breaks, and everything else so far.

Lab 4 & 5

These labs introduced and explained to us ArcGIS and the data processing that goes with it.

As I said in my previous blog, I’m glad NJ only has 21 counties. Makes things much easier. Following Dr. Krygier’s instructions were pretty straight forward, and what I quickly learned is to SAVE AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE. If i change the format of a file, I should save it. If i fiddle around with the layers and tweak within the ArcMap program, I should save it. If I do anything, I should save it. This will make it easier to find where i left off between classes and labs. Not only should I save often, but keeping things well-organized within folders is also important.

My impressions of ArcGIS and ArcMap are that it takes a lot of getting used to. You need to explore a lot of features and focus on minuscule discrepancies before getting down to brass tax. Something as insignificant as ‘.’s and “‘”s and -’s can ruine verything, because transferring them from one place to another makes the data look weird, such as when you open up the attribute table.

I am glad that the information regarding the maps of the world is already stored in the database and is unalterable by us students, so it’s not compromised the way say, Wikipedia is, where anyone can enter information about anything. Other parts of ArcMap are not so straight forward, and to the layman this would all be more confusing than to a baby in a topless bar. Of course, this is just my personal opinion. Otherwise as a geographer I would approve of these programs to help in mapmaking, but the rest should probably be left to the experts.

Exploring the ESRI website I clicked curiously on ‘executives’ under the getting started section, and followed through to the benefits of using GIS. It took me to a pdf with a table of contents of 17 pages basically covering anything and everything that geography pertains to in life. It’s not quite what I expected, which I thought would be strictly subjects of business incentives and career opportunities, but then again i suppose that’s a little more straight-forward.

Everything on the ESRI website is a bit more complicated than meets the eye. It’s a bit counter-intuitive with the amount of information available, which might confuse users more than it informs them. I wouldn’t recommend surfing this site without a professor or other reliable person with knowledge on the subject if you’re considering extensive use of ESRI.

Lab 4

Definitions in ArcMap:
Map Document (.mxd file) – The file that contains one map, its layout, and its associated layers, tables, charts, and reports. Map documents can be printed or embedded in other documents. Map document files have a .mxd extension.

Table of Contents – The tabbed list of data frames and layers (or tables) on a map that shows how the data is symbolized, the source of the data, and whether or not each layer is selectable.

Data  Frame – A map element that defines a geographic extent, a page extent, a coordinate system, and other display properties for one or more layers. A dataset can be represented in one or more data frames. In data view, only one data frame is displayed at a time; in layout view, all a map’s data frames are displayed at the same time.

Map Layer – The visual representation of a geographic dataset in any digital map environment. Conceptually, a layer is a slice or stratum of the geographic reality in a particular area, and is more or less equivalent to a legend item on a paper map. On a road map, for example, roads, national parks, political boundaries, and rivers might be considered different layers.

Attribute Table – A database or tabular file containing information about a set of geographic features, usually arranged so that each row represents a feature and each column represents one feature attribute. In raster datasets, each row of an attribute table corresponds to a certain zone of cells having the same value. Attribute tables are often joined or related to spatial data layers, and the attribute values they contain can be used to find, query, and symbolize features or raster cells.

Lab 3

Update: 9/28/09
NJ has 21 counties (relatively good number to work with) and they are all well-populated (no ten 9′s for me), so I had minimal or no trouble with the minor “0″s and line problems. All the data were there, simple to carry over and edit in Excel. I understand that some states have more than 100 counties, so if I had to manually go in and edit each little piece of data for the whole country, let alone any one state with that many counties, I’d go crazy. The state of Delaware, on the other hand, only has 3 counties, so if someone focused on that state alone they’d be on easy street. These labs can sometimes generate an undertone based on arbitrary choices, or rather the states we choose effectively seal the deal on how much, if any, complications we encounter.

Since NJ was one of the original 13 colonies the census data is easily confirmed and there are fewer weird things occurring in its data the further back in time you go in our country’s history. There is not much to say here except for the fact that everything went smoothly. All the questions and answers will come with the presentation. Lab 3 seems pretty straightforward in this context.

Lab 2

9/16 – Preliminary demo presentation day. I’ve been steadily working on my home page, project page, and map mashup since Lab 2 was fully explained. There were a few kinks with these two images (the small broken page icon shows up). I experimented with background colors, found the one I wanted to use, and changed the font on the entire page to Comic Sans MS. I edited the original content to my own specs (favorite movies, bands).

9/21 – This is the bulk of the work I’ve been doing. Apparently the images I put up originally are now shown fully (no more box with a broken page in it). Perhaps it takes several days for the image to become fully applied?? I placed some links on the Main Project page for NJ for the state tree, state insect and state flower. I also used this image for the state quarter, and this image for a detailed illustration of NJ’s 21 counties (Bergen is my favorite). Unfortunately the broken page icon still appears, but maybe it’ll get straightened out over the next couple days. I will probably get a majority of images and links from wikipedia since it’s the best agglomeration of the information I need. I will check its sources too.

I embedded this video on my personal home page, which shows a live performance by Porcupine Tree, one of my favorite bands. I also put this video on my main project page. It is a car chase somewhere in NJ, thought that might be a little interesting.

I added a table using the Seamonkey program to display the census data (using the link which Dr. Krygier provided us) for the whole NJ population from 1900-2000. On the main project page, it is after the images and before the embedded car chase video. I want to expand on that data for the counties, but haven’t had the opportunity to do so yet. It’ll get done.

9/23 – In-class demo of progress.

Intro Blog post by Evan Jerfsten

Hey people, I’m Evan, a senior here at OWU. I’m originally from NJ and I’m a geography major, so I’m right at home here in the GIS lab (sorta). All this HTML and txt encoding stuff is new and a bit confusing to me but I seem to be catching on. Viva cartography!

Here’s what i had in my lab log before switching to the lab blog:

8/31/09 – Lab 1

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