Introduction to Arc Map

Introduction Topics What is ArcMap, open an existing map, explore a Map Document, data and layout view, Arc toolbox, select features, symbolize data, create data and getting help. Introduction You will explore ArcMap to understand how it is used in the ArcGIS environment, and you will practise its basic functions.

Why use ArcMap? ArcMap is ArcGIS’s desktop application for all map-based tasks, like data and map analysis, editing and production of maps. In ArcMap, a user can display data, make selections, analyse data, manipulate data, create data, assign symbols and produce maps. ArcMap also serves as gateway to a number of software extensions that perform specific tasks and analyses (extensions will be discussed later in the course).

How to learn ArcMap? Since ArcMap is used to perform most of the GIS operations, it requires more than one exercise to be understood! But you do not have to master all the functions and processes available for the first results. The purpose of this exercise is to guide your first steps through the basic functionalities of ArcMap, and to show you how you can create a map document, change the representation of a map and explore map data. Most of the remaining exercises will introduce additional features of ArcMap. But even then, the course will have covered only a portion of all functions available. To learn more about ArcMap, you can use the ArcMap Online Help System. It is available at any time, and directly accessible via the ArcMap user interface (see chapter 2.4).

2.2 ArcMap basics

2.2.1 ArcMap Documents: Start ArcMap and open an existing map document

• From the task bar, select All Programs, ArcGis, ArcMap.

• Start ArcMap with an existing map.

• Browse for maps and open “india.mxd” , to be found on your personal drive in the folder “Exercise2”

What is a Map Document?

• A Map Document stores a representation (map, graph, table) and the references to the location of the geodata sources displayed.

• When you open a Map Document in ArcMap, it will find the associated geodata sets by following the links that are stored in the document, and display the data using the symbolic representation defined in the Map Document itself.

• When you save a Map Document, ArcMap will create a link to all the geodata displayed, and will save the current representation of the data.

The Map Window The large window that currently displays the simplified map of the province of Overijssel is called the Map Window (Fig. 2.1). Any geographic representation of your data will be displayed in the Map Window. You can change its size by clicking and dragging the border between the Table of Contents (see next section) and the Map Window.

The Table of Contents The smaller window on the left side is the Table of Contents (Fig. 2.1). It shows:

• The geodata sets that loaded in your Map Document. In the Table of Contents, data are organised in layers. Generally, layers represent a particular type of data,

Fig. 2.1: The opened mapDocument in

ArcMap

Table of Contents

Map Window

such as lakes, districts, roads etc. The check box next to each layer indicates whether or not a layer is represented in the map. If the box is checked, the layer is visible; if un-checked, the layer is hidden.

• The legend used to display the features of a layer in the map.You can change the

size of the Table of Contents window by clicking and dragging the border between the Table of Contents and the Map Window.

Toolbars and Menus Toolbars and Menus give organised access to functions, commands and tools that include all the actions related to specific tasks. The first time that you open ArcMap, it displays the Main Menu, the Standard toolbar, and a floating window with the Tools toolbar.

! You can arrange the way toolbars are displayed in ArcMap: let them “float” as

independent small windows, or anchor them to ArcMap’s main window. Anchor the Tools toolbars to the main windows:

• Point to the Title Bar of the Tools floating window

•

• Click and hold the left mouse button, and drag the window to the upper edge of the main window of ArcMap

• ArcMap has more toolbars than the ones that are displayed by default (like ArcCatalog); and each toolbar can be made visible, if you wish, via the menu View / Toolbars or via the Customize… dialog box under the Tools menu: a check mark next to the toolbar name indicates that it is visible. Show the toolbars needed for this exercise:

• In the main menu click: View and point to Toolbars

• In the list of toolbars, check or uncheck the checkbox next to a name and observe what happens to the toolbar.

• Finally, make sure that the toolbars “Main Menu”, “Standard”, “Tools” and “Layout” are checked.

2.2.2 Changing the view on the area displayed There are various ways to change to view on the area displayed in the Map Window. For instance, you can zoom, pan, or display the map at a specific scale: Zoom in or out

• Locate and click the Zoom Out button on the Tools toolbar

• Move the mouse pointer over the map and click once. The map will be redisplayed at a smaller scale centred around the point where you clicked.

