Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS E-Book

Michael D. Kennedy

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1191

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

An integrated approach that combines essential GIS background with a practical workbook on applying the principles in ArcGIS 10.0 and 10.1

Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGISintegrates a broad introduction to GIS with a software-specific workbook for Esri's ArcGIS. Where most courses make do using two separate texts, one covering GIS and another the software, this book enables students and instructors to use a single text with an integrated approach covering both in one volume with a common vocabulary and instructional style.

This revised edition focuses on the latest software updates—ArcGIS 10.0 and 10.1. In addition to its already successful coverage, the book allows students to experience publishing maps on the Internet through new exercises, and introduces the idea of programming in the language Esri has chosen for applications (i.e., Python). A DVD is packaged with the book, as in prior editions, containing data for working out all of the exercises.

This complete, user-friendly coursebook:

• Is updated for the latest ArcGIS releases—ArcGIS 10.0 and 10.1
• Introduces the central concepts of GIS and topics needed to understand spatial information analysis
• Provides a considerable ability to operate important tools in ArcGIS
• Demonstrates new capabilities of ArcGIS 10.0 and 10.1
• Provides a basis for the advanced study of GIS and the study of the newly emerging field of GIScience

Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS, Third Edition is the ideal guide for undergraduate students taking courses such as Introduction to GIS, Fundamentals of GIS, and Introduction to ArcGIS Desktop. It is also an important guide for professionals looking to update their skills for ArcGIS 10.0 and 10.1.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Preface to First Edition

Introduction

Part I: Basic Concepts of GIS

Chapter 1: Some Concepts That Underpin GIS

You Ask: “What Is GIS About?”

And So You Ask Again: “What Is GIS About?”

More of What GIS Is About

Next Steps: Seemingly Independent Things You Need to Know

Determining Where Something Is: Coordinate Systems

Determining Where Something Is: Latitude and Longitude

Geodesy, Coordinate Systems, Geographic Projections, and Scale

Projected Coordinate Systems

Geographic vs. Projected Coordinates: A Comparison

Two Projected Coordinate Systems: UTM and State Plane

Physical Dimensionality

Global Positioning Systems

Remote Sensing

Relational Databases

Searching (and Indexing) in General

Another Definition of GIS

Computer Software: In General

Step-by-Step

Understanding the File Structure for the Exercises

Anatomy of the ArcCatalog Window

Setting Some Options

The Catalog Tree

Connecting to a Folder

The Toolbars and the Status Bar

An Optional Step

Exploring Basic GIS Data Storage Models

Copying Data over to Your Personal Folder

Examining the Table

Deriving Information from the Table

Sorting the Records

Finding Values in a Table

Identifying Geographic Features and Coordinates

Looking at GeoGraphics

A First Look at Metadata

Using ArcCatalog to Place Data in ArcMap

Using the Area on the Disk for Your Own Work

Copying Data over to Your Personal IGIS Folder

Searching for GIS Data

Exploring Soils

But Something Is Missing

Is the Newly Found Data Applicable?

Making a Personal Geodatabase Feature Class from a Coverage

Looking at the Landcover Personal Geodatabase Feature Class

Further Examining the Wildcat Boat Facility Area Data Sets

Seeing the Results of the Join

A Button for Instant Help: What’s This? (for ArcGIS Desktop version 10.0 only)

Getting Instant Help for a Tool or Command (for ArcGIS Desktop version 10.1)

The Help System and Documentation

ArcGIS Help across the Internet

What’s Next?

Chapter 2: Characteristics and Examples of Spatial Data

The Original Form of Spatial Data: Maps

Moving Spatial Data from Maps to Computers: Forces for Change

Spatial Data

Limiting the Scope

Spatial Data for Decision Making

Sets of Spatial Data: The Database

Spatial Databases: Inherent Difficulties

Information Systems

Uses for a Geographic Information System

Step-by-Step

The Basic Difference between ArcCatalog and ArcMap

Exploring Data from the NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS)

