Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Adding Data to Data Frames
You have to be careful here. If you use the Add Data option from the File menu, or use the Add Data
button on the Standard toolbar, a data set is added to the active data frame . However, if you right-click
a data frame name and get the menu that says Add Data (showing the Add Data icon), the data will be
added to the selected data frame, regardless of whether it is active or not. In other words, Add Data
operates differently depending on the source of the command.
8. Make POINTS the active data frame. Then add the shapefile
___ IGIS-Arc_ YourInitials \Trivial_GIS_Datasets\some_points.shp
to the POINTS data frame. Now right-click the name some_points in the T/C. Examine the
Properties of the shapefile named some_points. What is the Projected Coordinate System
(under the Source tab)? _________________________________________________________.
Using the Measure tool, determine the approximate distance covered by the data set in an
east-west direction to the nearest tenth of a meter. ________________ meters.
9. Activate the LINES data frame. Add the geodatabase feature class some_lines_arc, found in
___IGIS-Arc_ YourInitials \Trivial_GIS_Datasets\Carto.mdb
to the LINES data frame. Change the name to just “some_lines”.
10. From ___IGIS-Arc_ YourInitials \Trivial_GIS_Datasets, add the polygon component of the coverage
some_polygons to the ALL data frame. Change the name to just “some_polygons”.
11. Switch to the Layout View. Something of a mess appears in the map pane. All three of the
data sets, albeit at different sizes, are put in the same place. Make the Select Elements
pointer on the Tools toolbar active. Move the pointer to the approximate middle of the pane
and click. A box with eight blue handles appears. Click again, and again. What is happening
here is that you are clicking inside all the data frames at the same time, so different data
frames are being made active. Keep clicking (slowly—don't double-click), noticing now the data
frame names in the T/C. With each click a different data frame becomes active, as you can
tell from the bold font.
The data frame boxes will not all be the same size, nor will the images inside be the same scale.
We will fix the scale problem now and worry about the aesthetics of making the boxes the same
size later.
12. Make ALL the active data frame by clicking the map area until the name ALL in the T/C
becomes bold. Within the Data Frame you should see a cursor that has four arrows as well as
the pointer. Using this cursor, you can now drag the data frame around. Drag the ALL data frame
to the lower-right corner of the layout. Make the LINES Data Frame active and drag it to the
upper-right corner of the layout.
If you place the cursor over one of the handles, the cursor changes to a double-headed arrow. If you drag
the handle with this cursor, you can resize the data frame and the image inside it. The image's dimensions
remain proportional—which is good, since it contains geographical features and you wouldn't want to
change their proportions.
 
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