Basemaps Street and Imagery on page 22/23

[Patrickde_Witt]

Hello,

I have just begun with the workbook First edition 2011 (ArcGIS 10). On page 22/23 the rearranging of layers. The layers shown in the book are not the layers I have got. I am using ArcMap 10.1 build 3035 and I have downloaded it from the website and also the tutorial data.

After I got the book I installed the data that came with the disk.

The content from the Street Basemap Layer:
Streets Basemap
----World_Street_Map
--------World Street Map

The content from the Imagery Basemap Layer:
Imagery Basemap
----World_Imagery
--------World Imagery
--------Low Resolution 15m Imagery
--------High Resolution 60cm Imagery
--------High Resolution 30cm Imagery

Is the data on this disc that came with the book not good? Should I use the Esri Software from the disc? Can I download somewhere the right data?

[TimOrmsby]

Hi Patrick,

You're doing everything right. The changes with respect to the Streets and Imagery basemaps have to do with the fact that this data is hosted online. Esri has updated and reorganized it since the book was published.

With respect to the Streets basemap, which is added in Step 2D (p. 8): its sublayer used to be called Streets and is now called World_Street_Map, as you noted. This doesn't affect anything you do. The basemap is essentially the same, although your views may not match the images in the book exactly, because some cartographic changes have been made. (More labels appear at certain map scales, for example.)

With respect to the Imagery basemap, which is added in Step 13B (p. 22): this is a bit trickier, because some of the sublayers that used to be part of this basemap, namely Boundaries and Places and Transportation, aren't included anymore. Here are some things you can do:

1. Instead of adding the Imagery basemap, add the Imagery with Labels basemap. This will actually add two layers to your Table of Contents: an Imagery basemap (at the bottom of the TOC) and a Reference layer (at the top of the TOC). The Reference layer contains boundaries and places.

2. To get the transportation information, click the Add Data dropdown arrow (just as you do to add a basemap) but this time choose Add Data from ArcGIS Online. In the Search box at the top, type Transportation and press Enter. Click Add on the World Transportation map service. (See the attached image for how your screen should look.) This will add a layer called World Transportation to the top of your TOC.

The two steps just described are what is needed to recreate the effect in the book. Because the place names and transportation are now served as separate layers, Step 14 of the book (Make a layer sandwich) on p. 24 becomes unnecessary.

If you follow these two steps, you'll notice, as with the Streets basemap, that the cartography has changed somewhat as well. Your screen won't match the book images exactly, but should be pretty close. As you continue through the book, there may be places where screen shots don't match but you shouldn't have any problems doing the exercises.

An alternative is just to use the Imagery basemap as described in the book and accept the absence of place names and transportation features. This also shouldn't prevent you from doing any of the exercises. This is primarily an issue in Lesson 1. It may crop up again elsewhere in the book but not too often.

I'm going to post a more detailed document on our resource center page http://resources.arcgis.com/en/communities/understanding-gis/ that describes the workaround in more detail. I should have that done sometime today and I'll add a post to this thread when it's ready.

Sorry for the confusion and thanks for alerting us to the problem. If you have any other questions, please let us know.

Tim

[TimOrmsby]

By the way, although the basemap issues are unrelated to whether you're using ArcGIS Desktop 10 or 10.1, you may encounter some other changes to functionality or the user interface that affect the book instructions. We haven't fully catalogued these yet, but I think you should still be able to do everything in the book. I think there are differences in the way coordinate systems are exposed in the user interface (which may affect Exercise 3B) and probably some other stuff, too. If you get stuck, let us know.

Tim

[TimOrmsby · Accepted solution]

Hi,

we've written a step-by-step description of how to add Boundaries and Places and Transportation map services to the current Imagery basemap layer. You can find this in the Quick Links section of the Understanding GIS resource center. The link is called "Basemap sublayers have changed." Let us know if it needs any fixing up. Thanks.

Tim

[Patrickde_Witt]

Hi Tim,

Thank you for all your effort and explantion. I am going to try out your suggestions although I already went on with the book disregarding the differences. If I come across some problems I will let you know.

Thanks,

Patrick

[JeriBerube]

Thanks Tim!

   This help a lot.  I was really getting a bit frustrated with trying to find the sub layers.

Jeri