SO0187.

033 October 6th, 2005

Lab 3. Digitizing with ArcGIS

Today’s objectives:

We will learn to use ArcCatalog and Georeferencing tools to digitize raster and vector

data.

Tasks:

1. Image registration

1) Create a shape from XY-coordinates

2) Register the scanned Brown map

3) Onscreen digitization

2. Register satellite photo imagery

Data and shape

This exercise uses lab3.zip. It can be downloaded from the WebCT > Lab exercises >

Lab Data. The uncompressed files include:

BrownStreetreet.shp- ESRI shapefile,

BrownCampus.tif- Campus Map of Brown University,

BrownPhoto.gif- aerial photograph of Brown University and its neighbourhoods,

Refpoints.xls- points of digitizing reference.

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1. Register the Brown Campus map

Georeferencing raster: The process of geo-referencing a raster requires geo-

coordinates of at least 3 points that can be identified on the raster imageries.

A. Convert coordinates from degrees to decimal points.

Start MS-Excel, open the file Reference.xls. There are 7 columns in this file; the first

column contains ID number that can be located onto the scanned map, the next three

columns contain longitude (in degree, minute and second) and the rest three columns

contain latitude (in degree, minute and second).

Move the cursor to the cell H1 and type x_coord, likewise move the cursor to I1 and

type y_coord. Now, click the cell H2, and type the following formula to convert degree,

minute and second to degree decimal values:

=(B2+(C2/60)+(D2/3600)) * (-1)

(Note: 1 degree = 60 minutes = 3600 seconds. So minutes and seconds are converted to

degrees in order to derive degree decimals system.)

Copy this formula to cells H3 through H6. Move your cursor to I2 and type the

following formula to convert latitudinal values into degree decimal:

= E2+(F2/60)+(G2/3600)

Copy this formula to cells i3 through i6. Select cell h2 through i6. Press Ctrl C, then

keep pressing Alt key press E, release Alt key, press S, then V, and then press Enter key

or click ok button. (This will convert cell-formula to cell-value.) Now, select cell h2

through i6 and set decimal places to 6. Save this file as Reference.dbf in Dbase-IV

format, and then close this file, not the Excel program.

B. Georeferencing a scanned image:

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a. Starting ArcMap:
• Click the Start button on the Windows Taskbar.
• Point mouse to All Programs
• Point mouse to Instructional, then to ArcGIS, and click ArcMap.

b. Open a new document by clicking File menu, point mouse to New and left click.

Blank Document being selected, click OK button. You may be prompted with a

warning message, and click NO button. This will open a blank ArcMap document.

c. Creating a shape from plain XY coordinates: Click Tools menu, select Add XY

Data and then click. A new dialog box will open.

Browse the file Reference.dbf from your data folder as the input table, X-Y

fields will be automatically populated by x_coord and y_coord respectively. Notice

that the spatial reference input coordinate is “Unknown”.

Let us define the spatial reference system of the input coordinates: Click Edit

button, Spatial Reference Dialog box will appear.

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 Click Select button, double click Geographic Coordinate Systems, double click

North America, then select North American Datum 1983.prj, click Add button,

the selected coordinate system will be visible, then click OK button, and finally click

OK button in Add XY data dialog box.

Do you see five points in the new shape? (These are the reference points to be

used for georeferencing the image you will load next.) This shape is not yet

permanent, i.e. it will disappear once you close the ArcMap. Thus it is important that

you convert this event to a permanent shape- Refpoints.shp. (Why not reference.shp?)

Now you already have a permanent shape of the required landmarks, thus remove

Reference Event from the TOC. To recognize these points, we must label them by

their IDs. Right click Refpoints layer in the TOC and check Label Features. You

will notice that each point is now labeled by its ID. To change the label style or size,

right click Refpoints layer, and open its Properties dialog box, select Label tab,

define label size as 12, color as red, font as Time New Roman, type as bold, and

then click OK button.

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d. Register a scanned map

Click Add layer icon, browse your data folder to select BrownCampus.tif

and click Add button; click NO button in the next window for building pyramid, and

the next warning message will about the missing reference system; just ignore it. You

will notice that the image is not visible, but do not worry about it.

