In Class Exercise: Projections - CHRISTINA FRIEDLE



1 Lab 5: Visualization of Geographic Data

Introduction

This will introduce you to GIS techniques for symbolizing, classifying, and the visualization of your geographic data, as well as map layout.

Instructions

Read Chapter 4 of GIS Concepts and ArcGIS Methods and answer the questions in Part I. Continue with the tutorial exercises in Part II, III, & IV.

Deliverables

Answer the following questions and produce the following outputs. It should be typed, well organized, and following the ‘How To’ guidelines for submission.

PART I

1. What are the three responsibilities of a cartographer?

2. What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative data?

3. Give an example of a thematic map.

4. What do Feature Maps emphasize? Do they use attribute values?

5. What do isoline maps represent?

6. Typically when using unique values for category maps, what is the ideal number of values so people can easily distinguish between different categories?

7. What are the 4 different display methods for quantitative data?

8. When should you portray your data as a density v. raw?

9. What does ‘normalizing’ your data mean?

10. When classifying your data, you should use between 3-10 classes. Explain why.

11. Briefly explain the difference between the 6 standard types of classifications.

12. What consideration should you make when deciding which classification type to use?

13. What is a histogram and when would you use it?

14. When displaying quantitative data, the higher values should be lighter or darker?

15. When would you use a monochromatic v. dichromatic color ramp?

16. What is the difference between graduated and proportional symbols?

17. Why are dot density maps deceiving?

18. Explain how you could use the scale range and group layer tools.

19. What is the difference between dynamic labels and annotation?

20. What are the typical map elements? What view do you need to be in to insert them onto your map?

PART II: Classifications

Quantitative data displayed in a GIS is usually grouped into classes. A number of standard methods are available for you to choose from, but each method can result in very different maps.  

▪ To start, download the Lab 5 data from the course website. Extract the files to a local drive on your computer. In the ‘PartII’ folder open the map (Do not open a blank map and add data!) USPop.mxd.

▪ You will see a map of the United States showing population density by state. Different standard methods have been used to divide the data into 5 classes.

1. Look at the layer that maps total population, not population normalized by area (density map). How does this map differ from the population density map for the same classification method (natural breaks)? What are the advantages/disadvantages of mapping total population compared to mapping population density?

2. Look at the layers that show the three classifications of population density by county. Which classification method do you think works best for displaying the county data? Explain why.

3. Finally, look at the calculated population density layer. How does this map differ from the others you have looked at in this exercise? Do you think it is better or worse for showing population density. Explain.

 

PART III: Creating & Designing a Map

FIRST, A REMINDER: SAVE YOUR WORK OFTEN!!!

In the lab data you will find a ‘PartIII’ folder with all the files for this part of the lab.

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You are going to recreate this map starting with the .mxd Alabama and the shapefiles that are included in the PartIII folder. This part of the lab is intended to familiarize you with the tools in ArcMap to label and symbolize data and layout maps. I want you to spend time during each step of the way to explore all the possibilities and options for changing labels and symbols.

Labeling and Symbolizing Data:

• Start by opening the .jpg map, Alabama Cancer Rates and Agriculture, to see what your final product will look like (use a picture viewer program, such as Windows Picture Viewer).

• Open the Alabama.mxd in ArcMap. There should be 2 data frames (1. Alabama Reference & 2. Cancer & Farms). Each data frame has three data sets.

• We will start with the ‘Alabama Reference’ map. To activate the data frame, right-click on ‘Alabama Reference’ in the table of contents and scroll down to activate.

• Notice that there are more cities visible in the cities shapefile than are shown on the final version of the map. You will only show the 5 largest cities in Alabama.

• Go to the cities properties and click on the symbology tab. On the right hand side click on categories, Unique Values.

• Find the “Value Field’ menu and select ‘Name’

• Using the ‘Add Values’ tab, select the 5 largest cities in Alabama (Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Mobile, Montgomery, and Huntsville). If one or more of the cities are not present in the list, click on ‘Complete List’ and search again.

