Flow Line Mapping Module 10

Migration into the U.S. 2007

This lab required me to create a flow line map, like those nice and pretty ones you see on the news stations. To decided the how wide the lines should be I first choose how large the largest line would be and the rest are proportional to the first. When creating a flow line map the lines must not cover any of the map area. That is the toughest part of a map such as this. To add a little flare to the map I also made the slow lines 3D and added some shading to them.

Vector Analysis 2 Module 10

Desoto National Forest Possible Camping Sites

In this weeks lab I performed buffering, dissolve, and overlay. Buffers and overlay are two of the most common operations in GIS. A buffer is a area that is x amount of distance away from a map feature. With buffers you can choose different areas to buffer based on the map feature. You can also apply multiple buffers to the same feature to create a range ring around the feature.

With the above map I was given the vector data and requires to create buffers around the lakes, roads, and rivers. These features were then overlaid with the conservation area file. The conservation areas I am not allowed to camp in, the areas of the conservation area that overlapped my buffers were then removed from the map. The buffers that I created were 500 meters of a river, 300 meters of a road, and 150 meters of a lake. Since I was only given the vector data I added a base map that allowed to see that this campsite was was in the Desoto National Forest.

Isarithmic Mapping Module 9

This week I learned about Isarithmic Maps. Isarithmic maps are also known as contour maps or isopleth maps depict smooth continuous phenomena such as precipitation or elevation. Each line-bounded area on this type of map represents a region with the same value. For example, on an elevation map, each elevation line indicates an area at the listed elevation. 

On Both maps I added contour lines to help delineate were the values changed for each step. To create the contour lines I used the spatial analysis tool.

GIS Data Search Module 7 and 8

In this exercise, I comprehensively mapped one county in Florida. I acquired and format data, then create one or several maps to display those data. To bring all these feature into map projects, I explored both the LABINS,USGS,and FGDL web sites.  These sites contained all the data files I needed to complete this project.

Choropleth Mapping Module 7

In this lab, I produced two choropleth maps showing population change in the United States of America. I used census data to illustrate the percent population change of each state for the period of April 1, 1990 to April 1, 2000. I used both ArcGIS and Adobe Illustrator to complete this assignment. 

A choropleth map is a thematic map in which enumeration units are shaded with an intensity proportional to the data values associated with those units.

The first map displayed population change percentage at the State Level. I used the Natural break method for the first map to split of the data. For this map I selected a light to dark khaki color ramp to show the change.

The second map will display population change at the level of U.S. Census Divisions.

On the second map I manually created the breaks into even divisions.

Data Classification Module 6

In this lab I explored the different ways that data can be displayed within ArcGIS. I displayed Equal Interval, Quantile, Standard Deviation, and Natural Break. This map displays the natural break. I choose this because it most accurately depicts the population of Escambia county. 

Projections Part 2/Data Search Module 6

Week 6! This was a rough week, not everything went as planned in this lab. There were a few steps that I could not get due to user error or computer error. I tried all the trouble shooting that we had in the discussions post as well as with an instructor through email. Anyways this week I set out to find the information that I needed for the lab rather than the instructor spoon feed it to me. I visited LABINS and FGDL to gather data sets that were needed for the lab. After acquiring the data it had to be reprojected so that all the sets matched and projected on top of each other. This is where I ran into issues, no matter what I tried nothing seemed to work. So I moved on and used ArcGIS's on the fly projections to finish the lab and create the map above.