In the first place, we have to download the software from the ofifcial website There are three ways to do it:

• Buy AutoCAD Map 3D from the AutoDesk store.
• Download a free and limited version of this program. It is a 30 days- trial.
• 36 months – trial version for students.

We are going to explain the third option. Follow these steps and you will be ready to use it:

Click on this link.

1. Create your own account.

2. You will have to fill all the fields, as shown in the next image:

3. But now, click on “Create Account”. Fill the Get Education Benefits window. Then, click on next.

4. Another section opens; this is for your data. When finished, click on Sign Up. Finally, you will see this window, requesting for activating your acount via email.

5. Thus, open your email that you included in the previous form and open the message “Welcome to AutoDesk” by clicking on its link.

6. Now, you are back in the website (Image number 1),  but this time, there is the message “Welcome back, <your name>”.

7. Click on the blue square which contains “Sign In” message. It requires the user name / email address and the password we established in the previous form. Then, click on “Sign In”.

8.Now, the main page opens. We are able to edit the second point of the first image (select the free software you want).

9. Choose the version of AutoCAD MAP 3D to download, which is currently the 2016 version.

10. Choose the language. It is highly recommended to use English, because this program has been developed in English. Furthermore, all documentation is in English, that means that all the commands will be shown in English.

11. Indicate the operating system of your computer.

12. Click on the blue square “Install now” and select the path were the .exe file will be stored.

13. Open the file when it completes the download process. Proceed to install the program, and don’t close the AutoCAD website, otherwise, you could get an error during the set up.

14. As the time as the installation is running, we would have received another email. This one should have a serial number and a product keyword. We must use it to finish the AutoCAD MAP 3D 2016 install process.

And now, you are ready to use AutoCAD MAP 3D. You can take a look in our course Digital Mapping with ArcGIS and AutoCAD MAP 3D (click on the image below). You will understand both technologies, and how they work.

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In this post, we are going to use an example with the Bike Stations of London, preparing a layer from a KML (creating a new symbology and saving it in a new style)  and upload it to ArcGIS Online and then, use it in Collector for ArcGIS.

First, we have to look for a layer on Google. This layer is in KML format, so in ArcGIS we proceed to change that format to a .lyr format.  The next image shows how to download a KML layer from Google (if you didn’t know it before).

Select the menu (right side of the red tectangle) and Download KML.

When the download is finished, save it in a folder to know its correct location. For example, create a New Folder and call it “Example Collector” .

Open ArcGIS and search for the “KML to Layer” tool in the Search Window.

This tool can convert a KML input into a layer feature, including the creation of a geodatabase with every feature of the KML layer. But what we are going to use is the layer.  Fill all the boxes in the tool, as the next image shows:

When the Geoprocess has finished successfully, you will see the same point symbols and labels as you saw in the KML layer.

We will change now the symbology: As we did in our previous post, we use an image for the symbol. And then, we want to save it in a New Style. But first, what is a Style?

Symbology won’t be stored in your feature configuration, it’s only in the map memory. This means that when you close ArcMap, you loose the symbology configuration.

Then, you will have to store the symbology into a Style file, called “.style”. You can also organise symbols of the style using the Style Manager, and, because you use a file, you can share it. ArcGIS provides a number of styles that can be used to meet a certain specification or achieve a certain look for your maps. These are the default, but you want to create new styles to customize your maps:

Now, go to Style References from the Symbol Selector, and select Create New Style. Then a new window pops up, like a “Save As” window. Name your new Style as you want (in this example, My_New_Style) and click on Save.

And it will appear in your Style Reference List. But uncheck the box on its left (see next image), for the following process:

Click OK and now select Save As. A new window will ask you for some settings The Style option has to be the output location of your new style.

Click Finish.

You can manage your Style File from the Style Manager. Click on Customize, on the top of the tool bar, and Style Manager.

Explore all the folders in that window. You will see all the categories that can be stored in the same Style Folder.

Once our layer is symbolized correctly, we will be ready to upload it to ArcGIS Online.

Don’t you have an account? It is time create it, because you will have many advantages. Go to ArcGIS for Developers and Sign Up for Free:

Look at all the benefits of having this kind of account and fill the requirred fields:

Once you have created it, go to ArcGIS.com and sign in with your already created account. You will be in the ArcGIS Online main window.

Go to ArcMap and sign in again. Click on File and then Sign In. You are ready to publish your features, by clicking on File and Share As.

The sharing wizard will start. Follow these steps:

1. Click on Publish a service.

2. The next panel requires a Service name (what you want; this example will use “Bikes_Service”) and to choose a Connection (ArcGIS Online account).

3. Select, on the left panel, Capabilities. Choose Feature Access and uncheck Tile Mapping.

4. In Feature Access properties (select Feature Access on the left panel) check all the properties (Create, Delete, Query, Sync and Update).

