Geography 525 - Geographic Information Science
Lab 3 for Graduate students (16 points)
Due: Week of February 13th
Name:
Please go through Chapter 3 and do exercises in the tutorial.
Besides doing exercises, graduate students have to answer both Exercise Questions and
Challenge Problem.
Exercise Questions
1. After finishing step 23 on page 133, answer the following questions.
State the data frame coordinate system without looking at its properties.
(0.3 points)
Why could you know this information without looking? (0.7 points)
2. Examine the coordinate systems using the metadata tab for the files rc_roads.shp
and geologywest.shp, within the RapidCity folder. For each feature class, answer
the following questions:
What is the name of the coordinate systems? (0.5 points)
Is it projected or unprojected? (0.5 points)
What are the coordinate system map units? (0.5 points)
3. Open the map document ex_3.mxd in the MapDocuments folder. What is the
coordinate system of the data frame in this map? (0.5 points)
What are the map units of the frame? (0.3 points)
What are the display units of the frame? (0.3 points)
What are the map units of the source data? (0.3 points)
4. Measure the distance from Olympia, Washington, to Tallahassee, Florida, in miles.
What is it? (0.5 points)
5. Explain how you would measure (not calculate) the distance in kilometers instead.
(1 points)
After completing the question above, how far is it in kilometers? (0.5 points)
6. Now measure the distance from Olympia to Tallahassee, in miles, with the data
frame coordinate system set to North America Lambert Conformal Conic.
What is the difference between your answer and the answer in
Question 4? (0.5 points)
7. Set the map projection in ex_3.mxd to Mercator, centered at 103°W, using
NAD83. (Hint: Modify the Mercator projection listed among the World
projections.) What is the distance between Olympia and Tallahassee, in miles,
using this projection? (0.5 points)
How does it differ from the answer in Question 4? (0.5 points)
8. Create a map (including scale, legend, and north arrow) of the world and its
capitals (natcapitals.shp within the World folder) in Mollweide projection. Make
the continents “Malachite Green” color and the capital small yellow stars.
Make the lat-log lines pale grey and put them behind the continents.
Capture the map to turn in. (1.6 points)
9. Examine your map from Question 8.
Which of the four map properties (little distortion?) appear to be fairly well
preserved in this projection? (1 points)
Which ones appear poorly preserved? (1 points)
10. How many different coordinate systems are represented by the shapefiles and
rasters in the mgisdata\Rapidcity folder? (Do not include the coverages or the
layer files.)
List each coordinate system found and the data sets that have it.
(1 points)
Challenge Problem
1. The shapefile rcw_oops in the Rapidcity folder is supposed to contain roads for
the western part of Rapid City, and as such should overlay with the rc_roads
shapefile in the same folder.
Examine them both, then explain what is wrong with rcw_oops and why it
won’t overlay with rc_roads. (2 points)
How could you fix this problem? (Hint: Compare the coordinate system
and x-y domain of rcw_oops in ArcCatalog.) (2 points)