|
|
GIS Course Project Information
- Introduction
- Design a GIS project
- Creating web page
- Fine Details
- Graphics to HTML
- Guidelines for the project presentation
- Project Examples
- Project Report Template
1. Introduction
If you plan ahead you will find the process both fun and
challenging! Some advice from past students who have taken
this course is to decide on a topic as soon as possible. Getting
the collection of data and information out of the way will
give you adequate time to think about the kinds of analysis
that you wish to execute and prepare you for inevitable challenges
that emerge - thus resulting in a quality report.
A great place to start looking for ideas is on the internet;
the links below will help you on your way.
- Click here to view geog300 projects by previous classes,
- Click here to view geog413 projects by previous classes,
- Click here to view geog432 projects by previous classes,
- Click here to view geog499 projects by previous classes,
- Check our GIS
website resource. This page contains a lot of information
related to GIS and Remote Sensing
The project marking scheme is outlined here, along with a
few additional helpful hints.
Your project should have an abstract (a paragraph summarizing
your project), a table of contents, an introduction, a section
describing the methods and data used, the results, a conclusion,
future work and references.
Click here to look at the Project
Report Template
GUIDELINES FOR PROJECT PAPER
Introduction
- Background
- Define the "problem".
- State hypothesis(es) for your project (or objectives)
- Study Area
Methods
- Steps in analysis. Include a flowchart (required).
- What data were used. Software. File names, formats, sources.
- Assumptions for the analysis(es).
Results
- Present results. Summary statistics. Maps.
- Save final maps/coverages and important intermediate
files on disk, CD, or class directory.
Conclusions
- Findings
- GIS advantages and limitations in the application area
- Future developments
Discussion
- Were there any surprises?
- Recommendations.
- Limitations of your methods/results.
The report requires 4-10 pages of text with additional maps,
graphics, tables, charts, and references. You should write
your report as though you are writing for an agency/organization
that funded your project. The contents of the paper should
include (but not limited to)
Grading of the report will based on the project development,
depth of analysis, and how well and effective the report is
(writing, illustration, organization, etc.)
TOP
2. Creating a web page
for your project
Note:
Before you start your project, you need to create a new folder project under your geog413/432/300 directory to store
all your data and files for your project.
Here are some of the resources you can use to convert your
project report into a professional looking HTML document and
have it published on the World Wide Web. The HTML resource
page is a great place to get started and find help on
the HTML language. Another good link about HTML is http://www.geog.ubc.ca/courses/klink/resources/intro_res.html.
Basically, there are two methods of creating your report
in HTML.
- You need to use an HTML editor to help you
create the HTML file for your project.
With HTML editor, you should be able to produce good looking documents
to publish on the Internet. The easy to create a web page
is using Mozilla OR SeaMonkey HTML Editor. Here are some guideline for
using Mozilla/SeaMonkey. A project report template is available at http://www.gis.unbc.ca/courses/geog432/projects/project432_temp.htm
- Start SeaMonkey from the local machine (Application->Internet->SeaMonkey in Linux and Start->All Programs->SeaMonkey->SeaMonkey
- In SeaMonkey, open the project template by typing the address in the Address bar or open it from GIS website:
http://www.gis.unbc.ca/projects/course_projects/project_temp.htm
- Save a local copy of this page to your project directory by File->Save As. Rename your local copy from project_temp.htm to index.htm
- Open this file in SeaMonkey by clicking File->Open File and navigate to your project directory and double click the index.htm.
- Now you can start editing on your local copy by clicking File->Edit Page. A editing page
pops up allowing you to change and modify the page. You
can fill the part under each title to make up your project
report. Keep saving your work.
LINKS and IMAGES can be added by using INSERT from the top
menu bar. Some other text ed ting tool are also available
as toolbar.
- Highlight the text part you want to make a link and click
INSERT from the top menu bar and choose LINK.
- A window popped up allows you to specify the address of
the link (URL). You can type the address or by clicking
the Choose File button to search on computer for a file.
If the link is linked to another website, you need to type
in the web address in the text box.
- In the same way, you can add a image to the page by clicking
INSERT -> IMAGE
TOP
3. Fine details you
should know in creating web pages.
Although HTML editors are very handy and can be very efficient,
beware of the problems you will encounter; a few will be highlighted
in this section.
- Remember to save all your files and images for your project
webpage in your project\webpage directory.
The lab instructor will access your webpage directory and publish your project page to our GIS website.
- Spell checking is absolutely necessary! If your HTML editor
doesn't support spell checking, you may have to cut and
paste your text to a word processor and run a spell check
to ensure that you have no errors.
- It is crucial that you remember that our UNIX server
(where your finished work will be loaded for www access)
is case sensitive to file names and extensions. Therefore,
we suggest you use lower case letters for all file name
(include image files) check through your entire document
for links, images, files, etc. that contain UPPERCASE letters
and change them to lower case!
