Lab 3 technical report
Goal and background:
The goal of this lab was to create a static map and a dynamic map of the state
of Wisconsin. The static map includes information about the population per
county, and a variable of my own choosing, in this case the number of housing
units per county. All of the data contained within the static map was derived
from the U.S Census Bureau as part of their 2010 Census data. The dynamic map
was produced online, through the ArcGIS website, and serves as a way of sharing
the information I obtained pertaining to the number of housing units per county
in the state of Wisconsin.
Methodology:
To begin building the static map, containing
two data frames for the population and housing units of Wisconsin, I went to
the US Census Bureau website. From there I chose an advanced search and
narrowed my selections down to the total population of Wisconsin by choosing
“2010 SF1 100% Data” as my topic, “County” as my Geography, “Wisconsin” as my
state and “All Counties Within Wisconsin” to ensure I would obtain data on all
Wisconsin counties. From there I found the “Total Population variable and
downloaded it to my lab 3 folder. The download came in as a zip file, so
unzipping it was necessary to obtain the CSV files needed for my maps. The P1
table contained in one of the CSV files I needed would not be compatible with
ArcMap if I left it as is, so I saved it as a MS Excel file instead by changing
the file type from the save as tab as Excel Workbook.
The next step was to download the
shapefile of Wisconsin from the Wisconsin Census data. From the Geographies
tab, I clicked on the map tab to show the state of Wisconsin highlighted since
that was what the data I had chosen previously pertained to. I downloaded the
file to my lab 3 folder and formatted it to a shapefile so it would display on
my map correctly. This file also came in as a zip file so unzipping it was
necessary as well.
Finally I was able to start
building my maps, now that I had all the necessary components for the
population portion. I connected ArcMap to my lab 3 folder and added the
Wisconsin shapefile and the P1 table to my blank map. The next task was to join
a standalone table and an attribute table. In this case, the standalone table
was the P1 table and the attribute table was the Wisconsin shapefile table. I right-clicked
on the shapefile in my table of contents and highlighted the joins and relates
tab, a sidebar opened and from there I chose join. A join window opened and the
field I based my join off of was the GEO ID field because both the standalone
and the attribute table had this field. Next I chose the table to join to the
shapefile table, in this case, the P1 table and the field in that table to base
the join on was the same, GEO ID. Then I validated the join and clicked OK. This
joined table needed to be displayed as its own shapefile so I exported the data
by right-clicking on the Wisconsin shapefile feature and pointing to Data and
then Export Data. Then I saved the data as a shapefile with a name of my own choosing
and the new shapefile of Wisconsin was displayed on my map.
The next task was representing the
attribute table on the map. To do this I opened the properties for the new
Wisconsin shapefile and chose the symbology tab. Since the value I needed,
D001, was a set as a string type I had to go back into the attribute table,
create a new field which I named “newD001” and added the same data from the
D001 field using the field calculator and saving it as a long integer type
instead of string type. Then I went back to the symbology tab and chose D001 as
my value in the graduated colors section under quantities.
The first part of my static map was
finished, containing the population of Wisconsin by county. The next map
required me to make a map of a variable of my own choosing, in this case I
chose to make a map of the number of housing units per county in Wisconsin.
This procedure followed the exact same steps as the previous map. I downloaded
and unzipped the census data from the US Census Bureau website and converted
the desired CSV file to an Excel file, added it to the new data frame on the
same map along with the original Wisconsin county shapefile and joined the
standalone Excel table to the shapefile table. I then exported the data as a
new shapefile and changed the symbology accordingly for the new map.
Next was designing the layouts for
the finished maps. This required a change in projection more appropriate for
the state of Wisconsin and in this case I chose to do a NAD 1983 Wisconsin
Transverse Mercator projection. To do this I opened the data frame properties
for both frames, clicked on the coordinates tab and changed the projection to
NAD 1983 Wisconsin TM (Meters). Next was an addition of a title, legend, north
arrow, scale bar, date, source and my name as the author of the map. All of
these could be found in the insert tab, under their corresponding names. Finally
I simply had to move and scale everything so the map looked organized and
appealing.
Part two of lab 3 involved creating
a dynamic map displaying the data derived from the static map. For this part I used the map containing my
variable choice, housing units. To begin, I removed the population data frame
from the map document, leaving the housing map. From ArcMap I signed into my ArcGIS online account that’s
through UW-Eau Claire so I would be able to share my map with the UW-Eau Claire
geography department. Since dynamic maps are online, and I needed to share my
map online, I needed to create a feature service for my map. To do this I
clicked the file drop-down menu and chose the share as tab. A sidebar appeared
giving me two choices: “Map package” and “Service., I chose service. A new
window opened up that would take me through the share as service process. In
the first window I chose to publish my map as a service, then clicked next. The
next step was to choose where to publish my service and a drop-down menu
appeared giving me the choice to publish my service to “My Hosted Services” in
this case UW-Eau Claire Geography and Anthropology. Below it I created the name
for my service and clicked continue.
The next window to open was the
service editor window, this allowed me to choose the capabilities of my map,
give it a description, a summary and tags and allowed me to choose who I was
sharing my service with. Finally, I clicked analyze and a pop-up window
appeared showing me any warnings or errors that appeared. I resolved any errors
I had and clicked the publish button to publish my service. Once the publishing
was complete I signed in to the ArcGIS website and viewed my service under the
contents page. The last thing I needed to do before I saved and shared my map
was edit the data that could be viewed by clicking on each county. I found the
feature layer of my service and clicked the arrow to display a drop-down menu
and from there I chose “add layer to map”. This displayed my map of Wisconsin
over a base map of the U.S. Since I only needed two attributes to be shown,
county and number of housing units, I clicked on the content button to the left
side of my map and clicked on the three dots underneath my service name to
expand a menu. In that menu I chose the “Configure Pop-Up” option that opened a
window allowing me to select what attributes are being displayed on the map and
what their names are. I chose the “NAME” attribute, and the attribute for my
housing units labeled “newD001”. I renamed them “County” and “Housing Units”. I
then clicked OK to save the changes and clicked the “Save Pop-Up” button near
the bottom of the window.
The last step to completing part 2
was to save and share my map. First I saved my map by clicking the save button
near the top of the page and chose the “save” option. This opened a new window
allowing me to enter a title, tags and a summary for my map and where to save
my map. Once all the information was entered correctly I clicked the “Save Map”
button. Lastly I needed to share my map and to do so I went to my content page
and clicked on the name of my web map to open its properties. From there I
clicked the share button which opened a new window in which I checked the
UW-Eau Claire- Geography and Anthropology box. This allowed me to share my map
with that specific group.
The
results I obtained were 2 maps, one static and one dynamic that displayed the
skills I acquired from this lab and previous labs and tutorials. One map
is the static map of the state of Wisconsin, showing housing units in the top
data frame and population in the bottom data frame. Each data frame has its own
legend, scale bar and north arrow. The dynamic map is a screenshot I took of
the final product of my published service in the form of a web map. It shows
the housing units data frame from the static map over a base map of the U.S.
This map is displaying the number of housing units in each county, with an
example being shown of 23,996 housing units in Door County.
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| Dynamic Map |
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| Static Map |
Credits: US Census Bureau (2000). American FactFinder
. Retrieved from http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml
