Geography 292: Geospatial Analysis with Web GIS

Week 4:

Chapter 6 delves into real-time GIS and spatiotemporal data, which enable tracking and visualization of movement, changes, and stability over time and space. Key data types include: Moving data – which tracks objects or events in motion like traffic or wildlife; Discrete data – for specific, semi-random occurrences such as accidents or weather; Stationary data – for fixed objects with changing properties like population density; and change data, illustrating growth or shifts, such as urban development or invasive species spread. These tools allow users to focus on specific moments or trends over time, offering flexibility to display many or few events and analyze their temporal dynamics.

Application: By using moving data we could look at program that would be able to track migratory birds. An application like this could help find specific fly ways a species uses.

Week 5:

Chapter 7 looks at 3D GIS. It offers additional dimensions over 2D, making it a powerful tool for applications such as urban planning, storytelling, and architectural design. It enhances understanding of object size, position, and relationships. Photorealistic 3D scenes recreate reality with photo-textured features, while cartographic scenes adapt 2D mapping techniques—using height, size, color, and transparency—to represent abstract data like population density or earthquake magnitude. 3D scenes consist of surfaces (foundations), operational layers (features anchored above or below surfaces), textures (interior and exterior covers), and atmospheric effects like lighting and fog. ArcGIS supports 3D mapping through tools like Scene Viewer, ArcGIS Pro, and CityEngine, which create web scenes grouped into photorealistic and cartographic layers. 3D scene layers include building models, integrated meshes (stitched from drone footage), point clouds (large datasets from lidar), point scene layers (optimized for speed), and voxel layers (volumetric data for atmospheric or oceanic studies). Advanced 3D forms—extended reality (XR), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR)—make GIS more immersive and interactive, while ArcGIS Urban integrates 3D mapping with planning tools to manage and visualize urban projects effectively.

Application: Making an app that looks at nesting sites of peregrine falcons on top of buildings and bridges would be kinda cool to help show nearby food sources and protection from weather.

Chapter 3:

ArcGIS Experience Builder is a low-code tool that enables users to create interactive content and web experiences with ease. It supports drag-and-drop interfaces, 2D and 3D data integration, and customizable widgets to enhance functionality. Users can start with templates or build layouts from scratch, incorporating themes, source data, and device-specific optimizations. Built on technologies like ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, HTML5, and ArcGIS API for JavaScript, it allows for the creation of apps, maps, and interactive tools through features such as message actions (trigger-based automation) and data actions (user-initiated tasks like exporting data). Experience Builder offers components like pages, windows, and outline views, along with a variety of widgets for organizing content and improving usability.

Chapter 4:

Mobile GIS extends traditional GIS functionality to portable devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops, offering mobility, real-time information, and locational awareness. It supports efficient data collection and management through apps like ArcGIS Field Maps, which enables users to plan, track, and update field data seamlessly. Mobile GIS leverages GPS, wireless communication, and mobile operating systems (Android, iOS) for accessibility and versatility, though smaller screens can limit visibility compared to desktop GIS. App development strategies include browser-based, native-based, and hybrid-based approaches, emphasizing the need for simple, user-friendly designs for mobile platforms.

Application: With surveys and  the benefit of mobile GIS I think an app that would collect real time data for birds spotted in certain areas would be a cool concept.

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.