Latest Contributions by JustinBierschwale

I am trying to come up with a process to create a raster that contains the viewable area from each individual cell throughout the raster. For example, when I click info on a cell I want the value to be some sort of area measurement (acres, square meters, square miles, etc). The area value is all surface area that particular cell can see added together. My end goal is to reclassify that raster such that areas with extremely high viewable area values are in one category and the remaining areas are in another category. So, in mountainous terrain, the finished raster will primarily be ridge lines and other areas where topography changes drastically, but the areas within the terrain that have typical long range views but not panoramic will not be categorized the same. I hope that makes sense. I wouldn't say I'm a novice, but I am self taught so any help on that level would be appreciated. I'm working with ArcGIS Basic Desktop, Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst. ... View more

I have a DEM that covers a large area of steep hills. My end goal is to have a base layer of the entire area (raster or polygon) that identifies the hilltops (areas above where the hills begin to heavily slope), the hillsides (areas where the hills slope at their greatest (say 30+%) and areas below the base of the hill line where slopes are gentler. I have been playing with the slope tool in spatial analyst, however I have some problems. First, the slopes gradually diminish as you get to the upper reaches of the canyons, so I do not have a way to connect the sloping areas around those lower slopes at the upper reaches to create a dividing line between hilltop and valley. Second, the area covered is large enough that the elevations of the base of the hill lines in the eastern portion of the DEM are actually found on the upper side of the hills in the western portion of the DEM, so I cannot identify a solid elevation level to establish the line. Third, I can't figure a way to separate the hilltops (above the heavily sloped area) from the valley (areas below the heavily sloped area) based solely on slope because both those areas contain similar ranges in slope. Any advise is appreciated. For reference I have access to the basic license and I have spatial analyst. ... View more

Can someone give me the best route to go to achieve the following process?  I have ArcGIS 10 and Spatial Analyst. I have polygons that represent large acreage ranch boundaries in an area with moderate to heavy rolling terrain.  I want to streamline a process in which I can see how many acres within the boundary of the property have slopes greater than 8 degrees and how many acres within the boundary are lower than 8 degrees.  This is where I'm at so far but I'm at a road block. 1. Obtain DEM 2. Reproject to feet xy units 3. Convert z from meters to feet 4. Run slope analysis I'm not sure where to go from hear to quickly get what I want.  Thanks. ... View more

I'm starting to learn a little about setting up multiple layouts utilizing the Data Driven Pages in ArcGIS 10.  I have a polygon feature class that contains approximately 250 seperate polygons that will be created.  The polygons are very close to each other; in some cases sharing actual boundaries.  Is there a way to setup the pages so that only the active polygon is shown on a single page?  In other words, right now when I run the tool, it may have 5 polygons showing with the one the page focuses on being in the center.  Is there a way to make the other 4 transparent on that particular page? Thanks. ... View more

Has any government service created TINs based on topography and have the files available for download or purchase anywhere? Thanks ... View more