• Now select the Zoom In button in the Tools toolbar

• Move the mouse pointer over the map and click once to zoom-in around a selected point.

• You can also click and drag a rectangle to define the area you want to zoom to. Try this other method also.

• The scroll wheel of the mouse can also be used for zooming. Panning

• Click the Pan button on the Tools toolbar

• Move the mouse pointer over the map; click and drag the pointer to move the map Zoom to the full extent of the data

• Click the Full Extent button in the Tools toolbar.

• The map zooms to the full extent; the whole maps area will be displayed. Move to the previous display The Back Extent button allows you to move back to your previous

zoom settings. You can move forward again using the Forward Extend button Zoom to a specific map scale

• In the Standard toolbar, the Map Scale tool allows you to specify the scale of the map on the screen. Type the desired scale in the text box (in this case type: 1:100000) and then press Enter.

• Display the map at some other scales.

• If finished, zoom to Full Extent. Notice that the value in the Map Scale tool also changes.

2.2.3 Data view and layout view

There are two ways to view a map: in Data view and in Layout view. ? Data view is used to display, explore, select and analyse data. You will use this view most of the time to analyse or model your data in ArcMap. ? Layout view is used to prepare the final layout of a map for dissemination or printing. The size of the page can be specified in the page set-up. You can add all the items that complete your map (like title, legend, text, scale bars, north arrow etc.), colour the background and move the items around to design a balanced layout.

Switching from Data view to Layout view:

? Select the Layout View option from the View menu ? Alternatively, click the Layout View in the toolbar at the bottom of the Map window. ? Note that you can always switch back to Data View, using the Data View option. In the Layout View, the orientation of the page is by default ‘Portrait’. Youcan change the orientation as well as other characteristics of the page.

• Open the File menu, click Page and Print Setup…

• In the popup window, click on the checkbox ‘Use Printer Paper Settings’ to ensure that what you see on the screen matches what you will see if you print the map.

• Click on the radio button Landscape in the Paper characteristics area.

• Click on OK . The orientation of the page in the layout view will change to landscape.

! Although the page has switched to landscape, you still have a “portrait” box around your map. The box represents the Data Frame, the area of your sheet that is reserved to display map elements. You can select the Data Frame box, resize it and move it anywhere you like on the page. Remember that the Layout View displays your map exactly how it would appear on paper when printed. If you resize and/or move the Data Frame, leave enough space on the page for elements like the title, legend, scalebar, north arrow,etc). Switch back to Data View

• Open the View menu and click Data View (or click on the DataView button in the toolbar at the bottom of the Map Window).

2.2.4 The Table of Contents The Table of Contents provides information on the content of your map and the symbols used to represent it. The Table of Contents also enables you to change content and representation of your map. You have seen that the data is organized in layers: the current map has 6 layers: villages, roads, major cities, lakes, land, municipalities. Managing layer properties and characteristics When you right-click on the name of a layer, a popup menu shows the options available to manage individual layers.

• Right-click on the name of the Lakes layer to show the various options.

Most of the options that you see will be introduced later in the course. Layers are drawn on top of each other. The sequence is defined by the order of layers in the Table of Contents: starting from the layer at the bottom and ending with the layer at the top. Layers that are drawn later may hide features of previously drawn layers. It may be necessary to re-arrange the sequence of layers to see all the features that you want in your map. Change the order of layer display

• In the Table of Contents, click and hold on the name of the layerLand and drag it to the top position of the table of contents.

The Land layer now hides all other layers, because it is now drawn on top of the others.

• Drag the Land layer to its original position between Lakes and Municipalities.

! To display all the layers of a data set effectively, use the following order (from top to bottom): points, lines, areas. Turn on/off the visualization of a layer

• In the table of content, click in the box next to a layer’s name to uncheck it. The data is still available, but not shown in the display.

• Click the checkbox to switch the visualization of the layer back on.

• Switch off the visualization of the Land layer and make sure that the visualization of the Municipalities layer is switched on. You see that the Municipalities layer was hidden by the Land layer.

2.2.5 Explore the data in your map The data cannot always be explored simply by looking at a map. If you need information about specific features, examine the attributes of a layer. Identify features

• Click the Identify button on the Tools toolbar

• In the map window, click on a feature (e.g. the lake) to view information about it.

