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Chapter 1:

After taking 291 WebGIS seems much easier to grasp and it seems like a more streamlined and beginner centered software. I feel like in Chapter 1 this is reflected with the user base of the software and how popular it is for businesses and government while still being easily usable by more casual, day-to-day users. The group and organization system seems really cool and makes the data much more accessible which is very convenient for businesses especially. The tutorials were also a lot easier to follow in my opinion. I was able to follow them and learn the ropes in a more efficient manor than when I used ARCGIS. Apps are also a pretty cool aspect of WebGIS that I found very interesting and very easy to understand.

Chapter 2:

Chapter 2 of the GIS guide explores tools for crafting visually compelling and meaningful maps. It highlights feature layers as the most versatile type of interactive layer, easily shared across web maps, 3D scenes, and applications. Esri’s geospatial cloud offers extensive resources, enabling users to design custom layers using their own datasets, pre-made templates, or by starting from scratch. With intuitive smart mapping tools, creating polished maps—like heat maps, dot density visualizations, and color-coded comparisons—becomes accessible even to those with minimal technical expertise. The ArcGIS Living Atlas is another valuable resource, providing ready-made layers such as base maps, satellite imagery, and data on topics like infrastructure and environmental conditions.

For a project I would want to create an interactive map that shows some good birding spots at my favorite park.

Chapter 6 explored the use of real-time GIS and spatiotemporal data, which helps track and visualize how things move, change, or stay the same over time and space.                                                Moving Data: Tracks objects or events in motion, like traffic or wildlife.
Discrete Data: Displays specific, random events, like accidents or weather occurrences.
Stationary Data: Shows fixed objects whose properties change over time, such as population density.
Change: Illustrates growth or shifts, like urban development or the spread of invasive species.
Real-time GIS lets us view this data in real-time or over time, and we can decide whether to focus on specific moments or ongoing trends.

Tutorial 1: I initially struggled to find the map needed for the exercises, but importing data from the Living Atlas solved the issue.
Tutorial 2: I created a dashboard to monitor incidents in Delaware County, customizing the appearance and data displayed.
Tutorial 3: I used categories to organize data on the map, making it easier to focus on specific areas.
Tutorial 4: Arcade scripting allowed for more advanced formatting, improving the display of the data.
Tutorial 5: I worked with time-series data, organizing it by time zones to keep it accurate.
Tutorial 6: The final tutorial animated population changes in the U.S. over 200 years, showing how populations shifted over time.
Application Idea: Real-time GIS could be used to track crowd sizes in Delaware businesses or OWU dining halls, helping people avoid crowded places. This would be similar to a “popularity tracker”  which showed peak and off-peak times.

 

Chapter 6: Spatiotemporal Data & Real Time GIS
Within spatiotemporal data as well as real time GIS, there are several things to consider displaying. These are:
Moving: To show where things are going
Discrete: Show what is going on, good for semi random occurrences
Stationary: things that stay still, but have valuation shifts.
Change: Seeing how things change or grow.
I can also use these to display many or few things, and showing either specific points of time or the duration of time for events.
Tutorial 1: I immediately ran into a problem where I was unable to find the map that is likely required for the rest of the tutorials in this chapter. I am able to add a temporal layer by importing more data from the living atlas or finding it on my own.
Tutorial 2: To create a dashboard, i will want to click on “create dashboard”, add some tags, and bind it to a new folder. And it will essentially act as an individual app which will let me analyze what is going on if I were to view it independently. I can also add it onto my map / workspace. I can also set some different bounds based on like percentage points, different looks for the gauges, and different ways to make it look better. We can also display the different items being displayed on the gauge, the book decides to do the most recent incidents through an advanced formatting field.
Tutorial 3: For the 3rd tutorial it will be creating a category. These categories can be used to make different selections and things appear on the map. This will be in conjunction with other lists that can be made, this function can also be used to zoom into different areas of the map based on the category selections.
Tutorial 4: By using the methods of an Arcade feature, advanced formatting can be used. The arcade feature works similarly to a script, where various codes can be implemented in order to display things at a more advanced level than once otherwise done.
Tutorial 5: For the 5th tutorial, this is essentially finding a spreadsheet and uploading a timeseries data, and utilizes time zones in order to organize things properly. In this case, it is UTC-05 which is US Eastern Time.
Tutorial 6: For this tutorial, this is all about animating the population of various cities as time changes. I will want to use the options seen on the time slider to show the method of displaying population change over time.
Description of an application: Creating a dashboard that actively sees 311 incidents reported within Delaware County.

