Geography 292: Geospatial Analysis with Web GIS

Chapter 6 looks at how screens and stream layers can be used to show real-time GIS data in a dynamic way. It divides spatiotemporal data into four main types: moving, fixed, stationary, and change. Each type gives you a different view of spatial patterns and temporal trends. Because of this, a useful tool called a school crime reporting map has been created, which lets students report crimes and see them happen in real-time using simple icons. This project encourages safety on campus and in the neighborhood. The chapter’s focus on dynamic data visualization and the use of time sliders improve spatial analysis by giving users strong tools to see how things change over time and make smart choices. Overall, Chapter 6 shows how real-time GIS data can be used to solve many problems and take advantage of many possibilities.

In Chapters 3 and 4, we cover sophisticated Web GIS features and uses. These increase spatial data analysis and visualization skills. Chapter 3 covers the ArcGIS Experience Builder, its features, and how to use them. It was difficult to combine and analyze the data at first, but the class taught me how to construct dynamic and interactive maps. Storytelling with 2D and 3D maps and animations adds depth and simplifies spatial information sharing. Mastering these techniques can be complex, but it allows you many choices for developing unique and useful spatial apps. Chapter 4 discusses mobile apps and AR integration and how they might improve the user experience. The course explains how easy it is to add data-collection functionality to the app by creating a survey. However, certain parts of the training were hard to navigate, possibly due to a broken software interface or a lack of directions. Despite these issues, designing mobile apps and integrating AR can help us make geographical information more accessible. Delaware Data inventory can teach us about school areas, condominium polygons, and more. This hands-on lesson teaches us about geographical data layers and their practical applications. Making a Columbus region map of car accident hotspots for the end-of-semester assignment allows us to apply what we’ve studied. We may create a robust road safety tool by integrating dynamic mapping and mobile app development from Chapters 3 and 4. To conclude, Chapters 3 and 4 explain Web GIS’s advanced capabilities and usage, which enable dynamic and interactive spatial experiences. Despite challenges, real-life research and experimentation lead to new ideas and crucial geographical data analysis and visualization initiatives.

As someone new to Web GIS, I have found the first few lessons and tutorials to be both helpful and difficult. Beginning with Chapter 1, this book explains what Web GIS is and how it can be used in many different situations. It’s interesting to learn that Web GIS is available to people all over the world and makes it easy for people from different backgrounds to work together and share location information. Even though there were some technical problems, the tutorial that went with this part let you make a basic web map. Even though there were some problems at first, it was clear that the software was easy to use, which made the learning process fun. In Chapter Two, we’ll look at different mapping styles and learn about the different kinds of stored layers in the Esri geospatial cloud. The tutorial that goes with this part goes into more detail about how to upload feature layer data and set up layer styles using smart mapping. Some ideas, like arcade expressions, may seem hard to understand at first, but the lesson slowly breaks them down, making them easier to understand. The focus on making Web GIS easy to use and accessible stands out in all of the chapters and lessons. Web GIS is made to work for people with a wide range of levels of experience, from complete beginners to seasoned pros. Even though there are some problems, the lessons are still helpful because they give you real-world experience and help you remember what you’ve learned in the chapters. Looking back at it so far, it’s clear that Web GIS has the power to completely change how we work with spatial data. I’m excited to find new ways to use Web GIS in my schoolwork and beyond as I continue to do research and learn. With each lesson and tutorial, I feel more confident in my ability to use Web GIS. I can’t wait to find out all of its full potential and use it in future projects that matter.

Chapters 1 and 2 cover Web GIS basics and real-world applications. Its various benefits are shown below. Web GIS, a mix of web technologies and geographic information systems, can reach people worldwide, is economical, works on numerous platforms, is easy to use, and is easy to manage. It transforms spatial data analysis and is employed in government, industry, science, and daily life. Users, groups, content, and information are introduced in Chapter 1 of Web GIS. It emphasizes Web GIS’s ease of data sharing and analysis across platforms. The five core online GIS materials are data, layers, tools, online maps and scenes, and apps. These components enable dynamic and interactive spatial apps. Chapter 2 of the Esri Geospatial Cloud covers hosted layer types. These include hosted features, tile, scene, and picture layers. Users may simply construct high-quality maps and graphically evaluate the data using smart mapping techniques. A powerful expression language in ArcGIS Arcade enables you to customize layer and pop-up appearances, improving the user experience and data interpretation. Let’s imagine a real-world application for these principles. Imagine interning in Columbus on a highway, road, or bridge project. Web GIS lets you create an app to manage and visualize project data. This app could display material storage yards, field offices, temporary infrastructure, and material information. You may also track oil spills, accidents, and pipe installation and removal for better management and safety. Web GIS mapping types like dot density and vector fields reveal spatial patterns and trends. This aids decision-making. The infrastructure project was completed successfully because this tool simplifies project management and lets everyone involved communicate and collaborate. The basic information from Chapter 1 and the relevant strategies from Chapter 2 provide people and groups with the tools to utilize Web GIS effectively. This affects how it comprehends, handles, and uses geographical data in numerous scenarios.  