Preliminaries

Seeing the GPS File in ArcMap

Looking at the GPS Track in the Context of a Variety of GIS Data

A Potpourri of Types of Geographic Data

Displaying Layers from Vector-Based Datasets

Housekeeping: Saving and Restoring a Map

Selecting: Both Map Data and Attribute Data

Using the Measure Tool and the Identify Tool

County Boundaries and Polygons

TIGER/Line Files

The Table of Contents: Display vs. Source vs. Selection

Digital Raster Graphics and Cell-Based Files

A Look (Optional) at How DRG Color Values Are Put Together

Experimenting with Different Ways of Seeing Data

Digital Orthophotos

More TIGER/Line Files

Another Tie between Attributes and Geographics

More Housekeeping: Shutting Down and Restarting ArcMap

Digital Elevation Model Files

Comparing the DEM and the DRG

Contour Line Files

TINs are Three-Dimensional Datasets

Elevation Based on Massive Sets of Data: The Esri Terrain

The Summarizing Procedure

Some Geological Data

Rasters of Land Cover Data

You Are Not Alone (Assuming you have an Internet connection)

Next Steps on Your Own

The Next Chapter

Chapter 3: Products of a GIS: Maps and Other Information

GIS and Cartography—Compatibility?

Products of a Geographic Information System

Overall Requirements for Utility

Classification of GIS Products

Documenting Products

Thoughts on Different Types of Products

Don’t Ignore Character-Based Information

Don’t Hesitate to Sort Information

Consider Hard Copy

Consider Balance in Product Content

Elements of Product Design

Units, Projection, and Scale

Thoughts on Resolution and Scale

Making Sure There Is a Base Map

Measure of Quality Assurance

The Decision Maker–Product Interface

In Summary

Step-by-Step

The Data View and the Layout View

Controlling Your View of the Map: Zooming

Understanding the Panning and Other Controls

Adding Other Map Elements

Adding Data to Data Frames

A Summary of the Graphic Indicators

Tinkering with the Map—Scale Bars

Legends

Layer Files

Layer Packages

Styles

Adding and Using a Style

Reports

Charts and Graphs

Graphics

Making Graphics out of Geographic Features

Chapter 4: Structures for Storing Geographic Data

Why Is Spatial Data Analysis So Hard?

How the Computer Aids Analyzing Spatial Data

Complexity of Spatial Data

Structures for Spatial Data

Storage Paradigms for Areal Data

Fundamental Bases of Geographic Data Mode

The Raster Data Model

Vector Data Model

A Multiplicity of “Storadigms”

Vector-Based Geographic Datasets—Logical Construction

Zero-Dimensional Entities in a Two-Dimensional Field: Points

One-Dimensional Entities in a Two-Dimensional Field: Lines

Two-Dimensional Entities in a Two-Dimensional Field: Polygons

Three-Dimensional Entities in a Three-Dimensional Field: Triangles and Multipatches

Specific Esri Spatial Vector Data Storage Mechanisms

The Geodatabase Data Structure

Geodatabase Software

Polygons within Polygons—Perimeter and Area Calculations

Geodatabases—Layout in the Computer

Geodatabases—Logical Construction

Geodatabases—Feature Shape

Nested Polygons in Geodatabases

Geodatabases and Attributes

Objects—First Acquaintance

The Shapefile Data Structure

Shapefiles—Layout in the Computer

Summarizing Vector Dataset Features

Summary of Logical Structures of Vector-Based GIS Datasets

Raster-Based Geographic Data Sets—Logical Construction

Raster-Based Geographic Data Sets—Layout in the Computer

TINs

TIN-Based Geographic Data Sets—Layout in the Computer

Spatial Reference

Step-by-Step

More Help

Specification of your Input Text File for the “Create Features from Text File” Tool

Labeling Features

Making Polygons from Lines

Areas and Perimeters Examined

Labeling Features with Selected Attributes

Computers and Inexact Computation

Creating a New Topology

Specifying Which Feature Moves When Features Are Adjusted: Rank

Topology Rules

Validating Topology

A Warning: Changes Made through Topology Are Permanent

Chapter 5: Geographic and Attribute Data: Selection, Input, and Editing

Concerns about Finding and Collecting Data

Looking for Data on the Internet

Steps in Developing the Database

GPS and GIS

Anatomy of the Acronym: GPS

What Time Is It?

