Applications in GIS

GIS Application in Hydrocarbon Exploration

Hydrocarbon exploration falls under the petroleum industry, more precisely, oil and natural gas exploration. The issues addressed with hydrocarbon exploration, is where to look for the oil and gas deposits deep within the earth. With a GIS and seismic data acquisition, like survey and seismic recording equipment, the layers of the earth and the large deposits of these natural resources, can be remotely sensed and mapped down to 4 kilometers below the earths surface. Using a GIS can prevent costly environmental mistakes that could occur if not mapped properly or precisely. This is interesting to me because I do work in the petroleum exploration industry. I help produce the maps from the data our surveyors collect, and see the repercussions a badly mapped survey can lead to. It is so important to have highly accurate, precise measuring equipment as well as a comprehensive GIS. The mapping that I’m involved in are surface maps, I would like to see and learn more about sub-surface mapping, like the mapping from this image from www.mirteledection.com, showing the surface mapping along with the sub-surface layers.

Programming in GIS

Programming in GIS

There are several programming languages that make a good choice for a GIS, but the one programming language I feel works the best, at least from my small bit of research is the Python Script. Python is an open source software, meaning it is freely distributed and the source code is open for modification, which is object oriented, and works across multiple OS platforms. The main features, or “selling points” for the use of this software is it’s scripting capabilities for modeling, map automation, spatial analysis, and geoprocessing. It helps streamline your work, allowing you to integrate quickly. It is also quickly learned and less cumbersome than other languages for the smaller, but efficient tasks used in a GIS. An example program where Python would be used would be is one I found at http://gisgpsgeodesy.blogspot.com  a standalone GIS application by Gary Sherman. It creates an application, in this case a shape file viewer, to load and view a shape file of world borders. This example is a very simple task but it can be written with navigation tools, like panning, zooming, and clicking to retrieve data.

Brian

GIS Cartography

Process Summary

Exploring Your Data: Map 1

1)      Copied GISCartography.zip to my S:\4043 Intro2GIS\GISCartography folder and extracted the files.

2)      Started ArcMap, clicked on the Add Data button, browsed to my S:\4043 Intro2GIS\GISCartography folder and selected World_Countries.shp.

3)      Next, again I clicked on Add Data, browsed to the same folder and selected Mex_boundry.shp and Americas_Admin.shp.  Then dragged the Americas_Admin.shp to the top of the Layers tree.

4)      On the menu bar, click on Selection, the Select by Attributes. In the box that opens select the mex_rivers layer in the first drop down box, in the Method box, kept Create a new selection. In the list box I double-clicked CNTRY_NAME , it will appear in the text box at the bottom where the equation will be, then typed the = sign, then click the Get Unique Values button, just above, and double-click Mexico from the list. It will then add that to the equation box. The equation will look like “CNTRY_NAME”=Mexico, click OK. The Mexican states will become highlighted in blue.

5)      Next, in the Table of Contents, right-click Americas_Admin, select Data, then Export Data, Selected Features and exported it to S:\4043 Intro2GIS\GISCartography\Mex_States.shp

6)      Right-click on World_Countries, go to properties, then the Labels tab, checked the Label features in this layer box, clicked Apply. Changed the font of the label to Country 2, size 12. Click OK.

7)      Next I changed the Symbol of the World_Countries again from it’s properties, selected a Light Grey at 10% and a line of width of 2.

8)      In the left Show:  text box,select Quantities, then Graduated colors with 6 classes, and I chose equal interval in the classification settings. Click OK.

9)      I then changed the page layout view to Landscape, then Click Insert, to insert the Title, scale bar, text box for my name and date, Legend and North arrow. Adjusted centering, location, font, symbol, the scale to a round number, (0 to 1000), typed the map scale, and projection to the name box. Added a drop shadow to the legend, and  changed the color of the classes, with proper labeling.

10)   Saved as GISCarto1_map1.mxd, to save the project, then click file, export, and exported as GISCarto_map1.jpg.

GIS3015 Carto Skills Final Project

GIS4043 Final Project

http://students.uwf.edu/bdc22/bobwhite-manatee_final.ppsx

http://students.uwf.edu/bdc22/gis4043_final_report.pdf

Google Earth Lab

Ludington Wind Farm

Located 5 miles south of the city of Ludington, Michigan, population 8357, on the Eastern Shore of Lake Michigan. It will take up the Southern quarter of the Ludington Pumped Water Storage Reservoir, comprising of approximately one square mile of water surface. There are no protected areas within one mile of the wind turbine location and residential areas are beyond a one half mile radius, eliminating wind turbine shadow flicker and turbine noise. The nearest state park is 9.5 miles to the south and a public park is 1.5 miles to the north. Nearby power transmission lines as well as the Ludington Pumped Water Storage Power Plant are within one mile of wind turbines, making it an ideal location to tie into the power grid.

