Geography 291: Geospatial Analysis with Desktop GIS

Chapter 7:

I found this chapter really fun, especially during the sections on creating, deleting and smoothing polygon features. I feel like this specific part of the textbook will be extremely helpful to me for the final portion of the course as I apply what I’ve learned in imaginary GIS applications. This chapter leaned more towards manipulating and creating your own data points and polygons rather than working on ones we’ve been given thus far. While being one of the shorter chapters, I feel like this is the one I will be applying the most.

 

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Chapter 8:

Chapter 8 was also one of the shortest chapters we have had to do for the course, and it provided a lot of useful information about geocoding (a GIS process that matches location fields in tabular data to corresponding fields in existing feature classes) using zip codes. It also gave a step-by-step guide on how to geocode using street addresses using the sample data we were given. A key step in this process is knowing how to use the Geoprocessing tool on different data layers, which the textbook explained in great detail. I will be referring to this chapter a lot in the future, not just during the final but in my other courses that require a base level understanding of GIS.

 

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Chapter 9:

I found this chapter extremely interesting, as it gave me a lot of the base level information I will need to complete the Final for this course. It explained how to create and use buffers for proximity analysis, as well as how to use multi-ring buffers. Buffers can be very useful to policy-makers when they want to visualize the number of people who could be affected by a specific policy, as well as estimating travel distance or time on a street network. Learning to use the Pairwise Buffer tool, the Multivariate Clustering tool and how to perform Network Analyses was very helpful to me, and I will be applying a lot of this knowledge in my Final.

Chapter 7

This was my favorite chapter!

I have to admit, the idea of creating features within the software was something I one hundred percent expected to be brought up way earlier. Although I do not understand its placement I found the activities in this chapter to be rather fun and rewarding. The whole thing was reminding me of a course I took in High School about using Autodesk Inventor and I was very easily able to apply what I have learned from then to this.

The different selections necessary to execute the activities were far less impressive. It seemed that after moving/adjusting the polygons, I had to click like three things in three different toolbars to get back to the standard “click and move” function. This was highly annoying, but not nearly as bad as the ways to edit the properties of the polygons themselves. I would have appreciated a much more simpler form of  changing the names of these campus buildings to something vaguely funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 8

Very short chapter with very little in my opinion to write home about. (Ironically, I am writing about it.)

Chapter eight mainly had tutorials on how to mark different postal codes and street addresses within the map software using the examples of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. Despite how short the chapter was, I found the methods used in the books to be rather finicky and many times it made references to toolbars or menus that I swear to god I have never heard of before and to which the search/help function on ARCGISPRO gave little help on.

Chapter 9

Final chapter!

I was very much so intimidated going into this chapter as the textbook labeled this as an “advanced application” or something like that but frankly, it was not all that bad. It was a pretty average chapter all things concerned. Chapter nine just discussed proximity analysis and how to use buffers and other maps to cross reference data with it. The example in particular used locations of town pools as well as locations of possible customers to the pools.

GIS Tutorial for ArcGIS Pro: Chapter 7

Chapter 7 focuses a lot on how to create, move, and edit different shapes, features, and buildings. The part that I enjoyed learning about the most was how to move the vertices on different buildings, and how to construct them in a way that makes a new shape. Going through Tutorial 7-1 was a little confusing at first because it had me using some new tools that I hadn’t used before. It focused on doing renovations for a new and improved campus center on a college campus. 

Tutorial 7-1 had me working through different polygons, cartography tools, and learning how to spatially adjust different features. Like I mentioned before, it was a little confusing to me at first. One of the main questions I had coming out of this chapter was physically selecting the buildings for rotating/moving the polygons. I think I messed up somewhere along the way because it just kept making the whole building blue when I clicked on it. I basically just had to retrace my steps through that part of the process and then it worked. After that, learning about how to move features and split the buildings was neat! I liked using the Geoprocessing tools and the Attribute Tables in order to change different aspects of the map. 

The tutorials continued with learning how to use the different cartography tools, creating physical polygon features on a map, and viewing layers on a CAD drawing. I liked how this chapter used a lot of different tools and taught me how to search for different things as well. The World Imagery database was also cool to look at; I liked how it showed the buildings on CMU’s campus as transparent. I think the part I found most useful about this chapter was the cartography tools, and I think that I will be using those on my final project. I have attached three screenshots of my work throughout this chapter. 

