Canvas

Canvas 7 Minute Solutions: Picking a Park Site

Peter is a Civil Engineer working for Park Planners, Inc. Generally, he plans, designs, and develops park improvement plans and proposes new park sites. He often completes environmental impact studies and makes recommendations on how to best accommodate new property development. Part of his responsibility is to make presentations before governing bodies and neighborhood community groups, on behalf of a client.

Scenario
The State of Florida hired Pete to help determine a new state park site. His first order of business is to create a true-to-life map of a Florida that shows the existing state parks. This map should also include all counties and navigable waterways.

Objectives After this exercise you will be able to:

Open multiple SHP files
Set up the initial properties of SHP objects
Change the units of measurement in a GIS document
Add labels to SHP objects
Rename layers
Adjust the opacity of objects
Create a graticule

Required knowledge to perform this exercise

Select and Open multiple files
Change file types
Use the Undo command
Save a file
Move an object
Understand SHP files
Recognize the horizontal scroll bar
Zoom in and out
Understand layers
Understand a graticule

If at any time your document is not in the middle of the window, press SHIFT+F3 (Windows) or CMD+F3 (Mac).

Narrative of this exercise
For this exercise, use the files found in the Park file (Mac). Begin by launching Canvas; notice that the Startup dialog appears by default. Choose three SHP files to open: county.shp, nav_wat.shp, and park.shop. Affect the properties of the SHP objects as follows: use an array of colors to indicate the county objects and remove any outline; use green to indicate the parks and assign a red outline; change the nav_water objects to be blue. Change the unit of measurement for the GIS document to miles; this reflects the true-to-life mileage of the map. Select all the county objects and change opacity to 25%. Label the each set of SHP objects by the DESCRIPT property. Put each set of labels on a new layer. Use Collision Detection so the labels do not overlap. Make the county labels black, the waterway labels blue, and the park labels red. Name these layers: county names, waterway names, and park names, respectively. Applying a graticule that reflects latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates at 14 point font. Save the document as florida.cvx.

Files used in this exercise
Park\county.shp
Park\nav_wat.shp
Park\park.shp
A sample end result to this exercise can be found in the Park file. answer_ florida.cvx.

TASK 1: Select and open respective SHP files as Layers

Launch Canvas. Select an illustration document (8.5 X 11).
Click . The Open dialog box appears.
Change Files of Type to SHP.
Navigate to Park and Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac) three files: county.shp; nav_water.shp; park.shp.
Click Open. The Files/Layers List appears:

Select the park layer in the list and click the Move Up button.

TASK 2: Set Object Properties

Select the nav_wat layer and click Properties. The Layer Properties dialog box appears:
Change Colorization Method to Solid color.
Change Colorization Color to your choice of blue.
Click OK.
Select the county layer and click Properties. The Layer Properties dialog box appears:
Leave the Outline color as black.
Change Colorization Method to Solid color.
Change Colorization Color to your choice of light yellow.
Click OK.
Select the park layer and click Properties. The Layer Properties dialog box appears:
Change Outline color to your choice of red.
Change Colorization Color to your choice of green.
Click OK. The Files/Layers List resumes.

TASK 3: Change units of measurement

Click OK. A three-layered GIS illustration document appears with identifying information. Here is what your project looks like so far:
Change the Units to miles. Canvas reflects the precise, true-to-life mileage.

TASK 4: Change object's opacity

Choose the county layer and press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac). All the objects on the layer are selected.
Slide the Opacity to read 25%. The county objects lighten in color.

TASK 5: Label objects; Rename layers

Choose the county layer and press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac). All objects on the layer are selected.
Choose GIS > Label by Property. The Label by Property dialog box appears:
Change the Property to DESCRIPT.
Change Size to 6.
Change Font color to black.
Select the Collision detection checkbox.
Change Output to New Layer.
Click OK. Labels for each county appear on Layer #4.
Double-click the Layer #4 tab, type county names and press Enter.

TASK 6: Label objects; Rename layers

Choose the park layer and press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac). All the objects on the layer are selected.
Choose GIS > Label by Property. The Label by Property dialog box appears.
Change the Property to DESCRIPT.
Change Size to 6.
Change Font color to your choice of red.
Check the Collision detection checkbox.
Change Output to New Layer.
Click OK. Labels for each park appear on Layer #5.
Double-click the Layer #5 tab, type park names and press Enter.

TASK 7: Label objects; Rename layers

Choose the nav_wat layer and press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac). All the objects on the layer are selected.
Choose GIS > Label by Property. The Label by Property dialog box appears.
Change the Property to DESCRIPT.
Change Size to 6.
Change the Font color to your choice of blue.
Check the Collision detection checkbox.
Change Output to New Layer.
Click OK. Labels for each navigable waterway appear on Layer #6.
Double-click the Layer #6 tab, type waterway names and press Enter. Here is what your project looks like so far:

TASK 8: Apply a graticule

Choose GIS > Create Graticule. The Graticule Settings dialog box appears:
Change the Labels font to 14.
Click OK. A graticule appears.
Zoom in to view your work. Here is what your project looks like so far:
Save the document as florida.cvx.

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