• Uncheck the box under ‘.’ This makes all features invisible that are not included in your list of values.

Selecting Feature to Symbolize through Unique Values

This tool is used to only represent a selection of features from a data set. It does not eliminate them in any way other than for visual representation. It is a helpful tool for cartographic purposes and keeping unnecessary data out of your map presenation.

• Next you need to change the symbol for the five cities. Click on the Symbol tab (red arrow in above image) and choose ‘Properties for all symbols.’ Here you can change the symbol, size, and color for these features. For Cities you want: Circle 3, Seville Orange, size 8. When finished, click OK.

• You will add the labels to the cities using “interactive labels” which is done in the map layout view. We will come back to this part later.

• Go to the symbology tab for Highways. This time all the features are going to be on the map and symbolized the same way. Using the ‘Single Symbol’ option, symbolize all highways in: Autunite Yellow, width =1.

Adding Dynamic Labels

This allows you to turn on Labels for a layer automatically. This method is not as flexible as interactive labels, but it is quick and easy. To turn on dynamic labels, you can either right-click on the layer and click on Label Features or go to the Label tab under layer properties.

• Turn on the dynamic labels for highways layer and go to the Label tab under properties.

• Under Method, go to ‘Define Features of classes and label each class differently’ (shown below). Notice on the final map that only a few of the interstates are shown. By defining classes for labels, you can write a query (we will learn more about these in Lab 6) to label features differently on the map. You are going to use this tool to choose only the few features you want labeled: Interstates 65, 20, 59, 10 & 85.

• A new section will appear in the wizard (shown in image below), ‘Class.’ Click on SQL Query and in the Query window type in the query, "NAME" in ('10', '20', '59', '65', '85'). It is important to write the query exactly as written here. Click on “verify” to make sure that the query expression was written correctly. Click OK.

• Make sure the box, “label features in this class” is checked and Click Apply. Only the 5 interstates you indicated should be shown on your map.

 

• Next we will get them to have the appropriate Interstate symbol shown on the final map. Under the ‘Text Symbol’ section, Click on Symbol and scroll down until you see the Interstate symbol shown below. Change the size to 7 and click OK.

• Why are they oriented in every direction?? We are very close to making it look right. Under the section in the Label tab called, ‘Other Options’ choose Placement Properties. Set the Orientation to Horizontal, and under the Duplicate Labels, choose ‘Place One label per feature.’ Click OK. In the Labels tab, Click OK.

• Your Highways labels are now complete!

• Next to symbolize Counties, go to the symbology tab for the Counties layer and symbolize all the features the same way (Using ‘Single Symbol’). Symbolize using: Fill with Gray 70%, outline with Gray 50%, Width = .40.

• This completes the symbols and labels for the Alabama Reference data frame, for now.

• Activate ‘Cancer & Farms’ data frame. Turn off the Rural layer and make sure that Farms layer is above Cancer in the table of contents.

• Go to the Cancer layer Symbology tab under Properties. We want to represent the Rate of Cancer deaths per county. To do this we are going to have to ‘normalize’ the cancer deaths by the Total Population of each county.

Normalizing Data

Sometimes raw data can be misleading. For example if you are looking at population of states it would be no surprise that Texas has a greater population than Rhode Island, because it has a much greater area for people to reside. It is hard to compare population between the two states if you do not consider size. In this example, it would be more appropriate to map Population Density, which normalizes raw population data by size (state area).

• Click on ‘Graduated colors’ under Quantities.

• Under the ‘Fields’ box set the ‘value’ to the attribute field, ‘CaDeaths’ (cancer deaths) and set the ‘normalization’ field to ‘TotalPop05’ (total population 2005). Setting these fields allows you to represent ‘Cancer death per population’ or cancer death density (I know not the happiest thing to think about).

• Using Natural Breaks create 5 classes. Change the color ramp to the shades of green shown in screen shot above and click OK.

