Arcgis newbie - Have some questions :)

[FaisalKhan3]

Hi guys,

I am a complete beginner to GIS but havent seen a preview of it, i am really interested and drawn to it at the moment.

What i am looking to do is create a public website and share some information. I was hoping to get a few pointers on best way to do this.

Questions i have is:

- What is the best way to start? I have been using the online web maps on the arcgis website and been embeding this on to my website just to play about it at the moment.

- Should i purchase any specific software? Or is there any free options to get this across.

- I have a lot of data in csv format, how would i be able to get this easily across on to the maps?

- Having the options of legends, is this easy to setup?

- Does the coordinates have to be in longitue and lattitude, or can they be x and y co ordinates?

I hope you dont mind me asking these questions, i am really a fan of the product and would like an oppertunity to really get to know it further.

Thank you

[MikeMinami]

it seems like you are on the right path.

You can upload CSV data and display it over the map from the Add menu, add from file or add from web (if the CSV is accessible via a URL). If you add it from the web, if the data changes, it will be reflected in the map. There is a limit to the amount of data you can add to a map, around 1000 features. Your data does have to be in lat/long.

You can draw the points based on an column value in the data. The legend gets generated automatically.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[FaisalKhan3]

Thanks mike for getting back to me much appreciated.

What i am trying to do is add the data through csv format, but what i want to do is then add the pictures for each location that i have posted. Is this possible instead of just doing it individually?

Also i posted it through a csv format online without the co ordinates and the data appeared. Is it still vital to have co ordinates?

Thank you

[MikeMinami]

If the points are displaying correctly, I suppose you must have the correct coordinates in the CSV file (or if you have addresses, that will work too, up to 250 addresses).

As far as displaying a popup with a picture in it, each record in your CSV file has to store the URL to the image that resides on the web somewhere. ArcGIS Online can't store your images for you.  Here's a post that describes how you could do it.

http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/52504-Configure-pop-up-for-individual-features?p=179544&viewfull=1#...

Thanks,

Mike

[FaisalKhan3]

If the points are displaying correctly, I suppose you must have the correct coordinates in the CSV file (or if you have addresses, that will work too, up to 250 addresses).

As far as displaying a popup with a picture in it, each record in your CSV file has to store the URL to the image that resides on the web somewhere. ArcGIS Online can't store your images for you.  Here's a post that describes how you could do it.

http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/52504-Configure-pop-up-for-individual-features?p=179544&viewfull=1#...

Thanks,

Mike

Thanks again Mike.

Might be again a dumb question, but to insert the image URL does this have to be in the csv file like in a extra column?
Its just if i go to the point on the map which has been added from the csv file, then there is no option to add the image?

Thanks

[MikeMinami]

If you want a unique image for each row in the CSV, then you need a field to contain the URL. If you want the same image displayed for all rows, then you can simply add an image media with a hard coded URL to one image. There is no ability to add the image directly from the popup. You can only define an image to display with a popup when you configure the popup.

Thanks,

Mike

[AbhijatC]

Hi guys,

I am a complete beginner to GIS but havent seen a preview of it, i am really interested and drawn to it at the moment.

What i am looking to do is create a public website and share some information. I was hoping to get a few pointers on best way to do this.

Questions i have is:

- What is the best way to start? I have been using the online web maps on the arcgis website and been embeding this on to my website just to play about it at the moment.

- Should i purchase any specific software? Or is there any free options to get this across.

- I have a lot of data in csv format, how would i be able to get this easily across on to the maps?

- Having the options of legends, is this easy to setup?

- Does the coordinates have to be in longitue and lattitude, or can they be x and y co ordinates?

I hope you dont mind me asking these questions, i am really a fan of the product and would like an oppertunity to really get to know it further.

Thank you

I had described basic steps to start with here:
http://abhijat-innovations.blogspot.in/2012/06/creating-arcgis-web-application-net.html

Hope it helps you in the initial stage.

Abhijat