Step-by-Step

Looking at Reference Systems

Looking at Coordinate Systems

Using the Reference System to Discover the Boundary Coordinates of a State Plane Zone

Primary Lesson

A Plan for Digitizing and Transforming

Getting Started

Loading an Image File as a Layer in ArcMap

Loading the New, Blank Shapefile into ArcMap

Adding Line Features to a Shapefile by Using the Editing Facility in ArcMap

Converting a Shapefile to a Geodatabse Feature Class and Giving It Real-World Coordinates

Converting the Shapefile to a Geodatabase Feature Class

Moving the Foozit Court Feature Class into the Real World

Preliminaries

Making the Feature Class That Will Be the Object of the Digitization

Georeferencing

Moving the Sketch to UTM Zone

Digitizing the Line Boundaries of the Islands

Making Polygons of the Digitized Lines

Making Multipart Polygons

Five islands divided by county and agency

Merging Multipart Polygons

Making Copies of the Feature Class

Using “Clip” to Remove Overlaps from the Feature Class

Using Topology to Remove Overlaps from the Feature Class

The Concept of the Edit Sketch

Making Sketches with Snapping

Experimenting with Editing Polygons

Experimenting with Editor’s Union

Experimenting with the Editor’s Intersect

Experimenting with the Editor’s Buffer Capabilities

Using Undo, Redo, Copy, and Cut

Working with Line Editing Again

Creating a 3-D Feature

Organization

Environment and Measurement (Spatial Data)

Measurements (Non-spatial Data)

Recording Data

Team Assignments

Undertaking the Data Entry Process

Making a Table That Contains the Coordinate Data

Making a Table That Contains the Student Data

Populating the Student_Info Table with Data

Joining the Two Tables to Make a Single Table

Seeing the Results of the Join

Part II: Spatial Analysis and Synthesis with Gis

Chapter 6: Analysis of GIS Data by Simple Examination

Information

Computer Hardware—What a Computer Does

Continuous and Discrete Phenomena

Some Implications of Discrete Representation for GIS

Scientific Notation, Numerical Significance, Accuracy, and Precision

Precision vs. Accuracy

Basic Statistics

Putting Values into Classes

Measurement Scales

Step-by-Step

Examining the Toolbars

Pointing at Records

Two Windows Are Available for Selecting

Selecting Records (and, Thereby, Features)

Looking at the Other Capabilities of the Options Menu

Selecting Features (and, Thereby, Records)

Quick Selection of Features

Selecting by Location

Reviewing and Understanding Actions on the Table of Contents

Layers and the Data Frames

Changing Layer Properties

Thinking about Maps Again

Classification (or Categorization) and Symbolization

User Selection of Classes

A More Careful Look at Equal Intervals

Defined Interval

Quantiles

Standard Deviation

Natural Breaks

Normalization

Using Charts and Graphs

Making a Layout

Obtaining Data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census

Converting the Census Data Spreadsheet to dBASEIV Format

Using TIGER-Based Street and Block Shapefiles from Esri

Assessing What We Have and What We Need to Solve the Problem

Converting the Relevant Files to Cartesian Coordinates

Finally

Chapter 7: Creating Spatial Feature Classes Based on Proximity, Overlay, and Attributes

Generating Features Based on Proximity: Buffering

Generating Features by Overlaying

Overlaying with Line and Point Feature Classes

Spatial Joins in General

Deriving Feature Classes by Selecting Attributes: Extraction

Step-by-Step

Using ArcToolbox to Make Buffer Zones around the Roads

Variable-Width Buffers

Make a New Feature Class from a Subset of Polygons: Extract

More Complex Queries—And’s and Or’s

Other Polygon Spatial Joins: Intersect and Identity

The Getrich Saga

Deriving Information by Combining Tables

Overlaying the Feature Classes

Create a Python Script from the Gold Model

Modify the Python Script from the Gold Model

Execute the Python Script

Understanding Dissolve

Making New Sites that Including the COST_HA Field

Considering the Site Eccentricity Criterion

Making a Model of the Wildcat Boat Solution

Chapter 8: Spatial Analysis Based on Raster Data Processing

A Really Different Processing Paradigm

Facts about Rasters

Coordinate Space

Rasters with Integer Cell Values

Rasters with Floating-Point Values

What Is Raster Storage and Processing Good For?