By default, the Identify Results window displays the information derived from the attribute table of the top layer in the map. If you click on a road in the lake, you will get information about the road, not about the lake, because the Road layer is placed on top of the Lakes layer.

• In the Identify Results window, you can change the layer to get information from by clicking the Layers dropdown arrow and se lecting: Visible layers to get information of all visible layers, or

select a specific layer to get information from. Try this.

• After identifying features, close the Identify window.

View all the attributes of the data in a layer

• In the table of contents, right-click on Major Cities to show the Options menu and click Open Attribute Table. The attribute table opens, 18 records are listed. Attributes of the records are: a unique FID (feature identification) number, geometry (polygon, line or point), ID number, and the name of each record (name of major city).

• Close the attribute table and open attribute tables of some other layers to see their attributes.

View the properties of a layer

• In the table of contents, double-click on the name of a layer or right-click on the layer’s name and click Properties. The layer properties window will be opened.

• In this dialog window you can set a number of properties for the selected layer. Many of these options will be discussed later in the course. Here, only check the information in each of the tabs at the top of the dialog window.

• When finished, press the Cancel button.

View the properties of the data frame. A data frame in ArcMap contains one or more layers; it defines the geographic extent, coordinate system and other display properties of the layers in Arc Map. You can see the name of a data frame displayed at the top in the table of contents. By default, when a map is created, the data frame is called “Layers”, but it can be changed. Data is represented in at least one data frame, or in more than one data frame; you can add data frames to a map, each containing its own set of layers. In the Data View, you can only display one data frame at the time. In the Layout view, however, you can place different data frames at different positions next to each other on a page.

• In the table of contents, right-click on the name of the Data frame: Layers and select Properties, or double-click on the name (layers).

•

• Click the “General” tab: You see that the name of the data frame is called “Layers”. Change this name into “Base map of Overijssel”

• Notice that the map units and display units for this map are Meters.

• Click other tabs to see different kinds of properties. When finished,click OK to close the data frame properties window. In the table of contents you see that the name of the data frame has been changed to “Base map of india_st"

Interactive selection

• In the main menu, click Selection , then Set Selectable Layers…

• In the dialog window that opens, switch off all the layers except the Major cities layer. Then close the dialog window.

• Click the Select Features tool.

• Click on the feature that you want to select in the map. Notice that you can only select from Major cities. A feature’s outline turns to light blue when it is selected.

• Try to select another feature. If you click on another Major city, this last one will be selected (highlighted with a light blue outline), the previously selected feature will revert to non-selected state. If you click at a location where no features are present, the previously selected feature will be deselected, and no features will be highlighted anymore.

• If you want to add features to your selection, hold down the Shift key of your keyboard while clicking on several features.

• Try to select some features in other layers by changing the selectable layer, then make selections.

Interactive selection of records in an attribute table

• In the table of contents, right-click the layer Major cities and click Open Attribute table.

• Select a feature in the table by clicking in the grey box left of a record. As you can see the selection is highlighted, both in the table and in the map.

• To select additional features, hold down the Ctrl key of your keyboard and click left of records in the attribute table.

• If you want to deselect one of the selected features, click on its record while holding the Ctrl key pressed. Deselecting features

• To deselect all features at once from all layers that have an active selection, you can use the Clear Selected Features option in the Selection menu. Selecting features by searching them with an expression.

• From the main menu, point to Selections and click Select by attributes. Click the layer dropdown arrow to select the layer Major cities

• Click the method drop down arrow and click Create a new selection.

• Double-click the field: “Place_Name”, then, click the = sign, after that,click the “get unique values” button and then, double-click a name in the Unique values list.

• Click apply

• The selected city will be shown in the map and the attribute table.

• Close the Select by attributes window, close the attribute tableand de-select the selected feature.

2.2.6 ArcToolbox ArcToolbox is an integrated part of ArcMap and ArcCatalog. You can open the toolboxes like you open a menu. Toolboxes help you to run all kinds of operations on your data, as you will see in this exercise. The functionality of toolboxes goes beyond the functionality of menus, toolboxes:

• give you access to all operations that you can perform in ArcGIS

• enable you to add by yourself

Open the toolboxes

• In your main toolbar, click on the Show/Hide ArcToolbox Window

button.