This tutorial was fine in my opinion, I did get stuck at step 5 but I managed to figure it out with some help. I feel like the 3D aspect about this tutorial was also interesting. To be honest I don’t have too much to say about it. This tutorial is probably ranked 3rd or 4th on my list. Not because of difficulty but just because I didn’t find it as intriguing as the rest. Using  the skillset from this tutorial though I think it’d be  cool to make an application about the population density in NYC but primarily the 5 boroughs.

Chapter 7

3D is a really cool new-ish thing, so it was interesting to learn about it on a GIS level. I had done some 3D work in GEOG 291, but struggled figuring out how to make it function. 

As expected, there’s a lot of different apps and definitions talked about in this chapter. So many elements in scenes, which are a large part of 3D app creations, web scene and web scene layers and all the different mini categories included in that, different products that you can make 3D apps with, you name it. 

The different products, while they mainly mush into one in my brain, are cool. I can’t believe so many popular movies were made with ArcGIS CityEngine!! Yet another regular thing that secret uses GIS. I also appreciated the explanation of the difference between VR, AR, XR, MR and the metaverse. A lot of more techy people already know about that but I never learned. I’d like to see some examples of combined VR and real life environments, and how that would look. I didn’t even think about Indoor GIS and how that might be used and how it is lacking in data. And then there’s a bunch of different products for indoors, of course. City creation in GIS is also cool. 

Because the field of 3D is so vast and slightly confusing in my brain, it’s a bit hard to think of an original app idea. The tutorials used population and making a web scene plus all its aspects as app examples. What is most understandable to me is the idea of showing population as 3D, so something similar to that could be showing population of a certain type of animal in each state as 3D? Maybe an endangered/threatened species? I’m not sure exactly. I think it could be cool to see and would be helpful for the general population, though. I’m not sure if I’ll do that for my final app but it would be interesting if I did.

Chapter 6

It was interesting learning about all the aspects of spatialtemporal data and what it can be used for. It’s very multiversital, including things like live feeds of moving objects, perimeters and changes, and live pictures and videos from cameras, for example. There’s so much that involves this type of data that it’s hard to keep track of!

There are so many different offshoots/products of ArcGIS that I’m unsure how to remember them all. ArcGISVelocity, ArcGISGeoEvent Server, ArcGIS Arcade, and ArcGIS Mission, from this chapter alone aren’t too distinguishing right away and I feel like I’ll have to go back in chapters or google which one means what in the future.

I think the use of real time data is really important for agencies like emergency response, environmental agencies, companies gathering information and feedback, you name it. It’s interesting that you can do it through GIS.

An app idea for this chapter would be using ArcGISVelocity and creating a big data analytic item. The book describes that item as allowing “users to access and analyze big data repositories of historical observations. Big data analytics are typically used for summarizing observations, performing pattern analysis, and incident detection. Big data analytics can be configured to run once or scheduled to run on a recurring basis.” To me, looking at and analyzing something big such as natural disasters are really interesting and important. I would create an app that includes data on tornados that hit Ohio, and since it can run on a recurring basis, it would get automatically updated. I wonder if there’s a way to separate out the data to only include higher level tornados to see where and when they hit. I might do this for part of the final.

For my first app (chapters 1-4), I focused on chapter 4’s creating a survey using Survey123. I created a survey that would be used to find the most walked route on campus for the morning and afternoon hours. The answers from the survey would be compelled and the most common answers would be mapped to show the most common route from the earliest response time-12pm and then 12pm-the latest response time. 

https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/09361ba2dc554b61846fb93a5ce7a6a0  

For my second app (chapters 5-8), I dialed in on chapter 7’s area of 3D scenes. In WebGIS’s living atlas, I found data on the U.S. Forest Service showing all the different forests from the National Forest System along with their regions. Using this, I created a 3D scene app that allows the viewer to see the different regions of forests by color, and the 3D aspect is that each forests’ shown heights are representative of the area they cover in acres. Along with this, the app also shows the forest’s name over their polygon. Viewers are also able to click on each forest and read a pop-up window about the forest. This allows the viewer to analyze which region has larger forests, and if there is any particular forest they wish to look into more, they are able to get basic information about it. 

https://owugis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/3dviewer/index.html?appid=970594785442421b8760a12ecda1d344

Chapter 7

In this tutorial, I used a story map to explore scene viewers and different types of scene layers as well as a thematic scene map with a layer showing the USA population and population density. I like the 3D maps because it displays the data in an engaging and unique way. In the final couple of sections of this tutorial, I created a web scene of a park design using 3D symbols like cars, boats, planes, and trees. Using the elevation aspect was interesting because it allowed more variability in the placement of the features that were meant for the sky or underground. I was a little confused during this part because there were already symbols on the scene that I did not put there, but I later learned that the scene was public and there were symbols on there that other users had placed. I liked using the symbols in this tutorial so I think it would be cool to use this tool in my final project, it could be fun to recreate a scene somewhere in Delaware. 

Tutorial 6 

In this tutorial, I created another web map using real-time layers and made a dashboard based on this web map, I thought was cool because it displayed continuous data and even photos in real-time. In another section of this tutorial, I added a selector that allowed users to filter the dashboard so that it shows specific types of incidents based on any filters that were selected. I also was able to animate the time-series data in web maps and web apps. I found this part to be interesting because it displays the information and data in a way that is easily understood by users. I think I would like to utilize the real-time features from this tutorial in my final project, because of the engagement aspect of it.