Lab 3

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Lab 3 Information

The purpose of this lab was to take a raster image of Utah State University (USU) overflow parking and overlay it on satellite imagery using the georeferencing abilities of ArcGIS Pro to create an easy-to-understand overflow parking map in an effort to reduce parking confusion on campus.

First, I imported the USU parking raster image into ArcGIS Pro and overlaid it on a satellite imagery world map. I used the Georeference tool under the Imagery Tab to add control points from the parking raster to the satellite map, pulling representations of building edges, sidewalks, and other visible features of the parking raster to line up with their real world counterparts in the satellite image. Reference points with large residual errors were deleted, for a total of 16 points with errors less than 2. I used a third-order polynomial transformation for the reference points.

After adequately georeferencing the parking raster with satellite imagery, I created a new shapefile by right clicking in the Catalog pane, then used the Create Features tool to create digitized polygons by tracing the overflow parking lots. With these, I created a side-by-side comparison map with the polygons on one map and the original raster image on another. I then exported the polygons and imported them to a new personal map in Google Maps, to create an interactive, easily accessible online map of overflow parking lots on the USU campus.

This map could be improved with a less cluttered basemap, or perhaps a desaturated satellite imagery basemap to make the overflow parking polygons more apparent, especially for the smaller, less obvious parking lots.

Additional Downloads

High resolution (PDF) download available here