What is the difference between arccatalog and arcmap

Answer question 7: Use the toolbox "Search" tab located at the bottom of the ArcToolbox dockable window to find all tools related to "overlay" operations regarding coverage tools.

List these tools along with a brief description of their function. You will be spending a lot of time using ArcMap. In addition, you can open ArcMap by double clicking on a map file in ArcCatalog.

When you first start ArcMap, you may see the"Welcome to ArcMap" window - this window provides the options to 1. Create a new map, 2 Open the last map you were using, 3 Open an existing map,or 4 Create a new map using a map template. This quarter we will most often use options 1 and 3 creating a new map, and opening existing maps.

If you do not see the Welcome window, someone has probably turned this option off - don't worry, you can still access all of the options through the main menu. For the sake of description, open the prepared map file provided with the lab data BentonCoMap. You will notice that the BentonCoMap file is not particularly stunning from a cartographic standpoint. Later in the lab, you will fix up the map to make it a bit more cartographically pleasing.

The lay of the land, or, What is in ArcMap? The top portion of the ArcMap window contains the menu and toolbars. The left portion of ArcMap shows a tree displayof the layers the "layer tree" added to the map and whether or not they are currently displayed. There are two ways which the included data can be explored - by "Display" or "Source. The Source tab shows the appropriate layer icon same as seen in ArcCatalog , as well as the location or "source" of the data.

The right portion of ArcMap provides a view of the data similar to ArcView. You can select to view the data in "data view" or in "layout view". At the bottom of the view window three very useful icons appear.

The globe icon represents the data view , the sheet of paper icon represents the layout view, and the arrows refresh theview. In the data view, you can zoom in and out, pan, identify, select, etc. Notice what the tool does. This can be vital to maintaining consistent cartography when making multiple maps of the same area. The layout view is similar to the layout in ArcView. These will only affect the spatial data being displayed, not the layout - just as the layout tools will not zoom in on the geographic area being displayed.

Try using each set of tools while in the Layout view. Notice how they react differently. To insert a title, legend, neatline, etc. Experiment with adding information to your map - try adding a title, legend, scalebar, north arrow, and your name. You will use this map file later in the lab, so you will want to save your changes either in a new Map file, or overwriting the one in your directory Note- The Map file does not contain data.

It contains information about how your map is layed out, and what data is in your map - You could think of your hard drive as a kitchen, map files as your recipes, the data as your ingredients, and the software as a cook.

You write the recipe, or even change it, but the dirty work of baking and cleaning is the responsibility of the cook. And that makes you the Master Chef In ArcMap, you can not have two map files open at the same time, so to open a new map file we either need to open a new ArcMap window or close the existing map file. Use the "Add data" button on the ArcMap toolbar 2.

Drag and drop data from ArcCatalog. With both ArcCatalog andArcMap open, left click on the data that you want to add to your map file- hold the mouse button down, do not release the button yet. Release the mouse button and drop the data in ArcMap. If you can not see both the Catalog tree and the ArcMap view window, click on the data in ArcCatalog, drag it down over the ArcMap button in the menu bar still pressing the mouse button until the ArcMap window opens.

Then drop the data in the ArcMap view window. Try each of these methods, and add the lower48 coverage, and the uscnty , usroad ,and usriv shapefiles to your new map file. Since it is likely that you will open data from both your network drive or from copies on a local drive zip or cd , it is helpful to use a " relative path " to your data rather than an ' absolute path '. This will be handy if you copy your lab data folder to a local drive to work, or if you move it from one drive to another - if you do not store your data sources with relative path names, you will run into the problem of ArcMap looking for the data on the last drive that you used with that particular map - one that might not exist on the computer you are working on.

To continue the cook analogy above, the software cook looks for the ingredients data at the location specified in the recipe map file. The absolute location might be "on the third shelf of the refrigerator". If the ingredients are moved, the directions are no good, but the recipe can move around anywhere. The relative path name tells the software to look for the data in the same relative location to the map file- e.

So if you keep your recipe with your ingredients, you can move them both to any location you like, and the recipe is still valid. Note: You will probably want to do this with ALL map files that you create in this course. Because you may shift computers or even computer labs, you will be able to transfer the folder, with its files to any location you want. Occasionally, even if you set the map file to use relative path names you will still have problems with "broken sources.

Symbology and data appearance Order of data layers: Depending on the order in which you added the data, your states may be "on top" of your counties - you can change this by clicking and dragging data layers "on top" of other data layers - just like can be done in ArcView. Data 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. Note: The ArcMap properties window will provide different information than was found in the ArcCatalog 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 display, symbology, 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, graduatedsymbols, proportional symbols , or Multiple attributes quantity by category.