5. Click on Item Description and fill all the required fields (access and use constrains and credits fields are not required).

6. Click on Publish, situated up-right on the window. If an error message pops up, it can be because of the Basemap. Remove it from your Table of Contents.

Now, you will see your map in your contents, selecting My Contents in your ArcGIS Online page

Click on the arrow (next to “Feature Layer”) and choose Add to New Map. You are able to do many things within your map, but by now, we are going to Save As and fill the required fields, then we select Share. We can share it to everyone or among  your organization. Choose the latter. Now, the map you have created in ArcMap is ready to use from your Mobile Phone Device with Collector for ArcGIS.

You can download it from Play Store.

Install it and Sign in with your ArcGIS for Developers account (you had to choose previously the URL to your ArcGIS Online site. It is your user’s name followed by “maps.arcgis.com”). And you are in, your Map should be shown in your All Maps menu.

You might have more ideas while having your lessons in our ArcGIS courses in TYC GIS trainning. Furthermore, you will be able to add more functionality to Collector for ArcGIS by learning how to create domains and subtypes and classify your features correctly; and the best capability of Collector: attach pictures to your new features, activating this ability from ArcMap. This will provide photos to your features, taking them in the same place where you are.

This application runs online as well as offline.

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Of course, YES. And concretely, this year, weather has been gone mad. Due to climate change (in our previous post, we have commented studies that prove this event) but furthermore, due to ‘El Niño’ , which takes part of the ‘ENSO’.

We have probably heard about it, but what is it exactly?

ENSO means “El Niño – Southern Oscillation”. It is a cycle of phenomenons, as follow:

• El Niño: describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific ocean.
• La Niña: , the ‘cool phase’ of ENSO, is a pattern that describes the unusual cooling of the region’s surface waters.
• Southern Oscillation: The atmospheric changes.

It is called ‘The little boy’ in Spanish language, because it usually appears at Chrismast season, when the Christ Child is born. When appears, it soon comes to describe irregular and intense climate changes rather than just the warming of coastal surface waters. This event has an impact on ocean temperatures, the speed and strength of ocean currents, the health of coastal fisheries, and local weather from Australia to South America and beyond. El Niño events occur irregularly at two to seven year intervals. However, El Niño is not a regular cycle, or predictable in the sense that ocean tides are.

Maps of sea surface temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean during a strong La Niña (top, December 1988) and El Niño (bottom, December 1997). Maps by NOAA Climate.gov, based on data provided by NOAA View.

Normally, without El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean, strong trade winds blow westward across the tropical Pacific, the region of the Pacific Ocean located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. These winds push warm surface water towards the western Pacific, where it borders Asia and Australia. It creates the process of upwelling.

During an El Niño event, westward-blowing trade winds weaken along the Equator. These changes in air pressure and wind speed cause warm surface water to move eastward along the Equator, from the western Pacific to the coast of northern South America. This warm water does not allow normal upwelling to occur.

What happens this year, then?

Compared to other years, this year’s El Niño is similar, or even stronger, to El Niño in 1997:

The previous image shows two graphics measured by spatial satellites TOPEX/Poseidon and OSTM/Jason-2. They measure sea-surface heights, and this parameters can be used to calculate how much heat is stored in the ocean below. As we see, it is higher in the middle part of the ocean in 2015 than in 1997. This means that the temperature has increased, and might have caused the global environment stronger changes.

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There are lots of studies that show everybody the present results of measurements from the past century. The main organism that publishes these results, is the IPCC (International Panel of Climate Change). This organism is a scientific body under the auspices of the United Nations (UN).

They have published graphs to comprehend the changing through the years, for instance, in temperature. We all know what shape has, and we are worried about that shape:

But, the most important thing: Do we really know everything about climate change? Can we answer, as biologists, ecologists, geologists, and all the professionals in environmental  studies, the questions from the rest of the population? The answer to THIS question is .. “I have to dive into it”. We can’t know everything.

As we said, the IPCC studies many fields of climate change. But there are other webpages that take part of summarizing and explaining results and conclusions of a great deal of scientific studies.

One of these webpages is Skeptical Science.

Here, we introduce a link that drives you to the Global Warming and Climate Change Myths

Click on the link. We are going to select one option: “IPCC is alarmist” (number 34). Click on the blue text to open the information.

We will find two different levels for the answer, even three in other issues. This means that there might be a simple discussion or a mathematical proof of the climate change.

So, for the next time somebody asks you, look for the answer on this website.

Furthermore, there is an application for iOS, Windows Mobile (Nokia) and Android, as well as a Firefox add-on. This includes the common questions about climate change.

