ESRI: ArcGIS Software
ArcInfo
Same functions as previous software, plus contains more tools
to analyze spatial data.
ArcEditor
Same functions as ArcView, plus abilty to create, & edit
spatial data formats that ArcView cannot.
ArcView
Display map, query & analyze spatial
relationships, features & attributes
ArcGIS
ArcView, ArcEditor, & ArcInfo are
transparent to the user:
user does not need to know software type for
many GIS functions & applications
can open, display, & query data from any of
the 3 softwares.
Training focus will be
 View & display data by color & symbol
 Create thematic maps
 Find/ locate attribute data on maps
 Query and analyze data through spatial & attribute characteristics
 Edit features
 Creating presentation quality maps to print
 ArcMap will be the application used, with some ArcCatalog &
ArcToolbox functions
ArcGIS is composed of 3 applications:

ArcMap

ArcCatalog

ArcToolBox
ArcMap:
 Create maps from spatial data
 Choose colors and map symbols
 Analyze spatial relationships
 Design map layouts for printing
ArcCatalog:
 Browse spatial data (hard drive, network, or internet)
 Preview spatial data & add it to ArcMap
 Create & view metadata (information about the data
such as source, creation date, description, etc.)
ArcToolBox:
 Tools to convert data from different formats
Change to or from shapefiles, coverages, tables,
or geodatababases
 Tools to manage data
Aggregate, generalize, projections, topology, etc.
 Tools to analyze data
Extract, overlay, proximity, statistics, or surface
Using ArcMap
Main Menu Toolbar
Standard Toolbar
Data Frame
Table of Contents
Map Display
Tools Toolbar
Drawing Toolbar
01_Exercise_ArcGIS
 Open & display data through use of a map document (.mxd)
- map document (.mxd) window. The data layers’
characteristics contain settings such as pre-set colors, line
thickness, fill, and a specific view or scale.
 Add to the Table Of Contents (TOC):
- layer A category of the data to display in the ArcMap display
window as well as listed in the table of contents; Layers can be many
formats- shapefiles, coverages, geodatabase features, raster, etc.
- data frame A collection of data layers that displays in the
display view window. Multiple data frames can exist in a map
document.
01_Exercise

Context menu- right click a layer in TOC to display the context
menu contains many more GIS options of the data layer
 Navigate using Tools Toolbar such as pan, zoom in & out,
identify, and find.
01_Exercise

Open / Save Map Document

Layer Properties:Changing the appearance of displayed
data symbols

Open data layers from Arc GIS filetypes: shapefile, coverage
and geodatabase feature class

Type Name on Map & Print the map window