Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
3
STEP-BY-STEP
Products of a GIS: Maps
and Other Information
Open your Fast Facts text or document file.
Open the Color Figures file, so you can see the illustrations in more detail.
Up until now the maps you have worked with have fundamentally been portrayals of geographic data.
However, if you look at any map that is produced commercially or by government sources, you will
notice that the spatial data reside in a context of other text and graphics. For example, you will probably
find a title of the map, an arrow indicating the north direction, a legend showing the scale, and so on.
Also, a single map sheet might consist of several maps at different scales or maps showing different
data from the same geographic area. While you can print a map directly from the sort of ArcGIS view
you have been working with, ArcMap has capabilities that let you produce a map with the additional
elements that form sophisticated cartographic products.
While the thrust of this topic is to lay groundwork so that you can use GIS to do geographic data
analysis, synthesis, and modeling, I would be less than candid if I didn't let you know that the most
popular use of GIS currently is to
display
, in map format, geographic information. This chapter gives
you the beginnings of how that is done. Of course, when you do use GIS to do analysis, you will need to
display the results, so what follows is essential. Before we launch into how this works you need to know
some terminology:
❏
Feature
—A representation of a real-world thing, like a house, a city, or a pipe
❏
Object
—A point, line, network, or area that represents a feature
❏
Layer
—A set of objects that represent a number of features
❏
Data frame
—One or more layers, each displayed in a particular way (scale, style, etc.)
❏
Layout
—One or more data frames, with optional tables, graphics, and so on—the finished graphic
and text product that will become a map sheet.
The Data View and the Layout View
To use ArcMap to make maps, you need to be aware of two distinctly different ways of displaying
geographic data: the Data View and the Layout View. The Data View is the view that you are familiar
with. The main ArcMap window shows the datasets you have selected; they fill the window pane.
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