Jason's GeoJourney

This week I started Applications in GIS (GIS 5100), which is my fourth course in the graduate certificate in GIS at UWF. My primary goal upon completion of the certificate is to enhance and expand my proficiency in GIS, particularly in archaeological research. I hold a B.A. and a M.A. from UCF and a Ph.D. from UF.  In addition to enrollment in GIS 5100 this summer, I recently finished GIS Programming (GIS 5103) offered during the first part of the term. Besides taking these two UWF classes, I am teaching a few online courses for Gulf Coast State College in Panama City, Florida, where I am employed as a full-time professor, covering a variety of courses in anthropology and sociology. This is a busy summer for sure, but I am working off campus and finding some time to enjoy family, biking, surfing, watching some vintage Transformers Generation 1 episodes, and so on.  This past spring semester, I directed a field archaeology project in exploring sites associated with the "lost"

This week concludes GIS Programming, and for our final module I learned about working with geometries.  For the assignment, I developed a script that pulled geometric data from a polyline shapefile to a text document. Below is a screen capture of part of the text document that shows 247 vertices from 25 different river features.  Each row contains the following information: Feature ID, Vertex ID, X & Y coordinates, and the river feature's name. Here is a brief flowchart showing the steps followed in developing the script: Overall, I found this lab helpful in terms of gaining knowledge in how Python, ArcGIS, and a text document can be used together. This lab was difficult and challenging to complete and much of this had to do with confusion over the proper search cursor to use, the role of geometry tokens, and structuring the script with the correct level of nesting and indentation.   I am pleased to say that at the outcome of this lab, however, that I cam to a good understand