Geospatial Technologies In the EAST Lab GPS Technology Intergraph GeoMedia GIS ESRI GIS

Differential . Most of you are familiar with GPS, right? So, GPS is really just a means to find out “where you are”, or, in the case of acquiring map data, “where you were”. In EAST, students primarily use GPS to gather map data that aren’t available from other sources, such as the Internet. What they do with the data after they gather it is really the key, and that is where GIS comes into play. Let’s touch back on GPS. Most of you are familiar with GPS, right? [ If not, have a facilitator explain ] So, GPS is really just a means to find out “where you are”, or, in the case of acquiring map data, “where you were”. In EAST, students primarily use GPS to gather map data that aren’t available from other sources, such as the Internet. What they do with the data after they gather it is really the key, and that is where GIS comes into play. [click to advance slide] GPS

[click to advance slide] Here’s an example from Russellville High School, where students used GPS to add map features for their school to a digital aerial photograph.

Parkway Addition In another example, also from Russellville, students took a GPS unit in a car and drove a new segment of road, providing updated data for their street map.

Software in your Labs Intergraph: Upgrade to GeoMedia Pro 5.1(request upgrade at http://imgs.intergraph.com/education/edgrant.asp By grant: Transportation Manager By grant: GeoMedia Terrain By grant: GeoMedia Grid By grant: GeoMedia WebMap Professional By grant: OnDemand (PDA – WinCE) You will be receiving GIS software from two major companies for your Lab. From Intergraph Corporation, you’ll receive GeoMedia Professional 5.1, a very powerful GIS package that runs about $7500 commercially. One of the big pluses of this software is that your students can apply for 12-month full “student licenses” at no cost. These are normally reserved for college students, but Intergraph is happy to give these to EAST students as well. EAST is still in negotiations with Intergraph, but we are hoping that we will be able to keep all schools up to date with the latest GeoMedia Pro package each year. Meanwhile, your students and you can apply for an “Education Grant” from Intergraph in order to obtain some additional packages, as your projects demand: GeoMedia Transportation Manager is intended for managing street “routing” issues – can you say “bus routes”? GeoMedia Terrain is a very cool 3D package that enables fly-overs above your map data. GeoMedia Grid is a addition to GeoMedia that allows it to perform analysis of “raster” data, much better suited for working with environmental or natural resource issues. GeoMedia WebMap Professional allows students to take a project that they have developed in GeoMedia Pro and turn it into a series of interactive Web-based maps. This is very cool stuff, and definitely a great way for students to take an existing project to another level. If you have any Pocket PCs in your lab, OnDemand is an application that lets students take GeoMedia projects out into the field. [click to advance slide]

GeoMedia Pro lets you take data for a large area... Here are some examples of GeoMedia in action. GeoMedia lets you take data for a large region… [click to advance slide]

…and easily create a map for a specific local area. …and easily cut out maps for specific areas. In this case, we can quickly generate a set of state maps from US data. [click to advance slide]

More importantly, you can ask complex questions about your data: Whose property would be affected by a road-widening project? (using parcel data from a city or county). What’s the mean income of people living close to a river (or railroad, or highway…) vs. that of people that live further away? (using US Census data). Where are the structures that are most likely to be flooded? (using FEMA flood plain data, or NRCS soils data). Example…. More importantly, you can ask complex questions about your data: 1) Whose property would be affected by a road-widening project? (This would require parcel data from a city or county). 2) What’s the mean income of people living close to a river (or railroad, or highway…) vs. that of people that live further away? (using US Census data). 3) Where are the structures that are most likely to be flooded? (using FEMA flood plain data, or NRCS soils data (that’s the old Soils Conservation Service)). [click to advance slide]

“Arkansas cities within 10 miles of major rivers, by population size.” So, in this example, let’s ask GeoMedia to find the cities in Arkansas within 10 miles of a major river, organized by population size. [click to advance slide]