GIS Tutorial for ArcGIS Pro: Chapter 8

Moving on through Chapter 8 showed me that I had to read the beginning of the chapter slowly in order to comprehend everything. There was a lot of data and information that we had to go through, and reading the beginning part was especially helpful for this particular chapter. The tutorials themselves did not take long, but there was a lot to understand beforehand. I do think knowing about streets and addresses from the previous chapters definitely helped my understanding. For these tutorials, we focused on different Pennsylvania zip codes and addresses, and how to manipulate them using the Create Locator tool. 

Tutorial 8-1 had a lot of emphasis on sorting by zip code based on an arts event. I liked this part of the chapter because it allowed me to fix the data on the Create Locator tool. This tool became incredibly useful, and I liked how I was able to do the “Your Turn” and experiment with it. I do think that I had issues with sorting the Status on the Attribute Table, because I did not get the same results at first. However, I was able to go back and fix it pretty easily. The Matched and Unmatched areas were slightly hard to understand and work with for me. The collecting events went well and I thought that was neat!

This chapter had me doing a lot of different data analyses with a lot of different tools. I liked that because I feel like I have a good grasp on where everything is located, which will be helpful for my future project. Matching the street numbers and addresses was useful, but I do not think I will end up needing that for my project. I am interested in how we can create different layers, colors, and still be able to see the data through those things. We have already covered this in different chapters, but it’s one of the things I am most interested in. I have attached screenshots of my work throughout this chapter. 

GIS Tutorial for ArcGIS Pro: Chapter 9

I’m going to be honest here, I thought the buffers were so cool. I loved making them bigger or smaller depending on what radius was needed, and it was just very neat to see on the map. ArcGIS Network Analysis was the biggest aspect I took away from this chapter, because it allowed me to locate facilities without too much extra work. I also liked how these tutorials were not super long, but they were definitely in-depth and showed me how to use the tools needed. It also gave me a good idea of how I could go back and re-do my work if needed. 

Tutorial 9-1 and 9-2 were my favorites out of this chapter. Like I said, I enjoyed looking at the buffers and how they were affected by different data. However, a big question I had throughout this involved the ages of the pool use. I am just curious to know what the map would look like with maybe a different range, or even with a different data set. It would definitely be different for adults, and I was thinking about my project while using this tool. I would be able to use this for any kind of wildlife hotspot, depending on what I plan to create. We also had to use the Select By Location tool, which I used in chapter 7 as well to select the polygons on different buildings. I had a little trouble selecting the actual features because I clicked in the wrong place. 

Overall, I think this chapter was the most fun and useful for me. It was neat in Tutorial 9-3 that I was able to look at the different travel times and examine which ones were ideal or not. The Properties feature on each map has been very useful, and I feel like we spend a lot of time using those tools. It also taught me how to make graphs based on maps and tables, while using the Network Analysis tool. The Your Turn sections are useful because they actually allow me to try it with minimal instruction! Overall, this section wasn’t too confusing and I enjoyed it. I have attached screenshots of my work throughout this chapter. 

