VIMS Online ArcView Tutorial Katherine L. Farnsworth, James Perry and Michael Newman Virginia Institute of Marine Science / School of Marine Science College of William and Mary Funding from Virginia Space Grant Consortium This tutorial grew out of a summer 3-day short course at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. It has been designed for users with limited to no knowledge of ArcView desktop Geographic Information System. It begins with an introduction to the basics of Geographic Infomation Science and the ArcView software and then contains 4 additional modules containing instruction in common applications to introduce the user to many aspects of GIS in the natural resources. These modules may be completed in any order. Each module comes with an introductory lesson on the topic, followed by an exercise using these topics. Data is available for download and use on your own computer. ArcView 3.2a was used to design this tutorial and is needed to participate. We would like to hear any comments, corrections or recommendations you may have for this website. Click here to get our contact information.

Module Overviews

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Understand the structure of ArcView
• Add already created themes to ArcView
• Set display properties
• Change theme symbology
• Create thematic maps

Purpose: To introduce the user to both vector and raster data. Using the arcview spatial analyst extension, they will be introduced to some of the concepts and methods used in watershed delineation from Digital Terrain Models (DEM).

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Query a database
• Build themes which are subsets of larger themes
• Turn on/off Extensions
• Clip grids
• Compute areal calculations
• Use the sample Hydro Extension

Purpose: To introduce the user to acquiring data from aerial photos and making measurements within ArcView. It will also introduce the concepts used in assesing historical shoreline change.

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Add images to your views
• Hotlink images and documents to a view
• Create new shapefiles
• Use heads-up digitizing
• Make distance measurements

Purpose: To introduce the user to projections and reprojecting data. It also allows the user to learn how to import data from text files, and create event themes. It centers around data about the spread of the gypsy moth in the United States. This data was provided by the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Entomology at Virginia Tech.

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Reproject Shapefiles
• Import Spatial Data from text files
• Create event-themes

Purpose: This module introduces the user to determining locations via selection criteria. By utilizing data on topographic slope, areas near a river that have extremely high slope values can be located as possible locations for future landslides.

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Create new attributes
• Calculate the area of polygons
• Summarize and compute statistics of attributes
• Create Buffers
• Determine locations from selection criteria