This week's assignment was to create three different map outputs to share. I chose to create mine based on my Top 10 Favorite Restaurants and started by listing them in an Excel spreadsheet. Once I listed all the places in order of preference I looked up and added their addresses and urls showing a dish from each restaurant. Once the spreadsheet was done I saved it as a Text (Tab Delimited) file.
After that things got confusing. The next step was to geocode the zip codes and addresses. This was done by uploading the text file in ArcGIS Online, then downloading the layer to open in ArcMap. Part of the process in ArcGIS Online allowed for making some design choices, but they were very limited. The first output from this process was this public web map:
http://arcg.is/1Ra5sw8
This method was quick and easy, but I didn't care much for the results. I didn't feel I had any control over the symbols and how they were displayed. It didn't seem to matter if I zoomed in or out, there was only one view where I didn't have a lot of symbol overlap. I actually changed the restaurants of preference and their rankings just to get enough space in between so each individual symbol would be seen. Even then one over-lapped another, but not so much you couldn't tell there were two there and select each. I found this to be quite annoying.
I think this first output was supposed to be the Map Package and the basis for the next map, the ArcGIS Online Map, but since the last one was mostly done on ArcGIS Online I'm rather fuzzy on the difference. Here, the next step is to open the "map package" and that launches ArcMap, though a couple steps later the task is to "Create a Map Package". Hence my confusion. But at this point I did a bit of work, mostly creating a shape file and adding that and a World Streets layer.
After verifying the World Streets and the Geocoded list were both being displayed in the same coordinate system, I started working on the scale to make sure the symbols didn't look like a jumbled pile as I zoomed in and out. The next step was to clean up the attribute table because new fields were added during the Geocoding stage. Once that was done I shared as a Map Package, even though I used a map package for the basis of this map. Here I shared the Map Package to my ArcGIS Online account, analyzing it in the process to make sure nothing would prevent the map from being published or cause problems with its performance. Once this process was through the Map Package was created. From ArcGIS Online the Map Package was able to be pulled up.
Last was to make a Google Earth Map. This was quick and easy since most of the work had already been done for the first two output maps. Here a Layer to KML conversion was done allowing the map to be viewed in Google Earth. Clicking on the KML file launched Google Earth.
This lab was very intensive. There was a lot of new terminology to learn and a lot of bouncing around between programs that made things confusing. I think I'll need a bit more time to absorb this lesson than I have any others.
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