Untitled - Texas A&M University Corpus Christi
Contents
1. LA EXIST OY SUOMI oU EPI UE 1 4 4 Problems with the Existing System 1 5 Project CIO AIS lt 3 ceo ee DE AED eret pen de UR EE E eR DR 1 6 Project Report Organization cece cece eee A Cartographic Visualization for the State of Texas 2 1 Interactive Maps with Census Data 2 1 Thematic Gradient Maps 2 1 2 Maps with Pie Charts ober ei eS Pp ERES 22 Converting Shapefiles to Geospatial Data 2 3 Creating ial ah tae t nO System DESIBN a ERR ERES e E CER orl c Geodatabase Design sores E Ere NES Sabi cPostere3gl extis ves NA GP iii 3 1 2 Design and Implementatnon 555455559995 99595955955 20 3 25 User Fotell 23 3 2 1 Design and Implementation 20 40 52 sho rope ALA 24 52 1 8 9 1121 815 1 5 5 575 RIA EP 24 32 1 Generate NAS VD isin 25 3 2 1 3 Shape2Spatial VD coi eee e ER OPE p 26 est BUSAN 26 4 Testing and EvaliaHofk c cpescsuices eve 27 All E e EE 27 42 Usability Testing sss nA NG ye e oad ens 29 e DER AP EAE eed EREET PAPA 30 a Bad tero 31 Bibliography and RETETENGES naaa kA DAANG2. RE pisa AE oes 32 Appendix A Application Configuration Settings eese 34 Appendix B Sample Use Case apa pa GANA NENENG Wises wedi ETE NAAN 36 Appendix C Class DIagratis vec GAAN IGAN MAN ds ta odessa eek s 37 Appendix D User Mantial sap sexed E AGANG 40 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 1 Polygon dataset depicting the frequency of Des 4 Figure 12 Thematic raster dataset lt 2 22005 sc 20 EEEE ees 4 Figure 1 3 Geodatabase arc EE 5 Figure 2 1 Interactive map showing census data 9 Figure 2 2 Detailed census data oie sepe Lo EE EE Did 11 Figure 2 3 Thematic map showing population density 54545 494 4 5999 5599559555 12 Figure 2 4 Map with pie chart showing male female ratio eee eee eee ee eee eee 13 Figure 2 5 Data conversion t00L i ache 14 Figure 2 6 Data preview Pani isis cas REENEN ARENS ENN 15 Figure 2 7 Add new map o aa ue Duca 16 Figure 2 8 Results of adding NEW Trap i vestre NN ENNEN REENEN ERE 17 Figure 2 9 Resulting map after adding a new rivers layer esee 17 Figure 3 1 Stages of a geodatabase design iie OE eH 19 Figure 3 2 Data processing and loading esee 22 Figure 3 3 Design of the application
3. Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1966 served as a model for later systems Chrisman 2005 These early GIS packages were often written for specific applications and required the mainframe computing systems found usually in government or university settings In the 1970s private vendors began offering off the shelf GIS packages M amp S computing later Intergraph and Environmental Systems Research Institute ESRI emerged as the leading vendors of GIS software James 2001 1 2 Cartographic Visualization Cartography plays an important role in the graphical presentation of geospatial information The cartographic visualization process involves translation or conversion of geospatial data from a database into maps applying cartographic methods and techniques In other words principles from cartography and geographic information systems are integrated in the development and presentation of georeferenced information Translation of data from a geospatial database and presenting it as a graphical map is the most efficient and effective means of presenting the data to the user Presenting data as maps enables the user to locate geographic objects on the map Different colors shapes and signs can be used to inform the user about the characteristics of a particular place on a map 1 6 a location on the earth Cartographic maps were designed by taking into account the information that can be present
4. EB L E Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license at http www ionics com Figure 2 3 Thematic map showing population densities 2 1 2 Maps with Pie Charts Data such as the male female ratio and the ratio of housing units which are owner occupied versus renter occupied versus vacant units are shown on maps with pie charts Figure 2 4 shows a map with the male female ratios for various counties The map in the figure has been zoomed in to show the graphs clearly 12 Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license at o http www hyperionics com ra To avoid this stamp buy 8 license at http www hyperionics com amp Created with HyperSnap 6 Created with HyperSnap 6 e To avoid this stamp buy a license at http www hyperionics com Figure 2 4 Map with pie charts showing male female ratios 2 2 Converting Shape Files 0 GeoSpatial Data The software has a built in tool to convert any given shapefile to a format that can be imported into a geospatial database The user needs to specify the name of the shapefile to be converted and the name of the destination database The software creates a new table in the user specified database with the same name as the shapefile and import all the relevant data into that table A new table is created for every shapefile imported The user needs to have permissions to create new tables in the speci
5. type System Configuration ApplicationSettingsGroup System Version 2 0 0 0 Culture neutral PublicKeyToken b77a5c561934e089 gt section name TexasDemographics My MySettings type System Configuration ClientSettingsSection System Version 2 0 0 0 Culture neutral PublicKeyToken b77a5c561934e089 requirePermission false gt lt sectionGroup gt lt sectionGroup name userSettings type System Configuration UserSettingsGroup System Version 2 0 0 0 Culture neutral PublicKeyToken b77a5c561934e089 gt section name TexasDemographics My MySettings type System Configuration ClientSettingsSection System Version 2 0 0 0 Culture neutral PublicKeyToken b77a5c561934e089 allowExeDefinition MachineToLocalUser requirePermissionz false gt lt sectionGroup gt lt configSections gt lt system diagnostics gt lt sources gt lt This section defines the logging configuration for My Application Log gt source name DefaultSource switchName DefaultSwitch gt lt listeners gt lt add name FileLog gt lt Uncomment the below section to write to the Application Event Log gt lt lt add name EventLog gt gt lt listeners gt lt source gt lt sources gt lt switches gt add name DefaultS witch value Information gt lt switches gt lt sharedListeners gt add name FileLog type Microsoft VisualBasic Logging FileLogTraceListener Microsoft VisualBasic Version 8 0 0 0 Cultu
