This week's lab covered the difference between map projections and geographic coordinate systems, which tool to use under the Projections and Transformations toolbox to either re-define or assign a map projection, and touched briefly on geographic transformations. Our map for this week shows the state of Florida, set to three different projections.
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| The state of Florida, shown with three different map projections. |
Technical Details
To create the three different views of Florida, I inserted three separate data frames. To each data frame a different projection was made to each shapefile that represents the state of Florida (technically the shapefile is a collection of all the counties in Florida, not simply a view of the state only). To highlight the changes that each projection had on the state of Florida, a sample of four counties is provided in the legend with the square miles for each listed. For continuity the symbology, labeling, and map extent used for each frame was made exactly the same. The background for each data frame was set to light blue, in order to make this section of the map stand out even more.
The creation experience, in review
Creating the map was fairly easy, but somewhat tedious - as a lot of map creation can be. I enjoyed using the projection tool with confidence, as in the past I felt like I barely knew what I was doing. To be honest, the majority of my lab experience was spent reading all those ArcGIS Help topics on geographic coordinate systems, map projections, and geographic transformations. My personal favorite topic was the one covering what to do when you don't know the original projection of your data, as I've run into that a few times myself... and hopefully next time around I'll be able to figure it out on my own, instead of running to the GIS folks for help!
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