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 mostly involved working with the attribute tables and understanding how the data is stored inside the file geo database. Before this chapter, I did not fully comprehend the extent to which GIS works with tables and data. As I opened the attribute tables as part of the tutorials, I realized that every feature on the map has rows and columns attached to it. This made me comprehend that the map is only half the work; the data that is associated with it is just as important. As part of the tutorials, I got to work with the attribute tables to sort the fields, view different columns, and comprehend the meaning of each field. I also got to work with the Select By Attributes tool to select data based on different criteria. The SQL statements were new to me. I had to ensure that I spelled the fields correctly and entered the correct value. If I made a small mistake, nothing would be selected. As I got to select different things like burglaries that occurred in a particular month, I realized the extent to which attribute queries are powerful. I also got to work with the field calculator and exporting the tables. I was a bit confused as I had to work with different tools that had similar names. I was not always sure which tool to use. I had to try it a few times before getting it right. The “Your Turn” sections were a bit difficult as the instructions were not as detailed. As part of Chapter 4, I realized that GIS is not all about working with the maps. It is also about working with the data that is associated with the maps.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 dealt with map projections and coordinate systems. I didn’t quite grasp the significance of map projections at first. However, once I started experimenting with different map projections using ArcGIS Pro, I understood how a map changes depending on its projection. I realized that it would be impossible to accurately depict the Earth on a flat surface. I learned about various world projections too as well as those commonly used in the United States. I utilized the Map Properties window to learn about coordinate systems. I learned that coordinate systems play a crucial role in displaying data. In this chapter, I also learned about how to add a vector layer and work with tables. I had to learn how to add data to ArcGIS Pro, making sure that I had done it correctly. I realized that if I had not organized my files well, I would be in a worse position. I learned about how to work with tables, as well as how to join tables to spatial data. I learned that this chapter was conceptual and that map projections are not just something you select and forget. I learned that they play a crucial role in how you view your maps. Another part of the chapter in this section that stood out to me was the ability of the different layers to appear together even if they were originally given a different coordinate system. I learned that even though the program can automatically change the data display in the map, it does not mean that everything is lined up correctly. This made me realize that I need to be more aware of the properties of the different layers rather than assuming they will automatically match. Another thing that stood out in the chapter was the importance of the projection depending on the size of the area that the map covers. A world map and a city map cannot be the same projection if accuracy is a priority.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 dealt with various tools that are utilized to alter or change spatial data. I learned about various tools such as Clip, Extract, Merge, and Dissolve. With the tutorials, I learned how to choose a certain area and then use the Clip tool to create a new layer that only includes data within the boundaries of the area. It took a few attempts to get it right because sometimes I would choose the wrong input or save the wrong output in the wrong location. Once the error was corrected and the tool was executed correctly, it was nice to see the new layer appear. Another tool I got to work with was the Dissolve tool, which allows features to be combined based on shared information. This reminded me of Chapter 4 because the attribute data plays a part in the combination of the features. If the data is different, they will not be able to be dissolved together. The “Your Turn” sections were a little more independent, and I had to really think about what the tool was doing instead of just following the instructions. Although I did receive some error messages, they were mostly because of a mistake that I had made. Chapter 6 taught me about the ability of GIS to transform data, not just display it. It made me feel comfortable using the geo processing tools in ArcGIS Pro. The other thing I noticed in this chapter is that it is essential to be careful about where you save the output. I noticed a few times that I had saved a new layer in the wrong place, which would later be hard to find. I realized that it is as important to be organized as it is to be able to run a tool successfully. I also began to understand that most of my errors were not because the tool was hard to work with, but because I had made small mistakes. I learned to be patient with this tool as I read this chapter.

Chapter 4:

This was a difficult chapter for me to navigate, and it took me a while to fully understand what parts of the tutorial would ask of me. I was constantly going back and having to retrace my steps in the 4-2 tutorial, but it was cool to learn how to use the tables more, and this chapter definitely made me feel much more confident in understanding specifics like attribute tables and SQL queries. The repetition is very helpful. I had a few issues with the “tracts” area, calculating them and sorting parts. I googled a few parts of it and seemed to get back on track, though.

Chapter 5:

This chapter went much faster for me; a lot of it was simple configurations of maps. It was really repetitive, and the tutorials went by really fast, but it was still cool to do. 5.1 and 5.2 were quick, doing simple map projections, and the your turn sections made sense. 5.4 and 5.5 took me a bit longer; there were simply some parts where it would ask me to click something that wasnt there because I had skipped over a part by accident, or the files would get a bit confusing to look at, and I’d have to back track. In 5.5, I took some time trying to add data to my map, for some reason, it wouldn’t load for me, and I had to try and figure out why it wouldn’t show up. My add join tool was also acting up, but I was able to work around it. There was lots of inputting data in this section, so I feel a lot more comfortable with doing the inputs and outputs now. My map didn’t come out exactly like how the tutorial looks, but I think I still did most of it correctly. In 5.6, I had trouble because I accidentally pressed USA NLCD annual Land Cover instead of legacy, and it messed up my whole map, so it’s definitely important to pay close attention to each title you press, even if they’re similar. I got a good grasp on census data, too.

