ESRI Archaeology and GIS News, May 2006
Welcome to ESRI Archaeology and GIS News, a periodic newsletter for and about the ESRI archaeology and geographic information system (GIS) user community. This newsletter is used only to distribute relevant information of interest to the group. You can use the online forum for GIS and archaeology discussions.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit News and Publications.
If you have material to submit for the newsletter or questions or comments about it, contact Bob Booth.
Data, Maps, and Models
1748 Map of Rome (Click the Launch Map Engine box in the upper right.)— The 1748 Map of Rome by Giambattista Nolli is widely regarded by scholars as one of the most important historical documents of the city ever created. This project is a collaborative exploration of the Nolli engraving through its historic significance and contemporary application.
Changes: The Lower Columbia River, Then and Now
This collection includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife series of Lewis and Clark historical maps. It also includes map comparisons of wildlife, population, and land cover from 1860 to 2000.
Civil War Map Scans Online
These were selected from three premier collections: the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia. The Library of Congress collection includes Web image browser and downloadable MrSID images of the maps. New selections from 2,240 maps and 76 atlases held by the library will be added monthly.
ESRI Software Documentation, How-to, and Tools
Easy Calculate
Easy Calculate is a handy set of expressions for the ArcGIS field calculator that computes some spatial characteristics of the features, edits the shapes, adds records to a target layer, and draws graphics.
Resource Management GIS Extensions and Templates
Developed by the National Park Service Geographic Resource Information Management group, this collection of GIS extensions and templates is useful to resource managers.
Related items
Tips and Templates for Creating Metadata
These tips and templates are guides to preparing metadata.
U.S. National Park Service AlaskaPak Training Materials
These training materials are for the ArcGIS 8.x version of AlaskaPak, a free extension developed by the National Park Service. The extension is a suite of general utilities for use in GIS projects, particularly national and cultural resource needs. The AlaskaPak toolkit is a collection of tools designed to augment the functionality of ArcMap by providing easy-to-use tools for many common tasks performed by resource managers, GIS technicians, and other scientists. AlaskaPak functions include
- Add Acres/Miles
- Add Unique ID
- Add X,Y Coordinates
- Analyze Grid
- Compute Correlation
- Custom Layout Templates
- Generate Grid
- Generate Grid Points
- Import Raster Legend
- Obscure Points
- Photo Links
- Points to Polyline/Polygon
- Polyline/Polygon to Points
- Preferences
- Quick NPS Layout
- Random Points
- Random Select
- Random Transects
- Resize Grid
- Set Dataframe Extents
- Transparency
U.S. National Park Service ArcGIS 9 Course
This includes materials for the Introduction to ArcGIS 9 for Land Management Agencies course.
Repair Data Sources of Broken Layers
This extension repairs broken layer data sources in your ArcMap project.
Sign Survey Dialog Box
This includes code used in the field to facilitate a sign survey. The dialog box was designed for use with databases used in CartęGraph SignView software, although any Access database may be used.
Where to Find Base Data
Correction
The April issue of ESRI Archaeology and GIS News contained an error in the procedure for connecting to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Map in ArcGIS. We are sorry about the slip. Here are updated instructions with the correct URL:
- In ArcGIS, connect to the USGS National Map by using a GIS server.
- In ArcCatalog, click GIS Servers to expand the selection.
- Double-click Add ArcIMS Server.
- Click the Internet Server button.
- Enter the address http://gisdata.usgs.net (not ".gov" as previously stated).
- Click the Just the following services button followed by the Get list button.
- Scroll down and select The_National_Map from the list.
- Click OK. You will see that a new ArcIMS service, gisdata.usgs.net, and a new layer, The_National_Map, have been added to ArcCatalog.
- Add The_National_Map ArcIMS service to ArcMap to browse hundreds of datasets seamlessly.
USDA Soil Survey
Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), data includes small-scale digital soil databases for general soil maps (STATSGO), major land resource areas (MLRA), common resource areas (CRA), and other geospatial data layers (gateway).
The Geospatial Data Gateway
The Geospatial Data Gateway data portal contains natural resources and environmental data and allows you to select the projection (geographic, Universal Transverse Mercator [UTM], state plane) before you download data. Themes include digital orthophoto quadrangles, soils, precipitation, temperature, topographic maps, map indexes, hydrologic units, and common land units. Users can search by geographic area; use a gazetteer; enter latitude and longitude coordinates; or search by theme such as digital orthoimagery, digital elevation models, or soils. You can view a thumbnail, download data, pick it up free via an FTP site, or buy it on a CD.
National Archaeological Database—Multiple Attribute Presentation System Library
These GIS maps show national distributions of cultural and environmental resources across the United States. You can view or download a map and metadata information. The map includes links to other nationwide archaeological and environmental data layers collected by the University of Arkansas Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies.
Digital Elevation Data for the Entire Globe
The Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research Consortium for Spatial Information portal provides hole-filled seamless Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 90-meter digital elevation data in 5-degree by 5-degree tiles for almost the entire globe. These are available in both ArcInfo ASCII and GeoTIFF format. Data can be downloaded using a browser or directly from the FTP site.
Historical Gulf Coast USGS Quad Maps Online
About 300 historical map images of the U.S. Gulf Coast area are available through the Geospatial One-Stop portal. The maps are USGS topographic quads that were scanned, processed, and georeferenced by USGS scientists. They are in UTM NAD27 and are uncompressed GeoTIFFs. To access these images, follow these steps:
Geographic Names Information Systems
Find a location from a place-name. The Geographic Names Information System is the federal standard for geographic nomenclature developed by the USGS.
Upcoming Conferences
Remote Sensing and Archaeology in Southeast Asia Workshop and Conference
June 24–26, 2006, Bangkok, Thailand
For further information, contact ccary@berkeley.edu.
First International Summer School in Landscape Archaeology and Computer Applications
July 10–29, 2006, Rome, Italy
Angkor—Landscape, City, and Temple
July 18–23, 2006, Sydney, Australia
Sixth Annual ESRI Education User Conference
August 5–8, 2006, San Diego, California
Twenty-Sixth Annual ESRI International User Conference
August 7–11, 2006, San Diego, California
Books, Papers, Images, and More
On-Site Program for Archaeological Artifact Data Catalog and Mapping in ArcGIS
[PDF-266 KB]
The topic of this paper is developing a tool using ArcObjects with Component Object Model-compliant lasses and interfaces within ArcGIS. The tool is to be used for on-site artifact data cataloging and GIS mapping for classical archaeology projects.
Mapping the Future of America’s National Parks
This book is about the use of GIS for national park stewardship. The following are two sample chapters from the book:
Reenacting the Civil War with GIS: Identifying Planning Priorities [PDF-69 KB]
Paper on planning a historical battlefield protection rapid assessment that integrates multiple data sources.
ESRI User Conference Papers in Archaeology
Archaeology papers presented at ESRI user conferences, 2000–2005.
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