Geography 291: Geospatial Analysis with Desktop GIS

Chapter 7

This chapter focused on how to create and edit different map features, with particular attention to working with polygon features. It explained how these features can be adjusted and refined, and introduced techniques for improving the appearance of maps, such as using cartographic tools and incorporating CAD drawings. Overall, the chapter emphasized the processes involved in building and modifying GIS features.

Chapter 8

While this chapter didn’t include as many tutorials, it was more complex than many of the earlier ones. The material was challenging and not something that came easily at first, but it covered important concepts for understanding GIS. The focus was on the geocoding process, explored in greater detail, including how to use data such as ZIP codes and addresses for geocoding. I thought the Soundex Key was the best part about this chapter; even if a user puts something in incorrectly, it can assume what the user meant.

Chapter 9

This chapter was fairly complex and focused heavily on spatial analysis. It introduced the use of buffers for proximity analysis, showing how to create and apply single or multiple buffers to evaluate locations. It also covered additional methods such as service areas, clustering, and location models, providing a deeper look into different tools for spatial analysis.

 

Chapter 7 – This chapter went over a little bit about how you can both create and edit different features on the map. More specifically it went into working with polygon features and how to use those. It went over how you can make your maps and features look smoother by using things such as cartography tools and working with CAD drawings. Overall the chapter just mostly worked with creating and editing GIS features.

Chapter 8 – this chapter didn’t have a ton involved in terms of how many tutorials there were, but I definitely think it was a lot more complex than a lot of the other chapters and tutorials I have done. It was a little bit complicated and not necessarily one of the things I would catch onto quickly, but it’s important information to know about GIS. You learn a lot more about the whole geocoding process in a more complex, detailed way. You can use things such as zip codes and addresses to geocode in this chapter.

Chapter 9 – Chapter 9 is also a decently complex chapter that goes into a lot of detail with spatial analysis. It really looks into different buffers and how you can use that for proximity analysis. It teaches you how to use those buffers and how you can create multiple to use it for locations. It also goes into methods such as service areas, clustering, and location models.

Chapter 4 – Chapter 4 was pretty in depth with databases in general such as spatial databases. I learned how to import different types of data into those geodatabases and how to modify tables and fields of different maps. This chapter also helped me learn how to calculate fields and join tables. You get an introduction into SQL criteria and how to do work with those attributes as well. This chapter is really good for data organization for things such as projects or data keeping. It can also be good for different kinds of research or analysis.

Chapter 5 – This chapter focused a lot more on world maps and their different projections. Specifically US world maps and working with different coordinate systems. Some of the specific things I learned had to do with vector data formatting and tabular data to explore lots of different spatial data like we did in chapter 4. This chapter is important for mapping specific locations for a variety of different reasons. It can be good for plenty of different jobs and people needing it for different roles.

Chapter 6 – Chapter 6 really dives into the concept of geoprocessing. You learn a lot about block group polygons and how to create different things on the map such as neighborhoods and other divisions. You can create study areas on one specific area such as extracting a neighborhood and using the attributes to gain knowledge on that one area. You also learn to merge areas together to make one big map of several different things and how to divide things into different layers. This chapter can really be useful when trying to do different tasks in the geographic data world.

1. Chapter 7: This chapter briefly went over how to modify and edit maps. While this chapter didn’t provide super important information, it was still very helpful. It gave me background on how to scale and move polygons within the map. Essentially, this chapter helped me design my maps to be more visually appealing. I only ran into a few problems within this chapter. One of them is my inability to split the buildings. I drew my shape around the building and double-clicked as instructed, but the two buildings in 7-1 didn’t split. It was interesting to apply polygons to not just buildings, but parking lots, and other features as well. This taught me how useful creating a digital version of it on the map can be. Another issue that I ran into was my inability to find the bus stop marker. I don’t think this is a big problem at all because I was able to use another symbol to mark the bus stop, but I thought I would note it. For future reference, it was good to learn that I have to import features from a downloaded building so that I can modify them.

