Tag Archives: ArcMap
ArcMap Layout Tips for New and Experienced Mappers
Colin (left) and David (right) in the studio.
Last week, over 2,000 of you tuned in to watch our live training seminar, Layout Design Essentials for ArcGIS 10.1, presented by Esri instructor Colin Childs, whose South African accent never ceases to please. David Watkins, Esri cartography product manager, joined in on the action as co-presenter to answer viewer questions. The seminar recording is now available for free viewing on the Training website.
This seminar is fast-paced and packed with information that spans basics like inserting a legend with attractive patches to more advanced topics such as adding dynamic text. Throughout, Colin shares tips to make your layout work more efficient and your designs more compelling. Continue reading
ArcGIS Annotation: Woes and Woohoos
Labeling features can be a time-consuming part of creating a map. When you’re dealing with many features, it may seem downright onerous. But there are ways to make the job easier. Consider this illustrative tale.
Week 1: James—smart, ambitious, new on the job—is designated the department map maker. Sam, data technician by day, ink artist by night, tells James about a new dataset with a thousand or so point features that will be used as an operational layer in several high-profile maps produced by the department. The data will be updated weekly and the maps need to be in sync (Sam also suggests a warrior armband to command respect from Marc, the alpha analyst in the group).
In ArcMap, James adds the point layer and turns on dynamic labels, spends time creating label classes and setting scale ranges and formatting the labels in each class appropriately for the map products. He converts the labels to a standard annotation feature class stored in the same geodatabase as the point feature class so the annotation can be reused easily on multiple maps. He then spends several hours painstakingly positioning the annotation until he’s satisfied the map text looks perfect. Marc will be impressed, he thinks (and mulls whether to go for a drink after work to discuss those Aztec jaguar symbols Sam just texted). Continue reading
Enhance ArcGIS 10 Maps with Custom MapTips
Have you ever explored a map and not found the information you were looking for? The table of contents tells what a feature symbol represents, but that alone may not provide enough information when map users are interacting with a map for a specific purpose.
To access the data associated with a feature, map users can open the layer attribute table or use the Identify tool. When a layer has a lot of attributes that are cryptically named, though, having map users wade through them is not ideal. Yes, you can turn off some table fields, set field aliases, and even create HTML pop-ups, but ArcGIS 10 gives you an easier way to make a map more user-friendly: “smart” MapTips. Continue reading
Top Three ArcGIS 10 Geoprocessing Timesavers
ArcGIS 10 features user-friendly enhancements for shortcutting some of the clicks involved with performing geoprocessing tasks. Of course, if you know how to write scripts using the new ArcPy site package (or have the time and inclination to learn Python scripting), you’ll find the integration of Python into ArcMap a powerful way to automate geoprocessing workflows (and save yourself and your colleagues a lot of time).
But not everyone is a scripter nor aspires to be. For the non-scripters among you, below are my favorite—simple—timesavers that are built into the default interface at version 10. Continue reading
Finding Maps and Data in ArcGIS 10: Welcome Home
The ArcGIS 10 release brought improvements to ArcCatalog, most notably its integration with ArcMap via the Catalog window. You can now directly access stand-alone ArcCatalog functionality while working with your data in ArcMap—a major convenience factor and productivity enhancement.
This week, many geographically dispersed American families are heading home for the holidays. Some organizations have geographically dispersed GIS data—scattered among different network locations, perhaps in randomly named folders, with lots of data stored (and duplicated) on individual desktops. This can make it a challenge both to find the data you need to work with and ensure that any new datasets you create are saved in the right location.
If this sounds familiar, you may welcome the Catalog window concepts of “home” (more specifically, the Home folder) and the default geodatabase. These concepts are specific to the Catalog window—there is no Home folder or default geodatabase when working with the stand-alone ArcCatalog application. Continue reading
Mapping Time in ArcGIS 10
One of the new features of ArcGIS 10 is the ability to “time-enable” your data in ArcMap. Visualizing how data changes over time provides opportunities for powerful, more in-depth analysis. Using ArcGIS 9.3, you can visualize temporal change by creating an animation. You can still create animations at version 10, but there’s an easy alternative as well.