6. uu reddo Ae GAANO KANI I AO AER vU AQUI A dp E Ses 23 LIST OF TABLES Table 3 1 Application and User Settings in App Config file 25 Table 3 2 Methods in the GenerateMaps vb Class 26 Table 4 1 Functional Testing Re sulls dees ees SE EP RE 28 Table 4 2 Usability Testing Results ege REFER SNR kp 29 vi 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Maps are simplified representations of reality This partly is done for convenience since it becomes very difficult to draw and interpret multiple information themes on one map covering more than a very small area Before computers became widely available thematic maps on plastic Mylar sheets could be laid on top of each other revealing more information about an area than was possible with any single paper map The amount of data that could be represented on such maps was very limited and also there was no way to link the information related to the map to the map itself James 2001 Currently there is no existing application for the custom specific settings of the proposed Texas census geodatabase and cartographic visualization Recently a project titled Design and Implementation of a User Friendly Geodatabase System for the State of Texas Uppala 2006 has been implemented which retrieves the population data from a database and presents it as reports rather than having it on a map so that users can visualize and interact with it Demographic data when
7. and attribute data and the relationships that exist among them A geodatabase provides a technique for representing real world geographic features and attributes as objects in a database and is hosted inside a relational database management system RDBMS Zeiler 2004 The design of the geodatabases generally starts with the thematic layer Designing a geodatabases can be divided in to three phases Arctur 2005 They are 1 Conceptual design phase 2 Logical design phase and 3 Physical design phase Figure 3 1 illustrates the three phases of Geodatabase design 18 Figure 3 1 Stages of geodatabase design The major activities performed in the development of the census geodatabase include the following e Identify the database system that is suitable to store the GIS data and is free of cost For this project PostgreSql was a suitable choice with its rich support for storing GIS data e Geodatabase Design Geodatabase Implementation 19 3 1 1 PostgreSql PostgreSql was used as the geospatial database in developing this project PostgreSql is an open source Relational Database Management System RDBMS PostgreSql has rich object oriented features such as inheritance polymorphism and the ability to create complex user defined datatypes PostgreSgl has the built in ability to process the spatial datatypes called geometry or feature All these features make PostgreSql an ideal candidate for storing and retrieving geospatial data
8. for ArcGIS that enables us to deploy GIS functionality and business logic wherever it is needed in desktops servers or mobile devices ESRI 2005 Figure 1 3 represents the geodatabase architecture With this architecture the user has the tools to assemble data for geographic information systems ESRI 2005 The geodatabase is a common framework shared by all ArcGIS products and applications Desktop 615 2 vaso 86 E a E vn Developer 515 Network E E Mee Wall NG Geodatabase 1 Figure 1 3 Geodatabase architecture ESRI 2005 ArcGIS Extensions Lightweight Viewers GIS Web Services 14 Existing System A Project titled Design and Implementation of a User Friendly Geodatabase System for the State of Texas Uppala 2006 has been implemented which retrieves the population data from a database and presents it as reports The application is data driven and all the data is stored and retrieved from a database The application presents a clickable map for the state of Texas which can be used to update and retrieve the required information The information for each county can be retrieved and updated by clicking on the respective county of the map 1 4 1 Problems with the Existing System The existing system retrieves the population data from a database and presents it as reports Any census data presented in the form of reports is hard t
9. map shows county wise census data Data like total population population density and number of housing units are shown for each county In addition functionality is provided to create thematic maps for showing population density and number of housing units in each county Maps with pie charts are also provided to show such ratios as male to female ratios in each county Figure 2 1 shows a simple map with census data that shows up when the mouse is moved over any particular county Figure 2 1 Interactive map showing census data The software provides various controls to the user to view and change the map The following tools are available to the user to control how the map is shown and to control what data is displayed on the map e Zoom In The Zoom In control lets the user to zoom in to the map to see each area more clearly Zoom Out The Zoom Out control lets the user make the map smaller When a user zooms in if the map is too big then he she can use the Zoom Out tool to make the map smaller Zoom to Extents This tool can be used to redraw the map to its original size Pan Panning is bringing a particular area of the map into focus The map can be panned by right clicking and dragging the map to any location Show Hide Labels These tools can be used to show or hide the county names on the map Show Hide Tooltip Census data for each county is displayed as a tooltip This tooltip can be shown or hidden using these controls
10. new map Controls can be used to Zoom In and Zoom Out and perform other operations Figure 2 9 shows the same map with a new vector layer with rivers data added to the map 16 PS Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license at www hyperionics com E Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy 8 license 8 http www hyperionics com M Created with HyperSnap 6 68 To avoid this stamp buy 8 license st http www hyperionics com Figure 2 8 Result of adding a new map Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy 8 license st http www hyperionics com Figure 2 9 Resulting map after adding a new rivers layer 17 3 SYSTEM DESIGN A Windows forms based GIS application for creating and displaying interactive maps with Texas census data was developed in this project The system incorporates GIS and database technologies to provide an interactive mapping application for displaying census data for the state of Texas The software also provides tools to convert data from shapefile format to a format that can be stored in a database Finally the software enables the user to create maps from geospatial data retrieved from the database 3 1 Geodatabase Design The first phase of the project involved the design of a geodatabase system A geodatabase is a relational database that stores geographic data ESRI 2005b It may thus be described as a container for storing spatial