Click View menu in the ArcMap, point mouse to Toolbar and click

Georeferencing. In the next step, select Refpoints layer, click Georeferencing

drop-down button and then click Fit to Display. Now you will notice that the campus

image is visible along with the control points.

Five points are clearly marked in red on the scanned campus map. These are

exactly the same five points that are stored in the Refpoints shape, but the five

landmarks on the scanned map do not match with the points in Refpoints shape,

because BrownCampus.tif image is not yet georeferenced.

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 Next you will use link feature of georeferencing to match image control points

with the points in the Refpoints layer.

Select zoom in icon, zoom at the top right area of the map, zoom to such extent

that the first control point (labeled as 1) is visible in both BrownCampus_tif and

Refpoints layers. Click (add control point icon) in the Georeferencing toolbar, first

click the control point on the image, move mouse to the precise location of control

point in Refpoints layer and then click again. You will notice that the control point

labeled as 1 in both BrownCampus.tif and Refpoints layers overlaps.

Now, zoom the layer to the full extent, select zoom in icon and zoom the area

around landmark 2 in the BrownCampus.tif and Refpoints layers. First click on the

second control point on the image BrownCampus.tif, move the mouse onto the point

2 in Refpoints layer, and then click. Likewise, repeat these steps to match the rest of

landmarks (3, 4 and 5).

Open link table by clicking (Link Table icon) to see root mean square error and

the match between the control points in the image and point layers. You may like to

delete the control points with very high residual values, as they affect the

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 accuracy level of other control points.

Save these links in a file, click Save button from the Link Table dialog box,

browse your data folder, type file name as LinkTable, and then click Save button,

and close the link table in the ArcMap.

C. Onscreen digitization

a. Create an empty shape

Click ArcCatalog icon and minimize ArcMap. From ArcCatalog right click

your data folder, new > Shapefile. In the Create New Shape dialog box, type

Brownpoly as shape name, select feature type as Polygon.

The description of Spatial reference system is Unknown, click Edit button to

define the spatial reference system for the new layer. In the reference dialog box,

click import button, browse the folder, select Refpoints layer, and then click OK

button, again click OK button in Create New Shapefile dialog box.

The new layer name is Brownpoly, close, ArcCatalog and return to ArcMap.

b. Digitizing Buildings

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 You can create polygons using several tools: Next, I will demonstrate the use of

three tasks tools to digitize polygons: Create New Feature, Cut Polygon Features

and Auto-Complete Polygon.

In the ArcMap, click Add Layer icon, browse your data folder and select

Brownpoly shape and click Add button. At the moment, there is no polygon in this

layer, nothing appears in this layer. Don’t worry! Right click Brownpoly and open

its attribute table, add a new field name (as a string type), where you can type the

building name while digitizing.

Click View menu, point mouse to Toolbars, select and click Editor. The editor

toolbox will appear.

Select Brownpoly layer in the TOC, click (editor) toolbar, in the editor drop

down menu, and select Start Editing. Make sure the Brownpoly is visible in the

editor toolbar as a Target layer.

i) Create New Feature

Now zoom in the MacMillan Hall in the image, Select the Create New Feature

as the task and select the sketch tool by left click on it. Now, click any where on the

outer boundary of the MacMillan hall, the first point, where you click, will freeze.

Now assuming small-small straight line segments keep digitizing (by clicking the left

mouse button) the outer boundary of both buildings, and when approaching to the

first point (after digitizing the entire outline boundary of both buildings) double click,

it will complete the digitization of one polygon. The new polygon might look like this:

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 You can assign an ID number to the digitized polygon. (click the ID cell of the

selected row in the attribute table of Brownpoly shape and then type the ID you

would like to assign to the polygon you digitized.)

ii) Cut Polygon Features

Notice this is just one polygon representing two buildings. Now, we need to split

this into two separate polygons to create MacMillan and GeoChemistry Buildings.

In order to know how to separate them, we need to see the boundary that divides

these two buildings. (how? click the symbol box of BrowPolys layer and select none

as the fill color, and outline color as solid red or some other prominent, and outline

width at least 1.5 point, and click OK button).

