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Spatial and Attribute Data Management

Spatial and Attribute Data Management. Spatial Data Management. How does ArcGIS store its files?. Shapefiles. A very common format for spatial data files. Only for vector data.

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Spatial and Attribute Data Management

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  1. Spatial and AttributeData Management Spatial and Attribute Data Management

  2. Spatial Data Management • How does ArcGIS store its files? Spatial and Attribute Data Management

  3. Shapefiles • A very common format for spatial data files. • Only for vector data. Carlson, Lynn, “Understanding Geospatial Data Files used in Geographic Information System Software: A Basic Introduction”. http://gisatbrown.typepad.com/gis/files/spatialdatafiles.pdf. Accessed 2007.01.15 Spatial and Attribute Data Management

  4. Coverages • An old Arc/Info file format. • Only for vector data. Carlson, Lynn, “Understanding Geospatial Data Files used in Geographic Information System Software: A Basic Introduction”. http://gisatbrown.typepad.com/gis/files/spatialdatafiles.pdf. Accessed 2007.01.15 Spatial and Attribute Data Management

  5. Grids • An old Arc/Info file format. • Only for raster data. Carlson, Lynn, “Understanding Geospatial Data Files used in Geographic Information System Software: A Basic Introduction”. http://gisatbrown.typepad.com/gis/files/spatialdatafiles.pdf. Accessed 2007.01.15 Spatial and Attribute Data Management

  6. Geodatabases • The Geodatabase (GDB) is the newest ESRI file format. • Advantages: • All your data is contained in a single file (*.gdb). • Can hold raster and vector data. • Can enforce topology rules (e.g. to prevent features from overlapping that aren’t supposed to). Carlson, Lynn, “Understanding Geospatial Data Files used in Geographic Information System Software: A Basic Introduction”. http://gisatbrown.typepad.com/gis/files/spatialdatafiles.pdf. Accessed 2007.01.15 Spatial and Attribute Data Management

  7. File Naming Guidelines • Keep The Names Short • Between 8 and 15 characters • If you work with spatial data that are in the “coverage” vector format, or the “grid” raster format, only 8 characters are allowed. • Do Not Use Spaces • town boundaries is a bad name for a file; use town_boundaries instead • my gis data is a bad name for a folder that will contain spatial data files; use my_gis_data instead • Do Not Use Special Characters (the only exception is the underscore) • e.g. town#boundaries is a bad name for a file • e.g. my!gis!data is a bad name for a folder • Never Put A Number As The First Character • e.g. 2000population is a bad name for a file • a good alternative would be y2000pop • Keep The Names Simple • use abbreviations where possible • use underscores where possible as a replacement for spaces • use upper case where it makes sense • e.g. twn_bndy or TwnBndy Carlson, Lynn, “Understanding Geospatial Data Files used in Geographic Information System Software: A Basic Introduction”. http://gisatbrown.typepad.com/gis/files/spatialdatafiles.pdf. Accessed 2007.01.15 Spatial and Attribute Data Management

  8. File Naming Guidelines • Implement A Tracking Method • When you begin to perform analysis, you will frequently be generating a copies of the data that have “added value”. • Therefore, it is important that you have a naming convention that will allow you to keep track of these sequential files. • Example: you may start with a shapefile of town_boundaries which only has one attribute (e.g. the name of the town). Performing a process called a Join results in new attributes (population of each town, zip code, the number of grocery stores in each town, etc) being appended to the table. • Once the join is completed, you would export the entire file to a new file (e.g. town_boundaries_2) in order to permanently retain the new attributes. • Because you have implemented a tracking method it will be easy to distinguish the latest file you are working with. Carlson, Lynn, “Understanding Geospatial Data Files used in Geographic Information System Software: A Basic Introduction”. http://gisatbrown.typepad.com/gis/files/spatialdatafiles.pdf. Accessed 2007.01.15 Spatial and Attribute Data Management

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