• We want to look at the relationship of Cancer deaths and the density of farms by county, to see the relationship of agriculture and cancer. Overlaying the two layers can provide a clear picture of the two. We will use Dot Density to represent the farm data.

• Open the attribute table to the Farms layer – find the column ‘Farms.’ This represents the number of farms located in each county.

• Go to the Symbology Tab of the farm layer. Using the ‘Dot Density’ option under quantities, click on the “Farms’ attribute in the ‘Field Selection’ and click on the arrow so that Farms appears in the box to the left.

• Click on symbol to change the shape (circle), color (electron gold) and size (4).

• Under the ‘Densities’ section, change the ‘dot value’ to 20. This means that each dot on the map will represent 20 farms.

• Check to make sure that the background color is set to ‘no color’

• Dot Density maps randomly place dot throughout the counties, but farms are typically only located in rural areas. You are going to tell ArcMap to only place the dots in the Rural areas (designated in the Rural shapefile on your .mxd).

• Under the symbology tab, in the bottom right corner next to background, click on properties. Under Masking, check the Use Masking box and select the Rural layer as your control to place dots only in those areas. Click OK twice.

Map Layout:

• Switch to Layout View.

• Go to Page and Print Setup (under the File menu) and set the page to Landscape, 8.5 x 11.

• The first thing we will do is set Guides so that we can ‘snap’ our data frames to certain locations. To create a guide, see notes below.

• Place guides at .2 inches from each side of the page. Additionally, place guides Horizontally (on the left side ruler) at: .5” and 7.2”, and Vertically (on the top ruler) at 5.5”

Guides

You set a guide by going to the ruler at the top and side of the layout view frame and click. A cyan guide will appear with a white arrow over the ruler. If you place the cursor over the white arrow, you can move the guide. To clear a guide, right click on the white arrow and go to Clear Guide.

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• Arrange the data frames so that they are sitting .5” from the bottom and at the 7.2” guide (left-hand ruler). Extend the sides 0.2 from the edge and to the 5.5” guide (upper ruler) in the middle of the page.

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• Change the scale in both data frames to 1:3,500,000 using the scale menu (shown below).

• To Change the background color & border of the map, go to the Frame tab under the Data Frame properties for the ‘Alabama Reference’ Data frame.

• Change the Background to Gray 40% and select no border. Repeat the same steps for the ‘Cancer & Farms’ data frame.

Adding City Labels

• The labels for the cities still need to be added. Start by following the same steps to ‘Define Features of classes and label each class differently’, as you did with Interstates. Write an SQL query to label the 5 cities shown on the map. The query is written out in the screen shot below. After writing the query, click OK.

• Under the ‘Symbol’ tab, change the labels to be in Georgia (font), 10 (Size), White (color) and 20 (character spacing). Click OK.

• Right-click on the Cities layer and go to ‘Convert Labels to Annotation.’ This converts the labels from Dynamic labels to Annotation (Interactive labels).

• In the wizard, ‘Store Annotation’ in the map. Click Convert.

• Move the individual labels around to match the placement in the Final Map. To do this, double click on the data frame. Once you see the striped box (see image below) you are able to click on the annotation to move it around.

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Converting labels to Annotation

Using annotation allows you to have more control over where a label is placed on the map. Once converted into annotation (text), there is no way to ‘undo’ this function, so it is best to do this towards the end of your labeling work. Text stored as annotation is editable, which means you can select each individual label and move it on the map as well as change the display properties. There are benefits to using annotation as opposed to adding a text box:

- If you move a feature, the annotation for that feature moves with it

- If you delete a feature, the annotation is also deleted

- If you change an attribute of a feature on which the annotation text is based, the annotation text changes.