You can also decide what color s and symbol s to use to represent thedata. For example, if you want to use usroad to display type of road rather than simply a location - double click on usroad to open the Properties window, and click on the Symbology tab. To add these values to the display, select "Add all values. To change the symbology of other data layers even of other types of data -- shapefile, coverage, or geodatabase the process is the same. Note that you can also alter all the values at once, by clicking on the symbols column heading.

From this window, in what ways can we change data representation? Symbology and data visualization Cont. To change the representation of Interstate, State Highway, and US Highway, double click on the line next to the name and select an appropriate line symbol from the Symbol Selector. Change to appropriate symbols. Since there are no "other values," you can deselect the 'all other values' symbol.

When the display is to your liking, click OK. Display An important feature on the display tab is the option to set transparency. This allows for a layer to be seen through another layer - for instance, with the uscnty layer displayed, the lower48 layer can not be seen.

By setting the top layer to some level of transparency, both layers can be seen. With the transparency function, you can even display a raster layer transparently to give a 3-D effect! To explore this, we'll make the uscnty layer partly transparent. Open the properties window for uscntyand select the Display tab. Now the state boundaries are shown clearly, and the county boundaries are less pronounced in the display.

Answer question 9: Where else do you think the transparency function might be more useful? Labels Using the labels tab under properties is an easy way of inserting the names of features on a map. We will try this out with the usriv layer and add labels for river names.

Go to the labels tab in the usriv property window. To insert labels, check the "Label Features" box and select which field to use for labeling we will use "Name". From here 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. Take a few minutes to explore these options. Now try to move or delete only ONE of the labels Can you? The problem is that the labels are based on a specific feature value, and a point defined by the feature.

To change individual labels, they must become a special kind of graphic, ones attached to points in a seperate layer within your rivers shapefile called an annotation layer. This way the points can be changed individually, but still follow around the rivers layer. Right click on the rivers layer in the table of contents, and Convert Labels To Annotation.

Use the Default settings, but select In the map for Store Annotation.. Hit Convert, and using the arrow tool, try to select and move one of the new annotations.

This is far easier than maintaining them as automated labels. What happens to the labels when you change the scale of the map by zooming in or out???

What if you want labels that are not attached to your rivers layer??? Or if you want to change the thickness of a single segment of your rivers??? Once again, right click on the rivers layer and look at the option to convert Features to Graphics and think about what it might be good for..

Right click on the counties shapefile,and select "open attribute table. The window has a button for "options" - by selecting this, you will have available the options seen to the right. If you have not had much practice writing queries, you may wish to write each part of the query seperately and use the select from current selection option.

When doing searches of this type, it can be handy to display only those records selected. To do this, change the option to show selected: Notice that the selected counties are highlighted not only in the attribute table, but on the display map.

Answer question In which state is the selected county? Write out as you typed it the formula that you used to find the answer. Data in maps: A. The data should take up a majority of the area,you should avoid excess white space.

Inclusion of unnecessary data should be avoided- most often simple is better. Bright, flashy colors such as red should not be used for areas unless you specifically need to do so. Titles: A. Should usually be in upper case. Should not be sentences, but should be simple and to the point. Should not be the focal point of your map. Should almost always be black or dark text. Should be placed in a location on the map so that they do not obstruct any other portion of the map.

Sub-titles should be smaller than main titles. Scalebars: A. NEVER have a scale bar that extends all the way across a page. Scalebars should not be the focal point of the map, they are for reference only. Scalebars should use appropriate measurement systems. Metric measurements are more suitable for scientific work, and are more acceptable for international distribution D. Use intervals that make sense.

Units of 2,5,10, 20 are common. For example, do not use Borders: A. Maps need borders, they should usually be black. Borders are known as "neatlines. Neatlines should be a large enough width to be clearly seen from a distance.

North Arrows: A. North Arrows should be unobtrusive. North Arrows are not always needed. For Example - If mapping a state, a arrow is not needed, because we can usually expect people to know which way is North. Legends: A. Legends should be unobtrusive B. Legends should only show defined features that are not obvious.

For example black points are usually associated with landmarks such as cities, particularly if labeled. But with ArcGIS Pro they just select the layer and there is a new menu called 'Data' where they can make schema changes and save them to the database.

Although it will take a little time to make the transition, and yes, you will be a bit slower editing at first, I would encourage you to make the transition and use the wealth of information available on the web to help get you up and going. Managed GIS Services. Enterprise GIS. Indoor Mapping. Asset Management. Land Records. Next Gen Online Solutions. Utility Network. Parcel Fabric. ArcGIS Indoors. Latest News. Tech Blog.