! You can open the toolboxes in ArcCatalog in a similar way

You will see that ArcToolbox contains several toolboxes, for example: ‘3D Analyst Tools’, ‘Data Management tools’ etc. When you open the ‘Data Management Tools’ toolbox, you will see that it contains many different toolsets that can be further opened to see the tools that are available to you.

• Click on the + sign in front of ‘Data Management tools’ to open the toolbox. You now see the toolsets available in this toolbox

• Click on the + sign in front of the ‘Fields’ toolset to see the tools

Using a tool To use a tool, double click it (or right click on the tool to open the context menu, then select open). A dialog window will open, where you can enter all necessary information to run the tool.

Test this by running the ‘create personal geodatabase’ tool.

Fig 2.3: ArcMap with

toolboxes

visible.

• Go to the ‘Data Management tools’ and open this toolbox.

• Open the ‘Workspace’ toolset

• Double click the ‘Create Personal GDB’ tool to create an Access database.

• Select an output location on your local drive. Use the brows button, or type the location.? Enter a name for you new Geodatabase for example “ToolGDB”

• Click OK

• A progress window appears. Wait until your geodatabase creation is completed, then close the progress dialog.

• Check in ArcCatalog if your new Geodatabase has been created.

Finding tools ArcToolbox contains hundreds of different tools; the exact number depends on your licence (ArcView, ArcEditor, ArcInfo) and extensions (Spatial Analyst, 3D analyst etc.). The large number makes it difficult to find a specific tool, but some support is offered. The toolbox window contains three tabs (Fig. 2.4): favourites, index and search.

• The ‘Favorites’ tab contains all the tools that are available to you.

• The ‘index’ tab allows you to see the tools in alphabetical order and to find tools.

• The “Search” tab has even more search possibilities. It allows you to type in a keyword or a partial name.

Find a tool using the “Index” tab

• Click on the Index tab

• Type the keywords: “Create Per….”, to locate the tool that you have used in the previous task.

Fig 2.4: Tabs on the toolbox

window

• Select the tool and click the ‘Locate’ button. This will bring you to exact location of this tool.

• Locate the following tools in the same way:

- Create feature class - Add field and - Intersect

2.2.7 Save the map document and Close ArcMap

Save the Map document and quit ArcMap

• Save the map (file / save) and quit Arcmap (file / exit)

• ! Note that a saved Map Document does not store the spatial data displayed in it, but only the references to these data! If you rename a dataset, or change the location where it is stored, then the Map Document will not be able to locate the data anymore. The layer will appear in the table of content with an exclamation mark, but it will not be drawn until you have manually located the source data. To prevent this, you can store relative path names (path names without a drive) to data layers (see: File- Properties-Data source option-Store relative path names). Then you can copy a folder containing a Map document and its data files to a different drive without loosing the link between the Map document and the data files.

2.3 Create a new map document from existing data

Data that you can display in a map may come in a variety of formats: vector, raster or tabular data. If the format is supported by ArcMap, you can add the data as a layer to ArcMap. If the format is not supported, you have to convert the data to a format that is supported by ArcMap, e.g. by using the data conversion utilities in ArcToolbox, or other data conversion programs. Data conversion, however, is beyond the scope of these introductory exercises.

2.3.1 Start ArcMap and create a new map Start ArcMap, create a new map and add data to the map:

• Start ArcMap.

• In the Start window, select a new empty map

• Click the Add Data button on the standard toolbar In the “Add data” window, navigate to the Exercise folder on

your local drive.

• Click the layer: Land and click Add. The layer will be added to your map.

• If you add a data layer to a map that has no projection information, a warning (see above) will be displayed and the layer cannot be projected. You can dismiss the warning by clicking OK here. Projections will be treated in a later exercise.

• Add more layers: click the Add Data button, navigate to the same folder. Press and hold down the Control button on your keyboard while you click the layers: Lakes.shp; major cities.shp; roads.shp; municipalities.shp and villages.shp.

• Click Add to add the selected layers to your map.

! If ArcCatalog is opened, you also can add data by dragging the data layer from ArcCatalog to the map display window of ArcMap Removing a data layer from your map:

• Right-click the layer municipalities and click Remove. The layerwill be removed from your map.

