Class 7 - Starting you geodatabase

We will be doing an 'out of class' assignment this week since I am traveling to Valladolid, Mexico for a school trip. Please follow these directions as closely as possible.

FIRST: Prepare

1. Read Chapter 12 - Geodatabase Design Guide - Modeling Our World
2. Read An Overview of Geodatabase Design from the ESRI WebHelp
3. Explore some existed ESRI Data Models (templates you could use or modify)
4. Consider these design tips
5. Explore these design steps
   

SECOND: Document your design - 'Design Guide'. Create some type of document (Word, Excel, Visio, FreeMind) to document your database design. Make sure to include:

• Purpose of the database: What functions do you want the database to perform. What analysis will you do with it? What kind of maps will you make?

• Included layers: What kinds of layers are required for your geodatabase to perform the functions and operations you wish?
  
• For each layer, include the geometry type (point, line, poly) if vector or the type of raster data.
  
• Include the attributes that might be necessary for your geodatabase feature classes.
  
• Give some examples of how you might validate the attributes through domains
• Give some examples of how you might better classify your data using subtypes
• List what feature classes my be organized either thematically or spatially in feature datasets
• What will be the projection/spatial reference of your feature classes?
• This information on modeling feature classes will be helpful to read.

• Other information: What other information (non-spatial) will need to included in your database?
  

THIRD: Research data availability

• Conduct internet searches to find existing digital datasets to include in your geodatabase
• Describe data you may need to create

FOURTH: Create 'test' geodatabase

• Create a file based geodatabase
• Incorporate an data you have located into the geodatabase
• Keep them as simple feature classes for now but be thinking about how to build more functionality into geodatabase. That's next!

!!! TURN IN NEXT WEEK !!!

1. Your geodatabase
2. Your design guide