Quick Guide to ArcInfo Data and ArcCatolog
Quick Guide to ArcInfo Data and ArcCatolog
** featuring excerpts from
the ArcInfo Help files **
ArcInfo uses a variety of data types to model geographic features:
Spatial Data Concepts in ArcInfo
Work in ArcInfo must be done in a "Workspace":
Users must have read and write access to the workspace for all the ArcInfo
commands to work properly -- pathnames can be used to access data in other
workspaces, but it is easiest for a user of command-line ArcInfo to have
all
the data in the same workspace.
Looked at with a file manager, a workspace is a directory which contains
a folder called "info" which organizes the information in the directory
for ArcInfo:
Coverages are the main type of data which are used in ArcInfo:
Coverages should be copied only using ArcInfo -- not the Windows file manager.
Coverages are a single geographic datasets stored in multiple files and folders.
ArcCatalog:
Easiest way to examine and copy GIS datasets in ArcInfo
Necessary to refresh often to see if actions actually happened
Has three different ways of looking at data: file manager; graphic/table preview; metadata
file manager view:
view data folder and dataset type
("contents" tab):
view dataset propeties: dataset size, feature details
(right-click data and "properties"):
view dataset propeties: spatial reference
(right-click data and "properties"):
rename, copy, move, and delete datasets (right-click dataset name):
export datasets (right-click dataset name):
converts between datatypes: coverages, shapefiles, geodatabases
preview dataset graphic
("preview" tab):
examine metadata
compiled by Nick Kohler, March 2001.