11. shapefile Figure 3 2 shows the process of obtaining and loading the census data into the GIS database The following steps were performed in ArcMap to create a new shapefile e The shapefile with data of the county boundaries for the state of Texas was loaded into ArcMap e With the shapefile loaded the summary file with the demographic information was loaded into ArcMap e A join was preformed to join the demographic with the physical features for the state of Texas A join relates the attribute data in the table to the geographic data layer by using a common attribute field e The file was saved as a shapefile This newly created shapefile has all the required information and was imported into the database with the data import tool that was developed as part of this project 21 p m Figure 3 2 Data processing and loading 3 2 User Interface Design The user interface for implementing the project was designed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 The application was programmed using Visual Basic NET The application was designed as a three tier application with a data access layer dealing with accessing data from the geodatabase a middle logic business layer transforming and computing data to a format suitable for display by the front end user interface Figure 3 3 shows a basic design of the application Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects net ADO net was used in the data access layer to retrieve the data from the dat
12. 2 shows the results of usability testing The results in the table show that the application meets the usability requirements All the usability criteria were rated 5 out of a maximum score of 5 except for the look and feel Table 4 2 Usability Testing Results Usability Metric Score Out of 5 Ease of Use 5 Look and Feel 4 Colors and Fonts 5 Ease of Navigation 5 Features 5 29 5 FUTURE WORK This project has some scope for enhancement in the future The following are some of the ideas that can be incorporated into this project in future e Data More data need to be presented in an easy to present manner Presenting a lot of data on a map clutters the map defeating the main purpose A better way needs to be implemented to show all the available data for a given map e Charts The look and the information presented on the Pie charts shown on the maps have to be improved New features can be implemented to increase size of the chart to a certain extent when zooming in to the map e User Preferences There is a scope to allow the user to select the background colors for each map and the colors for the new layers and labels 30 6 CONCLUSION The design of the project is aimed at understanding the design principles and practices involved The software can be used to view the census data for the state of Texas in an interactive manner The software provides the user with a lot of flexibility in viewing and anal
13. 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license st http www hyperionics com Figure 2 6 Data preview pane 2 3 Creating New Maps Data imported in the previous section can be used to create new maps Labels specifying the map regions or any other labels can be added to the map by specifying the columns in the database tables New Vector layers can be added to the existing maps thus creating a map with the required details For example a shapefile with country boundaries can be converted to geospatial data and can be added as a new map and another layer with data about the rivers can be added as a vector layer to the map thus creating a new map which shows all the rivers in the world Figure 2 7 shows the process of adding a new map After specifying the database settings clicking on the Retrieve Tables button retrieves all the existing tables in the database The user can then select any table that 15 he she wishes to add as a new map If the user wishes to add labels to the map the user needs to specify the column whose data will be used as labels over the map Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license st http www hyperionics com T Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license at Map Data http www hyperionics com Table Geometry Column v Add Label Layer NAME Figure 2 7 Add new map Figure 2 8 shows the result of adding a
14. Cartographic Visualization of Census Data for the State of Texas GRADUATE PROJECT Submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Computing Sciences Texas A amp M University Corpus Christi Corpus Christi Texas In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Computer Science by Reena Sodiny Summer 2007 Committee Members Dr Dulal C Kar Committee Chairperson Dr Joseph Loon Committee Member Dr Long zhuang 1 1 Committee Member ABSTRACT In the context of geospatial data handling the cartographic visualization process is considered to be the translation or conversion of geospatial data from a database into maps This process is guided by how to say what to whom and is it effective applying cartographic methods and techniques such as choropleth maps classification color etc In this project a tool has been developed to display interactive cartographic maps for the state of Texas The maps interactively provide various demographic data for the state of Texas This tool can be used by any user for the purpose of comparing different census data across different counties for the state of Texas This project was developed as a three tier application with a geospatial database as the data source data provider a middle business logic layer which consumes the data and does the data transformation and a user interface layer that displays the generated interactive maps to the user