Information about your map data can also be viewed and sorted in tables. Now we can view the population data, along with other Census data, for our cities, sorted from largest to smallest. [click to advance slide]

Results can be imported to other programs, such as Microsoft Excel. It’s a piece of cake to copy our data into Excel and produce a graph comparing Asian, Hispanic, Black, and White populations. Now, how long do you think this entire process took? [take answers] Well, how does 10 minutes sound? A little easier that doing it by hand, yes? [click to advance slide]

The easiest way to learn a little about GeoMedia is to run through its tutorial. The quickest way to learn a little about GeoMedia is to choose the button for its tutorial, “Learning GeoMedia Professional”, when you very first open the program. [click to advance slide]

The GeoMedia tutorial…. Here’s a quick glance at the table of contents for the tutorial. [click to advance slide]

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) GeoMedia Professional is most useful for dealing with features that have definite edges, such as: buildings and parcels roads, pipelines, stream networks political boundaries and associated data any point-based data GeoMedia Professional is most useful for dealing with features that have definite edges, such as: buildings and parcels roads, pipelines, stream networks political boundaries and associated data any point-based data [click to advance slide]

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) GeoMedia also can map street addresses and latitude/longitude points. Very easy to import data from tabular databases that include either addresses or lat/long crime reports, earthquake locations, etc. GeoMedia also can map street addresses and latitude/longitude points. Very easy to import data from tabular databases that include either addresses or latitude/longitude crime reports, earthquake locations, etc. [click to advance slide]

Software in Your Lab ESRI: Upgrade to full school licenses of ArcView 3.3 and extensions By request: ArcGIS 8.2 By request: ArcPad (PDA – WinCE) By request: ArcIMS (Web mapping) ESRI is the other major GIS company. From them, you will receive a full “School License” of ArcView 3.3 and its major extensions. This software may be installed on any number of machines in any classroom in your school, not just your EAST lab. As with the Intergraph software, you may request some additional products for special needs of projects: ArcGIS 8.2 is more powerful GIS package than ArcView 3.3, though more complex to learn and not as completely developed. Again, if you have any Pocket PC’s (not Palm Pilots), ArcPad allows your students to take GIS into the field. To put an ArcView project out on the Web, get a copy of ArcIMS. You may well ask “Why are we getting two seemingly equal GIS packages?” Two good reasons, from your students’ perspective: Neither company has all the answers; thus, your students can choose the best tool for a particular job. Given that it may be two to six years (or more) before your students are in the job market, it is silly to focus on a particular vendor because of their market position today. Things change very rapidly in technology. What is important is that your students learn the concepts, not the particular software. [click to advance slide]

ArcView 3.x Extensions Spatial Analyst www.esri.com Some examples using ArcView. This shows a model built with their Spatial Analyst extension, using elevation, vegetation, and soils data to create an erosion model. [click to advance slide] www.esri.com

ArcView 3.x Extensions Spatial Analyst Crime Hot-Spots Here we see crime “density” map that shows hot spots in the DC area. This slide is borrowed from the TV show called “The District”, where GIS is a key element in police work. [click to advance slide]

ArcView 3.x Extensions Network Analyst- Used to show distance and routes (in yellow) a hit and run suspect could have driven in a 30 minute time period. In another example from The District, ArcView Network Analyst is used to identify the various distances that a hit and run suspect could drive in 30 minutes, given speed limits and traffic conditions. [click to advance slide] http://www.esri.com/news/thedistrict/index.html

ArcView 3.x Extensions 3-D Analyst Transform two dimensions Here we see some architectural CAD data viewed in 3D using ArcView 3-D Analyst. [click to advance slide] Into three dimensions http://www.esri.com/news/thedistrict/index.html

ArcView 3.x Extensions 3-D Analyst – Crime Scene Investigation, Washington DC http://www.esri.com/news/thedistrict/index.html Again, ArcView 3-D Analyst is used, this time taking outlines of buildings on a map and “extruding” them by their height to create 3D objects. This is actually very easy for your students to do. [click to advance slide]