Lessons 5/6

Project 5:  Layouts

 
Lessons 5 and 6 brought us a new challenge, presenting our results in ways that can be easily understood by non-GIS professionals.  The example project on which we worked was a Township Zoning Map for White Deer Township in Union County, Pennsylvania.  Using predefined shapefiles for the various zoning segments, we added information such as the extent of a 100 year flood overlay, the major and minor roads in the township along with the road names and types, and the major hydrology features.  Figure 1 is a screen capture of this zoning information as developed in Lesson 5 and then modifed in a Layout View in Lesson 6.  One major presentation issue encountered in the creation of this map was the fact that when the original map was printed in hardcopy, the hues of the green colors representing the woodland and the agricultural zones appeared to very similar.  Using the color palate, the agricultural zone hue was changed to a lighter color in order to retain some differentiation on the printed page.  In addition to the color differences, a Legend, Compass, and Scale Bar were added to the base map for reference information, and the major roads (Interstate 80 and US Route 15) were separately identified and labeled.

 

Figure 1:  Zoning Map of White Deer Township

 
From the presentation above, a final map presentation was prepared.  Figure 2 presents the results of this final presentation using a pre-defined map template that can be captured and presented via a variety of means, e.g. in the context of a larger report as a graphic image, on a web page as is done here, or physically printed onto larger-sized paper for presentation and display at say a township zoning meeting.

Figure 2:  White Deer Township Zoning Map Presentation Template Example

 

Try This

 
In the Try This segment, we were asked to add two additional layers, a Pennsylvania County layer and a Union County layer showing the individual townships.  In theory, when added to our current map, the details of White Deer Township would line up within the Union County layer and the Union County Layer would line up within the Pennsylvania County layer.  Unfortunately this was not the case due to the fact that the projections for the two additional layers was not the same as the projections for the data in the White Deer Township layer.  Figure 3 is a screen shot of this discrepancy when trying to apply the Pennsylvania State Plane North, NAD 1927 projection.

 

Figure 3:  Using Pennsylvania State Plane North, NAD 1927 Projection

 
Figure 4 is another screen shot using the Pennsylvania State Plane North, NAD 1983 projection as this is the projection used to create the White Deer Township Zoning map.

 

 

Figure 4:  Using Pennsylvania State Plane North, NAD 1983 Projection

 

Then, the North American Albers Equal Area Conic projection was applied (Figure 5) and the maps were able to be aligned.

 

 

Figure 5:  Using North American Albers Equal Area Conic Projection

 
Using this projection, a separate layout view was created and then exported as a .GIF file.  This exported file was then used to replace some previously added text in the "presentation" version of the White Deer Township Zoning Map as shown in Figure 6.  This graphic now allows the township to be located relative to its geographic location in Union County within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  This reference information is now found in the middle of the three boxes on the right side of the Zoning Map.

 

 

Figure 6:  Final White Deer Township Presentation Zoning Map