The most visible effects of climate change are registered by satellite imagery. Every change through history since the photos taken by the satellites can be shown on maps, from global to regional.

In TYC GIS, we show how to elaborate proper maps, which tools are appropiate, and in different GIS softwares: gvGIS, QGIS and ArcGIS. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, clicking on the buttons at the top of this post and sharing it.

Thank you for your attention!

See you at our courses.

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Python is the programming language available for ArcGIS to execute its tools, stored in Toolboxes, for geoprocessing.

You can use these scripts by installing ArcPy, which is already included in your ArcGIS desktop download. It is the ArcGIS library for executing Python language. This library contains classes, functions and modules and provides all the functionality.

Nevertheless, Python can go further from ArcGIS Desktop: We can interact with the ArcSDE spatial database using database managers, no matter which, (DBMS: IBM DB2, IBM Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, or PostgreSQL.) accessing with the following ArcPy class: ArcSDESQLExecute.

Upload your geoprocesses and analysis from ArcSDE  to ArcGIS Server. Here, it is possible to do geoprocessing services, geodata services, map services and so on, sharing your work and/or getting the web applications or mobile applications to request data and information from the server.

This and even more functions, always carried out by using Python! There are specific tools for ArcGIS Server, you just need to download them from the following link:

Python is a powerful resource in ArcGIS.

If you already know the tools and how to execute the basic geoprocessing proceses, improve your knowledge in our next course release, Advanced Python in ArcGIS, where you will learn as well new classes and modules of ArcPy, to manage and share all your information from the server and get ahead in ArcGIS technology.

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Joins are commands in every database which are executed for organizing the data stored in Spatial Attribute Tables and represent the best way as possible the features we have on a map.

For this example, we are going to work with a Spanish Relief layer, due to its morphostructural variety. Furthermore, we have a layer with several points of interest. The aim is to know what morphostructural unit is in each point of interest. The following diagram explains what Join we have to do:

We have loaded two layers in ArcMap: Morphostructures Units (unidades_morfoestructurales_de_relieve) and Points of Interest (Puntos_interes).

Now, select the layer from which we want to extract all the information. This is the Points of Interest layer, so right click on it and Join.

1. Select the kind of Join to do: “Spatial Join” in this example (1).
2. Select which layer we want to relate to Points of Interest. In this case, “unidades morfoestructurales de relieve”.
3. Select what information will have Points of Interest the after the Join.
4. Specify the path where the new layer is going to be stored.

Then, a new layer is generated, and in its Attribute Table we can see that each point of interest has its morphostructural unit.

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To start with, the relative relief represents the actual variation of altitude in a unit area with respect to its local base level, in other words, the difference in height between the highest and the lowest points in a determined surface grid areas.

Once we have results for every Pixel, these are classified according to the relief factor in some parametric values well defined.

So, firstly, we should have data referred to that difference in height.  But what if we haven’t got any data apart from the Raster? We extract it from this Raster.

The first tool to use is the CREATE FISHNET tool (we used it in this post). It creates points (if the option is selected) and polygons (again, if the option is selected) but without any information in the attribute tables. Take note of the following images to know how it works:

This is the result:

For further geoprocesses, we have to edit the new attribute table of the fishnet polygon and attribute table of the label corresponding to the fishnet, making its Id = [FID] + 1 using Field Calculator (right click on Id and select “Field Calculator”)

Next, we will extract the statistics for each cell of the raster. There is a special tool: ZONAL STATISTICS AS TABLE, and configure all the parameters for this tool. The next image is a model to look at:

As we will use points for a interpolation, we will do a Table Join, because the Fishnet layer has the information, not the label points. Then, right click on the point layer and Joins and Relates > Join.

We will make this join:

Export that table to dBase table, as seen on the next Image:

Finally, execute the IDW Interpolation tool, where the Z value is the recently exported table (Dbase).
The result is a raster, and the final classification has 5 classes.

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As an example, we will study the possibility of using a proper symbology for bear sights. Then, ArcMap is beign used to change the typical symbology of point to bear images.

We search for an image of a bear on Internet:

Optionally, we can do some modifications to its colours in order to have better image properties so that it will have a better contrast to the basemap. But the most convenient modification to do is to erase the image background. By doing this, the image won’t have any opacity for the basemap. Finally, save the image in .PNG format.

Open ArcMap and select from Table of Contents the symbol that has to be changed.

Double click on it and Symbol Selector window opens. Select Edit Symbol.

In Symbol Property Editor, choose Picture Marker Symbol in Type option

As we load the image we want to symbolize on the map, we are able to configure some parameters: Size, X Offset (distance from the point where the image is placed, horizontally) and Y Offset (distance from the point where the image is placed, vertically) and angle (degrees of rotation of the image).

Press OK  twice and see the next result:

Thank you for your attention !

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