Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS: A Workbook Approach to Learning GIS, 3rd Edition

Creating Rasters with Linear Features

We will create rasters for the line feature classes—Sewers, Streams, and Roads—in the same way as above, with ArcToolbox. Actually, we don’t have to load the feature class into ArcMap. Also, we can easily set or check environment variables, important for determining the extent of a raster.

As mentioned, the extent of a vector dataset is pretty much determined by the data. However, raster datasets are rectangles, and if you convert a vector dataset to raster, it is important to set the extents to the same as other datasets of the study area. Since the soils feature class covers the entire study area (and the sewers dataset, for example, does not), we earlier set the extent of rasters that we were to create to that of the more extensive soils dataset. Below, we check just to make sure.

____ 21. Start ArcMap with WC_Boat_Area_Map.mxd (Hints: Start ArcMap and find the map under Existing Maps > Recent. Or, with the operating system, go to the folder WC_Boat_SA and double-click the map entry.) Open ArcToolbox. You will use the Polyline to Raster tool. Where is the tool in the ArcToolbox tree?

__________________ > _________________ > _______________.

Double-click the tool. In the Polyline to Raster window that opens, you find a text box for Input Features. Browse to

___IGIS-Arc_YourInitials\Spatial_Analyst_Data

\WC_Boat_SA\Wildcat_Boat_SA.mdb\Line_Features\Sewers

and click Add. For Field, choose DIAMETER. (You may recall that the two diameters ...