Help for using GCIS-Pro for Thematic Analyses

This Applet is used to create the Thematics ( Bar Charts, Pie Charts and Choropleth) from the remote computers.

|General Tools| Thematic Analyses Tools|

[In general, clicking on the double-line border of any toolbar opens a dialog with which you can hide or relocate the toolbar or make it floating.]

General Tools

1. Pan Tool: The Pan or Grabber tool, enabled by default, is used to view a new area of the map space. Click and drag with the Grabber to move the map. As soon as the mouse button is released, the map is completely redrawn.

If you Click on Pan tool button and hold it down momentarily, you will see a list of Pre-saved Positions. You can then simply click on them to go to those positions in the map. |Back|

2. Zoom Tool: Up to 12 Logical scales can be defined in GeoConcept for each map. Each of these scales can be selected in GCIS by clicking on the map without moving the mouse cursor. For a zoom-in, the scale changes progressively from Logical scale 12 to Logical scale 1. Once Logical scale 1 has been reached, subsequent mouse clicks have no effect. Intermediate scales can be accessed by selecting a zone directly on the map. To do this, click and drag on the map to draw a selection rectangle. As soon as the mouse button is released, the map is magnified so that the selected area occupies the entire display area.|Back|

3. Pop-up Information Box & Information Form: When this function is activated, each click on a map object opens an Infobox displaying the contents of some of the clicked object's fields (as previously selected in GeoConcept). If you click on this tool and hold it down momentarily, it will show the Information Form tool. Select that tool and then click on any object on the map to view the entire DataBase for that map object.

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4. Co-ordinates: The Coordinates button reads coordinates in longitude and latitude for a point clicked on the map. Once this tool is enabled, a text zone appears in which the coordinates for the clicked point are displayed. The zone remains visible as long as the tool is active.|Back|

5. Selection Tool: When clicked on, the Selection button enables selection of objects on the map with the cursor in the form of an arrow. To select an object, just click on it. When one or several objects are selected on the map, they are coloured to make them stand out. Objects can be selected on the map under 7 different selection modes. A long click on the active selection tool displays a list of available selection modes, and enables configuration of the object selection method as required. The last tool in the top line is used to select single Point objects. The last tool in the bottom line is used to set the appearance (Color, Hatching, Selection Rectangle) of the selected objects.

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6. Object Selection List: This function opens a window displaying the list of currently-selected objects. It can be enabled with a single click on this button. If you click on this tool for some longer time, you will see two more options for Clear Selection and Zoom on Selection. Zoom on Selection will zoom the map just enough so that all the selected objects are visible on the window.

Also illustrated below is the manner in which the window can be relocated by clicking on the double-line border.

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7. Query Tool: A single click on the Queries button activates the Query function. An applet window also appears. The drop down menu (Query kind) prompts you to choose from two types of query available.

• A stored query;

• A free query.

The dialogue interface then alters according to the choice made.

Stored queries: When this option is chosen, a query saved for the current GeoConcept map is executed. All client browsers will have the same series of saved queries at their disposal. The user should then choose the query itself.

If when the query was formulated, parameters were required, certain items of information would need to be entered under the Edit-Parameters dialogue item, to define the query condition or conditions. Once this has been done, click on Execute button to run the query.

Free Queries: The first step is to choose the Class(es) and Subclass(es) and Attribute Field(s) on which the query is to be run. The drop-down list enables choice of the object Class and Subclass to which the search will be applied. Once chosen, click on Add. By default, the objects chosen do not have conditional criteria applied to them. "Any" value therefore signifies that the query should select all the objects of the chosen Class and Subclass. The "Any" Class means that the user is conducting a query on fields common to all Classes, that is, Area, Name and all other fields common to all Classes that the user might have created. The "Any" Subclass includes all the Subclasses for a given Class. "Any" queries will then only act on global fields, and on all fields common to all objects in the Class.

Query on several Classes or several Subclasses of objects: This type of query enables a search to be applied to several Classes and Subclasses at the same time. After each Class/Subclass selection, the user clicks on Add as many times as necessary to complete the selection. When several Classes or Subclasses are used within the query, you can move from one to another by clicking on the Class/Subclass name in the Searched objects dialogue item. The "Remove all" button deletes the query or queries shown in the centre. The "Remove" button is used to delete a query that has been specified, and highlighted, previously in the display table. Clicking on "Remove" deletes the selected query. Click on "Execute query" to run the query defined. GeoConcept will then search in the database for all objects matching the search criteria.

Choosing which Conditions to apply to objects. The Edit button provides access to the Query Conditions dialogue box. One can define new (SQL) conditions, or Edit existing conditions.

