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Printable Version of GIS Tutorial GIS (adapted from: Managing spatial data across GIS, CAD, Illustrator and Sketchup in many somewhat confusing steps. By Nathan Brightbill) Think of these as basic tools. They are the starting point for building graphics and/or models in other programs such as Illustrator and SketchUp. However, if it all seems overwhelming, don’t let it worry you too much! You are not expected to use GIS yet for your presentation boards. At this point, have fun with the exercise, try out the programs, and if it seems like too much, too soon, just choose a program or two and focus on those this quarter. You will have plenty of time to learn a lot more about GIS and CAD over the next year WHERE DO I START? As students at UW, we have access to a fantastic set of spatial data for Seattle and the surrounding areas. When you begin to work on projects outside of this city, you will likely find that most cities don’t have anywhere near the data that we can find here. Google Search for WAGDA or click here (Washington State Geospatial Data Archive) Go to the City of Seattle data section Login to WAGDA using your UW netID Navigate to the info you want. While you are there, check out all of the other fantastic data that is available to download! For this exercise, download the following 4 files: Streets Network and Geocoding: Street arterials Property and Survey: Building outlines Terrain: 2FT contours Download the files to your desktop: To do this, click on the floppy disc under “DATA LINK”, choose “save to disk”. This puts a zip file/folder with all of the relevant files on your desktop Extract Data to the folder you want to work in: To do this, double click the zip file on your desktop. This opens a Winzip window that shows all of the files in the folder. Without clicking any of the files, click “extract” and save the data to a folder where you will store all of your GIS data. This sends all of the listed files to the same folder. (Note: If you are working on a school computer, it would be a good idea to save the data to a personal hard drive. Otherwise, you will have problems opening the maps you create on other computers because ArcMap won’t be able to find the data files). Go through the same process to extract all of the data files you downloaded to the SAME FOLDER. GIS & MANAGING INFORMATION (see the TIPS section at the end of this document for recommendations on file management with ArcMap) Open ARCGIS, ArcMap Select “create new map” Go to File > Add Data > Select the shapefiles you want to work with. (If you hold the shift while selecting you can add them all at once. If you can’t see the folder you created, click on the arrow pointing at the world and you will be able to navigate to your folder.) Adding the arterials data layer is useful since it includes street names. Once the arterials layer has been added to the map, right click on “arterials” > label features to view the street names.
Clip the data you need Open ARCGIS ArcCatalog > Connect to your folder > Right Click Folder > New Shapefile > name the file boundary_box_small > Feature Type = “Polygon” > Define a coordinate system by clicking Edit > Import > Select one of the existing shapefiles > Apply > OK. Drag and drop the shape file you created directly into ArcMAP or Go back to ArcMap and add your new shapefile. File > Add Data Click on the colored box below your new shape file. This opens a window that allows you to choose a color for your new shapefile. Select a bright color for this layer….maybe red?
Create a shape in your new shapefile. What you have just created is any empty shape file. Now you need to put information in it. The information you will put in it is a box that will serve as a boundary around your site. This boundary will be used to clip the larger data files you have already placed in ArcMap so it should be big enough to include all of the information about your site and its context that you would like to include in any graphics. You might eventually end up making two boundary boxes and clipping two sets of information – one for your site design (smaller area) and one for your context maps (larger area). Here we’ll just do one box for your site design: Go to Tools > Editor Toolbar > In the Editor Toolbar Click “Editor” > Start Editing Set as your Task, Create new feature ***Set as your Target, your new shapefile “boundary_box_small” Under the editor menu select “more editing tools” > Advanced Editing. In the Advanced Editing toolbar you will see a square. This is the tool to use to draw your box.
Draw a box where you want to clip. After drawing the box, double click to finish the box. It should appear as a colored box, the same color as boundary_box_small (If it doesn’t show up the color of boundary_box_small, you missed a step and your box ended up on a different layer. In this case, go back up a few lines to *** and try again) To finish your box, Select Editor > Save Edits > Stop Editing. NOW You’re ready to clip! Click on the red toolbox Go to Analysis Tools > Extract > Clip The Input Feature is what you are clipping. Drag the data layer (contours, arterials, buildings, etc) into the Input Features box The Clip Features is the boundary box you just drew. Select a destination > OK. A new shapefile is created separate from the original shapes. It will end in _clip. I would recommend saving all of the clipped files in their own folder (e.g. create a folder called My Site). These clipped shapefiles will be the layers you will later import into Sketch-up or export to Illustrator. Do this for all of your layers. At the end, you should have a set of data that looks something like this: Contours Remove the original layers (those without _clip at the end), and your boundary box. You should have a nice map that includes just the information around your site.
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