Creating a Map with ArcMap - Tufts University

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one file choice (e.g., 233902.sid) - open this one. (Images come in color bands, so if you chose just one of the bands, you would not be getting all the colors). • Zoom in to the orthophoto. Turn off layers above it to be able to see it. • You can display layers above the orthophoto to be somewhat transparent if you like. For example, to show land use by parcel over an orthophoto (assuming you still have parcels colored by land use), turn on the parcels and right-click on the parcels layer to get the layer properties. Go to the Display tab. Set the Transparent entry to 50 (for 50%) and press Apply to see what happens • Also add the USGS scanned quad map. Since the map was drawn at the 1:24,000 scale, it looks best on the screen at this scale as well. Now that you know how to find a worksheet ID, you can if you wish download and add more orthophotos or scanned maps (e.g., to cover all of Somerville). Using Shaded Relief images Shaded relief images are better seen than explained but they are sometimes useful for maps. MassGIS has created a shaded relief data layer for the entire state of Massachusetts – it is a very large file but is available for download if you want it (same web site as above). But we have clipped a small portion of this out to cover the Boston metro area and have put this in the GIS tutorial data set. To use it in ArcMap: • Click on the Add Data icon and navigate to the MassGIS \ Shaded_relief folder and add the shd_clip image data set. (Note: this is located in your Tutorial data folder and not on the M: drive) • If it is being covered by other data layers, turn them off for now. • Rightclick on the Shd_clip layer name and choose Zoom to Layer - this takes you to the full extent of the data layer. The Shd_clip layer is showing topography as if illuminated by the sun shining from the northwest. • Zoom in the Somerville area. Zoom in until the shaded relief starts to pixellate (you can see individual squares or grid cells) - what scale are you at? 16
• If the orthophoto is below the shaded relief layer, drag it up in the table of contents so that it is above it. • Change the transparency of the orthophoto so that you can see the shaded relief below it (e.g., 50%) • You can change the coloring on a shaded relief layer by going to its symbology properties and choosing a different color ramp. With shaded relief as background, you can make some very good looking shaded-relief maps. Or you can make some really bad ones! Save your mapfile when you are done examining these data sets. Part 7 - Creating a layout for printing or graphic export You create a layout when you want to actually create a map for printing or inclusion in another document. It is a view of your data, much like viewing the page layout when you are working in a word processing software. You should use the layout view when you are ready to create a map - do all the preliminary work and analysis in the data frame view (where you have been up to now in this tutorial). When you create a map, you should include the map itself (which is the same as your data frame), a title, a legend, a scale, and a north arrow. You should also provide the name of the cartographer (you), a date, and acknowledgements about data sources. It is important in a map not to include too much information. You would not want a map that includes all the data layers you have in your ArcMap session from this tutorial. It would be much better to do several maps, e.g., one showing the general layout of Somerville with streets and parks, another showing land use, another with the aerial photo, possibly one showing the buildings in black with all the other space blank (this is called a Nolli map by urban designers and is used to explore a community’s built texture and its open spaces). You may also include other elements on your map, for example, more explanatory text, charts, tables, photos, or other images. Note that you can also have more than one more than one data frame on a layout - for example, you can have a small locational reference map, an inset map to show an area in more detail, or two or more maps showing different aspects of the same area (e.g., comparing 1990 and 2000 census data). See the next section (Adding a data frame to show two or more maps on a layout) for instructions about how to do this. For detailed information about layouts, see Help - ArcGIS Desktop Help - Contents tab - ArcMap - Laying Out and Printing Maps. If you don't already have it open, start ArcMap and bring up your map file from the earlier part of this tutorial. Setting up a layout • Before you start a layout, it is important to have thought through what you want to do and how you want your map to look. What do you want to show? How large do you want your final map to 17
Page 1 and 2: Creating a Map with ArcMap Revised
Page 3 and 4: one data layer at a time and press
Page 5 and 6: layers. If you copied your basemap1
Page 7 and 8: Part 3 - Drawing a layer based on a
Page 9 and 10: • Fill in the dialog box as you s
Page 11 and 12: • Make sure that the Label field
Page 13 and 14: world, or 2000 feet. The scales pro
Page 15: Downloading image data from MassGIS
Page 19 and 20: you later move or zoom, remember to
Page 21 and 22: frame you want). But in the layout,
Page 23: The ability to export to a digital

Creating a Map with ArcMap - Tufts University

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