15. David M Mark Nicholas Chrisman Andrew U Frank Patrick H McHaffie amp John Pickles The GIS History Project 1997 http www geog buffalo edu ncgia gishist bar_harbor html Visited May 20 2007 GISLOUNGE 2005a Geodatabase explored Available from http gislounge com features aa050100a shtml Visited Mar 21 2007 GISLOUNGE 2005b Geodatabase explored Available from http gislounge com features aa050100b shtml Visited Mar 21 2007 James 2001 Nathaniel James History of GIS Spring 2001 http envstudies brown edu Thesis 2001 james gishistory html Visited May 20 2007 MSDN 2004a ADO Data Access http msdn microsoft com library default asp url library en us vbcon98 html vbmsc VisualBasicDocumentationMap asp Visited May 21 2007 32 Pressman 2001 Pressman R Software Engineering A Practitioner s Approach McGraw Hill New York 2001 Stephens 2002 Rod Stephens Visual Basic NET Database Programming QUE April 11 2002 Uppala 2006 Uppala A Design and Implementation of a User Friendly Geodatabase System for the State of Texas Graduate Project 2006 Zeiler 2004 Zeiler M and Arctur D Designing Geodatabases Case Study in GIS Data Modeling ESRI Press Redlands Calif 2004 33 APPENDIX A APPLICATION CONFIGURATION SETTINGS lt xml version 1 0 encoding utf 8 gt lt configuration gt lt configSections gt lt sectionGroup name applicationSettings
16. Detailed Data Double clicking on any county brings up a new screen that shows the census data and various graphs for that particular county Figure 2 2 shows detailed data view for Nueces County 10 Housing Housing Units 123041 Owner Occupied 67679 Renter Occupied 42686 Black 13307 Vacant 12676 General Details Population By Race Total Population 313645 White 225912 Population Density 375 2 Hispanic 174951 Median Age 33 3 Asian 3632 A Indian and Eskimo 1994 Population By Gender Hawaian and PI 230 Total Males 153483 Multi Racial 9808 Total Females 160162 Other 58762 O Males 153493 48 945 Figure 2 2 Detailed census data 2 1 1 Thematic Gradient Maps The links on the right in Figure 2 1 allow the user to access thematic gradient maps showing the population density and the number of housing units in each county Such data can be used to compare the data across different counties Figure 2 3 shows a thematic map for the population density for the state of Texas All the controls such as the Zoom in Zoom out and access to the detailed county wise data are also available through these maps 11 Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy 8 license at http www hyperionics com IK 9 15 Lir x Texas ics 18866 ity 2 KG a S Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy 8 license st http www hyperionics com EE
17. In order for PostgreSql to store GIS related spatial data an extension called PostGIS has to be added and enabled in PostgreSql PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSql object relational database In effect PostGIS creates a spatially enabled PostgreSql server allowing it to be used as a backend spatial database for GIS 3 1 2 Design and Implementation The census data has two principal components They are geographic mapping data of the physical features and tabular population data Once the data is obtained then managing correcting and updating the collected data are major tasks Because of the extensive use of census data both by private and public organization the data model was developed to enable the user to put the data to maximum use The main design issues of the census data model were designing the thematic layer framework geodatabases structure census topology rules for the census topology census boundaries linking census demographic statistics and deciding on the administrative units Data for this project was obtained from various sources and in different formats Geographic mapping data of the physical features of the state of Texas was downloaded from the ESRI web site in the format of a shapefile The census data is usually is in the 20 form of tabular format Census data was obtained in summary file format from the ESRI web site The two sets of data were merged using ArcMap software to create a new
18. The software displays interactive maps with demographic information for the state of Texas The software provides county wide information on population population density number of housing units and male female ratios Detailed information about each county can be obtained just by the click of a button The software provides additional functionality to import shapefiles into a geospatial database and to display the same as maps These maps can be added as layers one over the other So two different shapefiles can be imported and can be seen as a single map by adding two different vector layers The user is allowed to add any column from the database as a label over the map thus providing functionality for easy data visualization The project was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as IDE Visual Basic net was used as the programming language PostgreSql was used as the database PostgreSql was chosen because of its support for the geospatial databases ArcMap was used to create shapefiles for the state of Texas with the related demographic data Abstract Table of Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction and Backeround aasawa kakak kaaa 1 1 GIS and Cartographic Visualization eese 1 2 Cartographic Nisualzapnon cc ceeee cence eee eeeeeeeaees 1 3 Geodatabases cocco eode RC ERE AER E 1 3 1 Representation of a Geodatabase
19. abase ADO net enables the client application to access and manipulate data from a variety of sources through an OLE DB provider Its primary benefits are ease of use high speed low memory overhead and a small disk footprint MSDN 2004a Geodatabase Figure 3 3 Design of the application Stephens 2002 23 3 2 1 Design and Implementation This section discusses the technical details of the code implementation Various classes that are used for data access generating maps storing and retrieving user settings etc are discussed This discussion focuses mainly on the functionality of core classes 3 2 1 1 App Config File Microsoft net environment provides an easy way to store and retrieve application and user settings Application wide settings like the database connection strings and user settings like the color preferences language etc can be stored in a central repository file called App Config Just a couple of lines of code is all that is needed to retrieve these settings While the application settings are Read Only the user settings can be written to thus allowing the application developer to store any user preferences in the App Config file The current project uses the App Config file to store database connection string and certain user settings The database connection string is stored as an application setting which has application wide scope User settings are used to store the user credentials to access the da
