Customer Reviews

Getting to Know ArcView GIS

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I have repeatedly used this book as the first text in an ArcView-based university course on GIS. The book uses realistic problems and settings to illustrate, step-by-step, how ArcView can be used to solve the problems and perform the needed analyses. In so doing, it serves as a good introduction to vector data analysis.

The detailed illustrations and sample software (a CD with a version of ArcView restricted to the data on the CD) enable anybody to follow through this book and work at their leisure. The text is somewhere at a junior high school level in terms of what it assumes, but it is in no way patronizing or simplistic: even graduate students have found it useful.

Sometimes follow-on analyses are suggested or sketched, but no problems are given. This is a pity, because students need additional problems to reinforce what they have just learned. Once you work through all the steps that are shown, there's nothing much else left to do.

In a few cases, the suggested analytical method is deficient. For example, in an early chapter students are shown how to site a soccer field within an open space--but the solution they derive is incorrect because the features are not projected! Other than these few deficiencies, the book is accurate and free of mistakes.

This book covers only the basic capabilities of ArcView, although at the end it briefly describes raster analysis (Spatial Analyst) and network analysis (Network Analyst).

The good design, attention to detail, and experience with GIS as well as with the software let this book rise above many others of its genre.

Having a class called "Natural Hazard Mitigation", we are currently learning the basics of Arcview GIS. This book has made it very easy as it explains step by step on how to use each application within the program. The book also includes a CD-Rom to download to Windows for use of learning most of the lessons. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn the basics of Arcview GIS.

This is another teaching book with a CD. The CD works well and does what it is supposed to do. Although the cover says the CD is a trial version of ArcView. That is just a lie. The CD contains a special version of ArcView that works only with the exercises.

The book spends too much time introducing itself. It is itself an introduction but the first 100 or so pages are spent saying what they resay in the remaining chapters; and with terms the novice will probably not understand at first. I found that the book had a hard time begining, kept thinking, "When are they going to get to the point?"

Would like to see more about how to convert raw data to a file that can displayed; it finally came in chapter in 25 but only briefly.

OLD VERSION ALERT! OLD VERSION ALERT!

Be warned that this book covers ArcView 3.

As critical as it is to get the book that covers the correct version of the software that you have, it is amazing that the version number is not highlighted anywhere. (The only indication that this is not for a current version is the date of publication; I usually check the publishing date on any tech book, but somehow I missed it on this book.)

As for it's fitness as a guide to ArcView version 3, I can't honestly say...

I used it when I was a student at Ohio State. There is really no better book for learning the powerful program ArcView GIS. This book includes sample data and has the working software right on the CD so you don't need to even own ArcView to test it out. Has anyone read the new book from ESRI, Extending ArcView GIS?

This book really helped me !! I'm currently doing a one-yar college program in GIS. For my project work I did some tranportation routing using ArcView Network Analyst, and even though this book does not cover that particular extension that much, it still provided a great help in understanding how to get the most out of ArcView, as a preparation for the analyses I ran. Step-by-step instructions followed by screen shots in color made the learning process really fun.

Once upon a time, there was only one arcview book out there, and this was it. At the time, it was invaluable.

Now there are much better books out there, and this one now stands out by the low content bloated presentation. You don't learn anything about principles of GIS, or strategies for information analysis. You only learn how to copycat step by step various exercises.

If you are a total computer novice and want hand holding, this is a successful book you will probably enjoy for awhile, until you start getting curious about doing real things with this program.

I bought this book to update my ESRI skills. I felt like the majority of the book was just basics, and the functionality of the included CD was somewhat limited. I feel one of the most important basics is to be able to create a layer from scratch, you cannot do this with the trial version. I understand why this is from a legal point, but not a learning point. I felt like the tutorials were far too basic, and had more of an eye on the cartography than the science and analysis. Overall, its a good book for beginners, but the more savvy user would find this boring.

Previous editions of the book came with a 6 month license that allowed users to learn and use Arcgis Desktop. The edition sent (different cover than the one listed) included a CD with a demo version of the beta release (9.3) and allowing limited access to folders, and limited functionality - useless for my purposes. I used this book to teach a University class. Now I need another solution that will include the separate purchase of license. If this is what ESRI intended, it worked - but won't sell as many books.

This book is ideal for novice GIS user. The steps are clearly illustrated with nice pictures/maps. To optimize it, more experiments are desirable.