December 5, 2008

I took just a few waypoints on my way home from work this week. First stop was to grab Herb from his office, then we drove on I-26 for several miles. Due to the construction on the Brevard Road bridge, the drive was longer to account for a detour. I took two more way points on the detour since I was stuck in traffic. The final point was at my house; I included a zoomed in dataframe showing just my house. Pete, what is the best way to create the lines for this?

December 5, 2008

November 24, 2008

I revised the AB Tech Campus map to illustrate new features in the geodatabase. I created subtypes for the sidewalk layer by noting its condition, which ranges from good to fair based on the integer 1 to 3. The sidewalk conditions are shown in brown with various line styles. I also created a coded value domain for the parking lot layer to note valid parking by faculty, students, and other. There did not appear to be any changes to the map based on the domain. Nor did I see the domain choices while editting. I must be doing something incorrectly. Finally, I added a topology class in the geodatabase. The topology rule states that buildings must not overlap others buildings in the feature class. Several errors were found, which are illustrated in red on the map.
Herb and I are off to Charlotte to visit my in-laws for the Thanksgiving holiday. Should be very exciting.

November 24, 2008

October 30, 2008

I finally finished with the Town Annexation map. Made several changes based on the comments from class on Wednesday. I had some trouble with the icons, as they were much too small originally. Also noticed an error in how I grouped some of the annexations, so they were duplicated in two of the maps. Hopefully all my calculations are correct, as I believe the map will be displayed in the Town Council room.
Happy Halloween everyone!

October 30, 2008

October 15, 2008

I may actually be understanding the SDE world a bit more following today's class. It's a bit difficult to remember all the steps required to create instances, users, permissions, etc. I did list a few additional steps on the Google Document, so that should help everyone. My big problem today was forgetting to version each feature class so others could view the data.

Pete also helped me a bit after class with the GNIS data. Although I had tried to edit the projection at the office, it didn't seem to work. The data didn't move at all, it wasn't a matter of having chosen the incorrect projection. But Pete was able to make it work, as he usually is so all is well. One more item to cross off my list at work.

October 13, 2008

The lab test was fairly straightforward, at least until I had an error digitizing the new building footprints. It would not allow me to create a new feature because the feature was out of bounds. This was a new error and I wasn't quite sure how to correct it. I did notice I could draw the feature inside where the CAD layer was, just not anywhere else. Not sure if that had to do with the data frame coordinate system. I loaded the buildings shapefile first so the data frame had real world coordinates. I also thought it might be related to the coordinate system of the building footprints layer, but changing that didn't make any difference. I wonder if anyone else had any problems? Maybe Pete can explain?

October 13, 2008

October 8, 2008

I wanted to share an interesting article with everyone describing "geoweb" and "mashups." It seems there are many newcomers to cartography and we're not alone in our endeavors. Check out the link below for the article.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081003.wgtmapmakers1003/BNStory/Technology/home

Our class attempts at using the SDE was definitely interesting. After Steve's changes to the buildings layer, it is obvious more restrictive permissions are needed. But at least we know what it possible now. Looking forward to learning more about SDE in upcoming classes.

September 29, 2008

Since I'm the only one who seems to be keeping up with their blog, I'm feeling a bit unmotivated today. The Geodatabase, short for geographic database, is a central repository for storing geographic data. It can be created, managed, and edited with Arc Catalog, ArcToolbox, and arcMap. It is stored in a file based system or Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and the higher levels of the geodatabase require a DataBase Administrator (DBA). Some benefits of the Geodatabase include scaleable, multi-user editing, feature linked annotation, rule based topology, and continuous set of features.
Herb and I bought pumpkins this weekend, mostly from the West Asheville Farmer's Market. If anyone is in the neighborhood, swing by the house and take a look. The big Atlantic Giant barely fit in the car, and it was so large we had to roll it across the lawn.

September 24, 2008

I survived the test, although it didn't focus on the areas I expected. More questions on CAD files than I expected. Afterwards, had lots of fun continuing the ESRI tutorials. I posted a map illustrating the waterlines and annotation created during the one exercise. Not too much else going on. Just anticipating next week's lecture on geodatabases.

September 24, 2008

September 22, 2008

It seems as though Pete has quite a busy schedule, as he had a 14 hour flight and then an early morning meeting. I am also disappointed to learn the highlight of the flight was the GPS tracking as opposed to the in-flight movies or the delicious food. I assume they still serve something to eat and drink on international flights. But onto the topic at hand.
It must be extremely interesting to attend meetings with the managers and chiefs of the various business entities. And it is exciting to hear how much involvement they have with the education of the country. I am surprised by how large and widespread the university is in India, as well as the other countries. The progress of the program is amazing and the collaboration with ABTech will serve both university's well.
Since we didn't have the test today, I spent class working on the ESRI tutorial about geodatabases. The exercises are fairly clear; however, I am confused how the subtypes and relationship classes actually work in a map. It's hard to relate an exercise to a real life example when you are just following the steps. Maybe your presentation will clarify this for me and the others.

September 15, 2008

I was spending a lot of time creating a parking lot and road layer for the ABTech Campus, when it occurred to me I should be studying for the exam next week. I think I've at least removed the lots located on buildings. The impervious surface layer from the City of Asheville was very helpful, despite a few incorrect polygons. So the map below isn't quite up to my standards, but it's close.
In other news, the 16th is my second wedding anniversary. It seems much longer since Herb and I have been together for over 8 years. We don't have anything exciting planned, spent too much money remodeling the bathroom. Maybe Herb will surprise me with something.

September 15, 2008

September 10, 2008

Since I've been bored, I finished creating a layer of building footprints. There are 96 polygons in total, which originated from the CAD polylines. Unfortunately, I was not thinking ahead and did not make a copy of the polygon layer created using the ArcToolbox function of Feature to Polygon. Since I don't have an ArcInfo license at the office, I'm unable to perform this function again. Consequently the map below shows the original CAD polylines in comparison to the polygon layer I compiled in a geodatabase. I would have preferred to compare the two polygon layers, but I can't do anything about that now.
We are still having car troubles with the Mazda. The dealer was unable to diagnose a problem and of course the car started right away for them. I finally convinced Herb we should have someone else look at it, and they are finding lots of parts to repair/replace. Of course, I don't think anything has fixed the starting issue. Hopefully it won't cost too much in the end.
Yoga has also started again, so maybe that will help to relax me.

September 10, 2008

September 3, 2008

I spent some time in class looking at Microsoft's Virtual Earth gathering some building height information. Pete finally helped me convert the polyline layer to a polygon layer, which was actually very simple if you know the correct tool to use in ArcToolbox. Once this was finished, I was able to edit the attribute table by adding a field for building names. Sadly, it was not too exciting and didn't produce a new map just yet.
Herb's car died yesterday, so I'm waiting to here what the problem is....we think it could be the fuel pump. This on top of more trouble with the rental property in Philly, which we learned about last week before vacation. Apparently the wall is crumbling and needs to be repaired for several thousand. I'm waiting to see what the third piece of bad news might be.

August 27, 2008

I completed the assignment and now understand how to georeference CAD data. However, I have a few questions related to exporting. First, when you export the selected data, should you use the coordinates of the data frame or the layer's source coordinates? I choose the former, as I added the buildings layer first so the CS was in State Plane feet. Second when adding the newly exported data to a new data frame, the layers did not contain a CS. Did I do something wrong? And can I just set the CS to the same as the buildings layer? Or should they be set to the CS of the original CAD data? How's that for confusing.
Off to Morehead City with Herb for the weekend. Hopefully the weather will be okay.