Rasters and Features

Rasters: Input, Computation, and Output

Where Raster Processing Shines: Cost Incurred Traveling over a Distance

Proximity Calculation with Rasters

Human Activity, Cost, and Distance

Euclidean Distances on the Raster

Euclidean Distance and the Spatial Analyst

Proving Pythagoras Right

Finding the Closest of Multiple Source Cells

Excluding Distances beyond a Certain Threshold

Other Factors That Influence Cost

The Cost Distance Mechanism

The Cost Distance Calculation

Path Calculation in Euclidean Distance and Cost Distance

Understanding How Total Costs Are Calculated

Getting More Information: Paths and Allocations

Direction and Allocation Rasters for Euclidean Distance

Direction and Allocation Rasters for Cost Distance

A Major Application of Raster Processing: Hydrology

Basic Surface Hydrology

Basic Surface Hydrology Concepts

Calculating Flow Direction

The Ultimate Destination of Water Is Off the Raster Area

Flow Accumulation: Drainage Delineation and Rainfall Volume

Nonuniform Rainfall

Calculating the Length of a Potential Linear Water Body

Assigning Identities to Streams

Vector vs. Raster Representation

Assigning Orders to Stream Links

Watersheds and Pour Points

Step-by-Step

The Raster Calculator—Integer Rasters

Arithmetic Calculation

Boolean Operations

Floating-Point Rasters

Setting the General and Raster Environment

Converting Features to Rasters

Creating Rasters with Linear Features

Buffering with Spatial Analyst (Maybe)

Buffering—Plan B

Reclassifying the Data

Adding the Rasters with the Raster Calculator

Converting Zones to Regions to Find Individual Sites

Points and Density

Thiessen, Dirichlet, Voronoi (and, of course, Decartes)

Making a Raster Showing Straight-Line Distances to a Single Place

Examining Many Source Cells and the Capping Distance

Developing a Raster with Cost Distance

Creating Direction and Allocation Rasters

Using Cost Distance to Make Direction and Allocation Rasters

Calculating a Least-Cost Path from “A” to “B”

Setting Things Up

Preparing to Create a Cost Surface

Building a Cost Surface

Improving the Understandability of the Map

Examining the Surface with Various Spatial Analyst and 3D Tools

Determining the Stream Channels

Calculating Stream Order

Numbering Each Stream Individually

Identifying Basins

Finding Pollution Culprits

Chapter 9: Other Dimensions, Other Tools, Other Solutions

Two Different Third Dimensions: The Temporal and the Vertical Spatial

The Third Spatial Dimension

3-D: 2-D (Spatial) Plus 1-D (Spatial)

ArcScene

ArcGlobe

The Third Spatial Dimension

An (Almost) New Software Package: ArcScene

ArcScene

What’s 3-D and What’s Not

Viewing 3-D Data with Animation

Making a TIN and Other 3-D Representations of Elevation

Creating DEM files with Kriging

Creating a Map of Contour Lines

Two-and-a-Half Dimensions (2.5-D): Calculating Volumes

Calculating a Volume with ArcGIS

Other Neat Stuff You Can Do with 3D Analyst: Viewshed and Hillshade

A Closer Look at ArcGlobe and Adding Data to It

Making a Terrain

The Time Dimension: OVERVIEW

3-D: 2-D (Spatial) Plus 1-D (Temporal)

The Time Dimension: STEP-BY-STEP

Sliding through Time—Seeing Changes in Features at Intervals

Address Geocoding: OVERVIEW

A Second Fundamental Way of Defining Location

TIGER/Line Files

Precision of the Geographic Coordinates in TIGER Files

Address Locators

Address Geocoding: STEP-BY-STEP

Finding the Geographic Position of an Address “Manually”