Select Cut Polygon Features as the Task (from editor tool bar), click anywhere

outside the digitized polygon, next click at exactly the first point of the line that

divides two building, and keep clicking until the last point of the line, after the last

line double click any where outside the digitized polygon.

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As soon as you double click outside the polygon, you will notice that two lines are added

in the attribute table, and you should see two separate polygons on the screen.

iii) Auto-Complete Polygon

You can do the same exercise by digitizing a new polygon for either of the two

polygons, and using the Auto-Complete Polygon you can add polygon for the

another building. If you would like to experiment with this, let us delete polygon for

the GeoChem building (how? select the polygon using Edit Tool and press Del key

from the keyboard).

Now, using the same tool, select polygon for the MacMillan hall, select Auto-

Complete Polygon task from the tool bar, click any point inside the selected polygon,

then first point in the boundary of MacMillan hall, trace/digitize the entire outline

boundary of the building, and then finally double click inside the polygon boundary

of MacMillan hall. When you double click, you will notice that a polygon is added

for the GeoChem building, and the points clicked inside the MacMillan hall disappear.

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 To save these edits, select Save Edits from Editor Dropdown button. Now, the

attribute table may not refresh automatically. Thus, close the table and open it again,

and you must see a new record for the additional polygon. Now, you have the option

to create polygon using three tools: (a) create a new polygon, (b) cut polygon features,

and (c) auto-complete polygons.

Exercise part 1:

Using the above procedure, you can complete the digitization of the following of

buildings:

ID Facility (Building Name)

15 Bio Med Center

18 Brown Bookstore

61 Macmillan Hall

95 Rockefeller Library

98 Sciences Library

105 University Hall

2. Georeferencing an aerial photograph:

A. Label the roads

Load the shape BrownStreet from your data folder, label roads so that you

can identify major intersections needed for georeferencing the aerial photograph.

Right click BrownStreet, select Properties and click. Select Label tab in the

Properties dialog box. Select FENAME as the label field and text size as 8 and click

ok button; right click BrownStreet again, point and click mouse on Label Features.

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B. Register a photograph

Add BrownPhoto.gif. You will be prompted with Pyramid creation option, click

No, and then ignore the warning message for the missing spatial reference.

The aerial photograph will not be visible in the data frame. If Georeferencing toolbar

is not visible, click View menu, point mouse to Toolbars then select and click

Click Georeferencing drop down button, select and click Fit To Display option.

You will notice that both streets and aerial photograph are visible, but not quite

aligned. As we know, BrownStreet shape has a proper coordinate system. So, we

need to Georeference aerial photograph according to BrownStreet shape. If the street

labels are not clear, right click BrownStreet shape and open its properties dialog box. In

the label tab, change the text color to some other color that can contrast with the

photograph.

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 Uncheck BrownPhoto.gif from the TOC, identify intersection in BrownStreet

shape that you can clearly identify on the photograph. Intersection of Hope and

Thayer streets is clearly identifiable in both. Now, uncheck BrownStreet layer,

check the BrownPhoto.gif, select Add Control Point by clicking it, now click the

identified intersection on the image, uncheck BrownPhoto.gif, check BrownStreet

shape, move mouse to the same point on the BrownStreet shape, click and then

check BrownPhoto.gif. Next, uncheck BrownStreet layer, click the intersection

between Waterman and Thayer on the image, uncheck BrownPhoto.gif, check

BrownStreet, click the same intersection on the BrownStreet shape, and then check

BrownPhoto.gif.

Now, you should see some degree of overlap between the street in the two layers,

but not the perfect match. Identify two other control points on the image and street

shape, and follow the above steps to align both layers.

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 Save the added links: click view link table icon, click save button, browse your

data folder and type the file name as PhotoLinks, and click OK button. Close Link

Table dialog box, and start a new ArcMap document. You will be prompted with a

warning message, just ignore it.

Exercise part 2:

Complete the registering with a three more points and create a map showing

BrownPhoto with the BrownStreet overlaid on top.

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