Intro to ArcGIS I
ArcMap Interface ArcGIS Icons
HELP! Connecting
Layer Properties  ArcCatalog Functionality
Attribute Tables Searching data tables in ArcCatalog
Joining Tables Labeling
Geocode Addresses Querying
ArcCatalog Interface Intro to ArcGIS II

Introduction
ArcMap is the ArcGIS module used for mapping -- creating, viewing, querying, editing, composing, and publishing maps. 
ArcMap is what you will be using for the majority of your GIS work.
ArcMap can be opened via the Start menu (Start -> Programs -> ArcGIS -> ArcMap) or from ArcCatalog click on the ArcMap icon  in the toolbar).
In addition, you can open ArcMap by double-clicking on a map file (.mxd) in ArcCatalog.


When you first start ArcMap, you may see the " Welcome to ArcMap" window - this window provides the options to:
Create a new map,
Creating a new map using a map template, or Open an existing map. 
(Open L:\Meola_Patrick\Soc403\GIS\Soc403.mxd)
From the menu press: File -> Save As to save to your home directory as Soc403.mxd.

ArcMap Interface

The top portion of the ArcMap window contains the menu and toolbars. You can change which toolbars are displayed by right-clicking on the top portion of the window (the gray section).
The left portion of ArcMap shows a display of the layers  added to the map and whether or not they are currently displayed. You can view data  by "Display" or "Source"  or "Selection".   The Display tab shows the layer name, whether or not the layer is displayed (if there is a check mark in the box next to the name, the layer is being displayed), and how the layer is displayed (to see this, click on the + to the left of the name to expand the display). The Source tab shows the appropriate layer icon (same as seen in ArcCatalog), as well as the location (or "source") of the data. The selection tab shows what layers are chosen to view at the current window.

 

The Display tab The Source tab The Selection tab

 
The right portion of ArcMap provides a view of the data. You can select to view the data in "data view" or in "layout view".  The globe icon represents the 'data view', and the sheet of paper icon represents the 'layout view' 
Try zooming in/out and panning the data view using these tools:
Change to the layout view - you can do this by either clicking on the sheet of paper icon at the bottom of the view window, or by selecting View-> Layout View. 
A new set of tools are provided for viewing and editing the layout:  
In the layout view, you may use the tools to zoom in / out / pan, etc. that are available in the data view.  However, these will only affect the spatial data being displayed, not in the layout. The layout tools will not zoom in on the geographic area being displayed in the data view.
HELP!

ArcGIS has an excellent online help system. Start ArcGIS Desktop Help and get familiar with the interface and the resources that are available. Placing the curser over an icon will reveal the function associated with that icon. By using the "What's This" icon, you can select a different icon to display a help dialogue for, in this example, the pan tool.
Layer Properties:
In ArcMap, to view the properties of a data layer, double click on the data layer's name.  This will take you to the properties window. You can also do this by right clicking on the data layer and selecting the properties option.  From the properties window you can view and modify the display properties of a dataset - including the layer's transparency, labeling options, symbology, and source. This lab will only cover a few of the options (symbology, display and labels), but you will want to take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the other functions in the properties window.
Symbology: 
Under the symbology tab are the options for changing the display of data. From here you can decide to display the data as Features (single symbol), Categories (unique values, unique values many fields, or match to symbols in a field), Quantities (graduated colors, graduated symbols, proportional symbols), or Multiple attributes
(quantity by category).  You can also decide what symbol(s)  and color(s) to use to display the data.
 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Transparency:

The transparency option in the display tab allows for a layer to be seen through another layer.  By setting the top layer to some level of transparency, both layers can be seen. Make the Municipal layer partly transparent. Open the properties window for NJ Municipality and select the Display tab.  Under "% Transparent" enter 75 and click on OK.  Now the Census tract boundaries are shown clearly, and the Municipal boundaries are less pronounced in the display.

Attribute Tables

Right-click on the counties shapefile, and select "open attribute table."  This will open a new, floating window containing the attributes of the shapefile.  
The window has a button for "options" - by selecting this, you will have available the options seen below. 


Find & Replace - to find text strings in the attribute table and/or replace them with another string

Select By Attributes / Select All / etc. - allows for writing a query to select records matching the criteria specified in a structured query

Add Field - allows for fields to be added from ArcMap (rather than switching to ArcCatalog)

Related Tables - lists which tables are connected as "Related tables"

Create Graph / Add table to map layout - options for displaying the attribute table data

Reload Cache - Re-loads the table, in case of edits

Export - Exports the table as a .dbf file

Appearance - Changes the way in which the table is viewed (i.e., selected record highlight color)