Making an Address Locator

Finding the Geographic Position of an Address “Automatically”

TIGER Files and ZIP Codes

More to Know—More Information Available

Analysis of Networks: Overview

Analysis of Networks: Step-by-step

Finding the Shortest Route to a Facility

Allocating Territories to Facilities

Linear Referencing: Overview

Linear Referencing: STEP-BY-STEP

Intersecting Route Events

What’s Not Covered Here

Afterword: From Systems to Science by Michael Goodchild

Index

Notes

Download CD/DVD Content

About the Cover

The cover shows six images of the same geographic area, demonstrating various GIS data formats, depicting both natural and human-made features. The scene is a river flowing through a canyon. North of the river is a water filtration plant. The top scene is a TIN (Triangulated Irregular Network) indicating the elevation of the surface. Across the bottom of the cover, left to right, the first two images are portions of (a) a DRG (Digital Raster Graphics) file digitized from a US Geological Survey 7.5 minute quadrangle and (b) a DEM (Digital Elevation Model). The last two images, left to right are (d) a raster-based (cell-based, grid-based) depiction of different types of land cover and (e) a DOQ (Digital Ortho Quadrangle), which is an aerial photograph that has been rectified so it can be used as a map. In the center at the bottom is (c) a three-dimensional view in which ArcGIS software was used to “drape” a DOQ over an elevation model. The red dots along the river depict points collected by a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver on a boat moving along the river.

Cover image: Courtesy of Michael Kennedy

Cover design: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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ISBN 978-1-118-15980-4; ISBN 978-1-118-33034-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-33103-3 (ebk);

ISBN 978-1-118-33318-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-51050-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-51056-8 (ebk)

To the memory of Evan Kennedy, who had every gift but that of years

Foreword

by Jack Dangermond

Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS offers a unique approach to GIS instruction. In it, Michael Kennedy re-creates his time-tested methods of teaching GIS in the classroom in a step-by-step guidebook to GIS. Students on a journey to learn GIS with Professor Kennedy may feel like he is taking the journey with them, offering them his sage advice each step of the way. Professor Kennedy cares deeply for his students, and the detail of this care and years of teaching GIS come through in this book. In it, he walks students through the multitude of questions that come up daily in the classroom. His goal is to help students understand GIS concepts and learn GIS skills. It takes a master teacher to map GIS knowledge, making it clear to students and enabling them to gain confidence in their growing skills.

Once GIS students have learned the basics, the next step is to learn how to analyze spatial data and identify problems and create solutions. Learning to analyze spatial data moves students beyond exploration, beyond locating places on maps, and helps them create maps that guide better decisions.

All of us learn GIS skills in different ways. Some people are visual learners, some are auditory learners, and some need a hands-on approach. As the learning styles of students in general vary, so do the learning needs of students of GIS. Some students will need classroom study, with conversations and time to process information about GIS concepts, spatial data, geodatabases, map projections, attribute tables, feature classes, datasets, and building maps, while others need only a guidebook with clear graphic illustrations. So, a variety of approaches to teaching GIS will help ensure that the increasing number of students worldwide have opportunities to gain GIS skills in ways that best suit their needs.

GIS is becoming part and parcel of the daily work lives of most people in many fields, from architects to zoologists, from academia to the business world, from city planning to national and international spatial data portals. Teachers are now taking on the essential task of opening the door for students to learn GIS. In Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS, Professor Kennedy opens such a doorway for students to learn the skills basic to understanding GIS and to prepare students to make our communities better places.

Preface1

It turns out to be hard, for me anyway, to write the preface for a third edition. As I tried to compose this I put a lot of electrons in the recycle bin. Most of what I have to say was said in the prefaces to previous editions. And who wants to want to wade through eleven pages of those in addition to this one!

So what I will do is just to tell you about the new material in the text and then just abstract and reference earlier information and ideas. I’m eliminating the Preface to the Second Edition. If you haven’t used the book before, you probably should read the Preface to the First edition, included after this one.

