Lab 2: Geospatial Web Services

Goal and Background

To build upon the basics and fundamentals of web based maps learned in Lab 1, this week’s lab set out to expose us to processing geospatial data with the end goal of creating and hosting a geospatial web service via ArcGIS server and ArcGIS Online for Organizations. Included in this blog post will be technical report outlining the goal and background, methods, results, and sources used in the creation of the geospatial web service. Using ArcMap and ArcGIS Server to process, analyze and publish data provided by Dr. C. Wilson in the form of shape and Excel CSV files, the documentation of the skills learned to create a geospatial web service will be shown.

Methods & Results

To start, it was first necessary to download and unzip the Lab2_data.zip served to us by Dr. C. Wilson. Next, the Wisconsin Transit data was preliminarily viewed in ArcMap to become familiar with the four feature classes representing cities, interstates, highways and counties in Wisconsin. Once the data had been viewed, ArcMap was closed to allow for the data to be added to and published within ArcGIS.com. When publishing the data to create a data service of Wisconsin Transportation Data, specific tags were incorporated within the service to allow for the data to be searched for within ArcGIS online. The Tags used were ‘Cities’, ‘Interstate’, ‘US Highways’ and ‘City’. The map created can be found at: http://bit.ly/1btMflC

The second task of this lab was to publish a feature hosted service using a CSV file. Downloaded and unzipped in the same Lab2_data.zip was the data needed for this section. First the data needed to be opened in Microsoft Excel and then saved as a CSV file with the name ‘WI_fire_occ_2004.csv’. Next, the fire occurrence csv file was input into ArcGIS Online and was assigned two relevant tags. After configuring the attributes to only show the date of fires in the pop-up window, the data was ready to be published. The map created can be found at: http://bit.ly/1btNlho

The third task of this lab was to publish a feature hosted service using an ArcMap document. Again using the data served by Dr. Wilson, the ‘Rivers_and_streams_and_Lakes.shp’ needed for this task were input to and ArcMap session. Next, the input features were shared through the file share as service within Arc. After following the sequence of pop-up windows that allowed for certain parameters such as service editor, capabilities, and feature access to be manipulated, the data was analyzed to expose any errors, and then published. Once published, the map was then shared to allow for it to be viewed freely by certain ArcGIS Online Groups. The map created for this section can be found at: http://bit.ly/1btObe5

The final task of this lab was to publish a tiled map service using ArcGIS Server. To begin, it was first necessary to connect to our personal SDE database on ArcGIS server. Once connected, land use land cover data of the lower Chippewa River near Eau Claire, WI was added in the form of a raster image. After reclassifying the classes of land use land cover to include agriculture, forest, green vegetation, other urban, residential, and water, the map was published using the publish a service tutorial within ArcMap. The map created for this section can be found at: http://bit.ly/1aOFpTx

Sources

Environmental Science Research Institute, ArcMap USA geodatabase, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Lakes.shp created by Dr. C. Wilson (2013), Rivers and streams.shp- United States Geological Surveys (USGS, 2008), Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS). 2011. Processed by Dr. C. Wilson. 2012.