Chapter 8: This chapter was a little bit confusing to me. While I understood sort of what I was doing, I don’t think I could replicate it on my own or really explain how it enhanced the map. Something that the chapter talked about that I thought was really interesting was the Soundex key. This makes it so that if information is input in the map incorrectly, the system can assume what the user meant by matching it with similar items that are pronounced the same. This makes it so much easier for the map maker and provides more accurate data. Something that I didn’t really understand was how rematchi addresses work. I understand that you can change the information to be correct zipcode-wise, but in one of the steps, the book had me pick a random place on the map to rematch an address, which didn’t make any sense to me. Something that was useful was learning how to organize the data using graduated symbols. Instead of having to input the symbols one by one, the system was able to connect the zip codes with each other and assign them a symbol on its own. Towards the end of the chapter, it does a better job of explaining how this can be used for marketing tactics. This makes it a little easier for me to understand how this can be used. However, I have a question of why it has to be so specific. Wouldn’t you be able to apply the same marketing tactics with the information that the system estimates? Also, wouldn’t you be more focused on zip codes than rectifying street names?

Chapter 9: This chapter provided insight into how to label areas based on how close they are to the things surrounding them. It provided how far certain people might be from an attraction and how that impacts whether they go to one attraction vs another one that might be a different distance away. You can do this by creating a buffer around the attraction and seeing how many people fall into the buffer. Something that I thought was super cool was that you can vary the size of the buffer and create multiple buffers with varying distances. I ran into a bit of a problem with the last part of 9-3. In this section, when using the spatial join tool, the author tells me that the information might not be available and that I have to lengthen the tool pane in order to see it and input it into the data. I looked around for a little bit, but was not able to find a way to lengthen the tool and select the data that I needed. The chapter went over how to create a spider graph out of specific locations. While I see how this can be useful when needing more accurate data, I prefer the buffer tool because it provides an image that is easier for the viewer to understand. In 9-5, it was super cool to see the patterns of people who commit crimes and where they commit them based on their age demographics.

Chapter 7:

• You can manually digitize a map by creating new map features, as well as editing existing ones.
• You can make edits to specific features or groups of features, including rotating them, moving them, and or changing their specific shape.
• You can import CAD drawings into the software to create more detailed features, or to make ones that match architectural drawings exactly.
• This chapter mostly focuses on the various tools available for creating specific features, and how to modify and import existing ones
• .

Chapter 8:

• This chapter was all about Geocoding data
• Geocoding matches input data to specific locations or features on a map, which can be useful for a variety of purposes
• Geocoding uses a fuzzy search method, and tries to match the most data, rather than making the most accurate matches possible, in order to account for error in the users input
• You can tune the parameters of the search to make it more or less strict, with higher strictness giving better accuracy, and lower strictness giving a  higher match count.
• You can geocode to match various features for varying levels of accuracy depending on your data, such as county vs streets

Chapter 9:

• This chapter focuses on different spatial analysis tools that can be used to gain insights about data

• Buffers are a region that surround a feature out to a certain distance, sort of like circling the feature or feature class
• Buffers allow you to select only the data that falls within their radius, and the radius can be based on distance or travel time depend on application, and can also be graduated to show regions within different distances of the feature
• Network analysis allows you to select specific features within a feature class based on sets of conditions, or can allow you to optimize an already existing network
• Cluster analysis allows you to find clusters of data points that are similar or close to each other, and groups them, and then assigns them a vector in 3D space(?) representing the data point(?)

Chapter 7

1. Editing polygon features
2. Creating and deleting polygon features
3. Using cartography tools
4. Transforming features

I really enjoyed moving the features around and “fixing” the map. It felt like doing a puzzle. Creating polygons and outlining areas was also pretty cool. Everything in this chapter went smoothly, and I can see how this chapter would have some real-world applications in things like architecture. 

Chapter 8

1. Geocoding data using zip codes
2. Geocoding street addresses

This chapter was super easy and short, I wish all of the chapters were like this one. The only issue I encountered was with the “create locator” tool at the beginning of the chapter, I think I accidentally made a copy of the output locator, which I fixed by just renaming it “PARegionZIP_CreateLocator1.”

Chapter 9

1. Using buffers for proximity analysis
2. Using multiple-ring buffers
3. Creating multiple-ring service areas for calibrating a gravity model
4. Using Network Analyst to locate facilities
5. Performing data cluster analysis

I felt like this chapter repeated a lot of things from earlier chapters, just using different methods to get the same results. This was all fairly easy, but it took me a while. I also liked the visuals that the maps created, I can see how this could be useful for someone who works in data analysis or something similar.

