ARC GIS

What is ARC GIS?

ARC GIS is a powerful Geographic Information System (GIS) software set that allows users to collect, map, and analyze geographical data. Have you ever wanted to correlate data sets about a geographical area to eachother? GIS! Need to find the best transportation route between several locations? GIS! How can you pick running routes quickly from everywhere you commonly visit? GIS! 

Surveys

GIS allows users to create and publish surveys with a plethora of data entry methods. These surveys can be used to collect data sets that are attached to distinct geographical coordinates. 

Mapping

With GIS, survey data is easily viewed in map form. Each point shown on the map contains the entire entry submited by the user that is associated with that location. 

Layers

With layers, each data set can be viewed based on a different parameter. Would you like places you visit the most to appear largest? Not a problem. Apply separate colors to each type of building visited? Also not a problem!

Analysis

Taking one more step in complexity, analysis tools in GIS allow you to extrapolate data based on the inputted location data. For example, if your business needs to determine the furtherst reasonable delivery service region surrounding each storefront location, it can easily be done by visualizing geographical area based on travel time. 

My GIS Experiment

To explore this powerful software, I created a survey and submitted data about 17 locations that I have been to in the past 5 years. For each location my survey recorded 10 data entries. Entry questions and raw data can be seen below. 

After collecting this data, I used the GIS graphic and analysis tools to make three layers. Layer 1 is a spot size map where the size of each location corelates to how many times I have visited. The second layer categorizes each location by what type of building (industrial, residential, commercial, outdoors). The third layer is multifaceted. It visualizes 1.5 miles distance from each location submitted by highlighting both geographical area and accessible streets. This layer was inspired by aiding me in exercise - I am able to use this map to plan my runs so that I never wind up more than 1.5 miles away from any landmark I am familiar with. 

In the future, it would be great to turn this into a more full fledged run planner. Tracking runs and suggesting new interesting paths to take would be a great way to expand this map's functionality. Being able to arrive at a location I frequent and have several new paths already mapped out with different lengths would be a great way to increase my engagement with running. There may be some beneficial ways to increase this functionality further but are not necessarily supported by ARC GIS at the moment. One example of this is implementing some sort of "local favorite" path options from a wider sub set of users. While this may work for streets and roads that are already in the GIS system, there may be less trafficked footpaths that users prefer and are not available for tracking. 


To explore my data, I've embedded the interactive map below. Please take a look!*


*Note: please zoom out to see all locations, some are abroad in other countries. Also, for larger viewing, please click the link at the bottom of the map: "View larger map".