The example below shows how to use the new tools to visualize piracy-related incidents that occurred between March, 2007 and February, 2009 in and around the Gulf of Aden. Continue reading
How to Create a Map Series in ArcGIS 10
Last week’s live training seminar previewed some of the new functionality coming in ArcMap at ArcGIS 10. Esri instructor Joel McCune covered the integrated Catalog window and much improved search tool, basemap layers, geoprocessing improvements, and more. In the second half of the seminar, Joel demonstrated how to create a map series using the new Data Driven Pages feature.
Anyone who frequently (or infrequently) needs to create or update a map series is going to love Data Driven Pages. In just a few minutes, you can assemble the series based on a layer in the map, assign a title to all the maps at once using dynamic text, and add nice touches such as an extent indicator (an outline of a feature shape displayed on a locator map—also new functionality at ArcGIS 10). Continue reading
10 ArcMap Productivity Tips You Can Use Now
The ArcGIS 10 release will include many productivity improvements to help you get your GIS work done faster. But ArcGIS 10 won’t be released until next year—so here are some tips you can try out in ArcMap right away. The 10 shortcuts below can shave milliseconds off common tasks, and hey, milliseconds count when you’re trying to get stuff done. You just may be able to get to lunch five minutes earlier and beat the crowd. That alone is going to save you at least 10 minutes, more if you’re going to Old Ebbitt.
Working with Maps
- To activate a data frame, hold down the Alt key and click the data frame name.
- To create a copy of a layer within the same data frame, hold down the Ctrl key and drag the layer up or down. If multiple layers are selected, you can copy all of them at the same time by Ctrl-dragging. (When dragging a layer into a different data frame, the layer is copied by default. If you want to move a layer to a different data frame, hold down Ctrl while you drag it to the new data frame.)
- Hold down the Alt key and click a layer name to zoom to the extent of that layer.
- Select (click) a layer and press Enter to open its layer properties dialog box.
- Hold down the C key while any tool is active to pan the map. Hold down X to zoom out, and Z to zoom in. This shortcut is especially useful when you need to select features that are geographically disbursed.
Working with Tables
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To quickly open a table, hold down the Ctrl key and double-click a layer or table in the Table of Contents; alternatively, select the layer or table and press Ctrl+T.
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Outside of an edit session, press the spacebar to select or unselect a row.
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Press Ctrl+U to switch (reverse) a selection.
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Double-click a field name to sort the field in ascending order. Double-click the field name again to sort in descending order.
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Click a field name and press Ctrl+H to turn off (hide) the field. (To display the field again, go to the layer properties dialog box > Fields tab, check the field name, and click OK.)
You can find these tips and many others in the ArcGIS Desktop Help.
Use the Five-Step GIS Analysis Process
Last week’s post featured Performing Analysis with ArcGIS Desktop, an instructor-led Esri training course that teaches a five-step process for GIS analysis. Today’s post shows how to apply that process using ArcGIS Desktop software and datasets from Esri Data & Maps.
Suppose you want to analyze access to health care services in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in southern California.
The five steps in the analysis process are:
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Frame the question
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Explore and prepare data
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Choose analysis methods and tools
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Perform the analysis
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Examine and refine results
Step 1. Frame the Question
This step seems straightforward because typically you’re assigned a project to obtain specific information. Some projects involve answering several questions derived from a high-level question. How you frame the questions helps determine which GIS tools and methods you use for the analysis. Continue reading
Need GIS Data? Learn How to Create Your Own
When people finish an Esri training course, often they tell us they learned a lot, loved the course, but how do they get their own data to work with ArcGIS? Where can they find the specific data they need? The training data used in course exercises is developed and manipulated (by us) to meet specific learning goals, and exercises are scripted to ensure consistent results. For those new to GIS in particular, there’s a need to fill the gap between using the software in a training class and doing GIS on their own back at the office.
In previous posts we covered working with Excel and Access data in ArcGIS. This post provides a tutorial to show how you can fairly easily create your own spatial data from scratch using ArcGIS Desktop and free resources from ArcGIS Online. The steps covered are: Continue reading
