GIS DATA SERVICES

Home

Find GIS Data

Library Data Services
GIS Data Services
Numeric Data Services
Contact Us

Learn About GIS
Overview of GIS
Virtual Campus Courses

Libraries' GIS News

NCSU GIS Links

Using DCW Data in ArcView

This tutorial describing how to integrate DCW data into ArcView assumes you are logged into a UNITY or EOS workstation. For details on using ArcView see the ArcView tutorial.

Click on the view icon and then on the "New" button. This will bring up an empty view.

This takes several steps and requires one to use the "Add Theme" dialog box to navigate the directories containing the DCW data.

Bring up the Add Theme dialog box

With the new view active, pull down the "View" menu. Select the "Add theme..." entry. This will bring up the Add Theme Dialog Box. Another alternative is to click on the "Add Theme" button.

Enter the path to the DCW data

Select the quadrant subdirectory of interest

Double click on the w90_w0 entry. This selects the quadrant subdirectory containing tiles for North Carolina. Each of these subdirectories (i.e., e90_e0, e180_e90, w90_w0, and w180_w90) holds data for 1/4 of the globe; they are separated by the logitude. North Carolina data can be found below the w90_w0 subdirectory since it is at around 70 degrees west.

Select tile of interest

Scroll down the directory list and double click on the gj32 entry. This tile (which is a subdirectory) contains the 5 degree x 5 degree tile containing the Northeast portion of North Carolina. These 5 degree x 5 degree tiles are the basic spatial unit of the DCW data. A few hundred of these should be listed the right window of the dialog box. The same is true for the other three quadrant subdirectories.

Select the theme of interest

RDLINE contains lines representing roads). Double clicking on the theme of interest will bring that theme into the active view's table of contents. Sometimes a single theme may have several options on the geographic feature to be brought in (e.g., a theme may have polygons, lines, and annotation). To select a non-default feature for a theme, click on the "little yellow folder" next to the theme name in the "AddTheme" dialog box. This will reveal the feature types that can be brought in.

The left side of each view contains a Table of Contents. In the RDLINE's table of contents entry, there is a small box in the upper left corner. Clicking on this small box will display the theme.

Go to Digital Chart of the World Top Page