First, of course, is that the material is oriented to ArcGIS Desktop versions 10.0 and 10.1. Where there are differences between these two, and there are several, I have usually pointed them out. However, those using 10.0 will occasionally have to adapt the Step-by-Step instructions, which favor version 10.1. I recommend using 10.1 if it is available and you are familiar with it. (To indicate the extent of the changes, we can start with the fact that the functionality level names have changed from those in version 10.0 and before. In 10.1 ArcView is Basic, ArcEditor is Standard, and ArcInfo is Advanced.)

The CD-ROM used in earlier editions has been replaced by a DVD, because the data sets are more extensive and all the figures in the book are available.

Since the first edition, sections and exercises have been added on the topics of:

Publishing maps on the Internet, using

ArcGIS.com

.

Using the Esri online data service to add basemaps to the student’s map.

The terrain data structure, made possible by the emergence of LIDAR as a remarkable method of very dense data collection, is covered both in theory and by exercise.

Layer packages – a welcome invention which facilitates the transfer of feature classes of all formats from one computer to another, without worries like relative path names and separate data transfers.

Since this book is primarily aimed at preparing professionals for using GIS to do analysis and synthesis (topics separate from display and mapmaking, which, for completeness, is covered in considerable detail in Chapter 3), topology plays an important role. A number of exercises, therefore, emphasize the use of the topology capabilities of geodatabases, which is considerably different from those of coverages and completely absent from the shapefile format.

Changes from the Previous Editions

Use of and information about coverages has been demoted to an optional exercise on converting an Esri coverage to a geodatabase.

2

All references to ArcInfo Workstation have been removed, since its functions have been taken over by ArcToolbox, and Workstation has been “depreciated” (although many of us “appreciated” it a lot in times past!).

A couple of the more arduous exercises (making feature classes by key entry and digitizing) have been improved so that the student or reader understands the concepts without having to experience the all-too-real tedium of data entry. Other exercises have input data provided for them on the DVD to cut down on digitizing and typing.

More flexibility has been built into the text. I suggest exercises that might be omitted in the interest of compressing the learning of essential GIS material into a shorter time span.

3

All the figures in the book are reproduced, many in color, on the DVD that accompanies the text. At the beginning of each Step-by-Step section, I encourage students to open both the Color Figures file and their Fast Facts File (both to access reference information and to add new material). The Fast Facts File, into which the students write the information they consider relevant, thus making their own reference guides to ArcGIS Desktop, is emphasized. The past several years have convinced me that the Fast Facts File is an important tool for long-term learning of the material – as the software grows in facility and complexity.

In previous editions, students were asked to write, in their textbook, the names of some menus and tabs. The third edition has no blanks for this. Instead students are encouraged to record the name of tabs and menu items in their Fast Facts Files – and to think about what each item might mean. Since there is no way to cover all of ArcGIS (except perhaps in an intensive, year-long, full time course), having a list that at least hints at the capabilities of the software that are not covered in the text (represented by these tabs and menus) is beneficial. Further, the lists in the student’s Fast Facts File can be updated as ArcGIS evolves in the years to come.

The purpose and structure of the book remains essentially the same. (Please see the Preface to the First edition). Chapters are divided into (a) Overviews (a top-down look at GIS theory and other relevant information) and (b) Step-by-Step (sequential) exercises. All the data needed for the exercises is provided on the included DVD. (The DVD does not include ArcGIS software. I assume that the several mechanisms that Esri provides (e.g., site licenses, student one-year licenses, and so on) for access to ArcGIS will be in place.)

This third edition is meant to educate a wider group than the first edition. The subtitle—A Workbook Approach to Learning GIS—is intended to convey that the book has been specifically revamped for community college and technical institute courses, where almost all students can become proficient with many ArcGIS software abilities in a single semester.

The combination theory-workbook approach is designed to bring the reader from GIS neophyte to well-informed GIS user—from both a general knowledge and practical viewpoint—in a single semester or, used by an individual outside of class, in about 60 hours of self-study.

It is appropriate to repeat some ideas and warnings from the First Edition Preface:

Do not use any of the sample databases on the DVD for anything other than tutorial purposes. Many of the data sets are not current. Many have been modified for instructional purposes. Some of it is totally bogus.

