Creating a Simple Map Layout in ArcGIS Pro

they've come so far here to get to this point where we've created our data we've done some analysis and now the part comes where we go to make a map so I think you're probably wondering what that means considering you think you've probably got a map in front of you and well I guess that's where the terminology is a little bit confusing because yes this is a map view but a full map has other features that help us interpret it so things like a scale bar a legend and North arrow a title and some information about who created that map itself so let's go ahead and have a look about how we're going to create that map as a full communication piece now that we've done the hard work that we want to get out there now one of the things that I probably should have been doing as I've been going along but haven't been is to tidy up what I've got in my table of contents a little bit so if we have a look over on this left-hand side there's a number of different things that are in there which I no longer need and if I tidy those things up it's less likely that I'll get confused about different layers so first of all I can remove the roads layer so if I right-click on that and I'm going to remove it now this doesn't delete it I can still always bring it back into my project at any time that I like I remember where I've stored my data it's in the geo database all that's doing when I go to remove something is take it out of this particular project all right so if I now go ahead and save my work as it is that's saving it that that feature class no longer exists in the project that I'm working in now there's some other bits and pieces that I no longer need as well so I can actually select multiple pieces at a time and remove those together as well because that's going to be just a little bit quicker so I'm going to select these these four feature classes which I no longer need because I've continued to work after that so there we go I've just tidied up my table of contents considerably now the map view looks nodes a friend because I didn't have any of those features turned on anyway but I know that my my workspace is just a little bit tighter now on to creating that map itself so if we go to the insert tab we're going to go to a new layout so if we click on that and it just asked us what size we'd like to work with and the orientation as well so this is important do we want a portrait orientation so where it's up and down the page as opposed to a landscape which its long ways now this is going to depend on what it is that you're creating the map off so if I have a look at my jcu campus here it's it's sort of a little bit more long ways as opposed up and down so I'm going to create the a for landscape map here so I'm going to click on that one and this is going to start creating my new layout and basically all that is is just a blank slate and it's up to me now to bring in all those different features that are going to help me communicate the information that I've just created so the first bit that I want to add in is my map frame so if I click on this and it's going to give me a good idea of what it is that I want to put in there so I'm just going to pop that one in there and draw out a space where I'm going to place that particular map view now bear in mind you can always change this now this is one of the things that I find a little bit funky when we're working within the layout view because there's two areas where we may want to zoom in so if we come over now to the layout tab we get to some different tools that we can use to navigate around so first of all let's have a look at these navigational tools so this first button here is just again it's just going to switch you into that navigational mode and this is useful when we want to navigate around what I'm going to call our our slate or our canvas as a whole so if we're going to select that navigate tool we can zoom you and zoom out and you can see that the entire canvas is moving in out but what if for example we want to show that in our map view we want to zoom just to this area that we've digitized we can do that as well so there's two ways that we can do that if you come over under this layout tab as well you'll see that we've also got some map navigational tools so we can zoom in and out using these tools here and that's going to allow us to zoom zoom in and out by by predetermined fractions which might be enough for you if it's not and you would like to pan around for example you need to click on the activate button here and what that's going to do is allow you to work within your your map frame here so just using the normal navigational tools within the map frame as opposed to within the canvas as a whole so we can click on that Explorer button and this time as we can zoom in using the mouse in and out and you see the difference to what I showed before this is all about just moving the map itself within that map frame rather than moving the canvas as a whole and so the idea is just to work with the data that you've got to make it look just as you would like it to to be able to communicate what it is that you're trying to output now once you've positioned your your digitization and your map exactly where you'd like it to be and you're finished zooming and panning around if you go back to the Layout tab you can now go to close activation and this time if we go to the navigate button here again that's going to take us back to navigating around the entire canvas as a whole so I do recommend having a bit of a play with that because it's something that can get a little bit confusing as to which zooming and panning tool you're using and which part you're zooming and panning and out of now the other features that we would like to add into our map we couldn't find all under the insert tab so we can add a North arrow simply by selecting on that and you'll find a range of different north areas that you can use and it's purely up to you which one you'd like so select the one that you want draw out a box and that will pop it in there and you can change its size or position or do whatever you like to that as well we're going to add a scale bar in there and again so many different options both with metric and imperial up to you your choice how you want that to look I'm just going to pick that first one there and draw out a nice long scale bar down the bottom here now we can go in and change the properties of each of these elements that we're adding in any stage as well now we might want to add a legend so people know what the different colors are that we're using within the feature class that's identified there so let's click on the legend there and same as all of the others we're going to draw out a box and we're going to place it somewhere now this one you might need to play with a little bit particularly if it's overlapping part of your image so you'll be able to see that it's it's a little untidy and that it's a bit hard to see the name of my legend here although I can see my individual features and it may be that you need to work with editing that particular item and changing font sizes and all sorts of bits and pieces like that now it's really quite easy to do this if you need to edit any of the features in your map you just right click on it and go to properties and you'll see here that you've got a range of different options that you can then you can change as well now one of the cool things to notice when you are using the the legend tool for example is that it's dynamically linked to the features that you have displayed within your map so what that means is that you can see at the moment I've got all these different features displayed on my map view if I was to go over to the map tab over here and come back to my original picture that I've been digitizing now if I ticked off that for example and I come just back to the satellite data by itself and now I moved back to my layout you'll see that that's disappeared and the legend information has disappeared as well because it's all dynamically linked and that means if there's nothing in the map then it doesn't appear in the legend either so we can go back and turn that on and again if you wanted to add any additional layers you can do so and you see that appears back in your legend in your in your legend and on your map view as well now other types of things that you might want to do is to include some text so that's quite important to include a title for for your map and also information around the person who created it and the date that it was created as well so if you want to do this you can just add in that using the text button here you're going to draw out a box and I'm going to say map of JC cans campus for example all right and then again you had the option of changing the font size style etc once you go into the properties by right-clicking on it now in terms of creating the map it really is all up to you as to how that is going to look to make sure that your map is balanced you've got colors that make sense so you don't have trees in blue for example because people think that blue means water so you following some general category rules to make your map easy to interpret you do want to make sure you have each of these essential map elements on it so you've got information about what your map is showing you've got a legend and North arrow scale bar and you've got an author on there as well and beyond that it really is an art to make your map look great one of the things that I can recommend is to having a look on Google and Google images in particular for different types of maps and see if you can pick out different ideas as to maps that you like versus maps that you don't like so much and what you can do to make yours and mimic something that you do quite enjoy looking at and is easy to interpret as well but do recommend having a bit of a play through some of these options up here and and see what else you can do to make your map look just that much better

Channel: Karen Joyce

Views: 20,456

Rating: 4.9058824 out of 5

Keywords: shemaps, sheflies, she maps, she flies, karen joyce, drones, mapping, geospatial, STEM, STEAM, aerial survey, coding, students, science, technology, engineering, maths, GIS, ESRI, ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS, ArcMap, JCU, James Cook University, remote sensing, spatial analysis, geography, feature class, point, line, polygon, vector, map layout, scale, north arrow, legend, essential map elements

Id: G-a4Qowfi0o

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2019