GEOG 475/575: Digital Compilation and Database Design

CRN: 14859/14860

Course Webpage: http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/courses/geog475f07/index.htm

(Or go to http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/ and select “Courses-> GEOG 4/575(F07)”)

 

Instructor: Geoffrey Duh  (Email: jduh@pdx.edu)

        Office: CH 424J      Phone: 503-725-3159    Office hours: Mon 1-3; Wed 1-2

Lectures/Lab: Tuesday and Thursday 18:00-19:50 in CH 413 (Tue) and CH469 (Thu).

        Thursdays are scheduled for labs. Lab attendance is mandatory.

Course emailing list: gisdb@lists.pdx.edu

 

Pre-course survey: Go to the website below and follow the instructions to complete the questions by September 27, 9pm. http://survey.oit.pdx.edu/ss/wsb.dll/jduh/gisdb.htm  

 

Course Objectives:

 

GEOG 475/575 covers the theory and methods of designing, compiling, and managing GIS databases that can be used in applications ranging from natural resources management, parcel and cadastral mapping, transportation and location analyses, census and land survey, and cartographic representations, etc. Students will learn several basic and advanced spatial data automation and integration methods, including the use of vector layer editors, spatial data manipulation tools, and database management tools, to build a GIS database. After completing the course, students will be able to design, develop, and manage a GIS database and understand the critical issues of its design and operation for their research projects or most GIS data management tasks.

 

Text and Readings:

 

The required textbooks for this course are "Introduction to GIS 4th Edition" (Chang 2008) and Designing Geodatabases (Arctur and Zeiler 2004). These books are available at the Portland State Bookstore. We all also use ESRI’s ArcGIS 9: Building a Geodatabase (Building_a_Geodatabase.pdf) and Geodatabase Workbook (GeodatabaseWorkbook.pdf). Digital copies of these books can be found in I:\Students\Data\GIS\ArcGIS Documentation\ArcGIS9.1_documentation\ESRI_Library\ Managing_data_with_ArcGIS. The pdf of the journal article (Maclachlan et al. 2007) for Week 10 is available on the course webpage (see link in the course schedule).

 

Additional references (These pdf files can be found in I:\Students\Data\GIS\ArcGIS Documentation\ArcGIS9.1_documentation\ESRI_Library\)

·        ArcGIS 3D-Analyst (& ArcScene). (ArcGIS_Extensions\Using_3D_Analyst.pdf)

·        Getting Started with ArcIMS (ArcIMS\ Getting_Started_with_ArcIMS.pdf)

·        Understanding ArcSDE (Managing_data_with_ArcGIS\ Understanding_ArcSDE.pdf)

 

Additional Online Resources:

http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/courses/faq/ESRI_Geodatabase.htm

 

The lecture component of this course consists of discussions of the readings and therefore you should have read the material before class. Students are expected to come to class ready to be active participants in the discussion.

 

Grading

 

Class Participation        15%
Lab Assignments          30%
Midterm Exam              15%
Project Proposal           10%
Group Project              30%

 

Class Participation (15%):

Attendance to this course is mandatory. If you miss more than two class periods then you will be penalized five percent of your final grade per absence. PLEASE DO NOT MISS CLASS. You are expected to take part in the discussions and if you are not in class then you cannot. If you are repeatedly late you will be given an absence. The labs are due by Thursday before class the week after they are assigned. You can hand them in class or put them in my mailbox in CH424.

All students are required to select a topic from a list provided by the instructor (see the last page of the syllabus) and give a 10 to 15 minutes presentation on that topic to the class. You must prepare a powerpoint presentation, 4 discussion/quiz questions and their answers. Students who are responsible for the week’s topics must email the questions to the course mailing list and the questions and their answers to the instructor by 5pm the day before the class. The presentation should be mainly based on the assigned readings. I strongly encourage you to put additional relevant materials you find on the internet or from other references that might help students understand the topic.

 

Lab Assignments (30%):

During the lab sessions on Thursdays in CH469 you will do practical exercises on the computers. If you do not finish the labs during the assigned time periods the lab also has open hours. The practical exercises provide a way to acquire skills using MicroSoft Access, ArcGIS, and other software packages and to apply the course concepts to real data.  CH 475, CH 1, CH 324, and Broadway Computer Lab all have ArcGIS on the computers. Lab exercise data are available in the CD that comes with the textbook and in: I:\Students\Instructors\Geoffrey_Duh\Chang_4e.

 

Midterm Exam (15%):

            There will be one in-class, closed-book midterm exam and no final exam. Unscheduled in-class quizzes will be administered without notifications. Results of these quizzes will be counted toward class participation.

 

Group Projects (40%):

Class will be divided into six groups. Each group will work on a GIS database project of its own choice or assigned by the instructor. Each group must submit a project proposal on the 4th week and a final report by the scheduled final exam time. During the scheduled final examine time students will present their work to the class.

 

Project Proposal Guideline

Term projects should involve the design and implementation of a GIS database for existing or potential GIS applications. Each group is required to submit a typed project outline to my mailbox in 424 CH or my email address (jduh@pdx.edu) by 5 pm on Oct 16 (Tuesday). Your final term project will be carried out following the project outline. The outline should include the following information.