Exercise 5–8 is a cooperative exercise for eight to twenty-four students. Preparation and management on the part of the instructor is a really good idea. Information on the book’s companion website at

www.wiley.com/go/kennedygis

can help.

If you, as an instructor, are quite sure that your students will not need more than the most basic knowledge about coverages and shapefiles, you can have them skip considerable portions of Chapter 4. You should perhaps read those sections and, if needed, supplement the student’s knowledge of the concepts that apply to geodatabases.

If you serve ArcGIS, or even just its license manager, over a network, you should thoroughly test the process. Also, in Chapter 8, the unsupported CellTool is used. Students may not be able to install it, so someone from network services may have to be involved.

Students learn the software at their own pace, pretty much regardless of what the instructor does. They learn by doing, and paying attention to and recording what they are doing. As the text proceeds, the sophistication required to operate the software increases. For students who aren’t paying attention, the exercises will get harder and harder because it is expected that they will learn (or be able to quickly find in their Fast Facts Files (see next paragraph) how to perform operations that they have performed before. Careful explanation of basic procedures (e.g., finding the properties of something), which is extensive at the beginning of the book, is reduced gradually but considerably as the text unfolds. Warn your students about this: The handholding diminishes as the chapter numbers increase.

Students are asked to develop a Fast Facts File in which they record what it is they have learned about the software. This is a computer file that they keep open during their work sessions, both for adding new material and ascertaining how to do a particular procedure that they have used previously but cannot remember. They periodically revise and augment this file. Then, at the end of the course, they have their own reference manual for the software. I have used this technique for some years now, and it pays dividends. Some students who have graduated and now work in the GIS field tell me they take their Fast Facts File with them and maintain it in their new positions. One failure of other workbooks and web-based courses is that, while students can go through the exercises and even pass a test at the end, they simply cannot operate the software when handed a new exercise. Now with twelve-plus years of teaching GIS with the Overview-Step method behind me, insisting that students make a Fast Facts File to provide themselves a guide through the very complex GIS software, I’m convinced that the not-always-popular-with-the-students Fast Facts File is more than worth the trouble.

One way this book has been used is in a two-semester course sequence for advanced students with an intensive theory text (e.g., Longley, Goodchild, Maguire, Rhind) using

Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS

—A

Workbook Approach

providing the needed practical experience.

I don’t know if it’s me, the students of today, the multi-media culture, or something else, but I find the traditional lecture to be less and less useful. Lately I have confined my lectures, which I keep short, to those topics that seem to give some students trouble conceptually. My teaching environment has not been an easy one; it has usually involved a mixture of civil engineering graduate students, geography sophomores, and students from other departments (29 such departments as of this writing.) Given the varied computer experience and maturity of students in such a diverse group, I find that an environment in which students work from the text at their own pace, with reasonable deadlines and the opportunity to ask questions individually, seems to work best.

Instructors who want answers to exercises: please write to me on school, college, or university letterhead and just ask.

Michael KennedyDepartment of GeographyPatterson Office Tower 817University of KentuckyLexington, KY 40506-0027

Or obtain the answers from the Instructor Companion website at www.wiley.com/go/kennedygis

For those who want to provide comments, criticisms, corrections (many thanks), or complaints: email me at [email protected].

Acknowledgments for the Third Edition

For both the second and third editions, I must foremost thank my son, Alexander Kennedy, who edited the manuscript and worked all the exercises twice, using ArcGIS Desktop 10.0. No less a contribution was made by my daughter, Heather Kennedy, who also contributed to the editing and who developed the images on the cover from figures in the book itself.

I want again to thank

Jack Dangermond, President of Esri, for his encouragement and for writing the Foreword.

Michael F. Goodchild, Professor Emeritus, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, for contributing the Afterword on GIScience.

Clint Brown, Director of Software Products for Esri, for his quick decision regarding an administrative problem that occurred during the development of the text, and Ashley Pengelly and AjmalYourish for their on-the-spot help for solving said problem.

Ken Bates, extension specialist with Kentucky State University and unquestioned GIS expert, for his willingness to be the answer man for complex ArcGIS problems and as the source of the Internet map publishing section.