20. data open the Data sol file included in the CD and copy the lines and paste them into the query tool and click on the Run tool to populate the database Software Installation and Configuration Use the CD to install the software The installation should be pretty straight forward Follow the instructions on the wizard to install the software Once the software is successfully installed locate the file called TexasDemographics exe config Use any text editor to open the file and locate the line that says ConnString This is the database connection information Replace this line with the appropriate values The server value corresponds to the name or IP address of the server on which the database was installed in the previous steps The 41 Port corresponds to the port on which the server is configured to run This typically is 5432 for PostgreSql server Userld and Pwd correspond to the username and the password used to log into the server Save the file after the changes have been made and you are ready to start using the application Using the Software This software can be used to either view the Texas Demographic data in the form of interactive maps or to create new maps Texas Demographic Data The first thing you notice when you open the software is an empty map of Texas From here you can view different data by using the links on the right Controls are provided to turn on and off labels and tooltip showing the data
21. ed through the maps since the nature of the data determines the graphic options For example a gradient map with different colors can be used when presenting data like population density while lines of different types can be used to represent rivers and roads 13 Geodatabases A geodatabase is a storage mechanism for spatial and attribute data It contains collection of features attributes and relationships between features All geodatabases whether personal or ArcSDE can store tables feature classes feature datasets and so on Geodatabases are grouped into two different types vector and raster Vector data is represented using points lines and polygons GISLOUNGE 2005a Figure 1 1 is an example of polygon dataset with thematic color mapping umber of Fires AB wh sch Figure 1 1 Polygon dataset depicting the frequency of fires GISLOUNGE 20058 Raster data is represented as a surface divided into a regular grid of cells There are three types of raster datasets thematic data spectral data and image data GISLOUNGE 2005b Figure 1 2 is an example of a thematic raster dataset also called a Digital Elevation Model DEM Elevation in meters 205 L2 206 346 347 436 EN 437 559 SSO 787 Figure 1 2 Thematic raster dataset GIS LOUNGE 2005b 1 3 1 Representation of a Geodatabase The geodatabase provides the common data access and management framework
22. er Rapoens iy _ renter _totalFemales _totalmMales _totalPopulation _totaluinits wacant arpHousing orppop Ib Black IFemales Ir an His panic IE 19 e ues dne IbIIncd 19 1 ales Ibimediansgage multi other Owner D en Renter IblTotalPop Notinheritable Class P AnplicationSettinasB gt gt Se d E d nau M s Pra G Fields 1 dtl 44 HARANA Asian Black county Hawraian Hispanic Indian Medians g raulti other Owners PopDensity Renter Total emales TotalMmales TotalPopulation Totalluinits wWAcant white ethods DOT Create Ethnicity GT Createnouwsingcr CreateSexRatiocr Dispose frmDetails Load Initializecorniipon SerPane ar addedHandler g9 defaultInstance Properties ConnString Database Default OledbConn Password Port Server UserName lg Methods addedHandlernLac APPENDIX D USER MANUAL Installation Instructions The following are the main steps in installing and configuring the software Install and Configure the database Populate the database Install and configure the software Installing and Configuring the Database Installation 1 Use the CD provided and browse to the folder called Postgre and start the installation or Download the install for the Wind
23. es that describe in detail what the tester needs to do and how to do it The test case also showed the expected outcome of the process The tester then performed the action and verified the outcome with the outcome described in the test case Any defects found were documented and fixed After all the defects found in the functional verification testing have been fixed the final phase of testing was performed This was done to ensure that all the defects have been fixed and also to ensure that the new fixes have not created any new bugs in the application Table 4 1 shows the results of Functional testing Table 4 1 Functional Testing Results Test Phase Module Tested Number of Test Cases Number of Defects Texas Census 8 2 Phase 1 Data Conversion 4 0 New Maps 10 2 Texas Census 8 0 Phase 2 Data Conversion 4 0 New Maps 10 1 28 4 2 Usability Testing Usability testing is used to identify how users actually interact with the application The application was tested for the ease of navigation through the forms appearance and consistency Appearance All the forms were checked for the uniformity in the appearance Ease of navigation The application was tested to see if there are any links that break the application and made sure that all the links are properly connected to the required pages Consistency The application was tested for the consistency of the data that is being displayed on the pages Table 4
