Readings, practice & "How to use the software"

How to get help?

  1. Help Windows : Both ArcGIS and ERMapper have extensive help files under the help menu. Start there. For each there is an index you can search or a table of contents. For ERMapper, use the "User Guide" help file.
  2. Manuals: We have hardcopy manuals for both types of software. They will be out in the Geology computer lab.
  3. Online Help: For ArcGIS, you can visit ESRI's site to learn more (especially their user forums; you can use the free tutorial from their virtual campus).  The best way to use ESRI user forums is actually to Google your question making sure you put ArcGIS or ArcMap in the query. The ERMapper web site also has a user forum and help system.
  4. People: This will be very useful when you've spent some time but can't find the answer to your questions. In the end, if you can’t figure it out, the best way for you to get help is to ask me in class, when others can learn and benefit. The second most helpful method is to use the course email (start typing GEOL in the Groupwise "to" box and use the down arrow to find GEOL260_01 or click here). The subject line should be “GIS Help:[ detailed description goes here]“ Please make a folder in GroupWise and save all of the class mail “traffic.” I won’t answer questions if questions are not posted to everyone or have already been answered. You can come see me during my office hours.

Tutorials to be completed prior to lab.

  1. Week 1 Introduction to ArcGIS-ArcMap
  2. Week 2 Creating and Editing Vector Data
  3. Week 3 Overlay /sutiability analyses, working with rasters.
  4. Week 4 Spatial Analyses
  5. Week 5 Neighborhood and Zonal functions
  6. Week 6
  7. Week 7 Getting started with remote sensing and ER Mapper
  8. Week 8 image enhancement
  9. Week 9 image enhancement 2
  10. Week 10 image classification
  11. Week 11
  12. Week 12

Week 1  An Introduction to ArcMap-ArcGIS

Extensive documentation for ArcMap and the suite of programs/extensions associated with it can be found in Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library We'll make use of it as tutorial material, but you can search it (using XP's find tool) for specific problems and examples. Please do not print these books on department printers. Data associated with the tutorials and books can be found in Q:\Courses\geolgis\ArcTutor9.2, and you must first copy the data to your Q:\students\username\GIS\tutorial folder (as instructed below).
  1. Part one
    1. Open the book Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library9.2\ArcMap_Tutorial.pdf. (clicking on this link only works in Explorer, not Firefox. For the latter, right-click copy the link location and paste it in a Windows Explorer address box)
      Or
      Start ArcMap, go to the Help menu, select the "search" tab, search for "tutorials" and find the ArcMap tutorial
    2. Copy the data needed (folder
      • create a folder called Q:\students\your_username\GIS\tutorial\
      • open the folder Q:\Courses\geolgis\ArcTutor9.2, and copy the entire folder called "Map" to your new Q:\...tutorial folder.
    3. Complete the first exercise. REMEMBER TO USE YOUR OWN COPY OF THE DATA, not the original in the geolgis folder!
      topics include
      ex 1: layouts, legends, zoom, identify,
      optional: ex 2: add'l data frames, page layouts, data frame properties, adding data, copy/paste layers, feature symbology by category , selection, styles, exporting data, summary stats, graphs
  2. Part two
    1. Open the book Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library9.2\Spatial_Analyst_Tutorial.pdf.
    2. Copy the data from the folder "Spatial" in Q:\Courses\geolgis\ArcTutor9.2, to your Q:\students\username\GIS\tutorial\ folder.
    3. Complete exercise one.
      Topics in ex1 - turning on the extension, ArcCatalog data, creating a geodatabase, toolbox locations, hillshades (including Z factor), histograms, selection/tables

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Week 2 Creating and Editing Vector Data

  1. From the book Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library9.2\Editing_Tutorial.pdf
  2. From the book Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library9.2\ArcMap_Tutorial.pdf.

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Week 3 Watershed analyses

  1. Read Chapter 5 (on Understanding cell based modeling, starting paper page 91, digital page 98) in Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library\ArcGIS_Extensions\Using_Spatial_Analyst.pdf.
    (note that's not in the 9.2 library folder)
  2. complete exercise 1 (15 minutes) of the tutorial Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library9.2\Geoprocessing_in_ArcGIS_Tutorial.pdf .

