GIS Week 13: Georeferencing and ArcScene

For the final module in Intro to GIS, we got to explore georeferencing and mapping in 3D. For this lab assignment we were given two aerial images of the UWF campus that had no spatial reference, and georeferenced them (in other words, assigned real-world coordinates) based on existing shapefiles of campus buildings and roads. We then edited those shapefiles to digitize two features (one building and one road) that were present in the photos but not yet in the shapefiles. The results are below, along with a second map showing the location of UWF's eagle nest in relation to those features. This second map also shows the easement buffers created to protect the nest, which were drawn using ArcMap's multiple ring buffer tool.

 After all that, we took our first stab at using GIS in 3D. The building and roads shapefiles and the aerial imagery were imported into ArcScene and draped over a 30-meter DEM. The buildings were also extruded based on the heights listed in their attribute table, and then the 3D aspect of the entire scene was exaggerated somewhat to make the features stand out more. The final scene was exported as an image so that the layout could be finalized in ArcMap, as ArcScene doesn't allow for the creation of additional map elements like legends.