Fall 2009 SO432, GIS

Short Exercise: Fire Base Camp

Update your computer to get the latest MICRODEM and help file, which should be dated 2009.11.3 or later.  You should be able to do this inside MICRODEM on the File, Tools menu.

Download the following new data files:

• Oregon exercise, which will install a DEM, an NLCD grid, and a streams shape file in c:\mapdata\oregon_exercise.

• Oregon gazetteer, which will install a state gazetteer in c:\mapdata\gazetteer.

• Oregon Tiger, which will install a county file in c:\mapdata\tiger\OR.

In the new help file, look up "Finding a location for base camp" in the Table of Contents under Tutorials and labs, GIS.

You should save all data layers on the C: drive of your computer, which will work much faster than using the network drive.  You should give each layer a meaningful name, and store them where you can find them later.

This exercise will be entirely individual effort, and will be due by 1600 on Friday 6 November.  If not turned in at that time without previous authorization it will have a grade of 0.

Prepare a word document with:

• Grids (maps)  showing the points that meet each of the five criteria.
• A grid showing the points that meet all criteria.  This should have a way to estimate coordinates for the regions that are acceptable.
• A point database with 3 suggested locations for the base camp, and display it in Google Earth with a screen capture.
• An area shapefile outlining the 3 suggested locations for the base camp, and display it in Google Earth with a screen capture..
• Discuss your results, with two main considerations:
  1. If you have trouble finding a sufficiently large area, which criteria could you relax to allow more areas to be considered?  Why did you pick the criteria?
  2. Does Google Earth's imagery show anything at your proposed locations that would preclude using them?