This week I brought the GPS that I will be using to mark the utility lines to the office. I made a test point to see if I was able to transfer the point onto ArcGIS. I was not able to do this due to an issue with the communications port.

I was able to resolve this issue by putting the coordinates from the GPS into ArcGIS through the ‘Go to XY’ tool. I was able to turn this into a layer in the geodatabase via the ‘convert graphics to features’ function and then that was added as a layer to my map.

When I try to do this with multiple points I think it would be more efficient to make a table of all of the points for a line on excel and then add the whole table as a layer. I’ll be able to do this at school throughout the week and then bring the tables to the office on Friday via a flashdrive. I’m considering converting the excel file to a .dbf file before I try to transfer it because I know .dbf files transfer more easily than excel files.

Also, Janelle Valdinger came in today to teach me how to read the maps of property utility lines. We were able to get maps for some of the parks and should be able to use them directly to map the utility lines on ArcGIS. I’m going to look into the possibility of converting a PDF document to a jpeg and then being able to assign geographic data to it. The maps that we were able to get are well marked which makes them easier to understand and use.