At any time you can:

•Add a new condition ;

•Remove the active condition ;

•Remove all, to delete all the conditions defined so far.

Finally, the Validate button brings you back to the dialogue item in which the query expression is itself composed.|Back|

 

Standard Thematic Layers:

The Standard Thematic Layers option leads to a menu with Create..., Remove..., Legend...,

Standard Thematic Layers - Create leads to simplifieds menu which enable the creation of Colour ranges thematics; Pie Charts and Bar charts. You select the Class-SubClass and Attribute field(s) to be used. This system is extremely user friendly and is intended to be used by end-users not familiar with GIS.

The second step is to choose a display mode. If only one field was chosen in the previous step, the assistant chooses Colour ranges as the display mode. The Calculation methods dialogue item offers a choice between two classifications into ranges: •Equal width (each range contains roughly the same number of items); •Equal observations (the span of each range is roughly the same).

Pie charts and Histograms: If more than one field was chosen in Step 1, you get an Assistant to create the thematic as a Bar Chart or Pie Chart:

The second stage here consists of selecting the display mode. If at least 2 fields have been selected in Step 1, the assistant offers display modes as follows: •3D pie chart; •Pie chart; •3D histogram; •Histogram. The Select Colour dialogue item offers a choice of colours to assign to each of the fields displayed. First select the field, and then choose its colour with a single click on the Colour check-box.Once all the parameters have been defined, the End button constructs the thematic representation, and displays it on screen.

Delete: This function deletes a previously constructed thematic analysis from the list displayed in the Deletion dialogue. To delete one, just select it, and then click on OK.

Legend: This function displays a dialogue containing the legend for any existing thematic analysis. It first opens the Legend window displaying the list of existing analyses. Select the analysis whose legend is to be displayed, and then click on OK. The Legend will apear in its own window.

Pro Thematic Layers:

The Pro Thematic Layers menu give you the further choice between Create..., Modify..., Delete..., and Legend...

[NOTE: Use of the Pro Thematic Layers tool requires some experience with the use of a GIS.]

There are three Assistant steps. Three types of analysis are available: •Colour ranges; •Pie chart; •Histogram. Having chosen which type of analysis is required, click on Next to move on to the next step.

Step 2 of 3: •Give the analysis a Name; •Specify an Class for the analysis; •Specify a Subclass for the analysis. Click on Next to move on to the last step.

Step 3 of 3 enables the choice of a Field to base the analysis on. The Field drop-down list offers all the fields contained in the Subclass assigned to the analysis in step 2.

Next, a display mode must be selected as follows:

•Choose the number of ranges using the Add and Delete buttons (the << and >> buttons are used to navigate between ranges subsequently); By default, the number of ranges is set to 1. It is limited to 10.

•Define whether or not a Colour gradient is required within a range, by checking the relevant check-box; •When unchecked, a single colour will be used throughout the range; •When checked, the user must allocate start and finish colours for the colour gradient set up within the range; The Colour gradient check-box cannot be used to implement an automatic colour gradient between the first and last range. The best way to achieve this is to use the Standard Thematic Layers menu.

•Define the Pattern for each range, or for the first and last range (depending on whether a colour gradient is used or not); •Define the Pattern colour for each range, or for the first and last range (depending on whether a colour gradient is used or not); •Define the Background for each range, or for the first and last range (depending on whether a colour gradient is used or not). These are not mandatory features.

•Define the Main width for each range, or for the first and last range (depending on whether a colour gradient is used or not) ; •Define the Secondary width for each range or for the first and last range (depending on whether a colour gradient is used or not); These widths concern the thickness of the outlines of each polygon. It is not a mandatory feature.

•Choose the Statistical method to be used for distributing objects into ranges:-
•Equal observation (each range contains roughly the same number of objects); or
•Equal width (the span for all ranges is roughly the same).

The Global check-box can be used to standardise the style of all the ranges to match that of the first. For an analysis with 4 ranges, the colour may differ between ranges, but not the Pattern, the Background or the Secondary width. In this case, the check-boxes for each of these parameters may be checked. Once all the parameters have been checked, the Create button starts construction of the analysis and displays the result on screen.

Edit: This function opens a 2-stage dialogue to modify an existing thematic analysis. After the selection stage, stage 2 displays the interface for the last step of the thematic analysis creation assistant This makes it possible to alter any of the selections made in the existing thematic. Once the parameters have been modified, the Execute button will implement the modifications and display the result in the interface.

Delete: This function deletes a previously constructed thematic analysis. It opens the Deletion window to display a list of existing analyses. To delete one, just select it and click on OK.

Legend:. This function displays a window containing the names of the existing thematic analyses; the user selects one, and then clicks on OK to view the legend required. Note that the Legend appears in its own window.

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