Chapter 6:

I liked this chapter and its tutorials; it was very easy to follow and use the search bar to complete things and follow along with every part it asked for. The geoprocessing sections helped me a lot since I was confused on that a bit in the last chapter. I liked that these tutorials were quicker to follow, but I wish there were longer “your turn” sections to help me apply what I learned. I only got a bit lost with the whole Tabulate Intersection part at the end of 6, but it was really helpful to learn through these chapters and apply new data to things.

Chapter 4: File Geodatabases

Chapter 4 focused on working with file geodatabases and managing attribute data within ArcGIS Pro. I learned that a file geodatabase acts as a container that stores feature classes and tables in an organized way. It is more efficient than simply storing shapefiles in folders because it keeps related datasets structured together. This chapter felt more technical than earlier ones, but I can see how important it is for long-term data management.

One of the main skills I practiced was carrying out attribute queries using SQL. Writing expressions in the Select By Attributes tool required precision. If I missed parentheses or used the wrong operator, the query would not run correctly. It reminded me of coding because everything has to be exact. Once I understood the structure better, it became easier to filter specific crime incidents and visualize patterns on the map.

I found the crime data analysis especially interesting. It made me think about how GIS can be used in public safety and urban planning. However, I still want to strengthen my understanding of SQL beyond just following tutorial steps. Overall, this chapter helped me understand how spatial features connect to tabular data behind the scenes.

Chapter 5: Spatial Data

Chapter 5 focused on spatial data and coordinate systems. I learned the difference between geographic coordinate systems (latitude and longitude) and projected coordinate systems, which transform the earth onto a flat surface. Changing projections in ArcGIS Pro helped me see how maps can look very different depending on which system is used.

The world projection exercises were interesting because they showed that every projection has some level of distortion. There is no perfect projection — it depends on what you are trying to preserve, such as area or shape. I also learned more about shapefiles and how they are made up of multiple components (.shp, .dbf, .shx). Understanding this helped clarify why datasets sometimes fail to load properly.

Working with Census TIGER data was one of the more practical parts of the chapter. Downloading and importing external spatial data showed how GIS integrates multiple data sources. This chapter helped me better understand how spatial data is structured and why projections matter for analysis accuracy.

Chapter 6: Geoprocessing

Chapter 6 focused on geoprocessing tools and spatial analysis. This chapter felt more applied compared to the previous ones. I used tools such as Pairwise Dissolve, Intersect, Clip, and Union to manipulate spatial layers. Dissolving block groups into neighborhoods using summary statistics helped me understand how data can be aggregated meaningfully.

I found Select By Location particularly interesting because it selects features based on spatial relationships rather than attribute values. This reinforced that GIS analysis is both spatial and statistical. The exercise involving populations with disabilities and fire company boundaries stood out to me because it showed how GIS can support emergency response planning and equitable resource distribution.

At the beginning of the semester, I did not fully understand what geoprocessing meant. Now I feel much more comfortable navigating the toolbox and using different tools together. While I still rely on the search bar sometimes, my confidence with the software has definitely improved.

Chapter 4:

An accidental benefit of this chapter was becoming more familiar with my file explorer. I had to restart Tutorial 4-1 because I was struggling a bit to create filepaths, but I got the hang of it after a bit. This chapter also helped me get a lot better at working with attribute tables. It’s becoming more intuitive, and I’m beginning to sense patterns and use keyboard shortcuts. 🙂

In Tutorial 4-5, I was intrigued by what the tutorial meant when it said we wanted to calculate central points instead of centroids. After doing a quick internet search, I realized that it is important for tracts of irregular shape. In some cases, the technical “centroid” of an irregular shape might fall outside of the boundaries of the shape. Therefore, opting to choose a “central point” that looks good visually is accurate enough for this map. I followed through with the central points method that the tutorial suggested, but out of curiosity I tested what would happen if I left these dots as centroids.

Figure 4.1: Graduated Symbols Map of Burglaries by Neighborhoods–as displayed by centroid points. Notice the dots circled in green are located on tract lines or in a completely different tract from the one they are representing. This is why we select the “Inside” option to display general, more visually intuitive central points.

Figure 4.2: Pittsburgh Serious Crimes Summer 2015. I changed the symbol shape for each type of crime, which makes the map a bit more visually intuitive.

