LAB 1: INTRODUCTION TO ARCGIS

LAB 1: INTRODUCTION TO ARCGIS

In this exercise, you’ll create a map showing locations of schools near the airport, along with
a noise contour, to see which schools may be affected by noise from the airport. The noise
contour is based on the 65 Community Noise Equivalency Level (CNEL), which indicates
areas experiencing more than 65 decibels of noise, averaged over a 24‐hour period. In many
cases, buildings within the 65 CNEL will need soundproofing or other mitigation measures.

The exercises use the tutorial data distributed with ArcGIS® Desktop. Data is provided to you
through the shared folder with this exercise. You need to copy the data to your local
computer drive before any use or processing.

Starting ArcMap
ArcMap lets you explore your geographic data and create maps
for display.
1. Click the Start button on the Windows® taskbar.
2. Point to Programs.
3. Point to ArcGIS.
4. Click ArcMap.

Opening an existing map document

The first time you start ArcMap, the startup dialog box appears.
The startup dialog box offers you several options for starting
your ArcMap session. For this exercise, you want to open an
existing map document.

1. Double‐click Browse for maps. If this is not the first time

ArcMap has been started and the
startup dialog box does not appear,
click File on the main menu and click
Open.
2. On the Open dialog box, click the Look
in drop‐down arrow and navigate to
the Map folder on the local drive
where you copied your exercise data.
3. Double‐click airport.mxd to open the
map.

ArcMap stores a map as a map document (.mxd) so you can redisplay it, modify it, or share
it with other ArcMap users. The map document doesn’t store the actual data but rather,
references the data stored on disk along with information about how it should be displayed.
The map document also stores other information about the map, such as its size and the
map elements it includes (title, scale bar, and so on).

7
To the left of the ArcMap display window is
the table of contents, showing you which
geographic layers are available to display. To
the right is the map display area.

This particular map contains the following

layers in the Schools data frame:

schools locations of elementary, middle, high, and

private schools
runways location of airport runways
arterials major roads
cnel65 the noise contour
airport_area the proposed airport expansion zone
county the county boundary

The map currently displays the arterials, noise contour, airport area, and county boundary.
Their boxes are checked in the table of contents.

Moving around the map

The Tools toolbar lets you move around the map and query the features on the map. Place
our pointer over each icon (without clicking) to see a description of each tool.

1. Using the Zoom In tool, draw a

box around the noise contour
to zoom in. Place the pointer
on the upper‐left part of the
contour, click the mouse
button, and hold it down while
dragging to the lower right.
You’ll see the box drawn on the
screen. When you release the
mouse button, ArcMap zooms
in to the area defined by the
box.
2. If necessary, use the Pan tool
(the hand) on the Tools toolbar to reposition the map so the noise contour is in the
center of the display area (hold the mouse button down while dragging in the
direction you want to move the features, then release the button).

8
Displaying a layer
The table of contents lets you turn layers on and off in the display. To display a layer, check
the box next to its name. To turn it off, uncheck it. Display the schools and runways by
checking their boxes in the table of contents.

Changing the display symbol

ArcMap lets you change the colors and symbols you use to
display features. You’ll change the symbols for schools from a
dot to a standard symbol used for schools on many maps.

1. Click the dot symbol in the table of contents

to display the Symbol Selector dialog box.
2. Scroll down until you find the School 1
symbol and click it.
3. Click OK.

The schools are drawn with the new symbol.

You can also open the Symbol Selector dialog box by

rightclicking the layer name, choosing Properties
from the menu that appears, and clicking the
Symbology tab. To simply change the color of a
symbol, right‐click the symbol in the table of contents to display the color palette.

Identifying a feature
There is one school that may be within the noise contour
around the airport.

1. Using the Zoom In tool, draw a box around the

school to zoom in. You can see that the school is
indeed within the noise contour.
2. Click the Identify tool on the Tools toolbar.
The Identify window appears.
3. Move the mouse pointer over the school and click.
The name of the school (Northwestern Prep) is
listed in the Identify window. Notice that only the
features in the topmost layer are identified. You
can also identify features in other layers by
choosing the specific layers you want to identify
by clicking the Identify from: dropdown arrow in
the dialog box.
4. Close the Identify window.

9
Adding graphics
You can add text and other graphics to your
display using the Draw toolbar at the bottom of
the ArcMap window.

1. Click the New Text button. The pointer changes

to a crosshair with an A.
2. Move the mouse pointer near the school you
identified and click.
3. In the text box that appears, type
“Northwestern Prep” and press Enter.

A blue dotted line surrounds the text, indicating it is currently selected. You can reposition
the text by clicking and holding down the mouse button while dragging the text, then
releasing the button.

