Lab 6: Building a Geodatabase, Creating Features, and Editing Features and Attributes

Introduction

This lab introduces building a geodatabase, spatial feature creation, and feature and attribute editing in ArcGIS.  You will learn the following skills in ArcView:

• Creating a geodatabase
• Creating feature classes

• Adding fields and domains
• Drawing features
• Using features construction tools
• Deleting and modifying features
• Splitting and merging features
• Editing feature attribute values

Instructions

Do the tutorial exercises in Chapters 14, 15, and 16 of Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop.

Deliverables

Answer the following questions and produce the following outputs. Labs should be typed, well organized, and be stapled together. The lab is due in class Tuesday of the following week.

Chapter 14

1. What is a feature class?
2. What are some of the formats that organize features?
3. What are three advantages of a geodatabase over other formats?
4. In exercise 14a you create a new geodatabase and then convert an ArcInfo coverage and two shapefiles into the geodatabase format.  How are geodatabases different than shapefiles?
5. A geodatabase has spatial reference information including a coordinate system, a spatial domain, and a precision.  Describe each of these three parameters.
6. In exercise 14b you added a blank feature class for water lines.  What type of information did you need to define for this blank feature class?
7. What is an attribute domain?
8. What are the different data types that can be specified for a geodatabase field?
9. Water lines are of three possible types including Main, Domestic Lateral, and Hydrant Lateral.  They are usually Main.  How do you ensure that a geodatabase adheres to these rules?

Chapter 15

1. What is digitizing?
2. What is heads-up digitizing?
3. What are end points, vertices, and edges?
4. What is an edit sketch?
5. At the end of exercise 15a put your name on the map using a text box, switch to a layout view, and print the map.
6. At the end of exercise 15b, zoom to the Full View bookmark,  put your name on the map using a text box, turn the subdivision image on, switch to a layout view, and print the map.

Chapter 16

1. At the end of exercise 16a, zoom to the Full View bookmark, put your name on the map using a text box, and print the layout view map.
2. At the end of exercise 16b, zoom to the Full View bookmark, put your name on the map using a text box, and print the layout view map.
3. How do you create a new field in an attribute database and calculate values for that field that are a function of another field?