Week 4 - ArcGIS Online & Map Packages

This week’s lab in GIS4043 covered how to create and share map packages through ESRI ArcGIS.

A map package is a collection of vector data, along with any supporting .pdf or .txt file documents associated with a map. The design of the map, along with a working copy of the data, is what constitutes a map package.

Screenshot1 for the 'Use and Modify Map' exercise.

For the first exercise we modified an existing map package, then uploaded a new map package to our ESRI ArcGIS accounts. This sounds fancier than it was – the exercise was really about poking around with map and tile packages. The view to the left is a screenshot of my uploaded map package for this portion of the lab.

Screenshot 2a for the 'Optimize a Map Package' exercise.

The second exercise allowed us to add and edit data, as well as specifying certain data spatial extents, layer symbology, etc. The maps were then packed up and shared on the ESRI website as a map package. The views below are screenshots of my second uploaded map package.

Screenshot 2b for the 'Optimize a Map Package' exercise.

I found this exercise to be quite informative – I really had no idea one could send data on like that. I can definitely see the usefulness of this type of data sharing. These packages do not need to be directly uploaded to ESRI ArcGIS online either – I couldn’t upload directly to my ESRI account, so I had to save it locally and add it to my account manually… that’s pretty neat!

On a personal note, I found that old screen names can haunt you… I had an ESRI account many many moons ago, so I didn’t need to create a new one. Unfortunately the screen name wasn’t quite as professional as one would hope… thus the highly edited screenshots. Oh well, you live and learn.