Change the display order of the layers:

Fig. 2.5: Warning displayedif you add a layer to a map for which no projection is

defined

Perhaps some layers hide information of other layers.

• Change the display order of one ore more layers in the table of contents until they are all in a correct position. Click the layer that you want to move, keep the mouse button down and drag the layer to a new position.

• Save the map with a new name on your personal drive.

2.3.2 Data symbolization Drawing a layer using a single symbol:

• In the table of contents, double-click the layer villages

• In the Layer properties window, click the symbology tab

• Click Features – Single symbol

• Click the big symbol button to change the symbol characteristics.

• In the symbol selector box, select a symbol from the big window to show the villages. You can also change some properties of the symbol, like colour and size. Try some possibilities.

• After you created your symbol, click Apply. The symbols of the villages in the table of contents and in the map are changed according your specifications.

• To close the layer properties box, click OK.

• Repeat this process for all the other layers.

The option ‘single symbol’ displays all features is a map with the same symbol. E.g. if a single symbol is used for roads, the difference between highways and main roads will not be visible in the map. These unique values can be symbolized separately. Unique values of records in a layer can be found in the layer’s attribute table.

Drawing a layer showing unique values of records in a specific layer:

• In the Value Field drop-down box, select the field “Layer”

•

• Click on Add All Values. You will see a list of the road classes and a color representation of each type of road.

• Switch off the checkbox next to “all other values”, because there are no other values.

•

• Double-click the line symbol of the two road types and change the color and/or symbolization of each road class.

• Click OK when finished, the roads are now shown differently.

• Save the map: File- Save

2.3.3 Label features Labeling is the process of placing a descriptive text string next to one or more features on your map.

Label the major cities with their names:

Fig. 2.6: The Symbology tab of the Layer properties window is used to define

unique symbols.

• Double- click the name of the layer “india_st” to open the properties window and select the tab “Labels”

• Switch on: Label features in this layer.

• Method: Label all features in the same way. Label field: select the attribute field that you can use for the names of the cities. Select “Name”

• Click OK. The labels of the city names will appear in your map.

! To change the default text styles, return to the properties of the major_cities

layer, Label tab. Click the “symbol” button and select a different text style.

2.3.4 Create a map page in layout view

• Define the page set up: File, Page and print set up. From the Page size, select a landscape orientation

• Switch to layout view: View, Layout view

• In the layout view, resize / move the data frame (the box around the map) so that the map fits onto the page.

• In the main window, click Insert Title. Click and type a map title in the Title box that will appear in your layout. (e.g: Map of india). Then press the Enter key on your keyboard. Next, click the title and drag it to an appropriate position on your map.

• Add a north arrow: Click Insert, North Arrow. Select an arrow and drag it to an appropriate position.

• Switch back to Data View .

• Save the map.

To learn more about the Symbolization, refer to the Help menu: Help contents, ArcMap, Symbolizing your data. To learn more about map creation, refer to the Help menu: Help contents, ArcMap, Creating Maps.

2.4 Getting Help

ArcMap provides several ways to help you figure out how to best take advantage of the many functions available. Use the brief descriptions of buttons and menu options When you keep the mouse pointer (without clicking) on a button or a menu option, a brief description of the functions performed by the button or option is displayed in the status bar of the ArcMap window.

• Open a menu and keep the mouse pointer on various options. A brief description is displayed in the lower left corner of the ArcMap window.

• Move the mouse pointer over the buttons in the toolbars. Again, the Status bar displays a brief description.

• Notice that there is also a tooltip displayed in a popup window if you keep the pointer on a button. It displays the button name.

Use “What’s this?” help. The “What’s this?” button provides a quick way to access basic information about buttons, commands, and menu options.

• Click the “What’s this?” button in the Standard toolbar

• Then, click on any button / menu item in the ArcMap program window. A popup window will provide a basic explanation of what the tool does.

• Click anywhere in the ArcMap window to close the popup window.

Use Help menu topics For a more in depth understanding of the commands and principles behind ArcMap (and more in general, all GIS packages), access one of the many resources available in the Help menu. The ArcGIS Desktop Help option allows you to consult the help files.