24. fied database The connection to the database with the user credentials can be tested before proceeding further The software provides the user with tools to preview the data in the shapefile so 13 that the user can know beforehand what is being imported Figure 2 5 shows the data conversion tool in action Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license st http www hyperionics com Database Server Settings Server localhost 562 Database Upload Replace existing table Set SRID Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license at http www hyperionics com Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license http www hyperionics com Figure 2 5 Data conversion tool After previewing the data the user can click the Upload to Database button to start the conversion and import process into the database After the data has been successfully imported the user can open the data from the tool as if he she has opened the 14 newly created table in the database Figure 2 6 shows the table after the data has been imported into the database Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license st E http www hyperionics com 1 Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license http www hyperionics com I 2 3 5 6 8 E Created with HyperSnap
25. for each county The following figure shows the various tools and their functionality Created with HyperSnap 5 To avoid this stamp buy a license at http www hyperionics com Hide Tooltip Help Shapefile conversion tool Show Tooltip Hide Labels Zoom In Zoom to Extents 42 The same tools are also available in the menu control Zoom in and Zoom Out These tools can be used to Zoom In to or out of the map If the map goes out of focus then the Zoom to Extents tool can be used to bring the map to its original size Showing and Hiding Tool Tip Tooltips show data as the mouse is moved over each county Data for each county is shown on the tooltip This tooltip is available for all the maps and can be turned off and on by using the Tooltip controls Showing and Hiding Labels Labels show the names of the counties on the map This might get cluttered when the map is small Showing and hiding of Labels can be controlled using the Show Hide Label controls Different maps for population density Housing units etc can be accessed by clicking on the links to the right Created with HyperSnap 6 To avoid this stamp buy a license http www hyperionics com To avoid this stamp buy a license at http www hyperionics com To avoid this stamp buy a license st http www hyperionics com 43 Po
26. g was done during the application development Each part was tested individually to test the correct functionality Once the application has been developed completely all the individual parts of the application were integrated and integration tests were performed 4 1 Functional Testing Functional testing was performed throughout the life cycle of the project The objective of the functional testing is to verify how well the system performs Pressman 2001 The various functions the project is supposed to execute were tested User commands data manipulation tools map generation map navigation tools of the system were tested Any errors found during Functional testing were corrected before adding any new features to the software The next phase of testing was functional verification testing that was done by the users who were explained the scope and the functionality of the project Five testers who work at Computer Services at Texas A amp M University Corpus Christi were involved in 27 testing the application The testers are computer savvy and have some programming knowledge but none of the testers is knowledgeable about GIS related concepts The testers did not have knowledge of the internal workings of the applications but just what the application is supposed to do and the expected results During this test phase each of the testers were assigned to test different functionality of the application The testers were provided with test cas
27. n 3 presents the design and implementation of the project including database design and implementation of the user interface Section 4 discusses the testing procedures adopted to test the project for any bugs A discussion of future work related to this project is discussed in section 5 Section 6 includes the conclusions derived from this project 2 CARTOGRAPHIC VISUALIZATION OF CENSUS DATA FOR THE STATE OF TEXAS Cartographic Visualization for the State of Texas is a windows forms application designed using Visual Studio net 2005 The two main components of the project are a geospatial database designed and implemented in PostgreSql and a front end to present the data as maps The project utilized GIS technologies in creating census datasets for state of Texas The front end user interface of the project has three major components e Interactive map for the state of Texas that shows census data for the state of Texas e Data upload tool that helps convert any kind of shapefile into a format that can be stored to a spatial database This data can be later used to generate maps on the fly e Maps can be generated on the fly from the data stored in the database Data from different tables can be added as layers and can be seen on a single map allowing us to combine data from various sources into a single map 2 1 Interactive Maps with Census Data This part of the project focused on creating an interactive map for the state of Texas The
28. o visualize and comprehend Census data can be easily visualized when presented on the map This also helps in comparing the data for the various regions of the map Comparing census data between the different regions becomes difficult when the information is presented as reports If a comparison has to be made then data for each region to be compared has to be either saved to files or printed out before comparing This is difficult but possible if there are only few regions to compare but when all the data across the state has to be compared this becomes impossible Project Goals The major goal of the project is to present data extracted from a geospatial database in the form of interactive maps In order to realize this goal a number of preliminary steps have to be performed including converting and loading data into the database The following goals have been realized e Convert and load data from shapefiles into a data format that can be stored in a geospatial database e Read the data from the database and present it as interactive maps with data from the database e Allow the user to create any map on the fly with data retrieved from the database e Allow the user to add vector layers to a map with data obtained from different data sources and presenting all the information in a single map 1 6 Project Report Organization The next section Section 2 presents the narrative of the scope and accomplishments of the project Sectio
