Our lab project for week six proved to be the most difficult yet rewarding thus far in the course. We were required to learn and make use of multiple distinct GIS skills to produce the required map. First, we needed to choose two adjacent Quads in Escambia County, Florida and download the eight associated digital orthophoto quarter quads from labins.org. Making note of the coordinate system used, we then defined the coordinate system of the downloaded files to the Florida Stateplane system. We added vector files representing Florida's major roads, Quad index, and county boundaries that were previously downloaded from FGDL.org after using the Project tool to reproject the vector files' coordinate system to match the DOQQs. We also used Microsoft Excel to calculate the decimal coordinates of a dataset provided in degrees, minutes and seconds; the spreadsheet data was added to the map with a coordinate system of WGS 1984 defined, then exported as a shapefile, and finally reprojected to the Florida Stateplane system. Having accomplished the above steps, we were required to produce a map document clearly communicating this information.
Although this lab was certainly a challenge, that we were required to accomplish the above tasks with minimal specific instruction made me feel much more confident in my abilities in GIS. As noted in the lab instructions, the ability to find and incorporate available online GIS data is a valuable skill, and this lab was an excellent introduction.
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