Marnie Sippel

GEOG 897C

Brevard County, FL Historic Landmarks Map Using ArcGIS Server and Flex Final Report Objective
Brevard County, Florida has a wonderful Historic Brevard Landmark Guide in print and available as a pdf on their website; however, they had not taken the next step to provide an interactive map for visitors to view the location of historic landmarks and easily map out a day trip. I thought this project would be a great opportunity for me to learn more about using ArcGIS Server and Flex while creating an interactive map that would also benefit the county. I wanted users to be able to search for landmarks of interest based on either the location in the county or the type of landmark.

Data Collection
There were 83 historic landmarks listed in the guide. Of these, only 38 had GPS marker locations listed in DMS, which I have converted to DD. Of the remaining 45 records, there were 25 records that had a street address. With such a small number of records to process, I simply copied the latitude/longitudes for those records from Bing Maps. My map includes the 63 locations for which I was able to obtain accurate locational information. The remaining 20 locations need to be researched for accuracy. For example, one record just says South side of Crane Creek, which is a long creek running through town. Getting the data extracted from a secure (though public) PDF was challenging. I ended up pasting the information into Excel, but still needed to do quite a bit of data clean-up due to formatting issues (Figure 1). Brevard County Historical Commission provided me with a list of categories for the landmark types that they use (Figure 2). After populating the landmark type and part of the county fields, I created my points using the lat/long fields.

Lessons Learned
There are a few things to keep in mind when publishing a web map through ArcGIS Server and Flex. There were quite a number of wonderful icons available in ArcMap when I symbolized my locations based on landmark type. However, upon publishing the map, I discovered that many of the icons I selected were not publishable and I needed to select simpler, but publishable icons.

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Marnie Sippel

GEOG 897C

It is nice to change your symbolizations/labeling based on the scale of your map. I used 5 scales so that my map wasnt overly detailed at a smaller scale, but as the user zooms in, the labeling is turned on (Figure 3). I enjoyed exploring the widgets that were preconfigured in Flex. Originally, I thought I would need to create a separate map using the Google Maps API with Javascript in order for a user to be able to search for a landmark based on either the location in the county or type of landmark. However, the Search Widget in Flex is able to be customized and I set up my 2 search by attribute options. The downside to using this widget is that the user has to actually type the search parameter; there isnt a drop-down box that I could have pre-populated with search options. This limitation isnt too bad when you are just typing North. However, try typing Archeological/Paleontological Sites without making a mistake! I was able to include instructions in the Search widget that directed my users to type either North, Central or South when using search by location and to use the exact wording in the layer list when using the search by landmark type option. I did like that a list of locations meeting your criteria was created in the search window when you used it. If you dont like the icon being used for a Flex widget, you can upload your own photo. Just as an experiment, I changed the Search widget to a photo I had stored on my remote computer. When using the search function, the photo is used to highlight the locations that meet your search criteria (Figure 4). It is possible to add photos to your pop-up information windows in Flex, but it is easier to do so if you know you want to do this from the beginning. Once your map is published, there is a lock placed on it so you cant simply add a new field to your feature class like we would normally do in ArcMap. I needed to simply start over. I created a new mxd, added my text fields that contained my URLs to the photos, symbolized and republished the map. In Flex, after adding the operational layer (landmarks), I customized the pop-up window by configuring the sub-layer with custom html. The URL fields are the links provided by PhotoBucket when I placed my photos on their website (Figure 5). Taking the time to create a flowchart is worth it! I havent really used flowcharts, but definitely see the value (Figure 6). I deviated from this workflow at the last step. I was able to create a website that allowed users to search by location or landmark type, so I didnt need to create a separate website using Google Maps API with Javascript.

Cost of EC2 Instance for this project

Marnie Sippel

GEOG 897C

instance when I wasnt using it. This project is the only instance running on my site and I used $12.06 of my credits in developing it. I stayed within budget, but feel that if I had left the instance running continuously I would have been over budget.

Summary
I enjoyed the opportunity to explore the widgets on Flex and am glad to have discovered a few ways to customize a project. Since I made several cartographic changes and added photos after publishing my map, I became quite adept at publishing a service and then creating applications in Flex. The extra practice reinforced the lessons from the class. The project is at a point that I can comfortably present it to the county as a demonstration, complete with pop-up window photos for four locations. I will volunteer to complete the project if they are interested in hosting it on their ArcGIS Server and are able to provide photos for the other locations.

Sources
Brevard County Florida Historical Commission (2014). Historic Landmarks. Retrieved from http://www.brevardcounty.us/HistoricalCommission/HistoricalLandmarks, 9 February 2014. Brevard County Florida Historical Commission (2014). Historic Landmark Guide. Retrieved from http://www.brevardcounty.us/docs/Files/historic-brevard-landmark-guide-2012.pdf?sfvrsn=7, 9 February 2014. Quinn, Sterling (2013-2014). GEOG 865: Cloud and Server GIS. Retrieved from https://www.eeducation.psu.edu/cloudGIS/, 5 January 2014.

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Marnie Sippel

GEOG 897C

Figures

Figure 1a. Examples of formatting issues in names, addresses and coordinates when copying from PDF to Excel

Figure 1b. Example of formatting issues in names, addresses and coordinates when copying from PDF to a text editor

Figure 2. Landmark Types provided by the county

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Marnie Sippel

GEOG 897C

Figure 3. Creating multiple scales allows you to customize symbology at each scale, turn on/off layers based on scale and
only label features at appropriate scale levels so your map isnt too cluttered.

Figure 4. Replace the default icon of a widget with your own picture. I searched for north locations and my picture is
used to highlight the selected locations. The picture is also the icon for the widget.
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Marnie Sippel

GEOG 897C

Figure 5. Customized HTML in the Operational sub-layer of Flex. This code shows the 2 URL fields that are used to
reference photos placed on PhotoBucket website.

Figure 6. Flowchart of project.

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