This set of instructions is designed to help you create a basemap of your field area which contains standard representations of roads, contour lines, and spot elevations. Before you begin this process, you should create an ArcView project that contains the field data that you have already collected. If you have not done that already, now is the time to do so. Once you have completed that step (or if you already have), use these instructions to add a basemap layer to your project.
1. Open your fieldcamp ArcView project from your iPAQ directory. Since there are many groups, each with their own project, I suggest saving the project as something other than the default 'proj1.apr'. Either 'save' your new project or 'save as' your existing project with a more descriptive name, whether that be the name of your iPAQ, your group number, or the name of a prominent feature in your field area.
2. From the 'View' menu in ArcView select properties. All of your data is in a UTM projection, which has as the underlying unit of measure meters. If you have not already done so, change your 'Map Units' and 'Distance Units' to meters, as shown below, and click OK to close the View Properties window. Save your project.
3. Now we will add new themes to your project in order to create the basemap. Click the 'Add Layers' button on the ArcView toolbar (the large plus sign above the diamond on the top row of tools to open the 'Add Theme' menu (below). Navigate the file menu to 'c:\_basemap', change the 'Data Source Types:' to 'Feature Data Source' if needed, and then hold down the shift key and select the four available .shp files, as shown below. Once they are selected click 'OK'.
4. Four new themes are added to your project, as shown below. Please note that your existing project will have more than these four themes! Double click on Spot_elevations.shp, as shown below, and follow the sequential instructions shown on the illustration to load the legened for Spot_elevation.shp. The legend controls the size, color, and patterns of items on the map. Once you have loaded the legend for Spot_elevations.shp, you will need to follow the same procedure to load the appropriate legend for each of the other three layers.
5. Turn on each of the four layers by selecting the check box to the left of each layer. (This is not done in the figure below so as not to crowd the instructions). You will notice that the contours and spot elevation markers (Xs) are brown in color, while the roads are black and dashed. This is information that was derived from the legend files that you loaded. When you label the contours and spot elevations, it would be nice if the text were the same color as the contour lines. The next few steps will allow us to set the color of the label text. Unlike loading the legend, which you just did, this process only needs to be done for one theme, not all themes. In this instance, we will perform the procedure on Spot_elevations.shp. Start by following the instructions in the figure below:
6. You just set the text color to the same color brown as the contour lines and spot elevations. Now we will select the font size and style characteristics of the labels. Start by selecting 'Text and Label Defaults...' from the 'Graphics' menu, as shown below.
7. The window below should appear. Follow the instructions on the figure below to set the label characteristics. DO NOT TOUCH THE COLOR MENU LABELED 'Unnamed Color' OR YOU WILL LOSE THE BROWN COLOR WE SELECTED TO MATCH THE CONTOUR LINES!
8. You are now prepared to label the spot elevations and contours on theArcView project. Before doing so, set the scale of your map, and zoom in to your specific map area, as shown below for the rough region of map area 3:
9. Now it is time to label the contours and spot elevations. You will start with the spot elevations. Be sure that Spot_elevations.shp is the active theme, then open the label menu, as shown below:
10. The label menu for the spot elevations will appear, as shown below. Follow the instructions on the figure, and labels will appear at your spot elevations.
11. Now change the active theme to 'Index_contours.shp'. From the 'Theme' menu, again select 'Auto-label' to get the label menu for the index contours. Note that there are more options available for labeling lines as opposed to points. Follow the instructions below to label the contour lines:
12. SAVE YOUR PROJECT!!!!
You now have a basemap layer permanently saved with your project file. As you continue to work in the field, update your project file with your new field data. To make use of this basemap as a tool for mapping on paper in the field, you will want to set up a new 'Layout' for printing. The instructions for setting this up are found in the basemap layout instructions.