Final Project

This week, I was tasked with completing an analysis of transmission lines.  The tasks include analysis of the transmission line's impact on the wetlands and homes in the area. Last but not lest to assess the costs of length of the lines.  Here are the links to the PowerPoint presentation.

Transcript

PowerPoint Presentation

Objective number one

Identify environmentally sensitive lands which are conservation areas & wetlands-that may impact the route of the transmission lines.

Objective number two

Locate homes within the preferred route of the line and the four hundred foot buffer.

Then add points that show on an attribute table for effected homes.

 

Objective number three

Find schools and day cares within the proximity of the preferred route of the line and the four hundred foot buffer.

 

Objective number four

Calculate the length of the transmission line for engineering, so to know the approximate cost of the transmission lines

The first task was to georeferencing a raster image that had no information to a reference which were UWF buildings of the main campus.  This involved matching points on the raster image to the corresponding points on the vector layer. This was the easiest part of the lab.  

This lab was on geocoding which took a long time to adjust points for where the EMS stations were. Some of the problems with this were the data was not updated and so you had to make a new point on the map. The last part of the lab was interesting because you used a tool that was basically coding but not actually typing in code. This exercise took place online through the ESRI website which their instructions were hard to follow at times.

This week's lab continued on vector analysis. I used three tools while doing the lab tools are buffer, overlay, and Python. Out of all these tools Python was the most interesting. Using the Python tool person is actually typing code which can be frustrating at first, but once a person remembers the code it is easier to write. The lab was to find a suitable campsite by using all three of these tools. Which is difficult at first, but once a person learns how to use the tools it becomes easier over time.

Each person in the class was assigned a County my County was Alachua. The first map I used data from the Florida Geographic Data Library (FGDL) this is where I obtained water basin data which I used for the environmental element. There is a lot of other data a person can activate on this specific map.

The second map I used a combination of FGDL and Labins for my data. I had to use both the clipping tools to get rid of the roads outside the quad photos. I also decided to incorporate history of Gainesville because of the battle that took place there.

The third map I used a combination of FGDL, Labins, and UWF. This map is the most complicated because I had to use three legends to provide information on what was going on in each map on a single page. The first one was on surface water then second one was on population and Interstate 75 and the last one was parks.

This is not my cup of tea changing projection back and fourth. Just use an universal projection system. This would make it easier on every one and would save time in the long run.

This was a hard week.This lab was difficult for me because learning the difference between the three projections can make a person pull their hair out. By using the knowledge from this lab I have a better understanding of GIS and the projections that can be used.

This lab was difficult for me because plugging in the data to Excel I did not have addresses or zip codes for the beaches from the web site. I had to make most of the knowledge searched from google. It was awesome that a person can take a map and share it to other people. Trying to impute the Excel data was difficult to get it imputed just right. Over all learning to share will be befitted me in my up and coming career. 

This week was a challenge to complete all three maps but I did.

Using the tools from other labs is just one of the way to complete the third lab.

By using the knowledge from this lab I have a better understanding of GIS.

interesting a person could take two maps and integrate them together to make one map. Learning about what the standards are for maps made it easier to understand why maps come with a title, legend, scale, and an author. This lab helped to inform me that the layers can be separated into groups and a person can focus on the individual layers or the layers together. When using specific data in the layers a person can highlight and do many other things.

Using GIS is different than any other program I've ever used because it has aspects of different programs. Plugging in the data showed me how using the different tools you could manipulate the data by what tool you use.  This lab was difficult for me because I am not a computer expert, so I had to make most of the knowledge I had. Paying attention to the words in red in the instructions really helped. I was confused about the metadata and how to access the actual code of the data. The other steps went fairly easy through trial and error I figured out how to build my map, enter the text and other requirements