Making GIS Work for You

ArcExplorer is a simple GIS data viewer developed by ESRI. This software is free, and is an easy way to perform basic GIS functions. ArcExplorer is used for a variety of display, query, and data retrieval applications and supports a wide variety of standard data sources including the shapefiles that are downloadable from the Electronic Atlas of Central Indiana (EACI).

To view the data and create maps from the EACI, you must have either ArcView software, or download a free version of software called ArcExplorer.The download is available at: http://www.esri.com/software/arcexplorer/aedownload.html. Follow the instructions listed on the website for installing it on your computer, and then you are ready to start making maps!

In this tutorial, you will make a simple map of Johnson County, using data from the EACI.

First, you need to download the features (also called themes) that you want to display on your map from the website (atlas.ulib.iupui.edu).

Click on the map of Indiana that is located on the left of the homepage.

This will take you to a page where you can select a county for which you want to download information.

Click on Johnson County from the "County Data Pages" list, or on the map to the right of the list.

Another options window will appear listing both Stateplane projection and UTM projection. Both projections contain reference geography themes (boundaries, streams, streets, etc). The other options, "Census Datasets" are the human geography information (population, income, race, etc).

In this example we will look at the Stateplane Projection.

Click the ArcView option in that category.

This will take you to the page where the different themes for Johnson County can be downloaded. Note that there are two types of data that you can acquire, the theme itself that you will use to make the map, and a "Metadata" category. Although not used directly in making the map, metadata can be very useful in map creation as it tells you where the information came from, the date of acquisition, and other information about the data. Currently, the metadata for these themes is not accessible. If you have any questions, contact Dan Johnson, dpjohnso@iupui.edu.

First, download the Township Boundaries.

Click on Acquire in the same row as Township Boundaries in the "Download" column.

Automatically, a window will pop up and ask you if you wish to open the file or save it to a disk. If you want to access the information later without going back through this process again, save the file to a disk.

Navigate to the folder where you want to save the file, and give the file a name that is descriptive of the theme.
Click SAVE.

Note that the files that have just been downloaded are compressed or "zipped". To extract and use the files, they will have to be unzipped. After you download a file, the program will usually default to "do you wish to open" and the "Unzip" tool will be launched automatically. If you have trouble unzipping the files, see the help menu in WinZip. If you do not already have WinZip loaded on your computer, you can download it for free at http://www.winzip.com.

Repeat the previous steps to acquire the roads theme.
Open ArcExplorer.

Select Theme from the menu bar, and use the pull-down menu to select Add Theme.
Navigate to the folder where you saved your township and street files.

You can add both themes at the same time by holding down the shift key and clicking on each file. The themes you select will be highlighted. (The default name for Township Boundaries, if you have not renamed it, is 081ccd_stp.shp)
Select Add Theme, located at the top of that window, and close the Add Theme window when finished.

Your themes will now be added to the left of the ArcExplorer window.

To make them visible, click in the empty box next to a theme name, and the theme will appear in the ArcExplorer window.

Themes are presented as layers. The order in which you downloaded them will determine how they appear in the window. Some themes may be "covering" others and you will not be able to see all of the themes at once, as in the example above. The highest theme on the list is the top layer.

If both themes are not visible, you can rearrange how they appear in the ArcExplorer Window.

Click and hold on the 081ROADS_STP, and slide it up above 081CCD_STP.

There are many other things you can do with ArcExplorer in terms of changing the look of your map. Just double click on the theme, and it will take you to an option menu where you can change colors, line thickness, pattern type, show labels, and other editing features. Explore with ArcExplorer!

You can also download FREE data not found on EACI website from: http://www.esri.com/data/online/index.html. Instructions for doing so can be found at that website.