GIS Cartography WK3

    As we map our way to finishing another lab, the road and rivers of GIS leads us closer to our destinaiton. In this weeks lab we were able to create, and alter  symbology of maps. We were able to view ArcCatalog, and learn how to view ArcCatalog in ArcGIS.
We also got to mess around with the different gratical color contrast, vector data files, and learned how to change dynamic text.
   In my first map it just shows the cities of Mexico and their populations, the colors signify the population of each city. The lighter the color the less people to inhibit that area.

In the second map we were able to select which urban areas of Mexico that have a population of a million people or more. Within this map we are able to show major and primary rivers, roads, and rails that circulate through Mexico. We also placed an inset map of Mexico highlighting the area focus on the main map. I chose to use the lighter colors for the roads, rivers, and rails because when I chose the darker colors the map appeared to be to cluttered, The fonts and the urban area were not able to stand out when the darker colors were used to generate the map

In the 3rd map we indicated the diferent elevations of Mexico. I chose to use this color combination because to me, the lower the elevation the warmer the temperature and red signifies hot. The blue areas are the elevations that are higher,and the higher the elevation the colder the temperature, and blue usually indicates cold. The inset map has a map of the globe but it indicates that the area of focus is Mexico.

OwnYourMap Wk2 lab

     

Another week, another lab, another journey. This week we were introduced to GIS and the basics of it. We learned that GIS can be used in many applications, such applications can assist in law enforcement, developers, and delivery truck drivers. We also learned some of the misconceptions of GIS. The chapter spoke on the different data types of GIS data that make up a GIS map some examples are spatial data, aspatial data, discrete geographic features and all other related data structures . The chapter basically explained how a GIS map is generated and what types of data are used to make GIS maps, and how GIS is used in the real world.

      In the map above it shows a rendering of Encambia County Florida with an inset map of the state of Florida in the top right corner which indicates where Encambia County is located in the state of Florida. When I created this map, I tried to make it look as if it were something you would find in a college brochure, but it possessed the attributes of a common map. I kept the colors pleasing to the eye and made sure the UWF main campus was the focal point of the map.

       

OverviewArcGIS

 In  this weeks lab we got our first hands on experience using the eDesktop, extracting, and saving files on the different drives provided on the virtual machine. From my expercience with the lab, I found navigating through the virtual machine, locating, and unzipping the OverviewArcGIS.zip file proved to be a most unpleasant task, but once the hurdle of finding the files, and extracting the files were completed, the rest of the lab went smoothly.

   The focus of the lab to me as it seemed, was to have the student become familiar with the basic structure of the map, and learn the functions of the different buttons on the menu ,task bar and TOC.

  In the map above it shows the many different countries of the world and their populations. The population data gathered I believe was from 2008. The green colors of the map indicates the populous of each country, the darker the green color the more people inhabited that area. The legend in the left side bottom corner is a correspondence between the colors and the amount of people. In the map we were required to put some text indicating what was being displayed, who created the map, when the data was retrieved, a scale, a compass, and a legend.
  Overall the lab was a good practice session, I got to learn how to navigate through eDesktop, use the virtual machine, learn the the basics of  ArcMap, and create a data map all in one lab.