Introduction to ArcGIS forEnvironmental Scientists

Module 3 – GIS Analysis

ArcGIS Toolbox

Tools-2 Introduction to ArcGIS

Objectives

• Learn to find tools• Become familiar with some tools commonly used in spatial analysis• ESRI and third party extensions

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Basics

• The Help panel on the right provides information on each field as you click in it• The Tool Help button opens complete documentation for the tool

•Most tools require an input, output, and optional parameters

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Finding Tools - Searching

• Use Geoprocessing Search For Tools (or click the search icon ) when looking for less commonly used tools• Search by name or keyword, possible matches are shown in a dropdown list• Note that some tools are not available for all license levels (i.e. ArcInfo has all tools, but ArcEditor and ArcView do not)

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Finding Tools – Search Results

• Hover the mouse over the tool name to see a longer description• Click the name of the tool to open it• Click the path to locate the tool in the catalog window

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Finding Tools - Browsing

• You can browse for tools in both the Toolbox and Catalog windows• Commonly used tools can be added to the Geoprocessing menu for easier access (and default tools in the list can be removed) in Customize Mode

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Some Commonly Used Tools

•Clip• Intersect/Union• Buffer•Near• Frequency

•Merge•Dissolve•Conversion Tools• Project•Define Projection

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Located in Analysis Tools Extract

Used to ‘cookie cut’ one feature based on the outline of another

Very useful in terms of managing storage in a project database

Similar to: Exporting a selected set to a new feature class

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Located in Analysis Tools Overlay

Creates a new feature class containing features common to all inputs

Attributes from all inputs are retained (optional)

Similar to: Union, Identity and spatial join

Introduction to ArcGIS

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Located in Analysis Tools Overlay

Creates a new feature class containing all features from all inputs

Attributes from all inputs are retained (optional)

Similar to: Intersect, Identity and spatial join

Introduction to ArcGIS

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Located in Analysis Tools Proximity

Can be used on points, lines or polygons

A negative buffer distance will shrink polygons

Also available: Multiple Ring Buffer Tool to create multiple buffers

Introduction to ArcGIS

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Located in Analysis Tools Proximity

Usually used to find distance from point features to other points or lines

Only available with ArcInfo

Similar to: Point Distance

Introduction to ArcGIS

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Located in Analysis Tools Statistics

Very useful for summarizing attribute information

Provides a record count of unique frequency field values even if no summary fields are entered

Only available with ArcInfo

Similar to: Summarizing a field (from field context menu)

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Located in Data Management Tools > General

Input features do not need to be adjacent

Similar to: Append

Introduction to ArcGIS

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Conversion Tools

•Useful for converting data from one format to another; shapefile GDB, as well as converting between vector and raster

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Batch Mode

• Available for all tools•Right-click the tool and select Batch…

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Extensions

• Some tools/toolboxes are only available if the appropriate extension is licensed and turned on• Spatial Analyst, Network Analyst and 3D Analyst are some examples of Esri extensions• There are also third party extensions like XTools and ArcHydro• Extensions sometimes load new toolboxes and sometimes add new menus