29. ows platform from the PostGreSQL Binary Download http www postgresql org ftp binary Make sure to check the PostGIS Spatial Extensions option PgAdmin III psql option 10 access the database server from other than the local machine itself Check the Accept connection on all addresses not just localhost This can be changed by editing the postgresql conf gt listen addresses property The default port of 5432 can also be changed as well in the postgresql conf gt port property For language check PL pgsal If you forget you can later use the createlang plpgsql command to install in a specific database Enable contrib Adminpack should be checked at the very least This simplifies adminstrative management of the server via PgAdmin III 40 Creating and Populating a Spatial Database PostGreSQL comes packaged with an admin tool called PgAdmin3 PgAdmin III is under Start gt Programs gt PostGreSQL 8 2 gt PgAdmin III Follow the steps below to create a new spatial database e Login with the userid and password set during install Set the line host all all 127 0 0 1 32 md5 host all all 1 2700 1 32 trust This will allow any person logging locally to the computer that PostGreSQL is installed on to access all databases without a password 127 0 0 1 32 means localhost e Create your database Call it GisDb case sensitive e Use the PgAdmin III query tool to load the data into the GisDb database To load the
30. presented as interactive maps can provide more information to the user both for informational and data analysis purpose In order to use the program designed in this project one does not need to know ArcGIS The designed program makes it easy to map data for the state of Texas 1 1 GIS and Cartographic Visualization A geographic information system GIS is an information management system for archiving retrieving analyzing and visualizing data referenced by spatial or geographic coordinates A GIS acts as an integrating technology that helps to store and retrieve information based on where they are physically located Anderson 2003 GIS technology incorporates common database operations with the unique visualization and spatial analysis advantage offered by maps GIS has evolved out of a long tradition of map making Over the years GIS has evolved through multiple parallel but separate applications across numerous disciplines Maps are simplified representations of reality This partly is done for convenience since it becomes very difficult to draw and interpret multiple information themes on one map covering more than a very small area The development of the Geographic Base File Dual Independent Map Encoding GBF DIME files by the U S Census Bureau in the 1960s marked the large scale adoption of digital mapping by the government GISHISTORY 1997 A grid based mapping program called SYMAP Chrisman 2004 developed at the Laboratory for
31. pulation Density Shows a thematic map of Texas with different colors indicating different population densities A legend is shown on the right side of the map Housing Units Thematic map is shown with the number of housing units in each county A legend is shown on the right side of the map Male Female Ratio Map is shown with a pie chart for each county The pie chart indicates Male to Female ratio for each county Housing Ratio Map is shown with a pie chart for each county The pie chart shows the ratio of number of housing units occupied by the owner to the number occupied by the renter to the number of vacant units Converting Shapefile To convert shapefile click on File gt Import Shapefile or Click on the Shapefile Conversion tool in the toolbar You need to have permissions to create tables in the target database In the resulting window provide your database credentials and open the shapefile to be converted You can preview the map before loading into the database Click Upload to Database to convert the shapefile to spatial data and upload it into the database A new table with the same name as the shapefile will be created in the specified database To view the imported data click on the Preview Data button The data imported can be used with the software to create new maps or to add the data as a new layer to an existing and relevant map 44 Create New Maps New maps can be created and la
32. re neutral PublicKeyToken b03f5f7f1 1d50a3a processorArchitecture MSIL initializeData FileLog Writer gt lt Uncomment the below section and replace APPLICATION_NAME with the name of your application to write to the Application Event Log gt lt lt add name EventLog type System Diagnostics EventLogTraceListener initializeData APPLICATION_NAME gt gt lt sharedListeners gt 34 lt system diagnostics gt lt applicationSettings gt lt TexasDemographics My MySettings gt lt setting name ConnString serializeAs String gt lt value gt server 127 0 0 1 database GisDb User Id Reena password medha lt value gt lt setting gt setting name OledbConn serializeAs String gt lt value gt Driver PostgreSql Server 127 0 0 1 Port 5432 Database GisDb Uid Reena Pwdzvijithar value lt setting gt lt TexasDemographics My MySettings gt lt applicationSettings gt lt userSettings gt lt TexasDemographics My MySettings gt lt setting name Server serializeAs String gt lt value gt lt setting gt setting name Port serializeAs String gt lt value gt 5432 lt value gt lt setting gt setting name Database serializeAs String gt lt value gt lt setting gt lt setting name UserName serializeAs String gt lt value gt lt setting gt lt setting name Password serializeAs String gt lt value gt lt setting gt lt TexasDemographics My MySettings gt l
33. rloa HousingratioChart Q SetLayer InitializeMap SetMap New 1 overloa a9 InitializeCompon ARRA 37 A GeometryColumn LabelColumn TableName S UserName Methods New Shape2Spatial IS Class b Form Fields gf btnCancel btnPreview btnPreviewdata btnSelectShp btnTestConnection btnUpload chbReplace chbsRID S components grpPreview grpSettings arpUpload labeli label2 label3 label4 label5 label6 IbMousePosition map pictureBox1 shp SR FA 2 a Pi P P 5 a 5 2 tbDatabase tbPassword tbPort tbServer tbSRID tbUsername gf ttShapefile Methods AN btnCancel Click AN btnPreview Click AN btnPreviewdata a btnSelectShp Click AN btnTestConnedio 3 btnUpload Click AN chbSRID Checke 3 CheckValidity gt CreateMap q9 Dispose 3 InitializeCompon AN pictureBox1_Mou AN pictureBox1 Mou 8 pictureBox1_Mou gy btShapefile_Text SY Type2NpgsalType 3 Type2PgType 38 DbSettings Class Form Fields Methods AN btnCancel Click AN btnGetTables Click sv btnOk_Click sv chbAddLbl Check g9 cmbTables_Selec g DbSettings Load D Dispose gy GetData 3 GetTables InitializeCompon BY UpdateSettings Events AddLayer frm De tails ess Fields asian _ black county hawaian hispanic indian medians ge multi other Own
