{"id":99,"date":"2013-04-10T02:05:12","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T02:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lincoln.ac.nz\/conversation\/gis\/?p=99"},"modified":"2023-05-07T00:24:55","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T00:24:55","slug":"data-data-everywhere-but-what-about-what-i-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lincoln.ac.nz\/gis\/data-data-everywhere-but-what-about-what-i-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Data, data everywhere, but what about what I need?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post outlines the data currently available on our network.<\/em><\/p>\n

Those of you who have done any work with GIS will know how important the right data are. \u00a0Spatial analysis is very much a garbage in-garbage out process so making sure you’ve got good data to start out with is crucial. \u00a0Last week’s post was about getting data off the internet; this week’s is about letting you know what data we’ve already got on campus.<\/p>\n

All of our data reside on the network, usually referred to as the J: drive (click here<\/a> to see how to map to the J: drive and make a connection in ArcCatalog). \u00a0Once connected we can browse through the data using ArcCatalog:<\/p>\n

\"Catalog\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the right you can see five folders – the Data folder is the important one for today’s post. \u00a0Inside that folder all of our datasets can be found, organised in folders by the name of the dataset. \u00a0At last count we had over 30 datasets.<\/p>\n

With ArcCatalog you can select layers in the left-hand window (the Catalog Tree) and preview them (the map as well as the table) in the Right-hand window, using the Preview tab. \u00a0The map or table can be selected at the bottom.<\/p>\n

\"Catalog2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I struggle with finding a way of covering all the data available without putting you to sleep, so I think I’ll just hit the highlights, or the most commonly used datasets. \u00a0I’ll break this down by General Data that might used to create decent maps and Specific Purpose Datasets. \u00a0Most of these are national scale data collected by various ministries, government departments or CRIs. \u00a0At this point you should be taping your eyelids open – not many pretty pictures from here on in.<\/p>\n

General Data<\/strong><\/p>\n