Demetrio Zourarakis of the Division of Geographic Information, Kentucky Commonwealth Office of Technology for yet another dataset Kentucky-wide land cover data.

Joseph Kerski, Esri Education Manager, for his continuing support and embarrassingly complementary tweet regarding the book,

Damian and Meena Spangrud, and Mike Hogan, who helped with respect to the 10.0 and 10.1 Esri Beta programs.

Folks with the Esri Support and Customer Service teams:

Allan R, Archana G, Barbara S, Boro O, Cassandra L, Charles F, Don G, Harshal S, Hashad D, Joy S, Kailai, Michelle B, Prasanta B, Radaha K, Stacey M, Sunil P, Tarun J, Timothy H, Vijay P, and a couple of others whose names have escaped me.

Gretchen Gallegos, with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who fought her way through an early version of the third edition, both to help me and to become more proficient with GIS.

The Lexington Herald Leader for the photograph of the water filtration facility on the Kentucky River.

And finally, Bob Argentieri and Dan Magers—my editors at John Wiley and Sons—who had to put up with a number issues beyond the normal problems in dealing with authors, and were assisted therein by Bob Hilbert, who managed production, and David Riedy who put the cover together with images from the book, after several iterations and challenges created by yours truly.

Acknowledgments for the Second Edition

Great thanks are due to Mr. Mike Richie, Owner and President of Photo Science (which is among the most comprehensive aerial remote sensing firms in the United States, www.photoscience.com) for the special effort in providing the LIDAR data for the second edition of the book.

The author is indebted (for help with the second edition) to Ms. Ryan Bowe, who read the text and worked all the exercises twice. She is a remarkably good editor, and her detailed knowledge of ArcGIS was invaluable.

Much appreciation is owed to staff and teaching assistants at the University of Kentucky:

Chris Blackden, Sarah McCormack, Amanda Corder, Priyanka Ghosh, and Tim Guenther

Thanks also go to several people who taught with previous editions of the text in their classes and provided feedback: Brad Baldwin, Lee De Cola, James W. Craine, Charla Gaskins, Richard A. Lent, Mark MacKenzie, Jack Mills, Emmanuel U. Nzewi, Thomas Orf, Jim Pimpernell, Brian Scully, Anne Stearns, Fred Sunderman, Raymond Tubby, and Christopher Urban.

1 If this text is used in a classroom/laboratory setting, this preface is for the instructor and may be skipped by students. If you are using the book to learn GIS on your own you should probably read it.

2 Some coverages are still used as data as part of exercises, but primarily to let the student know that such objects still exist and that a lot of data still resides in them.

3 I want to emphasize, however, that everyone should take the time to read the Afterword by Dr. Michael Goodchild on GIScience at the end of the book, which will be critical for the effective use of GIS in the coming years.

Preface

to the First Edition1

The purpose of Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS is threefold.

1. To acquaint the reader with the central concepts of GIS and with those topics that are required to understand spatial information analysis.

2. To provide the person who works the exercises either (a) a considerable ability to operate important tools in the ArcGIS software or (b) a demonstration of other capabilities of the software.

3. To lay a basis for the reader to go on to the advanced study of GIS or to the study of the newly emerging field of GIScience, which might be described as the scientific examination of the technology of GIS and the fundamental questions raised by GIS.

Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS is meant to serve as a text book for a standard one-semester course. It is suitable for a university, college, technical school, or advanced high school course, meeting for three hours per week. Between two and five additional hours per week are required for laboratory work, depending on the capabilities and computer experience of the students. The text may also be used for self-study.

The book, and any course taught from it, depend on having ESRI’s ArcGIS Desktop and Workstation software, version 9.0, 9.1, or higher, available. The assumption is that the students will have access to full the ArcInfo package offered to colleges and universities under the generous site license agreement that ESRI offers to educational institutions. For more information about this program, point your browser at: http://www.esri.com/industries/university/education/faqs.html. However, if ArcInfo is not available, many of the exercises can be done with the ArcView level of ArcGIS, available to students with a free, one-year license.