When querying data in ArcMap, it can be useful to display only those records selected.  To do this, change the option to show selected:
 Joining Tables:
Joining tables allows you to combine the attribute data from different tables into a single table. This function makes it possible to use all attribute data from joined tables in to query, classify, calculate or label. Typically, you'll join a table of data to a layer based on the value of a field that can be found in both tables- the data type has to be the same;  numbers to numbers, strings to strings, etc. Right-click on the NJ County shapefile and select Join and Relates -> Join.  This will open the Join Data dialogue window (below). 
Please refer to the ArcGIS Desktop Help section on Joining Tables for additional information.
 Geocode Addresses:

Geocoding is the process of assigning a geographic location to attribute data. An address includes information that distinguishes a location; street address, zip code etc.
In ArcMap, to geocode addresses - Tools -> Geocoding -> Geocode addresses .  This will open the Geocode dialogue window (below)

 
The address locator (MercerRoads) contains the reference data that is used for geocoding, and parameters for standardizing addresses, searching for match locations, and creating output (From ESRI's GIS Dictionary).

Please refer to the Geocoding section of the ArcGIS Desktop Help for more information.
 ArcCatalog:

ArcCatalog is the ArcGIS module used for organizing, browsing, and managing your data and map files, as well as for viewing and editing metadata. 
Since it is easy to delete files this way, you should be careful to delete only when you are sure that you will not need the file any longer.
ArcCatalog is similar in structure to Windows Explorer -- on the left hand side is a view of the Catalog "tree" showing how the data is organized.  
The right hand side provides options for exploring the contents of the data shown in the Catalog tree.
Start ArcCatalog -> Go to Start -> Programs -> ArcGIS -> ArcCatalog...or click

ArcGIS  icons

Folder Types and associated Icons - You will notice that there are different icons used to represent the available folders and their contents.

Folder connection containing geographic data AKA Workspace

Folder containing no geographic data

Folder containing geographic data  inside a Workspace (second level)

File Types and associated Icons

Map file

Coverage - Polygon

Geodatabase

Shapefile - Polygon

Coverage - Arc

Geodatabase feature dataset

Shapefile - Arc

Coverage - Point

Geodatabase feature class - Polygon

Shapefile - Point

Coverage feature class - Polygon

Geodatabase feature class - Arc

Grid/Raster data

Coverage feature class - Arc

Geodatabase feature class - Point
   

Coverage feature class - Tic

Geodatabase feature class - Annotation
   

Coverage feature class - Label

    

Connecting to your data:

To connect to your data, click on the "Connect to Folder" button and navigate to your home directory & connect.
 

 ArcCatalog Functionality:

Data organizing in ArcCatalog is very similar to that in Windows Explorer - you can drag and drop coverages, shapefiles, or geodatabases into new workspaces. 
If you delete data using ArcCatalog, it is permanent... you cannot retrieve it.

Like Windows Explorer, the ArcCatalog tree displays in a hierarchical fashion all of the items in the Catalog. A folder that contains files will have a box with a plus or minus sign to the left of the file name. This indicates whether or not the folder has been expanded.
The right hand side of the Catalog allows you to explore the data contents, preview the data or view the metadata.
If you click on the pull-down arrow next to "Preview", you will see a preview of the data geography or the data attribute table. To change from geography view to table view (or vice versa), change the value listed in the preview pull-down menu at the bottom of the Window.

Finding data in ArcCatalog:

When previewing tabular data in ArcCatalog, it is possible to search for specific entries in the table.  To do this, open to the table view, and click on the Options button, then Find.

 
Clicking on the Find option will open the Find window where you can enter a text string to search for. You can search down the attribute list, up the attribute list, or search all of the attribute list. Once the first match has been found, you can look for further matches by clicking on the 'Find Next' button. In addition to finding data, you can also add fields to the table, reload the table to view recent changes, or export the table as a .dbf file (a format readable by many spreadsheet programs, including Microsoft Excel).
Labels:

Using the labels tab under properties is an easy way of inserting the names
of features on a map. 

To label NJ Municipality , check the "Label Features" box and select which field to use for labeling (we will use "MUN_LABEL").  Additionally,  you can change the style, symbol, font, font size, and location of the labels by selecting from the button options under "Label" in the window.

The "Expression" tab allows  you build an expression to derive the label string for each feature (MUN & COUNTY = MUNCOUNTY).

The "Symbol" tab allows you to preview and select the appropriate label style for your data  Please look at the Pre-defined Label Styles - this option allows you to load additional label styles.

The "Placement Properties" tab allows you to select your placement preference and gives you the option of removing duplicate labels.

Querying data in ArcMap
 
From the dropdown menus at the top of the window choose Selection > Select By Attributes. The selected feature is now highlighted.
Practice: Read the help file on building a query and then write a query to select the municipality that meets the following criteria:

- County  MERCER
- Sq. Mi - greater than 8
- Population Density (2000) - at least 10000

What feature is selected?

You can write the query as one string, or you can use the "Method" options (Create new selection, Add to current selection, Remove from current selection, Select from current selection). If you have not had much practice writing queries, you may wish to write each part of the query separately and use the select from current selection option.