Arcgis Pro - Blog Posts

The devil in the details

I have started to post some videos demonstrating some tools in ArcGIS Pro. Short ones and pretty quick ones which I strived for since I absolutely am frightened with the idea of irritating people with unnecessary voice-over. It has no garnered much response and it's cool with me. Although, the lack of traction does things to my insides, I go back to the real reason I am doing thing, which is to stash the tools that I managed to learn on my own by trials and errors and keep them somewhere I can refer back to it to remember how it works.

Creating maps involves a number of iterative processes made to suit the intended output. Although creating maps itself is a form of art; heavily reliant on target audience's knowledge and aesthetical preference, it is still an inherently democratic science. Thus, knowing the mainstream technology and tools in the industry to express your vision or message is given. So for those just starting out with using geographical information software (GIS) for your final year project or research, this videos are meant for you. The purpose is not to overwhelm you with too many information, or distract you with my narration, but to follow in real-time the process from the start up of the software to the running of tools that generates the information needed.

Knowing fully well that there is an endless variety of GIS software or tools out there, processes that you need to execute to make things happen may vary in name and functionalities. Forget the beef between ArcGIS and QGIS, of which one is the better tool; if it serves your needs, then use it. You're not obliged to pledge loyalty to software or brands although you are encouraged to maintain integrity in your beliefs when it comes to corporate versus open source tools in the industry. Both choices come with their advantages and disadvantages. Yours truly uses QGIS and ArcGIS Pro interchangeably. If it doesn't work in ArcGIS Pro, which I use primarily, I'll jump to using QGIS. It's not a big deal. If it works painlessly, there is no reason to feel bad about using it.

So far, the content I have made emphasizes mostly on ArcGIS Pro or Esri products since using them is how I come to learn more about geology and geography. QGIS was a name I did not learn of in my university years when ArcGIS versions start with the digit 9️⃣, so you can catch my drift.

We can go on and on about theoretical stuff and our smarter pals usually knows what to do when faced with the tools. Unfortunately, I fall in the percentile that needed to land on the job to understand what on earth I am supposed to do. This series of videos are for those who have the same problem as I do and need to see the magic actually happening before knowing what to do. And for the most part, there are so many things to read and try out before you get it right. So hopefully, the demos can kickstart some thoughts or observation in the logic within the software's ecosystem and become more than just a technical power-user.

This week, I touched on some tools that I found helpful when dealing with point vector data, so feel free to check it out 👇🏻

Next week, I'm thinking of exploring some series of point analysis and space time cube is beckoning for me to test it out. Until then, stay cool and drop a word if you need any clarifications on the demos!

🗻 Diorama Drama

So, John Nelson made this absolutely simple tutorial on how to create a diorama interesting features on Earth's surfaces. I have been eyeing alot of people making them and resisting the urge to make one. I mean, I have the habit of falling into a rabbit hole with making maps that I'll definitely be having too much fun to stop. That could mean hours and hours scrutinizing colors, perspective or setups and even legend arrangements. But this...I decided not to overdo it and just make one.

I can't believe how easy it is to make one! Here's a piece of many to come; the elevation diorama of area within the Batang Ai Dam and Batang Ai National Park in Sarawak, East Malaysia.

What you'll learn... 1️⃣ How to extract raster from existing image layer in Living Atlas; that's how we extracted the DEM layer for this elevation data.

2️⃣ How to create a 3D scene in ArcGIS Pro and navigate through them.

3️⃣ How to create a layout layer and export them as a static image format i.e jpeg, png, tif etc...

Check out the video tutorial here 👇🏻

I was thinking that this tutorial is making me feel like there is a possibility of creating some floating island or pixel-like models of isolated pieces of land -- my head is imagining some kind of dragons flying around in some nonexistent Viking fantasy map. But hey...if you're not inspired to create crazier maps from John's tutorial, then are you even a cartographer at all?

He's on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and he even has this supercool blog of his; Adventures in Mapping, where he shares all of his tutorials in full documentation and gorgeous portfolio that could only consist of magic! One such as I can only aspire.

So, that was what our Sunday looked like and I think I'll be playing around with dioramas for a few weeks. Let's see just how many of these I can make 'til the next Sunday.

📑 International Climate Initiative (IKI) Land Use Plan: Green Initiative in the Heart of Borneo (HoB) Report

Tool: ArcGIS Pro 2.9.3 Technique: Overlay analysis, visualization via remote sensing technique

These maps are developed to aid or supplement the Natural Capital Valuation (NatCap) initiative. As cited by WWF:

An essential element of the Natural Capital Project is developing tools that help decision makers protect biodiversity and ecosystem services.

One of the site included in this initiative by WWF-Malaysia is the Heart of Borneo (HoB). Specifically for this exercise, the visualization of policy and land use eventually become the data input utilized in the tool InVest that generates the models and maps for the economic values of ecosystem services within the landscape of interest.

The generation of the data mainly includes superficial remote sensing to assess the status of the land use in the respective concessions using Sentinel-2 satellite image with specific band combination to identify tree cover, particularly mangrove forest.