Average wind speeds: Wind Power Class 4 (15.7 - 16.8 mph @ 50 meter height)

Annual Wind Power Density (Watt/m^2): 466

Elevation: 907 ft.

Bird Habitat and Migration: None

Environmental Sensitivity Index: Low

Loose Ends Lab-Parts 1 & 2

Loose Ends Part 1

1)      Started Arcmap, browsed to S:\4043 Intro2GIS\Week 10 and opened Parcels.mxd.

2)      Went through the Table of Contents exercises, noting the four views. Order, Source, Visibility, and Selection.

3)      Practiced the grouping of layers exercise by grouping five layers of the Parcels map, Gulf County Roads, Suitable Parcels, Gulf County Parcels, Basemap, and County Owned. Grouped them together, selecting group, then renaming. Then I selected ungroup, to go back to the original layer order.

4)      Next I created a graph, by selecting View on the main menu, then Graphs, then Create.

5)      Selected Graph Type of Verical Bar, layer of Gulf County Roads, Value Field of Length, X Label Field of Length and color to match with layer. Click next, changed the title to Gulf County Roads and finish.

6)      Right clicked on the graph, and selected Add to Layout.

7)      Next I selected Change Layout button on the layout toolbar, clicked on open file button, and browsed to the Parcels.mxd to open, then clicked finish.

8)      For the dynamic text exercise, I wanted to edit my already existing text of name and data source, so it would become dynamic. So I opened the properties of that text. In the text editing box after my name I typed the code <dyn type=”date” format=”dd MMMM yyyy”> to make the date appear after my name.

9)      Then in the same text edit box, in order to have dynamic spatial reference text, I typed the code,Name: <dyn type="dataframe" name="Layers" property="sr" srProperty="name">

Projection: <dyn type="dataframe" name="Layers" property="sr" srProperty="projection">

Datum: <dyn type="dataframe" name="Layers" property="sr" srProperty="datum">

10)   After everything is double checked, I clicked Save As and save the template as S:\4043 Intro2GIS\MapTemplate_Single DataFrame.mxd.

11)  This completed the Loose Ends Lab Part 1.

Loose Ends Part 2

1)      Read and noted the three types of geodatabases. SDE, Personal, and File. We use File Geodatabases for this course.

2)      Noted the differences between Object ID and Feature ID. Also noted never use the object/feature ID’s for anything other than identification of features.

3)      Read about the attribute field types, short integer, long integer, float, double, text, and date. Noted the examples and the uses of each.

4)      Read the different types of feature classes of polygons, lines, points, multipoints and multipatches, their differences and when to use them.

5)      Browsed to my S:\ drive and looked at the files that make up a shapefile, and how to package them together by right clicking the layer in the table of contents of Arcmap, and selecting Create Layer Package and noting the options of what to do with the packaged layer. It becomes a .lpk file. Also upacking the file requires starting ArcCatalog, right clicking on the .lpk file and selecting unpack.

6)      With Arcmap open, I selected File, in the main menu bar, then clicked on Create Map Package. This packages the entire map project as an .mpk file, allowing it to be a backup or making it able to transfer and share the map to others.

7)      Copied and unzipped Looseends.zip to S:\4043 Intro2GIS\Week 13, opened the repairdatasourc.mxd file, and in the table of contents, noted the red exclamation markes next to the two layers. I opend the properties of the buildings layer and noted the path of the file location as not being located on my drive.

8)      I right clicked on the roads layer, then selected Data, then Repair data source, and browsed to the correct path on my S:\ drive for the location of the roads.shp that I just unzipped to repair the path. With this repair it did repair both layers paths, and the map was now visible.

9)      Closed this map, and opened relativepathnames.mxd, selected File from the main menu, and then selected Map Document Properties, and noted the Relative Pathnames checkbox is checked to enable the path to to be used on another computer without getting the error in the layers.

10)   With the relativepathnames.mxd still open, found and opened the Data Driven Pages tool bar, and opened the Data Driven Pages setup.

11)  I enabled the Data Driven Pages checkbox, selected Layers, building layer and building in the name field then clicked Ok.

12)  Selected File and exported as a .pdf file, since this is the file type to export Data Driven Pages.

13)  While in layout view of the current open map, went to page and print setup and in the map page size box, noted the page size selections and when to change these sizes.

14)  Lastly, read and noted the different definitions of geocoding and the broad overview of the geocoding process.

15)  This completed the Loose Ends Lab Part 2.