Lab 2: Geospatial Web Services
Goal and Background
Lab exercise 2 was designed to introduce students to creating geospatial web services using ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Server. The lab was designed to teach students the various ways in which geospatial data can be published to create geospatial web services. By the end of the lab, students have authored and published raster, feature classes, and Excel CSV file using ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap.
Methods
The first part of the lab involved publishing feature hosted services using ArcGIS Online. First, students published a feature hosted service using an ESRI shapefile. This was done by signing into ArcGIS Online for organizations, then from the content window, adding the .zip file which contained the shapefiles needed for the map services. The service is added with tags when it is published, so that people within the areas that the services is shared can search for the layer using keywords. The services in question for this part was a Wisconsin transportation service that included county boundaries, interstates, highways, and cities. Next, the students were instructed to create a web map using the Wisconsin data service. This involved simply editing the map service to make it cartographically pleasing and functional. The next section of the lab was similar to the first section in that the students were to publish a feature hosted service, but this time is was to be done using an Excel CSV file instead of an ESRI shapefile. The excel sheet for this lab was a table of fire occurrences in Wisconsin during 2004. The file was input into ArcGIS Online, then selected to be located using latitude and longitude, which were fields included in the table for each fire. Once the service was published, all that needed to be done was edit the pop-ups so that unnecessary attributes were not shown when a certain fire was clicked. For the final section of part 1, students were to publish a feature hosted service using an ArcMap document. When published, this service exposed all of the vector layers in the document. Students were instructed to sign in to ArcGIS Online from ArcMap desktop. The service could then be published and shared directly from ArcMap desktop and become visible in ArcGIS Online, where it could be used in a web map.
The second part of the lab involved publishing a tiled map service using ArcGIS Server. A tiled map service is useful because it allows the map to be loaded much faster because the map data is cached for later use. The downfall to this is that you cannot tile maps that change often, because you will have to be updating it far too often. First, students were instructed on how to publish a service to ArcGIS Server using ArcMap. To do this, a database connection had to be created to the UWEC geography database from ArcMap. A raster dataset of Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, and Altoona was then added from the lab data folder to our individual enterprise folder within the UWEC geography database. Once the dataset was classified correctly, it was published as a service following the steps included in the lab. The service was published to our individual folders located in the UWEC database, then cached. The caching process is what made the map service tiled, and what allowed it to be run faster. Next, the students were instructed on how to consume the service they just created in a web application. From a web browser window, we were able to navigate the UWEC geography ArcGIS server by following the link provided to us. From our individual folders, we were able to select to view our published service in an ArcGIS Online map viewer. Next, we were introduced to publishing a service to an ArcGIS portal using ArcGIS Pro. However, for this lab, we would publish from Pro to Online because of an ongoing glitch in the portal system. Portal and Online are very similar, so this was not too problematic. The same Chippewa Valley data that was used in the previous step was used again in this step. The final step in this exercise was to create a feature service to add to a web map that would be time-enabled. This means that the events on the map service can be viewed over time, as they occurred. In this case, the map service published shows hurricanes and earthquakes that occurred in the US between 2000 and 2009 (Figure 1).
Results
A web map service such as this is very beneficial to end users, as it allows for comparison between years. In this case, the user can compare how many hurricanes and earthquakes happened during one year versus during other years. One may even be able to see a trend of increasing frequency of such events, and begin to make assumptions about our changing climate.
Sources
Part 1 section 1 data: Mastering ArcGIS Geodatabase by Maribeth Price, 2016.
Part 1 section 3 data: Wisconsin DNR, 2013.
Part 1 section 4 stream data: Mastering ArcGIS Geodatabase by Maribeth Price, 2016.
Lakes data: Cyril Wilson, unpublished data, 2012.
Part 2 section 1: Cyril Wilson, unpublished data, 2016.
Part 3 data: Pinde Fu, 2015.
USGS National Atlas
NOAA National Climatic Data Center
Lab exercise 2 was designed to introduce students to creating geospatial web services using ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Server. The lab was designed to teach students the various ways in which geospatial data can be published to create geospatial web services. By the end of the lab, students have authored and published raster, feature classes, and Excel CSV file using ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap.
Methods
The first part of the lab involved publishing feature hosted services using ArcGIS Online. First, students published a feature hosted service using an ESRI shapefile. This was done by signing into ArcGIS Online for organizations, then from the content window, adding the .zip file which contained the shapefiles needed for the map services. The service is added with tags when it is published, so that people within the areas that the services is shared can search for the layer using keywords. The services in question for this part was a Wisconsin transportation service that included county boundaries, interstates, highways, and cities. Next, the students were instructed to create a web map using the Wisconsin data service. This involved simply editing the map service to make it cartographically pleasing and functional. The next section of the lab was similar to the first section in that the students were to publish a feature hosted service, but this time is was to be done using an Excel CSV file instead of an ESRI shapefile. The excel sheet for this lab was a table of fire occurrences in Wisconsin during 2004. The file was input into ArcGIS Online, then selected to be located using latitude and longitude, which were fields included in the table for each fire. Once the service was published, all that needed to be done was edit the pop-ups so that unnecessary attributes were not shown when a certain fire was clicked. For the final section of part 1, students were to publish a feature hosted service using an ArcMap document. When published, this service exposed all of the vector layers in the document. Students were instructed to sign in to ArcGIS Online from ArcMap desktop. The service could then be published and shared directly from ArcMap desktop and become visible in ArcGIS Online, where it could be used in a web map.
The second part of the lab involved publishing a tiled map service using ArcGIS Server. A tiled map service is useful because it allows the map to be loaded much faster because the map data is cached for later use. The downfall to this is that you cannot tile maps that change often, because you will have to be updating it far too often. First, students were instructed on how to publish a service to ArcGIS Server using ArcMap. To do this, a database connection had to be created to the UWEC geography database from ArcMap. A raster dataset of Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, and Altoona was then added from the lab data folder to our individual enterprise folder within the UWEC geography database. Once the dataset was classified correctly, it was published as a service following the steps included in the lab. The service was published to our individual folders located in the UWEC database, then cached. The caching process is what made the map service tiled, and what allowed it to be run faster. Next, the students were instructed on how to consume the service they just created in a web application. From a web browser window, we were able to navigate the UWEC geography ArcGIS server by following the link provided to us. From our individual folders, we were able to select to view our published service in an ArcGIS Online map viewer. Next, we were introduced to publishing a service to an ArcGIS portal using ArcGIS Pro. However, for this lab, we would publish from Pro to Online because of an ongoing glitch in the portal system. Portal and Online are very similar, so this was not too problematic. The same Chippewa Valley data that was used in the previous step was used again in this step. The final step in this exercise was to create a feature service to add to a web map that would be time-enabled. This means that the events on the map service can be viewed over time, as they occurred. In this case, the map service published shows hurricanes and earthquakes that occurred in the US between 2000 and 2009 (Figure 1).
Results
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| Figure 1. The time enabled-web map. The time slider at the bottom of the user interface allows the user to navigate between years to see which hurricanes and earthquakes occurred during each year. |
Sources
Part 1 section 1 data: Mastering ArcGIS Geodatabase by Maribeth Price, 2016.
Part 1 section 3 data: Wisconsin DNR, 2013.
Part 1 section 4 stream data: Mastering ArcGIS Geodatabase by Maribeth Price, 2016.
Lakes data: Cyril Wilson, unpublished data, 2012.
Part 2 section 1: Cyril Wilson, unpublished data, 2016.
Part 3 data: Pinde Fu, 2015.
USGS National Atlas
NOAA National Climatic Data Center
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