ArcGIS
®
9
ArcGIS Spatial Analyst Tutorial
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DATA CREDITS
Tutorial datasets: Courtesy of the state of Vermont
AUTHOR
Jill Willison
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tutorial_attribution93.pmd 4/2/2008, 2:33 PM1
IN THIS TUTORIAL
1
Using the Spatial Analyst tools available with ESRI
®
ArcGIS
®
, you can easily
perform spatial analysis on your data. You can provide answers to simple
spatial questions, such as how steep is it at this location? or what direction is
this location facing? You can also find answers to more complex spatial
questions, such as where is the best location for a new facility? or what is
the least costly path from A to B? The comprehensive set of Spatial Analyst
tools within ArcGIS allows you to explore and analyze your spatial data and
enables you to find solutions to your spatial problems. You can run tools from
the Spatial Analyst toolbox or the command line, accessible via any ArcGIS
Desktop application, or you can run tools from the Spatial Analyst toolbar in
ArcMap™. You can also create your own custom tools (models or scripts)
to run a sequence of tools at one time.
Tutorial scenario
The town of Stowe, Vermont, USA, has experienced a substantial increase
in population. Demographic data suggests this increase has occurred
because of families with children moving to the region, taking advantage of
the many recreational facilities located nearby. It has been decided that a
new school must be built to take the strain off the existing schools, and as a
town planner, you have been assigned the task of finding the potential site.
This tutorial will show you how to use many of the available tools and will
give you a solid basis from which you can start to think about how to solve
your own specific spatial problems.
ArcGIS Spatial Analyst Tutorial
• Exercise 1: Preparing for analysis
• Exercise 2: Finding a site for a
new school
• Exercise 3: Finding an alternate
access route to the new school
site
Spatial_Analyst_Tutorial_v93.pmd 4/2/2008, 2:29 PM1
2 ARCGIS SPATIAL ANALYST T UTORIAL
It is assumed that you have installed ArcGIS Desktop
(ArcView
®
, ArcEditor™, or ArcInfo
®
) and the ArcGIS
Spatial Analyst extension before you begin this tutorial. In
ArcGIS 8, you accessed Spatial Analyst tools from the
Spatial Analyst toolbar in ArcMap. In ArcGIS 9, you can
still use the Spatial Analyst toolbar but you can also run
tools from the Spatial Analyst toolbox. You’ll access tools in
the toolbox from the ArcToolbox™
window. The
ArcToolbox window can be docked in any ArcGIS Desktop
application, meaning you can run Spatial Analyst tools in
applications such as ArcCatalog™, ArcScene™, or
ArcGlobe™.
The data required is included on the ArcGIS Desktop CD.
After running the ArcGIS setup, on the Additional Installa-
tion Components dialog box, check to install the ArcGIS
Tutorial Data. On the ArcGIS Tutorial Data Setup wizard,
check to install the Spatial Analyst data (the default installa-
tion path is C:\arcgis\ArcTutor\Spatial). The datasets were
provided courtesy of the state of Vermont for use in this
tutorial. The tutorial scenario is fictitious, and the original
data has been adapted for the tutorial.
The datasets are:
Dataset Description
Elevation Raster dataset representing the
elevation of the area
Landuse Raster dataset representing the
land-use types over the area
Roads Feature class representing the linear
road network for the town of Stowe
Rec_sites Feature class representing point
locations of recreation sites
Schools Feature class representing point
locations of existing schools
Destination Feature class representing the
destination point used when finding
the best route for a new road
This tutorial is divided into exercises and is designed to
allow you to explore the Spatial Analyst functionality in
ArcGIS at your own pace.
• In exercise 1, you’ll prepare for analysis. You’ll copy the
tutorial data locally and create a folder and a
geodatabase to hold your results. You’ll learn the loca-
tion of the Spatial Analyst tools, create a hillshade
output, and explore your data.
• In exercise 2, you’ll create a suitability map to help you
find the best location for a new school. You’ll derive
datasets of distance and slope, reclassify datasets to a
common scale, then weight those that are more impor-
tant to consider and combine them to find the most
suitable locations. You’ll then locate the optimal site
using the selection tools within ArcMap.
• In exercise 3, you’ll find the least costly route for an
alternate access road to the new school site.
You will need approximately 90 minutes of focused time to
complete the tutorial. Alternatively, you can perform the
exercises in sequence one at a time, saving your results
along the way when recommended.
Spatial_Analyst_Tutorial_v93.pmd 4/2/2008, 2:29 PM2
ARCGIS SPATIAL ANALYST T UTORIAL 3
Exercise 1: Preparing for analysis
In this exercise, you’ll prepare for analysis by first copying
the tutorial data locally, then creating a folder and a
geodatabase for your results. You’ll locate the Spatial
Analyst tools and create a hillshade output to display
transparently with your other layers. You’ll explore your
input data and open the ArcToolbox window. This exercise
will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.
Organizing your data
Before working with Spatial Analyst tools, you’ll organize
your tutorial data using ArcCatalog.
Starting ArcCatalog
1. Start ArcCatalog by either double-clicking a shortcut
installed on your desktop or using the Programs list On
the Start menu.
Locating the tutorial data
By connecting to a folder in ArcCatalog, you can quickly
see the folders and data sources it contains. You’ll now
begin organizing your tutorial data by establishing a folder
connection to its location.
1. Click the Connect To Folder button.
2. Type the pathname or navigate to the location where you
installed the tutorial data; for example, if you installed
ArcGIS on your C:\ drive, type
“C:\arcgis\ArcTutor\Spatial”, then click OK to establish
a folder connection.
1
2
1
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