Personally, I think the map in Figure 4.2 still looks a little clunky. For the purpose of the tutorial and for noticing general trends it’s fine, but if I were to use this map to discuss trends, I might create sub-symbols (especially for Larceny-Theft crimes) or summarize the data with graduated colors or even numerical values.

Chapter 5:

I enjoyed the beginning of this chapter. As the tutorial walked me through how to import files to the geodatabase, navigate my file explorer, and convert files into various formats, I did ok.

The first few tutorials dealing with map and coordinate system projections were kinda boring. I understand why maintaining a consistent map projection is important, but to be honest, I felt like it was a lot of repetitive work to change projection status for every layer. On the county/regional level it’s not really necessary, but I did realize just how crucial this extra check is when looking at a national or global map.

Figure 5.1: New York School Districts (light gray outline) and Libraries (green dots).

As the chapter went on, I began to have some trouble completing the tutorials. I guess all of the file downloading and transferring was not super intuitive to me. There were several times when I realized that I had completed a previous step incorrectly and had to retrace my steps. In particular, I had a bit of trouble figuring out the Add Join feature during Tutorial 5-5. I don’t think my join worked completely, because I could not transfer the tracts data correctly, so my choropleth maps were a little off. However, from looking at the maps in the tutorial, it appears that men bike to work around Minneapolis from a larger radius than women.

Figure 5.2: Hennepin County Land Use. I notice that the (south)eastern portion of the county is mostly developed land (because of the proximity to the city of Minneapolis) while the western portion of the county is more cropland and water.

I hope to further develop the skills that I began to learn in this chapter. I think being able to import my own data from websites like those used in the tutorials will be crucial to any personal work I might do with GIS.

Chapter 6:

Thankfully, this chapter *did* help me improve the skills that were troubling me last chapter. This section focused on geoprocessing, and I spent a lot of time working with merging, clipping, and uniting to analyze spatial data patterns. I’m getting a lot better at working with filepaths, and I’m anticipating patterns when it comes to determining input fields and other criteria while running tools. All of the processes I learned in this chapter seem super useful!

Figure 6.1: Manhattan Streets clipped to fit within the Upper West Side tract. The Clip tool seems super helpful with geoprocessing techniques when different layers don’t automatically coincide with each other.

Figure 6.2: Upper West Side Manhattan Fire Company Service Areas (black outline) overlaid on Tracts (graduated colors). Yellow-highlighted numbers indicate the amount of disabled people in each tract, but because the tracts do not align with the fire company service polygons, more processing has to be done to determine the amount of disabled people in each tract.

As mentioned in the tutorial, the neighborhood tracts and areas each fire company serves do not line up perfectly. That means that some tracts will be split in terms of service, so just from looking at the map we cannot determine exactly how many disabled people are served by each fire company. However, by running Summary Statistics, I was able to determine this. The results are shown in the attribute table in Figure 6.2.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 honestly made me realize how easy it would be to mess up a GIS project if you are not organized from the beginning. Before this, I didn’t really think about where data was stored as long as it showed up on the map. But working inside a file geodatabase made everything feel more structured and intentional (and a lot more difficult). Creating the geodatabase and importing feature classes felt simple at first, almost like a puzzle in a way. However, once I started looking at attribute tables, I noticed how technical it actually is. The difference between text and numeric fields seems minor until you try to join something and it doesn’t work. Then it suddenly matters a lot. Editing fields also made me think about how permanent some changes are. Once you delete a field or change a format, that affects everything connected to it. I say this because I sadly had to learn it the hard way. It definitely made me more careful about clicking through steps too fast.

Chapter 5

This chapter was probably the one that made me stop and think the most. I’ve heard of coordinate systems before, but actually switching between them and seeing how the map responds made it all real. When the map adopted the State Plane coordinate system automatically, I didn’t realize at first why it changed. Once I understood that the first layer sets the coordinate system for the map, it became more real. I will have to admit that the Census portion took more effort than expected. Cleaning the CSV file, formatting GEOID fields, and making sure everything matched before joining it to the shapefile showed how much preparation happens before visualization. Sometimes, I wish the system would read my mind and all I have to do is click a button when I want it to do something. 

