Assignment 9: ArcCollector 2

Introduction

The purpose of this lab was to expand on skills acquired in assignment 7- using the ArcCollector app to obtain field data and creating maps with the collected information. For this assignment, each student was able to create and collect data for a topic of their choice. The requirements for this project stated that a minimum of three fields of data were to be collected (a text field, an integer field, and a category field).

Collection Criteria

The data collected in this project pertained to street lights of the third ward neighborhood of Eau Claire. The study area is shown in the resulting maps, but essentially, it consisted of every accessible drive south of Washington St, east of State St, and north/west of the Putnam trail and Harding Ave. to be classified as a street light, the light had to be taller than 8 ft, attached to a pole, and accessible by vehicles (this includes residential parking lots). Only lights within the study area were counted (ie. streetlights on the west side of State St were not counted, but lights on the east side of State St were). The attribute information collected consisted of: bulb type, number of lights (per pole), pole type, operational status, and notes.

Methods

The first steps in achieving this assignment's initiatives were to create and publish a blank point feature map, this was done using ArcMap and ArcGIS online. To begin, a blank map document was created and a new geodatabase was made within the project folder. The geodatabase serves as a host for the feature layer(s). The domains and subtypes of the geodatabase were established, setting the parameters for aforementioned feature classes.

Once the database was established, the street light point feature was added to the geodatabase. The bulb type, number of bulbs, pole type, operational status, and notes fields were created. Every field besides the number of bulbs and notes attributes were categorical, using coded values within the field parameters that provided options for field collectors to choose from.

Then, the blank feature service was published to ArcGIS Online and saved as a web map. Since feature access was enabled within the service, end-users would be able to add points to the map when using the app.

To collect the data, the ArcCollector app for iPhone and a longboard were used. The data was collected by riding around the Third Ward neighborhood and collecting information about street lights on every street within the study area. The data was collected at night to ensure the bulbs were functioning properly.

After the data was collected, the point information was opened in ArcMap to create the maps shown in the results section.

Results

To create the resulting maps, the study area was digitized as a polygon feature class and the point data was symbolized by both bulb type and pole type fields.

Figure 1: Street light map of bulb type.

Figure 2: Street light map of pole type.

Discussion

Looking at the results, there are some noticeable patterns, such as the amount of lights on more heavily trafficked roads such as State St, Washington St, and Summit Ave. For the most part however, the coverage of street lights in the Third Ward is pretty standard- there's a light on almost every corner, when there are large bends in roads, or splitting long roads.

As far as the validity of the data, the application has about a 16.4 ft location accuracy, so the locations of each street light within the resulting dataset has a potential to be inaccurate. My knowledge on various bulb types is also limited, so this could also affect the validity of the data.