The buffering, overlays, and coding went smoothly. To determine the data location, I used the projection information to narrow it down in the world (North America), then I used the coordinates from one of the shapefile's metadata to look around in Google Earth. Mystery solved: De Soto National Forest in Mississippi!
My frustrations began when I thought I'd like to use a raster for the background. My thinking was that an aerial view could be valuable if the user were a board member wanting to see what the land around the possible campsites looked like. I didn't like the ESRI aerial basemap because of a random smoke cloud in one corner (forest fire? I hope not) so I was off to do some data searching. It went so well for my mid-term that I took it for granted this wouldn't be a hard task. Wrong! Oh, I did find data in my searches, just not what I was hoping for. Mostly due to user error and pickiness. We learn through experimentation though, except this time I'm not sure I learned more than the fact that I still have a lot to learn, especially about data types! In the end, I went with an ESRI topo basemap, and it looks just fine. Maybe even easier to read really. All's well that ends well.
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| Map using buffers and overlays to determine possible campsite locations in De Soto National Forest, based on specific parameters. |
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