Week 4 Overlay /sutiability analyses, working with rasters.

  1. ArcMap Tutorial Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library9.2\ArcMap_Tutorial.pdf
    1. complete exercise 2 if you haven't already
  2. Spatial Analyst Tutorial: Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library9.2\Spatial_Analyst_Tutorial.pdf.
    1. Complete Exercise 2 (same data as exercise one in week from 9.2\Spatial folder): Suitability Analysis by criteria matching (this is a longer tutorial, but if you complete this tutorial, you'll be able to understand lab more readily) . Please complete up through paper page 36 of this exercise. If you wish, you can continue to the "Selecting optimal sites" section, which finishes the exercise.
      NOTE: set your "My Toolboxes" lotcation to Q:\courses\username\GIS\ folder
      Topics: toolbox creation, model builder, setting environments, weighted overlay tool (setting parameters come after in "optimal sites" section

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  Spatial Analyses
  1. Read
    1. Ch 7 up to page 127 in Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library\ArcGIS_Extensions\Using_Spatial_Analyst.pdf.
  2. Spatial Analyst Tutorial: Q:\Courses\geolgis\ESRI_Library\Tutorials\Using_Spatial_Analyst_Tutorial.pdf.
    1. Finish exercise 2 (if you didn't do it last week)

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Week 5    location

  1. Read Theobald Ch. 7
  2. Spatial Analyst Tutorial
    1. Start Exercise 3: You don't have to complete the "Setting Model Parameters" because you learned that in exercise two.
      topics: Friction ("cost"), Cost Surfaces, Least-Cost Paths (and shortest paths).

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Week 6  ?

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Week 7 Getting Started in ERMapper

You need to develop some knowledge of Remote Sensing data and in using ERMapper. 

  1. Read the textbook chapters assigned.
  2. ERMapper is a proprietary software worth $15k a shot.  We get 10 seats for $1k as an educational institution. Have Fun. This link will get you goin g and direct you to the tutorials. Basics of ER Mapper
  3. If you want more complete info for Geological applications, I suggest that you start at this NASA tutorial It contains much information...too much, in fact.
    Concenrate on;
    1. Section 2 of the Intro (especially the electromagnetic spectrum)
    2. Section 1 (Image Processing and Interpretation - Morro Bay, California)...this is really terrific. Try to absorb all that you can.
    3. Skim through sections 2 & 3 on geological and vegetation uses.

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Week 8  

  1. Starting a new algorithm from scratch.
  2. Changing the Look-Up-Table (LUT) by
    1. Using a new color table
    2. adusting the image for atmospheric scattering (called a "haze correction" or "dark-pixel subtraction")
    3. Applying other contrast enhancements through contrast stretches (linear, gaussian, equalized)

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Week 9 Image Enhancement

"Image Enhancement" oh boy, just in time for Fancy Dress. Computationally, at least, this week will concentrate on the different types of manipulations to enhance the information visible on remote sensing images. Although we will work exclusively with TM images, these types of analyses work with many other data sets from radar to DEMs.

  1. Band Ratios
  2. RGB images
  3. RGB-HIS enhancement

Week 10 Image Classification

Classification of an image allows one to simplify the overwhelming amount of data into a few classes, which can then be used in a GIS interpretation. A number of possibilities exist for classifying multispectral data. (these topics are also--even better--explained in the ERMapper tutorials)

  1. "Simple" Threshold Classifiers
  2. Classification of Satellite Images


NOTE: DO NOT ATTEMPT CLASSIFICATIONS WITHOUT FIRST MAKING A COPY OF ANY DATA TO YOUR OWN WORKSPACE on Q:/. CLASSIFICATION CHANGES THE HEADER FILE.

    1. Unsupervised
    2. Supervised
  1. Rectifying or georeferencing images to ground control points. See ERMapper Tutorial.

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Week 11   Image Enhancement continued

Beyond stretching and ratios, there are a host of techniques to improve what is visible on an image. Here are some processes and "tricks" in ERMapper.

  1. Principal Components
  2. Using more than one surface in ERMapper
  3. rectification (use the ERMapper Tutorial Help File; see Part Two "image Geocoding")
  4. edge detection
  5. making a "virtual dataset"

 

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Week 12  Map Output

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