Module 6 Suitability Part 1

 In this module we created suitability maps using a variety of tools and concepts. From the image here you can see that two scenarios were used to find the least cost path from two locations. This was accomplished by creating and reclassifying certain rasters to show the best location for the route. The rasters were then added together and used two different weights of the inputs which generated two maps as you can see above in which the green pixels are the most suitable and the red are the least suitable.  

Damage Assessment

 

In order to create this data and the analysis I used ArcGIS Pro to create several layers one point layer and a coastal line layer. The point layer had several different domains so I had to go through and create points for each of the properties then edit them to display and contain the damage information from the hurricane. Then after that I created a line layer and a multi ring buffer based on 3 different distances then I joined it with the points layer to get accurate counts where the majority of each damage type was located and display that data.  

Coastal Flood Analysis

 

For this lab I worked on the ability to use GIS accurately assess coastal flooding through several methods of analysis. In general we used DEM models to gather data and assess areas that were at risk to flooding. I had a lot of trouble with the analysis on this lab and with the overall process to get the final projection. The concept wasn't the challenging the part it was some of the processes. For example generating the raster's in useable polygons was a long multi step process that I performed but the software kept sending me error messages and the data would corrupt itself if I restarted the software. I was able to overcome this by luck after the error corrected itself. Additionally the analysis of my Florida coastal flooding caused some issues as I was unfamiliar with some of the options so I had to calculate most of my results in a manual way.

Visibility Analysis

For this lab I learned about the basics of visibility analysis, how to use line of sight analysis, viewshed analysis, and how to share the outputs of these techniques. I learned about how the z coordinate can affect eh data and how to use it to accurately make 2D data into 3D data. I learned how line of sight can accurately show what is visible from certain location and how it can be used to position thing for the best visibility. Additionally I learn the different types of viewshed and their advantages and disadvantages like the triangulation based data. I learned how effectively share the data which I already understood the only thing that was new was learning is how to create and share a hosted scene layer. 
 

Forestry and LiDAR

For this lab I word with topographic LiDAR data to show and analyze vegetation and Canopy data in a National Park in Virginia. For me this lab had several challengers that took a lot of time overcome especially the large amount of processing time that was needed to render the output. Though I really struggled with creating the canopy density map since my output was not similar to the example provided and I redid the step at least 5 times until it finally after much trial and error looked correct. I also struggle to create an appropriate scale bar for the 3D maps but I also manage to get it to scale correctly by copying a scale bar from a 2D layout and like magic it scale properly. All in all I learned a lot about 3D analysis and imaging.
 

Crime Analysis

 
For this lab we created 3 maps to analyze the crime in Chicago and using it to predict future crimes. Each map used a different technique to create a hotspot layer of the map. In general I experienced a few issues with two of the techniques the were appeared to be GIS issues and simply rerunning the tools and repeating previous step allowed me to get the correct outputs. And from a comparison of the data it was determined that the Grid based map was the best at predicting future crime due to the small area it produced compared to the other two and its high density of crime located within its boundaries. This would be useful for policing to know since they have limited resources and accurately predict where crime will appear.  

About me Blog Post

 Hello my name is James Barnes but I go by my middle name. Brian. I am 27 years old and I work full time for the Air Force and I am a graduate student trying to get my masters in GIS. I have academic and professional experience with GIS since I studied it during my undergraduate degree and I worked as a GIS Technician at Gulf Power. Additionally during my free time I worked on several GIS certifications to expand my knowledge and skills. I think the goals from this course would be to start networking with fellow students and also improve my GIS knowledge and experience. I joined this program in order to become more proficient in GIS and explore the possible career opportunities in this field. Some adjectives that describe me are loyal, kind, and curious.

Link for Map:

https://arcg.is/0b8Wnm1