4. When you.re finished positioning the text near the school, click outside the text box
to deselect it.

Laying out a map

ArcMap lets you work in data view or layout view. Data view focuses on a single data frame.
Use data view when exploring or editing your data. Layout view shows you how the map
page looks. Use layout view when composing and printing a map for display. You can also
explore and edit your data in layout view.

You can change the size and orientation of the page in layout view. In this case, you’ll create
a 16‐ by 12‐inch map with a landscape
orientation.

1. Click the Fixed Zoom Out button on

the Tools toolbar several times to
zoom to a smaller map scale.
2. Click the View menu and click
Layout View. The Layout toolbar
appears, and the display changes to
show the page layout with rulers
along the side.
3. Right‐click anywhere on the layout
background and click Page and Print Setup. You
can also access Page and Print Setup from the File
menu.
4. Make sure the Use Printer Paper Settings box is
not checked; otherwise, the page size will default
to be the same as your printer. If your printer
does not print larger sizes, you can scale down the
map when you print it, as you’ll see later in this
exercise.

10
 5. Check Scale Map Elements proportionally to
changes in Page Size. That way, the data will
be rescaled to fit the page.
6. Set the Map Page Size Page Orientation to
Landscape.
7. Set the page width to 16 and the height to
12 inches by clicking in each box and typing
over the existing values.
8. Click OK. The page and rulers change to
reflect the new size and orientation.
9. Resize your data frame manually to make it
look like the map below. To do this, click the
Select Elements tool on the Tools toolbar,
click the data frame, and resize the data
frame using the blue selection handles.

Zooming in on the page

The Layout toolbar controls your view of the scale and position of the whole map, as
opposed to the data layers on the map. By default, the map size is set so you can see all of
it; however, at this scale, it’s hard to see the school name.

1. Click Zoom to 100% on the Layout

toolbar. The page is displayed at the
actual printed size so you can see the
detail.

2. Click the Pan button on the Layout toolbar

and drag the map to the lower left so you
can see the name of the school.

11
 3. Click the Zoom Whole Page button on the
Layout toolbar to see the entire page
again.

Inserting map elements

ArcMap makes it easy to add titles, legends, north arrows, and scale bars to your map.

1. Click Insert on the main menu and click

Title. In the box that appears, type the
title for your map, .Schools and Noise
Contour., and press Enter.
2. On the Draw toolbar at the bottom of the
window, click the text size drop‐down
arrow and click 36 to change the title to
36 point.
3. Click the title and drag it so it’s centered
at the top of the map.

The Draw toolbar lets you add and change the

format ‐ font, size, color, and so on ‐ of text
and graphic elements, such as boxes, callout lines, or circles, on your map.

4. Click Insert and click Legend. The

Legend Wizard appears.
5. Click Next several times to step through
the wizard, accepting the default legend
parameters. Click Finish when done.

By default, ArcMap scales the legend to the

page and includes all the layers that are
currently displayed. You can modify the legend
by right‐clicking it and choosing Properties
from the menu that appears. For now, just use

12
the default legend. Later, you’ll learn how to customize
legends and other map elements.

6. Click and drag the legend to the lower‐left corner

of the map.
7. Click Insert and click North Arrow. The North
Arrow Selector window appears.

8. Click ESRI North 1 and click OK. Click and

drag the north arrow so it is to the right of
the legend.
9. Insert a scale bar from the Insert menu.
10. Click Scale Line 1 and click Properties.
11. Click the Scale and Units tab.
12. Check the Show one division before zero
box and change the division units to miles.
Click OK on all dialog boxes.
13. Click and drag the scale bar under the
legend and north arrow.

13
 14. Click the legend to select it; while holding down the Shift key, click the scale bar to
select it as well.
15. Click Drawing on the Draw toolbar, point
to Align, and click Align Left from the
menu that appears. The scale bar is now
aligned with the left side of the legend.

Printing a map
At this point, your first map is finished. If you
have a printer connected to your computer, you
can print the map.

1. Click File and click Print.

2. Click Setup.
3. Click Landscape on the Printer Setup
panel.
4. Click OK to close the Page and Print Setup
dialog box.
5. Click OK on the Print dialog box to print
your map.

For this exercise, you can print the map to “pdf” if

you have pdf printer installed on your computer.

14
Saving a map
Save your map in the folder with the tutorial data. First,
though, ensure that ArcMap uses the full path of the
location of the data on your system. The airport map
was created using relative paths so ArcMap would find
and display the data copied to your system.

1. Click File and click Map Document Properties.

2. Make sure to uncheck “Store relative pathnames
to data sources”.
3. Click OK on the Properties dialog box.

Now save a copy of your map.

1. Click File and click Save As.

2. In the File name text box, type “airport_ex”.
Then click Save.

15