Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS: A Workbook Approach to Learning GIS, 3rd Edition

Copying Data over to Your Personal Folder

As mentioned earlier, ArcCatalog serves as a sort of operating system for GIS data. One function of an operating system is to make copies of folders and files. Important for avoiding catastrophes: When working with GIS data in Esri formats you should always copy data sets using ArcCatalog—never use Windows, UNIX, Linux, or any other primary operating system to copy data sets. You can, however, use the computer’s operating system to copy entire folders, provided that they encompass all related spatial data.

In using this text, you will use your working folder

___IGIS-Arc_YourInitials

to do most of the exercises. The idea is to leave the [___]IGIS-Arc folder contents in pristine condition. So, when you are going to work with the sample data from this textbook, you will usually copy over the data sets to your personal folder: ___IGIS-Arc_YourInitials. We’ll start with the Village Data.

____ 1. Start ArcCatalog. Expand [___]. Expand IGIS-Arc. Select Village_Data. Right-click on the selection and pick Copy. Select

___IGIS-Arc_YourInitials

Right-click on the selection and pick Paste.

____ 2. Make a folder connection with

___IGIS-Arc_YourInitials\Village_Data

Recall that you previously made a folder connection to [___]IGIS-Arc\Villiage_Data. Remove that folder connection (so you won’t get confused and work on the wrong data set).

____ 3. Collapse the Catalog Tree as much as possible by clicking on all the “minus boxes.” Expand Folder ...