The first chapter discusses applications of Web GIS in different fields and how its use is increasingly valuable in different scientific fields, businesses, governments, etc. People also use these types of applications in everyday life. Having this software on the Web makes data and different features more accessible. The tutorials were fairly easy and showed how to upload data, add fields, and add feature layers.

The second chapter has six tutorials and goes more in depth looking at feature layers and different ways that you can format maps to best display your data. These tutorials were definitely more challenging than the first chapter, but I didn’t have too much trouble with it. I think the software is very cool and I love the incorporation of all the different base maps and data.

I think I would like to do something with economic data since I am a politics and economics major. I think looking at employment data could be interesting.

Not too much to report, everything went smoothly. At one point I had to turn off my adblock for the timeline QuickApp which I thought was interesting. I think these programs could be used to chart the growth of invasive species populations like the Spotted Lanternfly as an assignment, though I’m not sure how readily available that data is to the general public.

I’ve run into the same issue with Dynamic Content in 3.3 that Haley described but can’t find a fix for it. The ESRI community post I’ve found didn’t help as I’ve already formatted it the way they’re recommending with no success. 11/08 I’m back, it was just hidden behind all the open panels and zooming out fixed it. The editor missed a https on a link in 3.6. Everything else went fine. I think in terms of the experience builder assignment I’m thinking about the work I did with the Ohio EPA: as a stormwater program intern I conducted inspections of construction sites and had to reach a certain quota of large and small sites for the agency. I think it would be interesting to document a chronology of those site visits and filling those quotas.

There isn’t an “Imagery Hybrid” option, I’m guessing it’s “Imagery with Labels?” There’s been a couple other issues that came up but I figured it out with 4.1 and 4.2. Visual and UI updates keep slowing me down. There’s not a Community Map option in 4.4, my keyboard is freaking out so I’m gonna return later. Based on other people’s work I’m just going to choose the imagery with labels. I wish there weren’t so many non-functional changes to this program that make the older versions of the textbook harder to follow. There’s just a lot of small things, like in 4.6 when I clicked on the name it opened up a little pop-up to the side of the page that did not have the visualization tab to select from. Everything else went fine.

 

Chapter 7: The textbook explanation of the difference between XR, AR, MR, and VR seems like it could be increasingly more relevant in today’s modern world (I previously was not aware that the terms XR and MR even existed). Also, the fact that an ArcGIS program was used to build cities in several movies is not something that I expected to read, but it makes sense given the abilities of the program. The state population density map visual turned out really neat, but I could not figure out how to resolve the issue with Alaska’s mountains sticking out through the polygon extrusion (I could not locate the elevation mode setting that the book said to use to fix the problem). While the 3D features might have some advantages, I definitely had issues with this specific Fun Park scene. Some of the feature placements and counts just seemed strange- the parking lot was a solid sea of cars (with some the size of buildings and others the size of chickens), I could not locate any helicopters, and there were giant cars in the lake and picnic tables in the middle of the road. The final link was not any better and included a sky overwhelmingly full of helicopters in addition to the hundreds of Teslas. Overall, the provided scene was messy and inaccurate, but the features of the 3D scene viewer could make a great visual if used properly.

Assignment: I think it would be really cool to use this program to plan out a park on an empty plot of land. The possible 3D marker shapes make this entirely plausible and the ability to realistically scale objects to size would make it an excellent planning tool. For example, I could take an empty spot on campus and plan a small garden/path/seating area using the ArcOnline tools. I could also use the program to mark already existing features like we did in the tutorial, which I could apply to a section of campus like the area in front of Slocum.

