ArcUser Online
Summer 2011 Edition
Indispensable Guide to the Geodatabase
Understanding data and how to manage it
This article as a PDF.
Making the most effective use of GIS and ArcGIS software requires a solid understanding of the geodatabase, the native data structure of ArcGIS. The geodatabase provides a framework for modeling natural and manmade systems. Modeling Our World: The Esri Guide to Geodatabase Concepts, Second Edition, is a guide to the geodatabase at the ArcGIS 10 release.
Author Michael Zeiler communicates complex concepts through numerous graphics and compelling and clear explanations that engage the reader. This text explains geodatabase architecture and imparts understanding of all the data types that can be used by a modern GIS.
The first edition of Modeling Our World, published in 2000, explained how models are used to represent geographic information and introduced object-oriented modeling that had been made available in ArcInfo 8. In the intervening decade since the publication of the first edition of Modeling Our World, the capabilities of ArcGIS have grown enormously.The book's second edition reflects these changes. Zeiler presents a complete survey of the geodatabase information model that reflects changes in ArcGIS. He explains how geodatabase structural elements can promote best practices for data modeling and analyses and how rules and data properties in the geodatabase can ensure spatial and attribute integrity. The book provides numerous examples of innovative applications and effective workflows.
New chapters cover linear referencing with routes, greatly expanded information on geocoding; modeling with rasters, mosaics, and terrains; and temporal modeling. Additional chapters explain versioning, replication, and workflows that use one or both strategies. Linear modeling with networks has been greatly enhanced. A final chapter describes geoprocessing using models and scripts.
Modeling Our World is not only for students but also for GIS professionals who create and manage authoritative geographic information for specific subject areas. It will help them build real-world systems that are both efficient and elegant. Esri Press, 2010, 308 pp., ISBN-13: 978-1589482784
Classic Text by a Landmark Figure in Cartography
A new edition of Notes and Comments on the Composition of Terrestrial and Celestial Maps, by J. H. Lambert, joins other notable titles in the Esri Press Classic Series.
The original German edition, Anmerkungen und Zusätze zur Entwerfung der Land- und Himmelscharten, was published in 1772. It introduced map projections created by Johann Heinrich Lambert that are still in use today. Lambert, who was forced to leave school when he was 12 years old to work in his father's tailor shop, was largely self-taught yet became one of the world's preeminent mathematicians and cartographers. His work on projections marks the beginning of the modern period in mathematical cartography.
The 1972 translation by the noted geographer Waldo R. Tobler was issued on the 200th anniversary of the publication of the original edition. That translation, unavailable for several years, was enhanced for the 2011 edition and includes an expanded preface and updated reference section. Although the availability of information on map projections has exponentially grown in the intervening years since 1972, this book remains a valuable resource.
Tobler is a professor emeritus in geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has authored and coauthored many influential articles and papers on cartography and map projections.
The Classic Series, which was created to preserve important scholarship in the field of cartography by republishing seminal texts no longer in print, includes (most recently) Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps by Jacques Bertin; The Look of Maps by Arthur H. Robinson; and Cartographic Relief Presentation by Eduard Imhof. Esri Press, 132 pp., ISBN: 978-1589482814
