So how is everyone doing today? Hopefully your week has gone well and you can enjoy your weekend without being burdened by work or homework. Anyways let’s dispense with the pleasantries and get down to buisness.

I finally did it. I’ve completed the map for the retirement home. In total I mapped out four separate floors including the basement. I mapped out at the minimum 125 different rooms not including 55 parking spaces 😑. For the majority of the project I was able to work at a pretty consistent pace though mapping the first floor took the longest. It had the most rooms and the most complicated floor plan in relation to the rest of the building. I also ran into an issue that Michelle hadn’t seen before but we were able to remedy the situation by creating new individual feature classes for each floor and then creating an individual data layer for that feature class. After we did this I didn’t run into to many problems with the mapping.

In using the ArcGis software for the last few months there are a couple things that I like about it and a few things that I don’t. One of my biggest issues with the software is its random and untimely freezing. On multiple occasions I’d be working on something and the software would freeze and I’d need to exit out and load it up again. This was pretty infuriating but it also underscored the importance of saving my edits and my file. Also for all that the software offers the user lots of freedom in creating features it still feels very clunky and unrefined. For example I can’t really make doorways for the rooms. There is no simple or time expedient way to do that. To me that seems kind of ridiculous especially when this software was intended to be used to map buildings…..I mean rooms have to have doorways and those doorways have to have doors so why not give people the ability to map that.

Anyways I digress, I have completed the mapping process and I’m looking forwards to my next project. Hope you all enjoy your weekend.

Hi everybody. Hopefully everyone is having a great week and got lots of work done. As for me I’m just marching right along on my project. So I’m mapping a three story building (not counting the basement) and I’ve finished mapping the entire first floor. This means that I’ve mapped out the rooms and the corridors. I’ve also mapped in stair cases, bathrooms, laundry rooms, storage rooms, kitchens, loading docks, elevators, and lots of offices. All together I’d say the first floor by itself had somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 rooms.  Along with these rooms I’ve added in any pertinent information that the Fire Department requires. The longest part of the mapping was just getting the correct layout of the rooms correct. In fact I had to go back three or four times just to make small corrections to the layer so that the rooms correlated with the map better.

With all that being said I managed  to start working on the second floor. Thankfully the second floor has less than half the rooms of the first floor and the rooms themselves are easier to recreate in ArcMap. Their easier to recreate because they are generally larger and they are more rectangular in shape.  The biggest issue I’m going to have with this layer is taking it from a shapefile and putting it into the correct geodatabase as a feature class. My goal is to do this next week.  My hope is that by next week I will have all three floors mapped out and have the majority of everything in the correct spots. Don’t get me wrong there is a lot of polishing needed before I’d say my layout is “correctly” done but I think I’ve gotten a pretty good base done.  Again I can’t emphasize how much I’m learning about actually manipulating the tools within ArcMap. This familiarization is allowing me to see some Pro’s about the software and also some Con’s.

Anyways hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoy your time off responsibly.

Hello to everyone reading this its me James with an update on how my week has gone. As you’re all aware last week was spring break and unfortunately for me I was violently ill for the majority of it so I didn’t get a chance to work on my project. Needless to say I hope your spring break went a lot better than mine.

So with that being said let’s talk about this week. I really made a concerted effort to make up for the week that I lost. That focus and drive allowed me to knock out quite a large portion of my mapping project and I’ve just about completed the entire first floor of the building I’m on. I know this doesn’t sound that impressive but I’m going through and mapping the footprint of each room in a building the size of a college dormitory. On top of that I need to put in the exits, building entrances, fire hookups, and etc. One issue that I’ve run into is finding a good map of the building to use as an overlay. There is a difference between all maps generally so using the building layout on arcgis in conjunction with an architectural drawing has presented some problems. Nevertheless though I have made a lot of progress and I’m happy with the way my overlay is coming along though I do see where it does require some areas of refinement in the way I’m creating the rooms.

Other than working on my project though I got a chance to have my picture taken. I’m not the most photogenic person so hopefully the pictures turn out well. Also it’s really nice people will get a chance to see the kind of project that I’m working on. Also I’m looking forwards to collaborating with some of the other interns on a project.

Anyways hopefully you have a great weekend.

So for the last two weeks I’ve had the pleasure of using ArcGis to map out a building. The building that I’m mapping is rather large and is comprised of 3 floors and also has several smaller buildings surrounding it. It also has its own large pond which is pretty cool.

During this mapping process I’ve had to think outside the box a little to make sure that my end goal i.e. a complete layout out of the building, works together as a cohesive unit. This means deciding on how exactly I want to display the data I have within ArcGis. I think I’ve settled on a way to do this that makes sense but the only way to really make sure is to view the end product.

Needless to say this project has made me realize that there are a lot of things within ArcGis itself that I don’t really know how to use to there best potential. I understand that hands on experience is key for understanding the software but there are a few things that I wish would have been covered in my classes more extensively.

Beyond this though the experience that I’m gaining is quite invaluable. Michelle is showing me ways to use the software that streamline and speed up the mapping process. Being able to find shortcuts and work arounds within ArcGis makes mapping go a lot smoother and speeds up the process. Not to metion that the final layout will be better organized.

Beyond just mapping though Michelle has let me know that I’ll be scanning actual building blueprints for the fire department. That is something I’ve never done before and it actually sounds quite interesting. I’ve gained a lot of appreciation during my time at the fire department for how important Michelle’s job is for the city of Delaware. Trying to create an interactive layout for Delaware is no small feat and I’m happy to help.

Hello to anyone that actually reads this my name is James and I’m an intern with the city of Delaware more specifically I’m working with the Delaware fire department. Since this is my first post I’ll try my best to keep it short and sweet.

My first day at the internship was great I got to meet Michelle (my boss) and we talked about how she is using ArcGIS to map buildings and more specifically mapping all relevant information that the fire department would need to know about those buildings in case of an emergency, like where are the utility shutoffs, know boxes, water hookups, hazardous material, building entrances and exits, and etc.

After talking about how Michelle was using the software she let me take a shot at actually mapping out buildings. My first task was to map Lazarus Park. During the mapping process Michelle showed me quite a few interesting ways of manipulating ArcGIS to make the mapping easier. I was very surprised at the scale of the mapping itself. Lazarus Park is a relatively large area but in comparison to the entire city of Delaware it is quite small and I can’t imagine how long it is actually going to take to accurately map all of Delaware.

Though I’ve taken GIS classes at school it is really nice to actually get to use the things that I’m being taught in a real world scenario. With that being said this internship has opened my eyes that there is a lot about the ArcGIS system that I just don’t know and I really enjoy that. It gives me a chance to look for a solution or way to solve a problem and if I can’t find an answer I can ask Michelle because she is a Pro at using ArcGIS.

Anyways that is all for now and I hope that y’all are having a great day.