Lab 4 (Patrick Chew)

Week 4 - Introducing ArcMap/The Pitfalls and Potential of ArcMap

This week was our first venture as a class into actually using Arc GIS and the ArcMaps program. I had a mixed experience, overall finding ArcMaps to not be an intuitive program and I can see why neogeographers tend to use other software or methods to create their maps. Alternatively, even with my brief interaction with ArcMaps, I can see that the potential for visualizing data in and around geographic locations of all sorts is incredible.

My first reaction to the program was that it is not intuitive. As a designer, I am very familiar with programs like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, as well as with some 3D modeling programs. These programs all deal with creating, recreating, or modifying objects, as does ArcMaps. But these programs are all more intuitive; the user does not have to click through many windows or scroll over many objects to figure out what they want to do. More importantly that this, in the above listed programs, the user can play around. I think that the inability to just play around, tinker, and see what happens, is what makes ArcMaps unappealing to the common user and neogeographer.

Conversely, as a professional program, ArcMaps has incredible potential. The ability to combine data in multiple layers is remarkable and even more complex than Prof. Illes described. Through ArcMaps, one does not only get an accurate idea of geographic information, but also any data that can be associated with those locations. Despite the difficulty in creating and displaying these layers, the final product that we created was quite impressive. Arc GIS is clearly a pivotal tool for all sorts of disciplines and, as Prof. Illes said, a remarkable tool for persuasion and argument.

I will do my best to learn ArcMaps during the remainder of the class because I feel that it is a program with great potential and hopefully I can use it in some sort of design projects as well. However, I think moving forward, it would behoove the esri developers to work with designers of programs like Photoshop to create an interface that is easy to use both at the amateur and professional level. I feel like I literally just followed the tutorial step by step, but if I were to try it on my own, I would get nowhere. If ArcMaps were a more fun and intuitive tool to use, I think it would be far more popular. 

Lab 3 (Patrick Chew)

View Night Markets in Taipei in a larger map

My map above details some of the most famous locations for street food and street shopping in Taipei, Taiwan. Taiwan is famous for its xiaochi, or small snacks, of which there are hundreds to choose from, from fried, to grilled, to soft, crunchy, and more. 

Neogeography: Benefits and Pitfalls

Neogeography is a term used to describe the use of geographic tools for personal or community use by non-professionals. In the Internet age, the use of neogeography has greatly expanded due to greater access to information as well as to geographic tools. Neogeography is incredible because it brings individuals closer to the locations in which they live and to the geography of the Earth.

Many geographers and other professionals argue that neogeography is going to be the downfall of GIS and of professional geography, desperately hoping to distinguish their work from the work of novices on platforms such as Google Maps. To some extent, it seems that neogeography has slightly diluted traditional map-making. We are now surrounded by maps of our friends’ favorite eateries, maps of election data, twitter data, and everything in between, all made by ‘amateurs’. Because of this, there is less regulation of the data that we see, and agendas are not as clear to the average viewer. 

Patrick Chew - Lab 2

Week 2 Lab

1. The Quadrangle featured in the map is the Beverly Hills Quadrangle.

2. The adjacent quadrangles are: Canoga Park, Van Nuys, Burbank, Topanga, Hollywood, Venice, and Inglewood.

3. The quadrangle was first created in 1966.

4. The datum is from the North American Datum of 1927 (NAD 27). The North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) is also depicted by dashed corner ticks.

5. The scale of the map is 1:24,000 (1 inch on the map is equivalent to 24,000 inches on the ground.

6.

a.     5 centimeters on the map is equivalent to: 1200.9 meters.

                                               i.     5 cm = 1.97 in inches on the map = 47280 inches on the ground = 4,000 ft.

                                              ii.     3940 ft x 0.3048 = 1200.9 meters

b.     5 inches on the map is equivalent to: 1.894 miles.

                                               i.     1 mile = 5280 ft = 63,360 in on the ground

                                              ii.     5 in = 120,000 inches on the ground/63,360 = 1.894 miles

c.      1 mile on the ground is equivalent to: 2.64 inches on the map.

                                               i.     1 mile = 5280 ft = 63,360 in on the ground

                                              ii.     63,360 in/24,000 in = 2.64 inches

d.     3 km on the ground is equivalent to: 12.49 cm.

                                               i.     3 km = 3000 m = 300,000 cm.

                                              ii.     5 cm on map = 1200.9 = 120,090cm/5 =24,018, so 1 cm on map = 24,018 cm on ground.

                                            iii.     300,000 cm/24,018 cm = 12.49 cm on map

7. The contour interval on the map is 20 feet. Supplementary contour interval is 10 feet.

8. The approximate geographic coordinates in both degrees/minutes/seconds and decimal degrees of the

e.     Public Affairs Buildling:

                                               i.     DMS: 34°04'26" N and 118°26'21" W

                                              ii.     DD: 34.07398° N and 118.43923° W

f.      The tip of the Santa Monica Pier:

                                               i.     DMS: 34°0’26” N and 118°30’3” W

                                              ii.     DD: 35.00732° N and 118.50073° W

g.     The Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir:

                                               i.     DMS: 34°7’18” N and 118°25’33” W

                                              ii.     34.12175° N and 118.40907° W

9. The approximate elevation in both feet and meters of:

h.     Greystone Mansion (in Greystone Park): 560 feet = 170.688 meters

i.       Woodlawn Cemetery: 140 feet = 42.67 meters

j.       Crestwood Hills Park: 630 feet = 192.02 meters

10. The UTM zone of the map is UTM Zone 11S

11. The UTM coordinates for the lower left corner of the map are 3763000 and 362000.

12. There are 1,000,000 square meters contained within each cell (square) of the UTM gridlines.

13. See Image Below:

14. The magnetic declination of the map is 14 degrees east of north.

15. The water in the intermittent stream between the 405 freeway and stone Canyon reservoir flows from North to South.