- You must NOT have any spaces in your filenames (e.g.,
Final Map Showing Results.jpg should be named finalmapshowingresults.jpg)
- All of the files used in your project must reside within
the webpage directory (or below). It is
strongly suggested that you place all images within an images
directory (e.g., webpage/image/*.*), and all of your maps
within a maps directory (e.g., webpage/maps/*.*), etc. A
logical organization of subdirectories and files will make
submission of your final project much easier for all concerned.
- The main page for your project (e.g., the first page
to load) MUST be named index.htm, and should
be placed in your webpage directory (e.g., webpage\index.htm).
- Although it is great to have wonderful photographic and
animated images on your pages, the larger their file size
the longer they will take to download. Even though your
page may be artistically incredible, not everybody is going
to wait several minutes for images to download. I have a
general rule to try and keep most of my images below 50KB.
The following section will cover images in more detail.
All images from other people or website used in your project
must be properly cited (that is, where did you download
that picture from?)
TOP
4. Graphics
to HTML
A picture is worth a thousand words. Chances are that you
will want to use graphic images to convey information about
your analysis and to show people the results. Note that web
pages can only display a limited number of the possible graphics
files formats (e.g., web browsers cannot display Window's
emf files, but they can display gif and jpg images), so it
is important that you explore all of the export options before
deciding upon a final format.
I suggest you to use JPEG or PNG image format for your project.
The JPEG/JPG format give fairly good quality and smaller size
of the file. This format should be the first choice. The PNG
format provide better quality of image but with larger file
size.
The preferred methods for capturing ArcGIS's images are:
- ArcGIS's Export
- CorelDraw Capture (capture snapshot on active window and
area on screen)
- Windows' PRINT SCREEN Method.
- GIMP
ArcGIS's Export
This is the preferred method, which uses the export capabilities
of ArcGIS to create a placeable Window's Enhanced Metafile,
or a gif file, or a jpg file, etc..
Once you have the image created (with all of the elements,
such as the legend and scale bar, properly placed) simply
- Use the File -> Export menu to save the image as a
JPEG.
- You can then use a graphics program such as CorelDraw
to adjust the image, if necessary, and to save the image
in a web-friendly format. Always confirm the Export Options
to ensure that the resolution (100 - 200), etc. are what
you want them to be. Also, read over the ArcGIS Help file
on "exporting, maps" for additional tricks you'll
need to know.
CorelDraw Capture
You can also use CorelDraw Capture to capture the screen
shot. You can capture a active window or the area on the screen
you want.
Windows' PRINT SCREEN METHOD
This method uses the Print Screen key that is located beside
the F12 key on the top row of the keyboard. By pressing this
key the whole screen is captured as an image to the Clipboard
(in the computer's memory). To use this image you can either
open Clipboard and save the file as a CLP (clipboard) file
or go to a graphic management program and paste the image
from the Clipboard to a graphics program.
Example:
Here is a simple walk through of how to use the PRINT SCREEN
method to capture an image from ArcGIS.
1. Open ArcGIS.
2. Create the screen you wish to capture (can be a layout,
table, chart, etc.)
3. Press Print Screen key on the keyboard.
4. Open a graphics program.
5. Select Edit and then Paste, you will see the whole screen
capture pasted on the window. Here is a captured screen image.
6. Now you can edit the image by cropping, resizing, flipping,
rotating, adding text and changing colour etc. This is the
modified screen image after cropping.
Graphic Software
Some of the more popular graphic management programs that
handle bitmapped (raster based images) are Corel Photo Paint
(available in the Geography Computer Labs) and Paint Shop
Pro. Images that are saved as Screen-dumped (*.bmp) files
can generally be opened directly from within these types of
programs. In addition, the clipboard contents of a screen
capture can be pasted directly into these programs. Here is
a small list of some of the more popular graphic programs
available from the Internet. One of the advantages of using
a raster-based graphic management program to handle your screen
capture is that you can edit and manipulate the image to your
liking before saving it, allowing a user to crop out window
borders, menu headers, and other unnecessary information.
Vector-based drawing programs such as CorelDraw (available
in the Departmental Computer Labs) are also useful for manipulating
saved images. Bitmapped Screen-Dumps, however, can only be
imported into vector-based programs ("Import" is
usually found under the "File" menu in most programs).
Once the image is imported, a user can add lines, curves,
coloured boxes, and artistic text around the image (especially
useful when annotating an image in a project!). However, the
imported image itself cannot be edited in a drawing program;
it must first be manipulated in a raster-based graphic management
program such as Corel Photo Paint (see above).
Incorporating images to your HTML document may enhance the
quality and appeal of your HTML document.
TOP
5. Guidelines for the project presentation
Presentations will be 15 minutes with a few minutes following
for questions. Please practice ahead of time.
Prepare your presentations in PowerPoint and save it to your
class project directory. Remember, the class project directories
are not secure. It is a good idea to save your presentation
in another secure directory or a CD if you wish to keep it
since class project directories are cleared some time after
the end of the quarter.
At a minimum, you should have the following in your presentation:
- Title and Authors
- Objectives
- Study Area
- Methods
- Flow Chart (part of Methods)
- Results and Discussion (may be separate slides)
- Final images/maps
Project
Examples
|