 

  1. Project Title: A sentence highlighting the main objective of your project.
  2. Background: A short paragraph describing the applications associated with the GIS database and the significance and contribution of these applications to a broader context.
  3. Design objectives: Describe the specific objectives that you will accomplish in your project.
  4. Data layer specifications and geographic extents: Describe your study area, the GIS data layers, and the topological characteristics of these data layers.
  5. Methods and techniques: Describe the method and specific GIS techniques you will use to compile and manipulate your data (e.g., geocoding, creating relationship classes, overlaying, etc).
  6. Intended applications: Describe the intended applications of your GIS database and how your specific database design will facilitate such applications.
  7. Demonstration application: State a hypothetical or real scenario of using the database for geographical inquiry. This demonstration will be a part of your final project result.
  8. Limitations and quality statements: State what might be the limitations of the database and why.
  9. Literature cited: List the references, if any, that you cited in the proposal.

 

Oral Presentation:

Includes the essential information described in the proposal, data sets used, the analyses performed, and display the maps and tabular output derived from the analyses (see presentation rubric). The quality of your project is decided by the cohesiveness and logic of your arguments, the clarity of your objectives, and the appropriateness of the methods and techniques. The complexity and comprehensiveness of your project will not be major criteria in judging the quality of your project.

 


Course Schedule & Readings

 

(Chang refers to the Chang 2008 textbook. ESRI refers to ArcGIS 9: Building a Geodatabase.)

Week

Tuesday

Thursday Labs

1

Sep 25/27

Course Overview (Slides)
Project Group Discussion

Computer Terminology and SQL (ESRI Ch 2)

Lab 0 (Optional): Chang Ch 1 Tasks.

Lab 1: SQL, MS Access & Map Projection

2

Oct 2/4

Attribute Data Input and Management (Chang Ch 9, 11) (Slides)

Subtypes and Attribute Domains (ESRI Ch 5, 6)

Lab 2: Attribute Data Manipulation

3

Oct 9/11

Vector Data Models (Chang Ch 3, 4, 6) (Slides)

 

Lab 3: Data File and Geodatabase Structures

4

Oct 16/19

Raster Data (Chang Ch 5, ESRI Ch 12) (Slides)

 

Lab 4: Raster and Terrain Data Manipulation

5

Oct 23/25

GIS Data Analysis (Chang Ch 12, 13) (Slides)

Group Proposal Due

Topology (ESRI Ch 4)

Lab 5: Spatial Data Editing and Topology Midterm Exam

6

Oct 30/ Nov 1

Spatial Data Editing (Chang Ch 8) (Slides)

Lab 6: Geodatabase Data Model and Schema - ArcMarine

7

Nov 6/8

Geometric Transformation (Chang Ch 7)

Geodatabase Design and Metadata (Arctur & Zeiler Ch 1) (ESRI Data Model Course) (Slides)

Lab 7: Geometric Transformation

8

Nov 13/15

Geocoding & Dynamic Segmentation (Chang Ch 17) (Slides)

Geometric Networks (ESRI Ch 7)

Lab 8: Network and Dynamic Segmentation, Network Analyst

9

Nov 20/22

Path Analysis & Network Applications (Chang Ch18) (Slides)

Thanksgiving-No Class

10

Nov 27/29

Internet GIS Database (Readings: Maclachlan et al. 2007 and visit Utah AGRC website) (Slides)

Course Summary

Students work on group projects in CH 469.

Dec 4 (Tue)

Student Presentations During Scheduled Exam Time
(18:00-21:00) Project Due (Guideline)


Student Discussion Topics

Week

Tuesday

Presenters

2

Oct 2

l    Primary & Foreign Keys (Slides)

l    Database Normalization

l    Boolean Operators and Venn Diagram (Slides)

Dan Ashney

 

Robert Bong

3

Oct 9

l    GIS Data Topology (Slides)

l    ESRI’s Coverage Model (Slides)

l    ESRI’s Geodatabase Data Models (Slides)

Rhonda Maronn

Mark Gibson

Danelle Peterson

4

Oct 16

l    Elements of Raster Data (Slides)

l    Raster Data Structure (Slides)

l    Raster (Image) Data Compression (Slides)

Brian Biboux

Michael Hekkers

Jack Anliker

5

Oct 23

l    Vector Overlay Methods & Slivers (Slides)

l    Raster operations (local, neighborhood, zonal) (Slides)

Alison Miller

Joanna Berg

6

Oct 30

l    Location Errrors (Slides)

l    Topological Errors

l    Douglas-Peucker Line Simplification Algorithm

Frank Lahm

 

 

7

Nov 6

l    Affine Transformation (Slides)

l    Root Mean Squared Errors

l    Resampling of Pixel Values (Slides)

Maurice Johns

 

Dan Craver

8

Nov 13

l    Geocoding (Address Matching) (Slides)

l    Routes in Dynamic Segmentation (Slides)

l    Events in Dynamic Segmentation (Slides)

Chris Long

Joe Hayes

Luis Murillo

9

Nov 20

l    Links in Network Analysis

l    Junctions in Network Analysis

l    Turn Table in Network Analysis

Jamie Ludwig

Jack Holmberg

Heath Brackett

10

Nov 27

l    Web-GIS Applications

l    Summary of Utah AGRC website

Amarina Wuenschel

Robert Chappell