Chapter 7

• this chapter introduces tools to do manual digitization by tracing
• creating vector map features

Tutorial 7-1

• used the move button to update a polygon’s position
• rotated a polygon to fit a feature
  • 
  • added vertices to a polygon to change its shape
  • cut a polygon into two separate ones

Tutorial 7-2

• created a feature class to add to the geodatabase
  • added a polygon for a parking lot to the feature
  • 
• deleted polygons
• added polygon via trace

Tutorial 7-3

• can modify GIS using cartography tools
• learned how to smooth out polygons

Tutorial 7-4

• learned how to cover a building with features
• added features over an area and rescaled them

Chapter 8

• Geocoding- GIS process that matches location fields in tabular data to corresponding fields in existing feature classes to map the tabular data
• problem with geocoding is inconsistencies with data entries from data suppliers
• ArcGIS has a rule-based expert system
  • source table
  • reference data
  • geocoding tool
  • locator
• Soundex Key used to identify spelling mistakes

Tutorial 8-1

• created a locator
• created datapoints based on the locator I created
• fixed messed up data
• 

Tutorial 8-2

• geocode by street address to place unique points on map for attendees in the county
• 

Chapter 9

• covering four spatial analytical methods: buffers, service areas, facility location models, and clustering
• network dataset- used for estimating travel distance or time on a street network

Tutorial 9-1

• buffer- polygon surrounding map features of a feature class
• 

Tutorial 9-2

• multiple-ring buffer looks like bull’s eye target

Tutorial 9-3

• service areas are like buffer areas, but extent based on travel over a network
• 

Tutorial 9-4

• location-allocation model in Network Analyst collection of models handles facility location issues
• 

Tutorial 9-5

• goal of data mining is to find hidden structure in large and complex datasets
  • limitation: no way of knowing true clusters in real data to compare with an algorithm
• k-means clustering- partitions dataset with n observations and p variables into k<n clusters

I definitely struggled with this section more than previous chapters. I felt some sections were really good at explaining the content and others brushed through it or had us doing something that was previously gone over but I couldn’t quite remember how to do it without having to flip through a bunch of pages to find the explanation.

Chapter 4:

Chapter four focused on file geodatabases. The various sections went over importing data into a new ArcGIS pro project, modifying attribute tables, carrying out attribute queries, aggregating data with spatial joints, using central point features for polygons, and creating a new table for a one-to – many join. In section 4.5, I was having trouble  figuring out how to use calculated geometry attributes. X and y coordinates weren’t showing up. 

Chapter 5:

Chapter five’s focus was on spatial data. In this chapter we learned how to work with world map projections, work with US map projections, setting projected coordinate systems, work with vector data formats, work with US Census map layers and data tables, and download geospatial data. I definitely had the most trouble with downloading the geospatial data and getting the data to present how I wanted. I also had trouble with the csv file and getting the data to upload but I eventually worked it out. 

Chapter 6:

Chapter 6 was all about geoprocessing. The topics discussed were dissolving features to create neighborhoods and fire divisions and battalions, extracting data and clipping features for a study area, merging water features, appending firehouses and police stations to EMS facilities, intersecting features to determine streets in fore company zones, using Union on neighborhoods and land-use features, and using the tabulate intersection tool. This chapter felt less difficult than the previous two. The merging of feature classes ran smoothly and I felt like I understood these sections better.

Chapter 7:

• I learned how to move and rotate polygons to align with the corresponding building on the map.
• I learned how to edit vertex points in order to align with the exact shape of the corresponding building.
• Lastly, I learned how to delete polygons and use cartography tools like smoothing polygons.

Chapter 8:

• I learned how to implement a ZIP code locator.
• The table in which I looked at allowed me to see discrepancies within the data and fix any issues it may have had.
• Additionally I learned how to match the ZIP codes I previously input with the correct addresses.

Chapter 9:

• I learned how to make buffers around certain aspects of the map and how to change the diameter or size of each buffer.
• I put buffers around other buffers as well which created “multiple ring buffers”.
• Finally, I learned how to spatially join areas.

Ch 7:

I learned how to create and edit features on the map. I added vortex points for bus stops and rotated building polygons. The editing tools made it, so I realize how flexible GIS is for changing features.

Ch8:

I learned about geocoding which is what connects data tables to map locations using addresses. I struggled with the locator. I rematched some of the addresses and used graduated symbols to symbolize results. I struggled with aligning the records and this showed me that even with slightly inexact results the system is still very helpful in the big picture. 

Ch 9:

I used spatial analysis tools like buffers and clustering in this chapter. I made a buffer around pools and then with that information found that most kids live within that radius. I used service-area maps, scatterplots, and cluster analysis.