Other GIS Blogs

I have compiled a list of blogs that I have used that I think are very good:

• GIS Tips and Tricks: http://www.aubreyrhea.net/gis/ - This one is no longer updated and is for 9.X, but it is still very useful. 

• F yeah GIS: http://fyeahgis.tumblr.com/

• CartoTalk: http://www.cartotalk.com/ - This is a forum for cartographers. There is a thread where you can upload your map and get critiques. 

• GIS Wiki: http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page 
• GIS Wiki GIS blogs: http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/List_of_GIS-related_Blogs - A list of more GIS blogs. 

• A Cartographer's Toolkit: http://www.gretchenpeterson.com/blog/

Let me know if you know of any other great GIS blogs!

Creating a Square Buffer

Problem: You are asked to create a square buffer for your project area.

Solution:
1. Create a point shapefile where you want the center of your square buffer to be.

2. Create a normal buffer with the desired radius. Geoprocessing-> Buffer.

3. Navigate to Minimum Boundary Geometry Tool 

4. Fill out with your normal buffer as the input feature and choose Rectangle by Width for a rectangle buffer. This buffer will be the same radius as your normal buffer. 

5. The result: 

Utilizing Placement Properties for Labels

Problem: Your label for your shapefile is on top of your data. There are two ways to correct this, Placement Properties or Maplex Label Engine. This blog post will discuss Placement Properties. I will discuss Maplex Label Engine in a later post.

Solution: 

1. In the Layer Properties dialog box, navigate to the Labels tab. 

2. Click on Placement Properties 

3. Change Label Weight and Feature Weight to both Medium. 

4. Click OK and OK and your label should now be off to the side of the data. 

How to cut a polygon

Problem: You are given a polygon that needs to be edited based on specifications from your client.

Solution:

1. Start an edit session on the polygon that needs cutting. 
   
2. Select the polygon that needs to be cut, the same one that the edit session was started. 
3. In the edit toolbar, select split polygon 

     4.  On the polygon where you want to cut, click on one side and draw a line to the other side of the polygon and double click. If you are wanting to cut in the middle of a polygon, this will need to be done twice. One line for each side of the portion to be cut. 

     5. Deselect and then select the portion that you just created using the split polygon tool. Click delete. 

Saving a .mxd in an earlier version than ArcGIS 10.1

Problem: Your colleague has an older version of ArcGIS and they can't open your .mxd.

Solution:

1. Navigate to File and Save a Copy
   
2. In the drop down menu choose the appropriate version of ArcMap. 
   

Moving data source text when using ESRI's Imagery

Problem: You want to use ESRI's Imagery, but you want to do your own data source; not have the data source plastered on the imagery.

Solution:

1. Navigate to Insert
2. Click Dynamic Text
3. Click Service Layer Credits. This will make the text movable so you can move it to where you want to acknowledge your data. 
   

Data Driven Pages

Problem: You have a long study area and therefore, will need to create many maps. This can be very time consuming, but with data driven pages this is very simple. Only one map will have to be created and you will not have to move the data to a different section of your study area.

Solution:

1. Have shapefile that will allow you to split up your study area. This can be done by creating a fishnet or using Public Land Survey System (PLSS) data. For this example, I will use PLSS data. If creating a fishnet, skip to step 3. 
2. If using PLSS data you will need to select only the PLSS sections needed in your study area.
1. Using the select tool, click on the PLSS sections that hold data 
2. Right click on the PLSS file in the Table of Contents and choose export data. 
3. A new shapefile of only the PLSS sections with data is added to the Table of Contents. 
3. Add in the Data Driven Pages toolbar

1. In the main menu select Customize

2. Toolbars 

3. Data Driven Pages

    4.  How to fill out the Data Driven Page Setup

          1. Click the first button.

          2. In the Definitions Tab, ensure that there is a check mark in the Enable Data Driven Pages.

          3. Data Frame should be layers.

          4. The layer should be the exported PLSS data or the fishnet created.

          5. Field name should be Section, click OK.

   5. Viewing the different pages

          1. In the toolar, it will show what page you are currently viewing. There will be arrows to skip to the first or last page or in increasing or decreasing the page by 1.

  6. Viewing the pages in layout for mapping only; only 1 PLSS or fishnet section at a time.

           1. Open the Data Frame Properties in View

           2. Navigate to Data Frame

           3. In the Clipping Section at the bottom of the page, in the drop down, choose clip to current data    driven page extent. 

           4. click OK.