Lab 6

The area I chose for this weeks lab is the northern California coast. Specifically Mendocino County between highways 128 and 20. Looking at these maps you can see where the coast line due to the lack of slope. I chose this map because this is the exact area that I grew up and I can identify certain peaks/ridges and slopes as well as approximate placement of specific rivers and creeks. Along with the maps I have the extent information of the area in decimal degrees: Top  39.3947222217 N; Left  -123.880833333 W; Right  -123.414444444 W; Bottom  38.9688888883 N. The Spatial Reference is the GCS North American 1983. The maps I'm including show relief, slope, and aspect. The last map shows my area in 3D.

Lab 5

Our World is three dimensional. This is great for living and interacting but hard to represent on a two dimensional plane. When showing a map on in two dimension there are multiple ways to project the image. Each way has pros and cons. In order to have one aspect of the map be to scale another part must be sacrificed. For this lab we map six different map projections that fell into three categories: equidistant map projections, equal area map projections, and conformal map projections. Below I have two maps for each category. With these maps one can see the pros and cons of each type.

Equidistant:
Equidistant maps, as the name implies, represents accurate distance on the map. However, because of this area and shape are distorted in order to preserve true distance. Below I made an equidistant cylindrical map and and equidistant conic map. Both maps show the distance between Washington D.C. and Kabul, Afghanistan. 

Equal Area:
Equal area projection maps preserve the correct area of the features. The countries and continents show the correct area in proportion to others. This projection is not very effective on a large scale because the shape and angle of the features are distorted.

 

Conformal:

Conformal map projections preserve angle. This means that area and distance are distorted. This is easily seen in the two maps below. One also notices that features closer to the equator are closer to their true area than the features closer to the poles. 

These six maps let the viewer see the pros and cons of different types of map projections. Each kind of map can be used for certain situations. When changing a three dimensional area to a two dimensional plane there will always be some aspects of the true area compromised. One must simply decide which projection is right for each situation.

Lab 4

After being introduced to ArcGIS and spending some time completing the tutorial I instinctively began to have opinions about the program and started to identify some of the potentials and pitfalls of the software. My initial feeling about the program was that it was a bit confusing, tedious and boring. However, the longer I worked on the tutorial I became more comfortable with the software and could complete each step in a more timely manner and with fewer glitches.

Many of the pitfalls of ArcGIS were apparent from the beginning. Although the tutorial was easy enough to follow it took me awhile to actually learn from it. It was easy to mindlessly follow the steps but not as easy to comprehend the actual progress of each step. The program is also not very "user friendly" it takes awhile to understand the layout of the program, you definitely have to know your way around the program before you can start making progress. Possibly the biggest pitfall of the program is it is still only as good as the data. Meaning, humans must input data into the program in order to get a result. This means there is a lot of room for human error.

It is inevitable that all software will have problems, therefore it is important to identify the positive aspects of ArcGIS along with the negative. Firstly, ArcGIS produces great results. The maps are pleasing to look at and easy to read. Other features such as the legend are very helpful and easy to produce using the program. The program also gets results quickly, good maps can be made fast. Although with the tutorial we only created three maps, it is apparent that the possibilities seem almost endless. Lastly, the software is easy to share and transport this means that multiple users can work and collaborate on a map without having to stand side by side.

As you can see after just one exercise with ArcGIS I was able to recognize the pros and cons of the software. I was able to complete not only one, but three maps after the introductory tuturial, it is obvious that ArcGIS is very powerful and very helpful in geography today and will contintue to be so for many years to come.