Lab 1
Goals and Background: The context of this lab is that I am put in the shoes of an intern working at Clear Vision Eau Claire. I have been tasked with helping to produce a series of basemaps with GIS programs for the Confluence Project in downtown Eau-Claire, using a variety factors and features such as voting districts and zoning codes to produce the maps using ArcMap.
The goals of this project are to become familiar with a series civil spatial data sets and to prepare base maps for the Eau Claire Confluence Project showing different data sets and visual outputs.
Methods: The first step in the lab exercise was to use ArcCatalog to go over the features located in the two Lab 1 Geodatabases. The first Geodatabase for Eau Claire County and second for the city of Eau Claire. After looking over and analyzing the various features within each of the Geodatabases, ArcMap was then opened and used to create a new Geodatabase in which a feature class was added with a baseman of the location of the proposed site for the Confluence Project. The parcel feature of the Confluence project was added through the editing toolbar. After the Confluence Project feature was made, time was spent looking at the Public Land Survey System or PLSS for short. The Geodatabases contained PLSS data like townships, sections, and quarter-quarter sections among other things. Adding various sections and quarter sections, the Confluence Site was located in its most specific section, making it easy to locate and use later as well as gave an idea of how PLSS can be used.The next objective was the writing of a legal description for the Confluence Project sites. The description included the owner of the land and an in-depth description of the site including its specific PLSS location and the size of the site. The information needed for the legal description was obtained through the City of Eau Claire's website by creating a search of the PLSS information that we had found associated with the Confluence Project. Finally, six individual maps were created in ArcMap in order to visualize and show the detail a series of different ways that were relevant to the Clear Vision Eau Claire Confluence Project. The six different ArcMap maps showed Census Boundaries, Public Land Survey System, Civil Divisions, Voting Districts, Zoning Data, and City of Eau Claire Parcels in distinct yet comprehendible and informational ways. Each of the maps of the proposed site for the Confluence Project has the Confluence Project as a separate stand out feature to give perspective on where it is on each map as well as how it relates to and interacts with the other data. Finishing off the map artistic changes were made to the various maps in order to make them more visually pleasing, a legend and scale bar were added for ease of use and understandability as well they are part of any well rounded and constructed map.
Figure 1
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5UZYebNqJU&feature=youtu.be
Christhupy. "Lab 1 Example." YouTube. YouTube, 17 June 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.
http://www.sco.wisc.edu/plss/legal-descriptions.html
Hemstead, Brenda. "PLSS - Legal Descriptions | PLSS." PLSS - Legal Descriptions | PLSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.
https://www2.uwec.edu/News/more/confluenceprojectFAQs.htm
"Frequently Asked Questions: The Confluence Project." BluGold News. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.
http://communityfortheconfluence.org
"You Have a Role to Play in Building Eau Claire's Future." Community for the Confluence. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.
"Mapping Services." City of Eau Claire, Wisconsin : Mapping Services. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.
