Department of Geography and Environmental Studies

M. Matsa & K. C. R. Muringaniza

Creating maps from spatial data

Materials: MS Excel
ArcView 3.2a

1. Open MS Excel and enter the GPS Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinates that
you collected yesterday under the given headings.
X Coordinate Y Coordinate Description
………… …………… e.g. Road
………… …………… ……………..

2. On completion click on the Office button and select Other Formats under Save As option.

3. Name the file msu and save it as a Text (Tab delimited) found under the Save as type in the folder
GIS_Exercises in Local Disk C. Click Save.

The following window will pop up, just click ok and yes in the following window as well.
4. Exit MS Excel and open ArcView 3.2.
5. Create a new blank project by clicking on as a blank project as shown in the window below.

6. Click on Tables, and select Add. Under List Files of type select Delimited Text (*.txt) and then go to
the directory C:\GIS_Exercises and open msu.txt file. The table will open.

7. Close the table and now click on Views on the Untitled project and open a new View. Maximize all
your windows if you have not yet done so already.

8. Now go to Add Event Theme under the View tab to add your table. It will automatically pick up
msu.txt file since it is open already.
9. Make sure the latitude and longitude columns correspond with the x and y fields as shown above,
when done click Ok to proceed. The table will be added as a temporary attribute table to a point
map in your View, display the map as shown below to display the points that are captured in the
map. Take note of the coordinates, do you recognize them?

Coordinates

Click here to
display
features on
map

10. Save the output map from the table as theme (shapefile). First specify your working directory (folder
in which you want to save your work). Save the map as a theme in your working directory by
choosing Convert to Shapefile from the Theme menu.
Digitizing

11. Create a new polygon theme over the point map you have created using the View menu tab. Assign
a name to the new theme you are creating and save it in the folder GPS_exercise.

12. Open the View Properties from the View menu tab (shown above) and set both the Map Units as
well as the Distance Units to metres. Click OK.

Open Theme Properties from the Theme menu tab (as shown below).

13. In the Theme>Properties window select the Editing option and set general and interactive snapping
tolerance to 2 meters. Click OK.
14. Choose the Draw polygon button from the Draw polygon drop down menu button. Click on the
bottom left corner of the button where there is a small arrow

To digitize a polygon mover the cursor while clicking on all sections where there are turns (that is
corners) so as to create nodes that will maintain the shape of the your are digitizing. Double-clicking
closes a polygon. When you want to shift the screen so as to bring to view another segment of the
polygon you are working on that is not in view extent, click and hold the right mouse button - while
holding select Pan.
15. Digitize all the polygons on the map.
16. If you are digitizing a point open the View menu tab, select New theme, create point map and save
it in your working directory under a suitable name. There is no need to edit the Theme Properties
because a point is a one-dimensional feature. Clicking once on the desired point digitizes a point.