Geog 303 - Introductory GIS
Lab 8

Designing another Raster GIS solution

This lab is similar to the previous - the difference being that YOU will have to download data, define criteria, and work through to a solution. Obviously, there will be time/data limitations on this lab, but make it as real as you can. Remember to try 'HELP' within ArcMap (etc). Note, in all likelihood, this is the big lab (timewise) of the quarter. Plan for it. Get on it fast.

HOWEVER, first, work through chapter 13 in the green book. It will teach you about defining projections and reprojecting. Which may be very valuable as you do this raster lab.

Procedure:

1. Decide what sort of business you are going to locate - ski resort, fishing resort, mountain biking, Wal Mart, McDonalds, etc. Anything is cool - you decide.
2. Pick the area. For practical purposes, think the area of a USGS topo map (1:24,000).
3. Get some data! See the below section for details about grabbing data. No more than 2 datasets may come from the same source (organization website, J:\ drive, etc).
4. Determine your criteria (as these will be data dependent, steps 3 and 4 should be done simultaneously). I want you to use at least 5 different criteria. They could be things like distance, slope, landuse type, zoning, etc... Note, not all need to be (or should be) distance criteria. Some could be attribute selections, etc (think two labs back when working with vector data) - however, you will need to convert anything vector to raster to use it in a raster calculator query. And yes, this is a raster lab, so your analyses must be in raster format.
5. Crunch through the criteria in a method similar to the WA lab and generate a final suitability map.
6. Print out your final map, include all proper cartographic stuff. Be sure to include your 'all suitable sites' layer.
7. Provide a writeup which details all the above steps, including your data sources (full reference here. use a standard referencing format: APA, MLA, etc), details of your criteria, and deteils of all analyses/calculations. Also, add a paragraph that describes how you could make your analysis better (diff criteria, data, etc...)

Where do you get data?

• http://www.gisdatadepot.com (DEMs, DOQ's (digital orthoquads), DRG's (digital raster graphics), Flood zones, etc.)
• http://www.reo.gov (DEM, DRG, and others...) - only for Washington and Oregon.
• WAGDA - Washington State Geospatial Data Archive - the University of Washington data archive.
• The data drive in the lab (G drive - esri_maps_data)
• Do a google search. Or try some of the below URLs. Some may have useful data, some may not.

• canadian GIS data center

  Cartographic Boundary Files - U.S. Census Bureau

  columbia basin data

  Datamall Homepage - Frames

  Environmental Information Sources

  Federal Geographic Data Committee

  FREE Geodata

  GEODE [ USGS GEO-Data Explorer ]

  Geography Network

  Landsat4U - Public Domain Satellite Data

  Mostly Free U.S. Geospatial and Attribute Data

  New Geospatial Data Research Network Home Page

  oregon data

  Spatial Data at the WA State Dept of Ecology

  SSURGO Download

  TerraServer Homepage

  TopoZone

  U.S. EPA Geospatial Data Clearinghouse

  U.S. Geological Survey

  and many other places. Google is your friend.

   

How do I import data?

Well, that depends on the data format. Let me go over a couple of options (once you get the data saved to your drive). First, if the files are zipped, unzip them. Then take a look using Windows Explorer. If the unzip process made a bunch of folders, your data is probably in a ArcInfo Coverage (or GRID) format. If not, look at the filename extensions.

• First, try calling the data up in ArcMap. If you can, no worries! If not...
• Zipped files - .zip .gz .tar and others - look at the icon for the file in windows explorer - if it's a little C-clamp holding a folder, unzip it using winzip (or windows explorer, as it can now handle zipped files). There is a slight chance you will have zipped files within zipped files - unzip 'em twice.
• if the file extension is .e00 - this is an arcinfo interchange file - basically, it's ESRI's method of zipping a coverage or grid. Follow these directions from help (remember, help is your friend):
  • In ArcCatalog, click the View menu, click Toolbars, then click the ArcView 8.x Tools toolbar.
  • Click the Conversion tools drop-down menu and click Import from Interchange File.
  • Click the Input file Browse button and navigate to the .e00 file to be imported.
  • Click the .e00 file and click Open.
  • Click the Output dataset Browse button and navigate to the location for the output dataset to be stored, then click Save.
  • Click OK.
• if the file extension is .dem, ArcToolbox , conversion tools, raster, dem to raster.
• if the file extension is .sdts, you will first have to convert the file to a .dem. Do this using the sdts2dem.exe converter. Copy this application from J:\utilities and patches\new sdts to dem converter\ to the exact location of your .sdts file. Double click on it and follow the steps. When done with this, use the previous conversion to convert it to a grid.
• The big trick will be coordinate systems and datums... be sure to look at each dataset. Check the metadata. Look for metadata links from wherever you downloaded it from. Chances are very good that you will download data which is projected, but not defined. In other words, the software won't know what coordinate system and datum the data is in. You get to figure this out. Remember the difference between the define projection and project commands - define is just trying to say what it is in, project will actually change the projection (coord/datum). 99% of the time, all you will need is the define projection command (arctoolbox, data management tools, projections and transformations).
• Remember, datums and projections will be your main issue here. LOOK at the data, look at the coordinates. Compare to USGS quad maps (we have thousands by my office). Also note: you cannot do raster distance calculations off things that are in Lat/long. Be sure to check this if you start getting wierd error messages. Actually, check this before you start messing with the data.

Generate your final map in color (8.5x11) and get it to Kristen to print (check her office hours). Don't forget the appropriate cartographic necessities. Don't forget the writeup either.

Due date: Monday, 23 November. 2009. Worth 6 points.