- May 9: The final exam is now available. Please follow instructions for turning in your results by the deadline.
- May 7: GSA program reminder. Small-format aerial photography will be taught this summer in June--see ES 555. This is a required course for the graduate GSA certificate and an elective course for the GSA undergrad minor. The course is taught every other year, so now is the time to enroll!
- May 3: The semester is near at hand! Individual project reports are due this coming week by Thursday, the 8th. On-campus students should be prepared to give brief overviews of your projects in class on Wednesday. The final exam will be placed online Friday, May 9th.
Note: your instructor will be out of town and away from email May 4-5th.
- April 28: Continue working on your individual projects. Our last reading assignment includes NCGIA public access to GIS and textbook chap. 10.
Final project reports are due next week--see requirements for details about report formats. On-campus students should be prepared to present your projects informally in class next week.
- April 21: Our reading this week includes NCGIA process modeling and textbook chap. 9. Continue working on individual projects. Did you hear about the earthquake? See USGS quake map.
Note: your instructor will be out of town and away from email later this week, April 25-27.
- April 14: Reading this week deals with cartographic design, a subject of particular interest to your instructor. See also textbook chap. 7. Continue working on individual projects. Kary Reznicek will be available to assist students in the GSA lab.
Note: your instructor will be out of town and away from email later this week, April 16-19.
- April 9: Your instructor recently received an institutional grant to purchase a digital color-infrared camera--see Tetracam ADC. The camera records green, red, and near-infrared bands for color-infrared imagery and vegetation indices. The intention is to acquire the camera and build a radio-controlled rig for kite aerial photography in time for ES 555 field trips in June.
- April 7: Concentrate on developing your personal mapping project this week. Most students have completed all lab exercises; if you have not, do so as soon as possible. Reading includes textbook chap. 8 and NCGIA web-based GIS.
Note: ESU's annual research and creativity forum will be held on Thursday, April 10th, 1:00-4:00 pm in the Colonial Ballroom of the Union. Faculty and students will have various poster presentations on their research projects. Students are welcome to stop by and have a look. Your instructor will have a poster about high-altitude kite aerial photography.
- April 2: GSA course available on campus and for distance-learning in the fall semester--see GIS applications (pdf file).
- April 1: Students should complete the map projection exercise this week; this is the last exercise of the course. Your attention should focus now on individual mapping projects--send in your project topic and short proposal this week.
- March 26: The Kansas Academy of Science will hold its 140th annual meeting at ESU this week, Mar. 28-29--see KAS meeting. This is a major event for us; KAS meets here about once a decade. All students are encouraged to participate in this special opportunity.
Note: Your instructor will be out of town and away from email Mar. 30-31. Please do not send any messages or assignments Mar. 29-31.
- March 24: Welcome back from spring break! Our reading this week is about digital orthophotos, and the lab exercise is on map projections. The DEM lab is due this week.
Note: Students should start thinking about possible project topics. Your project proposal is due next week. Prepare a short summary that describes the project subject, type of data, means of image processing, and expected results.
- March 14: Your instructor will be out of town and away from email Mar. 19-22. Please do not send any messages or assignments during this period. Have a great spring break!
- March 9: Students should complete Idrisi tutorial 2-3 this week, before spring break. Our subject this week is digital elevation data with a
| DEM exercise (due after spring break). See also textbook chap. 6.
Note: All assigned Idrisi tutorial exercises are due prior to spring break! None will be accepted after spring break.
Updated student roster (ver. 2.0).
- March 3: Well, March certainly roared in like a lion here in Kansas with a late winter storm. The mid-term exam is underway and due tomorrow. Reading this week includes NCGIA data quality and textbook chap. 5. Begin working on Idrisi 2-3.
- Feb. 29: The mid-term exam is now available. Please follow instructions for turning in your answers by the deadline.
- Feb. 22: Students should complete tutorial 1-8 next week and begin Idrisi 2-2. Reading includes NCGIA data storage and GCraft error in GIS, as well as textbook chap. 4.
Note: Your instructor will be out of town and away from email Feb. 23-25 and Feb. 29-Mar. 1st. Please do not send messages or assignments during these times.
- Feb. 17: For the coming week, read textbook chap. 4 and GCraft data sources. Tutorial 1-7 is due at this time; begin working on Idrisi 1-8.
Note 1: The mid-term exam is coming up soon, Feb. 29-Mar. 4. Prepare with all readings and lab exercises.
Note 2: The environmental field methods session has been rescheduled for Thursday, Feb. 21st (see below).
- Feb. 11: Lots of reading this week with GCraft GIS databases, NCGIA raster data structure, NCGIA GIS networks, and textbook chap. 3. Lab exercise 1-6 is due at this time, and we begin working on Idrisi 1-7. This will be a "new" exercise for most students. The focus is on visual display elements to create an effective map presentation. Your instructor particularly likes the photo-layer capability (part w).
Note for GSA students: the first session for Environmental Field Methods will take place on Friday, Feb. 15th. The focus of the session is field acquisition of elevation data, and will feature a demonstration of GPS, total station, and automatic level survey methods by Steve Brosmer of Geotech Inc.
The introduction will take place at 8:30 am and last about an hour in the Memorial Union's Hornet's Nest. The remainder of the day will be spent using the three approaches to obtain measurements at ESU's on-campus hydrogeology teaching and research station as part of a class exercise. All students in the geospatial analysis program are welcome to participate in any aspect for all or part of the day.
- Feb. 4: Our subject this week is global positioning system--see GPS overview. Use FTP to download gps.pdf & chicken.pdf readings. This week's lab exercise is Idrisi 1-6; exercise 1-5 is due at this time.
ES 551 student roster (ver. 1.0).
- Jan. 28: Idrisi tutorials 1-3 and 1-4 are due this week; begin working on Idrisi 1-5. Reading includes textbook chapter 2 plus GC map projections and coordinate systems.
- Jan. 21: Reading this week deals with the nature of maps--see history of maps and NCGIA maps as representations, as well as textbook chap. 1. Note: the bookstore now has the correct textbook in stock. Lab exercises are Idrisi 1-3 and 1-4; these are due next week.
- Jan. 14: The spring semester begins this week! On-campus students meet Wednesday at 1 o'clock in the GSA lab (SH 16). We will review course organization, procedures, and expectations--see syllabus. All distance-learning students should provide your street mailing address to your instructor at this time. For those students not familiar with our software, work through Idrisi tutorials 1-1 and 1-2.
- Welcome to ES 551 Computer Mapping Systems! This course will be taught for on-campus and distance-learning students during the spring semester, beginning in January 2008. The course preliminary schedule is now available.
Distance-learning students must have access to Idrisi Andes software, which is the primary GIS utilized for this course. Distance-learning students can obtain the "student-starter license" for $95, upon proof of student status. Note: Idrisi is for PC computers; it does not run on "Mac" computers.
The course begins officially on Jan. 16. All distance-learning students should contact the instructor. Please provide your street mailing address, so you can receive paper handouts. For more information, contact J.S. Aber (jaber@emporia.edu).
 Return to mapping syllabus. ES 551 © J.S. Aber (2008). |