This week I have been working on getting my data from ebird (that finally arrived) into ArcMap. I have run into several problems in this process. First it was taking far too long to get the map to draw and the program kept crashing. Then I went through the excel sheet and selected only 2017 sightings/ observations and that worked much more quickly. I have been able to link the excel sheet by adding X,Y data, but there are always a few points misplotted. The points pretty much make up the shape of the US, including Alaska and Hawaii, but there are always a few points that look like they would be across the Atlantic somewhere in Europe, which I know is incorrect because this is only US data. So I don't know if this is an issue within ArcMap drawing the points, or if this is an issue within the ebird data that is incorrect, and I am not sure if I should take it out becuase I don't know how it will affect my overall data.
The next problem I keep running into is that I cannot export my data from the temporary event that is created when you link XY data into a feature class that way I can manipulate and work with the data later in my mapping. I did some googling, and I found that some of the error messages I got when I tried to export the data may be because the values in the table may not be accepted. So I went through the excel sheet and changed all of the values in the field titles to 10 characters no spaces or special characters, and I got rid of any fields I don't need in the table. I also changed everything to text format, except latitude and longitude, which would not draw when in text format. Even after all this, I still cannot export the data into a feature class, and I cannot figure out anything else I am doing wrong. I get errors saying the table could not be found, and that the data can't be exported. If anyone has any ideas about someting I may be missing, please let me know.
My nect step when I (hopefully) get the data to export is to create a density map using kernel density in ArcMap, which is something I am going to have to do a bit of research into how to do.
I don't think I can come up with any solutions to help that you haven't thought of already. But, I would probably make an appointment with Dr. M so she can help you out because it seems complicated. Or, maybe you could contact the creators of the data to see if they could help fix the problems. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad that your data finally came in! I feel terrible that you are running into all of these issues. I am looking forward to seeing your maps and give you some more real input! Please reach out if you want more input during class!
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