Adding Legend, title bar, subtitle, North Arrow, and Scale bar

• Following the Insert Menu links, add the following:

• Title: Georgia (font) 30 (size), Black (color), Bold

• Subtitle: Georgia (font) 20 (size), Black (color), Italics (Insert>Text)

• North Arrow: ESRI North Arrow 59

• Scale bar: Alternating Scale Bar 1 (default), Gray 80% (color), Miles (units), Perpetua (font) 10 (font size)

Adding Text

• You can add text a few ways - one way is from the Insert Menu. You can also use the Draw toolbar, typically on the bottom of the screen. If it is not on your screen go to Customize>Toolbars>Draw and make sure it is checked. Use the ‘New Rectangle Text’ tool (highlighted below) to add text for the following map elements:

• Data Sources: Georgia (font) 10 (size), Black (color)

• Your Name: Georgia (font) 10 (size), Black (color)

• The ‘New Rectangle Text’ tool will, by default, have a black frame. Right -click on the text box and go to properties. Under the ‘Frame’ tab, click on the Border drop down menu and set it to ‘none.’

• Be sure to type YOUR NAME (not mine) in the “Created by …..” text box.

• Use the guides that you created earlier in the lab to line up all the map elements as shown on the final ‘Alabama Cancer Rates and Agriculture’ map.

Adding Picture:

• To Add a picture to your map layout, use the Insert Menu (shown above).

• Add the cotton.jpg that is in your Alabama folder.

• Resize the image and place in the appropriate location on your map layout.

Adding a legend:

• To add a legend, ‘Activate’ the Cancer & Farms data frame and go to the Insert Menu (shown above)>Legend.

• Using the Legend Wizard, add the necessary layers to the legend (Cancer, Farms) and continue through the wizard. Delete the word “Legend” in the Legend Title. Continue with the defaults for the remainder.

• After the legend is added, you can change the font and style of the legend. To do this, right-click on the legend and go to properties.

• Under the ‘Items’ tab, click on Style and change to ‘Horizontal Single Symbol Label Only’

• Under the ‘Items’ tab, click on Symbol and change the display properties to: Georgia (font) 10 (Size), Black (color)

• Change the title of the layers in the legend you must change the name in the table of contents. Soft click on the layers to change the names to match the final Alabama Cancer Rates & Agriculture map.

Adding Graphic for Title and Subtitle Background:

• To add a graphic shape, go to the drawing toolbar located on the bottom of the screen by the three lower tabs on the table of contents.

• Click on the rectangle and a cursor will appear which allows you to draw a rectangle. Draw a rectangle in the area covering the title and subtitle.

• Snap the edges into the guidelines you created earlier, above the two map data frames.

• Right-click on the rectangle and go to properties.

• Under the Symbol tab, change the ‘Fill Color’ to Olivine Yellow, and the ‘Outline Color’ to No Color.

• If the Title and subtitle are ‘hidden’ or blocked by the rectangle, right-click on the rectangle, scroll down to Order>Send to back

Double-check your map to make sure it looks identical to the Final Map I provided (with the exception of your name). Export the map as a .jpg and insert into your lab document.

PART IV: Map Layout

Multnomah County Map – BRING A COLOR PRINT OUT TO CLASS ON Monday November 21 (in addition to submitting it with your Lab 5)

Make a presentation quality map using the datasets in the PartIV folder in the Lab5 data. You DO NOT have to use every dataset that is posted – I provided a variety so that you would have some options. Below is a list of considerations you should make when creating a presentation quality map:

- Your map purpose and medium, considering audience, viewing distance, color quality

- Linking your map layout to map purpose, using visual hierarchy, editing design elements, and selecting map projections

- Planning a layout, balancing empty spaces, refining alignments in layout, and valuing experimentation and critique

- Choosing appropriate export options

(Brewer, Cynthia A., Designing Better Maps)

Follow the guidelines below for your map:

- Choose a geographic area (i.e. whole county, neighborhood, eastside, etc.)

- Use as many datasets as necessary to convey your purpose

- Consider and include (if necessary) a north arrow, title, legend, appropriate labeling/symbols, data source, and your name

- Specify size: 8.5x11 or 11x17

- Specify: B&W or Color

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