WEEK VI LAB — ArcGIS Online Web mapping

This week in DGAH, we took a dive in webmapping.

In the event of an insert load failure, the project can be viewed here.

In this installment of the weekly DGAH 110 lab post, we built a web map to interactively display data.

This project took me back to my roots here at Carleton. I took ENTS 120, intro to GIS as a freshman, and it was, and still remains, one of the most complex and challenging courses I’ve ever taken. Intro to GIS is known as the killer of ENTS majors for a reason; it’s a highly-specialized, incredibly sophisticated and extremely potent piece of software that is so diversely utilized that oftentimes the biggest challenge isn’t coming up with a solution to a given problem—it’s choosing which solution to your problem is the most time efficient to implement.

Given my previous experience, this project wasn’t anything too difficult, especially not with three heads put together. We chose to make a very simplistic model that simply connected the stops as input in the CSV file with brief popups that use string formatting to customize the blurb attached to each data point.

All that aside—it doesn’t make sense to say this software has potential; it has raw and tapped power, being a staple in almost all fields requiring visualization of data where a geographic element is necessary. Unlike other forms of “data viz” GIS requires years of practice, study, and certification in order to implement to its fullest extent. Watching Wei Hsin Fu, the College’s resident specialist, work her magic was nothing short of incredible. The sheer versatility of GIS makes it an incredibly valuable certification for anyone brave enough to enthrall themselves in it.

—A.J.