Chapter 6

This last chapter felt more active compared to the others. Instead of just organizing or displaying data, I was actually changing it. I found the summing of  the housing unit fields during the dissolve process interesting. It showed how powerful these tools truly are. The totals carried over automatically, which is efficient, but it also made me wonder how often people double-check those outputs. Could the computers even get it wrong? Geoprocessing tools feel powerful but also slightly intimidating. If you run a tool with the wrong settings, you could create misleading results without realizing it. That part stood out to me — GIS requires attention to detail the entire time. I can see where mistakes happen though, especially with looking at the complex bright screen for a long time. These tutorials specifically made me realize how easy it would be to misinterpret data if you don’t understand what’s happening behind the scenes. A map might look convincing, but small technical decisions can completely change what it’s showing. These couple chapters most certainly made GIS a whole lot more serious. 

 

Chapter 4:

         For Chapter 4 (and chapters throughout the manual in this section) It doesn’t show you many examples of what the map is supposed to look like throughout the text; it just simply walls you through a wall of confusing explanation. This makes it very difficult to check if you are doing the right thing, as there is little visual comparison. I made many mistakes because of the exclamation leaving out small but important details with almost nothing to compare it to visually. Chapter 4 was dedicated to file geodatabases, as we created and managed file geodatabases and then edited said data in specific ways using various methods. For example, we modified attribute tables, carried out attribute queries, aggregated the data with spatial joins, used central point features for polygons, and lastly created a new table to join to another table. A new thing about chapter 4 is that the data is not already loaded in on a pre-existing template. We had to be the ones to create it this time, which was a difficult hurdle for me. Especially when I feel the instructions would lead me to a dead end on multiple occasions. 

 

Chapter 5:

        Chapter 5 introduced more advanced geoprocessing tools and focused the reader on spatial data. The focus was on solving spatial problems by combining multiple tools and methodologies. Unlike earlier chapters, where the tasks felt somewhat guided, this one required a lot more attention to detail and understanding of what each tool was actually doing behind the scenes. This caused me to make several errors. For example, in tutorial 5-6, there was an error stating “010819: The input path contains spaces” despite the input being selected from a predetermined dropdown box. There were no instructions to fix this issue. Little errors like this occurred often that stopped me in my tracks because of the detailed nature of chapter 5. 

Chapter 6:

      Chapter 6 felt more focused on selecting and analyzing data rather than creating new feature classes. This is becuase chaoter 6 focused on Geoprocessing, which is a framework and set of tools for processing geographic data. I became accustomed to searching for specific tools in the geoprocessing tab, specifically within this chapter, as almost every tutorial section has you using a specific tool you must look up in order to complete the task. This can be tedious, as being introduced to a new tool almost every single section became overwhelming. This, combined with the previous issues of instructions still being very dense and not very visual, as well as not providing workarounds to errors, led to an overall stressful experience for me. 

 

Chapter 4

Chapter four goes over how to import data, join tables, and provides an introduction to attribute tables and SQL queries. The first tutorial shows us how to import data and explains what a shapefile is. I am glad that the textbook covers this because we usually begin each project with the data already added, and I’ve been curious how to do it ourselves. We then used join tools throughout the chapter, which I had a bit of trouble with. Overall, this chapter was a lot more difficult than the previous chapters with finding certain tools and following the instructions, as I feel like they were more vague than they had been.

Chapter 5

Chapter five worked with global data and coordinate systems. We began by looking at the different types of map projections. We then learned how to find and change the projected coordinate systems. The next tutorial we went over was what a KML file is. Lastly, we worked with census data. I really enjoyed this tutorial because we learned how to find and download the data from different sources as well as use it within ArcGIS. Chapter five was a lot easier to follow than chapter four; however, I wish the tutorials were a little longer so we could learn how to apply these techniques in more ways.

Chapter 6

Chapter six was my favorite of these three chapters. It was super easy to go through, and everything worked the first time. I did have to go back and read through some steps I forgot how to do. This chapter used a lot of tools, so I got very comfortable with the search bar and using each of these tools. It also went in-depth on how to use and edit attribute tables. I thought it was cool that we got to learn how to cut off all the outlying features, and we learned how to export data. I didn’t comprehend all of the tools we used as much as I’d like to, but I think this chapter will be very helpful for the final project and future uses.