• Click the Help menu and click ArcGis Desktop Help

• The Contents tab will show the help information, organised in chapters

• The Index tab shows the help topics by key word. In the textbox at the top of the frame you can type a keyword of the subject you are interested in

• The Search allows you to perform free text searches in the help documentation. In the textbox at the top of the frame you can type the words or sentence you are interested in.

Directly from the Help menu, you can access a number of web sites which may help you understand the basics of GIS and of ArcMap.

2.5 Challenges Challenge 1: Try to discover more about ArcMap (as much as you can) using the above listed methods to get Online Help. Challenge 2:Create your own data Create new data files and display the data in ArcMap. You can create new shape files. Other data formats that can be created are feature classes in a Personal Geodatabases (These data formats will be treated in a later exercise). You can add the contents of the created data files to ArcMap. Create new shape files

• Close ArcMap and start ArcCatalog from Windows’ Start taskbar.

• In ArcCatalog, select the folder on your local drive to which you want to add the new data files. (Exercise02)

• Then, from the main menu, click File, New, Shapefile.

• Change the name of the new shapefile into Points, and select Feature Type: Point. Click the OK button

• Repeat the action of creating a new shapefile to create a shapefile named: Lines, feature type: Polyline.

• Repeat the action of creating a new shapefile to create a shapefile named: Polygons, feature type: Polygon.

• Quit ArcCatalog.

Add the shape files to your map:

• Start ArcMap and select a new empty map, or, if ArcMap is still running, select: File, New, from the main menu and select a new blank map document.

• Make sure that the current view is Data view

• Click the Add layers button

• In the Add Data window, browse to your folder where the newly created files are located and Add the three shape files to your map.

• You see the three shape files in the table of contents without data. Draw polygons in the Polygon shape file:To create or modify data in ArcMap, you have to switch on the Editor:

• Click: View – Toolbars and checkmark the Editor toolbar.

• From the editor toolbar, click Editor, Start Editing.

• Select a task from the Task dropdown arrow: Create New Feature

• Select the target layer in which to create the new features: Polygons.

• Click the Sketch Tool button

• Move the mouse pointer to the map area and click to start drawing the polygon. Move the mouse pointer to the next corner of your polygon and click. Continue to create the corners of the polygon.

• To finish the polygon, you have to double-click.

• Make a few more polygons.

• After making the polygons, you have to save them in the Polygons file: Click Editor, Save Edits.

! You saved the data in the Polygons shape file, which is located on your Personal drive. This data file can be added (linked) to any map in ArcMap. Create some lines in the Lines shape file:

• In the editor, select a task from the Task dropdown arrow: Create New Feature

• Select the target layer in which to create the new features: Lines? Click the Sketch button

• Move the mouse pointer to the map area and click to start drawing the line. Move the mouse pointer to next vertex of your line and click. To finish the line, you have to double-click.

• Make a few more lines.

• After making the lines, you have to save them in the Lines file: Click Editor, Save Edits

Create some points in the Points shape file:

• Select a task from the Task dropdown arrow: Create New Feature

• Select the target layer in which to create the new features:Points

• Click the Sketch button

• Move the mouse pointer to the map area and click to place a point.

• Make a few more points.

• After making the points, you have to save them in the Points file: Click Editor, Save Edits

Stop the editing session:

• To stop adding features, you have to switch off the editor: Editor, Stop Editing.

In practice, new data will be created in ArcMap by digitizing paper maps with a digitizing tablet, or “on screen” to trace the features from a geo-referenced aerial photograph or raster image of a map. It is possible to add new fields to the attribute tables and fill in the records for

each field to add attributes for each feature.

• To see the attributes of the data files: In the table of contents, right-click on the layer’s name and click Open Attribute Table.

• As you can see, there are only a few basic attributes, which were created automatically for each single feature.

• Save the map document on your personal drive

2.6 Summary

In this exercise you have learned the basics of ArcMap: how to start the application and open a Map Document, how to move around the map and explore your data, how to define basic symbology for your map. At the end, you have learned where to find additional help, if required. In the challenges you can learn more about ArcGis Help functions and how to create data files. Remember that the goal of this exercise is to get you started and not to cover all the functionalities and tools of ArcMap.