GIS Project Management
- Organize your data
- Name files sensibly, and put them in
subdirectories
- Consider putting the current project
directory in the Quick Access section of File
Explorer while you need it often. You can
pin it there while working, and remove it when
done.
- While working on a project, make its path
very simple, with no
spaces. While working, you will need to do
a lot of moving and checking files, and make
this as easy as possible for yourself.
This can involve having to use command line
tools, and they will be infinitely easier to use
with short paths.
- When the project is done, you can archive it
and bury it as deep as you want in the directory
structure, at which point you might also delete
any remaining ZIP files, and temporary data
sets.
- When downloading data, get too much in preference to too
little. It is much easier to clip the data set compared to
having to go back and get a bigger data set. Obviously
this is easier to do with low resolution data; once you move to
GB sized data sets, being judicious in picking the extent is
much more important.
- If you have to import the data through
GDAL, consider then saving
it in a MICRODEM native format to speed up opening it if you will use the
data set a lot. This also applies if you need to fill
holes, deal with incorrect setting of missing data, or deal with
other data set anomalies.
- File, Save DEM,
Entire DEM, MD DEM or GeoTIFF (if you want to
export to other software)
- Once you have the data, if the data set is large, consider
subsetting. You can do this with both raster and vector
data.
- For a vector point data, use Report on
the DB table display. This will save with any
current filter applied, and will remove hidden
fields. If you have a lot of fields, it
can be very hard to see the ones you want, and
removing fields you do not want will be helpful.
If you keep the original file you have a backup
if you misjudge and later need a field.
- For point data, use
Report,
DBF table. If you later
need to share with other
software, you can recreate the
SHP and SHX files.
- For a vector line or area
shapefile, use
Report,
Shapefile export.
- For a DEM
- File, Save DEM,
Current subset, MD DEM
- File, Save DEM, Portion of DEM with data
which will remove any missing
data along the edges
Last Updated on 10/26/2017