Lab 4

This week I had my first ever experience with the professional mapping program Arc Map. Not only was I overwhelmed and excited at the amount of buttons and things one could create but also (as a Computer Science major) amazed and in awe in how much work and effort must have gone into creating this program. Initially it was really cool to be doing all this stuff, but I must admit as I was stepping through the tutorial I was continual frustrated as I seemed to be having more problems linking things than actually using the program!

My experience was mainly a positive one since I'm fairly computer savvy and the tutorial was pretty clear. However my biggest problem occured in Exercise 3, when we are supposed to "Add Field" to the Attribute table of Tracts. For some reason I kept getting this message that I did not have permission to access something or other and so I couldn't create that data frame. Eventually I got it working after much frustration and moving around of files, but everything else was straightforward with the instructions, but the thought of having to actually make up these maps on my own is rather daunting.

ArcMap is a great tool to be able to pull data together and figure out the overlap and put everything in one visual form. You can see clearly what falls within the noise contour in our example (assuming the data is correct) and though time consuming, is probably much faster than back in the day when everyone had to draw the maps by hand and allows for easy overlapping and organization of data for each component.

However, like any other craft, ArcMap takes time to master and many hours logged at the computer in order for one to be as efficient and clear as possible, considering there are so many buttons, tables, etc etc that are at one's disposal. So though a great tool, it is not an easy one to learn. Also, as easy as it is to present data, it must be equally easy to misrepresent data (like any map) and therefore confuse the audience with your message and not necessarily the facts. Also, it was so easy to just accidentally move something too far or too close, so I imagine one has to be very careful when using the program on a regular basis.