GIS I Lab 3: GPS Data

As can be seen the basemap and building features are not up-to-date with the recent construction which has occured on the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus. Due to this many of the captured features overlap with one of the buildings.



Goal:  The objective of this lab was to learn how to drop a preset map and coordinate system into a Juno Trimble GPS, use ArcPad on the GPS unit to collect data, and then upload it back into ArcMap to observe the data and create a graphically pleasing and useful map.

Background:  The given task was to collect different types of data around the UW-Eau Claire campus using the Juno Trimble, including:  point data of three trees and three lightpoles, a line feature of the footbridge crossing the Chippewa River, and several polygon features of grassy areas on campus, three of which were collected using point streaming, while the other three were collected using the point average method.

Method:  To begin I chose a coordinate system in ArcCatalog (the chosen projection is NAD83 HARN Wisconsin).  I then created 3 feature classes, one for points, one for lines, and the other for polygons.  To continue, I took a basemap of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire campus and stacked a building feature class on top of it.  The next step was to download the data to the Juno Trimble GPS, which was done using the ArcPad Data Manager Toolbar in ArcMap.  I then proceeded to collect the data from around campus using ArcPad on the Juno.  I used two different methods to collect the shapes of grassy areas on campus: the point streaming and the point average method.  It is shown in the legend of the map which features were gathered with which method.  After the data was all collected, I uploaded it into ArcMap and proceeded to adjust the symbolization and scale of the map to make it easier to understand and interpret.

Results:  The first thing one might notice when looking at the map is that many of my features overlap with one of the campus buildings.  This is due to the basemap and campus building feature class, which was downloaded, being out of date.  Recent construction within the past two years on the UWEC campus has changed the appearance of he campus greatly.  The building which is overlapping with my data no longer exists, and there is grassy area and footpaths there instead.  This is a good lesson in the importance of having up-to-date data in the geospatial world, as many of the data is constantly changing.  I will take the knowledge of this with me into future projects to insure that I search for the most up-to-date data as possible to insure accuracy.  Despite this, much of the data I gathered appeared where I expected it to, and both the point streaming and point average method of collecting the grassy area features worked well without any major inconsistencies.  I now have the knowledge and skills to capture data and upload it to ArcMap to aid in analysis and displaying of data.