Understanding GIS. David Smith

4Build the database

       Exercise 4a: Project a shapefile

       Exercise 4b: Copy a feature class

       Exercise 4c: Prepare the city and county data

       Exercise 4d: Prepare the river data

       Exercise 4e: Prepare the park data

       Exercise 4f: Prepare the block group data

       Exercise 4g: Prepare the parcel data

       Lesson 5Edit the data

       Exercise 5a: Edit a feature

       Exercise 5b: Create a new park feature

       Lesson 6Conduct the analysis

       Exercise 6a: Establish proximity zones

       Exercise 6b: Apply demographic constraints

       Exercise 6c: Select suitable parcels

       Exercise 6d: Clean up the map and geodatabase

       Exercise 6e: Evaluate your results

       Lesson 7Automate the analysis

       Exercise 7a: Set up the model

       Exercise 7b: Build the model (part 1)

       Exercise 7c: Build the model (part 2)

       Exercise 7d: Run the model as a tool

       Lesson 8Present your analysis results

       Exercise 8a: Create the main map

       Exercise 8b: Create a layout using the LA River and inset maps

       Exercise 8c: Finish the map

       Lesson 9Share your results online

       Exercise 9a: Publish web layers to ArcGIS Online

       Exercise 9b: Create a web map

       Exercise 9c: Change web layer styles

       Exercise 9d: Create Map Notes

       Exercise 9e: Add bookmarks

       Exercise 9f: Configure pop-up windows

       Exercise 9g: Create a Basic Viewer web mapping app

       Exercise 9h: Create an Esri^® Story Map Series^SM web app

       Appendix AImagery and data credits

       Foreword

      More than 20 years ago, I was involved with a book project here at Esri^®. We produced and published a software workbook called Understanding GIS: The ARC/INFO Method. We were just a group of people at this little geographic information system (GIS) software company in Redlands, California, who saw that the users of our ARC/INFO software needed better guidance on how to use these tools for real analysis projects. Our original goal had been to write a book called Getting Started with ARC/INFO. More than 500 pages later, we realized that we had described a methodology for doing GIS projects in their entirety and needed to change the title.

      The key idea was to set up a problem in the book, provide the data, and then let the students work through the whole process. Little did we know that our book would become a worldwide best seller and inspire a generation of technically savvy geographers.

      Fast-forward to 2018. GIS has evolved to keep pace with a changing technology landscape. There have been huge innovations in geospatial data models and user interfaces; GIS now lives and breathes on the web. Much has changed. Yet the need for our users to understand how to organize and think about how to effectively conduct a GIS project persists. This book, Understanding GIS: An ArcGIS^® Pro Project Workbook, now in its fourth edition since 2011, carries on the spirit and method of the original GIS approaches that inspired it. I’m especially happy that this new edition—featuring the highlights of the latest version of our next-generation ArcGIS^® Pro software—was enthusiastically adopted, and executed with precision, by our friends at the University of Redlands, the college geographically closest to Esri headquarters. I’m pleased to say that the new edition supports the traditional mission while also integrating the new GIS paradigm. It is our hope that it will inspire yet another generation of GIS professionals and practitioners.

      Clint Brown

      Director of Software Products

      Esri

      Redlands, California

      April 2018

       Preface

       What’s new in the fourth edition?

      This fourth edition of Understanding GIS: An ArcGIS^® Pro Project Workbook has been completely revised and tested to be compatible with ArcGIS^® Pro 2.2. New graphics have been created using the Windows 10 operating system. Some steps have changed to reflect changes in how the software works. Lesson 9 has been completely rewritten to reflect the latest advances in the rapidly evolving ArcGIS^SM Online environment. The demographic data has been updated with 2015 census data. Parcel data has been updated to 2016. The final results of the analysis are updated to an entirely new set of park sites. Many small mistakes that came to our attention have been corrected. And because of the ever-changing nature of the software, some screenshots in the workbook may differ from what you see on your screen.

       Background

      In 1990, Esri published a software workbook called Understanding GIS: The ARC/INFO Method. This book was the first to offer a practical, project-oriented introduction to a commercial GIS software product, and it became popular as both a self-study tutorial for working professionals and a lab manual in college classrooms.