While chapter 7 was really interesting and fun to get into, it was definitely really overwhelming as it almost felt like there was an entirely new version of the programming to learn. When I first started, I saw that there had in fact been an update, but during the tutorial, it was a bit difficult to find different things that had been mentioned. Beyond that though, the different additions that can be added to maps like bushes, trees, cars, bodies of water that almost have their own animation style, and so many other things was really cool to see! In this 3D version of the GIS program, previous content learned can be applied to an even further and more realistic way. There are different forms, such as VR, or virtual reality that can be more accessible, convenient and in some instances, reliable for users when this augmentation is applied. 

Application Idea: Seeing how much I was able to do after reading chapter 7, I think it would be a cool idea to map where all the Ginkgo Trees are on campus as when they begin dropping the putrid smelling fruit during the colder months of the academic year, a lot of students become nauseated at the smell. I thought that it would be cool to jot down the areas where the trees are, both on academic and residential sides of campus so students could be more aware of where to watch their step to avoid stepping on the smelly fruits, as well as being aware of what areas might be the stinkiest depending on how populated the density of the female Ginkgo trees are in that area! This map could have a simple outline of the academic buildings, different walkways, benches, parking lots, and possibly even some of the statues and boulders we have around campus!

The additional dimensions that 3D GIS offers over 2D serves as a better vehicle for a lot of different applications like urban planning or defense simulation. It helps people understand size and relative position of objects. Photorealistic 3D scenes use photos to texture features, while Cartographic scenes take the mapping techniques of 2D and applies them to 3D using height, size, color and transparency to display features like population density or earthquake magnitude that aren’t viewable from a 3D representation on its own. 3D scenes are composed of surfaces that provide a foundation for other content, features that are anchored above or below the surfaces (these are the operational layers), textures that provide the exterior or interior covers of the 3D features (often with aerial imagery or cartographic symbols), and finally atmospheric effects like lighting and fog. 3D scene layers can be used to present simple representations of buildings (textured or untextured), more complex digital models of buildings that let you interact with its components and look at its specific properties, category layers (windows, walls, etc), or filters that let you select elements with specific attributes. Integrated mesh scene layers construct complex images just from stitching together drone footage by matching angles from different data points together into a single synthesized projection. Point cloud scene layers quickly display large amounts of symbolized point cloud data, usually collected via lidar (This one looks like a heat map). Point scene layers thin out the dataset from point clouds to increase visualization speed and visibility. Voxel layers create a volumetric vizualization, often used for atmospheric or oceanic data.

There’s not an Elevation mode to select in 7.2 so Alaska’s gonna stay a little funky.

I’m really curious why some of those cars are such different sizes when so many others are at-scale.

Assignment idea: I think it’d be interesting to make a 3d web scene of one of the parks we run at for cross country.

Chapter six was a welcome change from last week. It was more within my level of understanding and comfort compared to working with 3D maps and mobile apps. There were a couple things that tripped me up, such as the coding. Initially, I had made a mistake with my coding because I was having trouble understanding the directions in the tutorial. Luckily, the changes that the codes made were immediate, so I could act accordingly once something did not appear or appeared incorrectly. Though, the heart icon would not work at all, so I proceeded despite that hiccup. I do wonder about how the emergency information is input and updated so frequently. Do dispatchers input the information, and it is input into GIS in tandem? Or is there another process? While putting together the animation for the population change, everything went as it should. The final animation was a bit anticlimactic, though. The slider moved itself and showed how populations moved west into the states and so forth. I am not quite sure what I expected, but the slider did precisely what it was supposed to. It showed the change in population within the US over the past two hundred years over a few seconds.

An application idea that I have from chapter six could be to use the Delaware Data to show how parcel plots in the county- or maybe just the city- have changed over the past ten or twenty years since the county has been growing so much. Another idea that I have could be to document all of the places I go to throughout a regular day- perhaps a week- and make a time slider of that to see where I go to and how much time I spend in each place throughout the day.