Wednesday, January 30, 2013

ArcGIS Online and Map Packages

This week in GIS4043 we explored ArcGIS Online and the use of map packages.  This included using some of the prepared lessons on the ESRI website.  The ESRI site looks like it will be a valuable website in the future for information and training in ArcGIS.

Map packages are similar to intelligent zip files.  They allow the user to package up the essential components of an ArcGIS map collection and then share with others.  In our exercise, we were able to post the packages up to our ESRI accounts where others see them.  I could see this being a useful tool for sharing portions of a larger, group project (where everyone has different responsibilities) or just as being a way to find data that others have worked on that would be useful for my own projects.

The aspect of this lesson that was not clear to me is why we didn't include some of the map data, like the topography levels in the Aguirro Springs project.  I understand that including the data would make the map package very large.  However, I don't understand how a partial map package would be useful to another user.  Is the assumption that they have access to the background data?  Is this always a good assumption?

No comments:

Post a Comment