34. s showing the map regions GetLabelLayer Return the label layer GradientMap Creates a thematic map Male femaleRatioChart Create a map with pie charts showing male female ratio HousingRatioChart Create a map with housing ratios 3 2 1 3 Shape2Spatial vb This class is used to convert any shapefile to a data format that can be imported into a GIS database This class uses the GenerateMaps vb class to generate a preview map from the shapefile 3 2 1 4 DbSettings vb This class is used to gather the database information from the user when the user wants to create a new map This Class exposes a public event that is raised after the user has finished entering all the required information This event is caught in the calling class and necessary steps are taken to generate a new map 26 4 TESTING AND EVALUATION This section describes testing procedures employed to test the project for errors Software testing is the process used to help identify the correctness completeness security and quality of developed computer software Software testing is a critical element of software quality assurance and represents the ultimate review of specification design and code generation Pressman 2001 A set of testing schemes were used to test the functionality and usability of the application Testing was done both during the project development unit testing and after the application has been completely developed To minimize the number of defects unit testin
35. t userSettings gt lt configuration gt 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 APPENDIX 8 SAMPLE USE CASE ToolTip and Label Functionality Open the TexasDemographics Application from the shortcut on the desktop The Application should open with a blank texas map Yes No Click on View gt Show tooltip Move the mouse over the map A tool tip should appear showing the data for that particular geographic location Yes No Now click on View gt Hide tooltip Move the mouse over the map again The tooltip should not be visible Yes No Click on View gt Show Labels The map should now be generated with labels shown for all the counties Yes No Click on View gt Hide Labels 10 The labels should now be hidden Yes No Remarks 36 APPENDIX CLASS DIAGRAMS Fields _connectionString Fields _databaseTable _connectionString _dataSrc g _databaseTable _enableOutline 2 _dataSrc _geometryColumn gM _geometryColumn _labelColumn E Properties sy _layerName ConnectionString _mapFill DatabaseTable i Properties DataSource 5 ConnectionString GeometryColumn DatabaseTable Methods DataSource AddLabels du EnableOutline 3 GetCountryStyle GeometryColumn AN GetHousingPieCh LabelColumn 49 GetHousingStyle LayerName GetLabelLayer 5 MapColor e GetPiechart TableName Methods GetSexratioChart 2 Userld AddLabels GradientMap Methods New 1 ove
36. tabase Since more than one user can use the same computer and each user has his her own set of credentials to access the database these settings are stored with a user scope Table 3 1 shows the application and the user settings stored in the App Config file 24 Table 3 1 Application and User settings in App Config file Setting Application Driver PostgreSql Server 127 0 0 1 Port 5432 Database GisDb Uid Reena Pwd GisDb 5432 Localhost The code fragment below shows a way to access the ConnString application settings stored in the App Config file Dim Connection as string declare a variable as string Connection My Settings ConnString read value from App Config 3 2 1 2 GenerateMaps vb This is one of the core classes that are vital for the functionality of the application GenerateMaps vb class is designed to create interactive maps with census data for the state of Texas This class has several properties that can be used to either set or retrieve that any of the class private variables This class provides methods to generate different kinds of maps and to manipulate the generated maps The class provides methods to hide and show the labels hide and show the tooltip etc Table 3 2 shows the methods provided by this class and the functionality of each method 25 Table 3 2 Methods available in the GenarateMaps vb Class Method Name Function InitializeMap Creates a new empty map AddLabels Adds label
37. yers can be added to the new maps to visualize data in the form of maps Before a map can be created we need a shapefile with relevant data The shapefile has to be loaded into the database with the shapefile conversion tool Vector layers can be added to the newly created maps by clicking the Add Layer menu item from the Tools menu 45
38. yzing the census data Population densities and the number of housing units across different counties can be compared by the click of a button Detailed census data for a desired county is only a button click away The software provides a tool to convert any shapefile into a format that can be stored in a GIS database This will help the available data to more use Also new maps can be generated from different shapefiles imported into the GIS database 31 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES Anderson 2003 Anderson S J and Harmon J E The Design and Implementation of Geographic Information Systems John Wiley amp Sons Inc Hoboken New Jersey 2003 Arctur 2005 Arctur D and Zeiler M Designing Geodatabases ESRI Press 2004 Chrisman 2004 N R Chrisman Charting the Unknown How Computer Mapping at Harvard became GIS 2004 http gis esri com esripress shared images 82 HarvardBLAD screen pdf Visited May 20 2007 Chrisman 2005 Nicholas R Chrisman History of the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics a Poster Exhibit 2005 http www acsm net cagis chrisman History pdf Visited May 22 2007 ESRI 2005 Geodatabase Available from http www esri com software arcgis geodatabase index html Visited May 21 2007 ESRI 2005b Environmental Systems Research Institute Creating Editing and Managing Geodatabases for ArcGIS 9 Available from http campus esri com Visited May 26 2007 GISHISTORY 1997
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