Mapping Center

I frequently come across data which has lost data links (a red !). This occurs when the data has been moved or no longer exists, thus breaking the link. On some occasions, even after I tracked down the data and repaired the data source, the symbology still didn’t draw -- it exists, but the wrong field is listed on the Layer Properties Symbology tab. Usually the draw category (Value field) has defaulted to a non-matching field. Simply changing the Value field does not do the trick. Read More...

We’ve been compiling a list of "What I wish I had known about ModelBuilder before I started using it". Here are a few things that made the list:

1. Create personalized tools in ModelBuilder: Until a few days ago, I thought Read More...

At long last, a book that I had the good fortune to help author is now available! Here is the press release for Map Use: Reading and Analysis, Sixth Edition, which ESRI Press released on Feb. 14th:

Redlands, California—February 12, 2009—To unlock the wealth of information in a map, a person must know how to read one. That’s why Map Use: Reading and Analysis, Sixth Edition, will be a valuable book for people who work with, study, and appreciate maps and want to improve their map reading and analysis skills.

Replete with nearly 500 maps, photographs, tables, and charts to illustrate the text, this informative volume from ESRI Press teaches the basic concepts of geography and the skills of map reading and analysis. The book includes an overview of different types of maps, map scale and projections, grid coordinate systems, relief portrayal, qualitative and quantitative thematic maps, area and volume measures, GPS and maps, and spatial pattern analysis. Read More...

We recently got this in an email from an ESRI colleague:

"I went to TOSCA's (The Oxford Seminars in Cartography) Field Trip last night in the Christ Church Library. There were lots of 16th and 17th century maps to be seen. One of the most striking was Frederick Young's Plan of the Parish of Hawkhurst (1818). The way the small woods are depicted and symbolised is fantastic. The symbology of the bushy tree is graded from yellow/brown to green. Can we do this in ArcGIS?"