Building Terrain Surface Datasets with ArcGIS

Welcome to First VHS-GIS Workshop.

In this first workshop, we will look into how to create different datasets of terrain surface from raw Digital Elevation Model using ArcGIS platform. We will look at some of the different sources, where to get DEM tiles, how to work with, as well as some things in DEM tiles. For the practice, we will map an island nearby the City of Vancouver, or possibly other place we decide.

In this workshop, we will idealy create and explore the following surface datasets:

1. Topographic contours with predefined contour interval;
2. Slope raster dataset;
3. Hill-shadowed raster dataset;
4. Aspects of hills' slopes raster dataset.

And if time permits and depending on how we manage to make it, we might be able to overlay created datasets in visually appealing manner.

Participants are welcome to watch and ask questions. Unfortunately the software program is not free. I will use version 9.3 of ArcGIS during workshop. Participants may download a 60-day free trial version of ArcGIS from ESRI Canada website; though, I think only newer ArcGIS version 10.x is available for trial download, which will not be consistent with the version I will use.

If you can get ArcGIS v. 9.3, or trial version of it - great! If not, please feel free to bring your laptops and experiment how you can connect your technologies, if you like to. Certainly bring your notebook and pen/pencil to take notes.

THIS WORKSHOP IS FOR VHS MEMBERS ONLY; THOUGH, FRIENDS OF VHS MEMBERS ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND AS LONG AS SPACE IS PERMITING.

Please note: this ongoing event will not repeat the activities from previous dates; each following event will idealy cover next steps (after creating datasets, we will look into categorizing, classification, overlay, scaling, projection, layout ...), so participation on every scheduled date is strongly encouraged.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Yuriy