Thank you for downloading the Map Suite GIS Editor. This is the first in a series of short lessons in which we'll introduce you to the GIS Editor's core features, including map management, geoprocessing, styling, labeling, and data creation. In this introductory tutorial, we're going to walk through the process of creating your first project.

The Map Suite GIS Editor is a Geographic Information System that you can use to analyze and geoprocess data, visualize and style data, and even design attractive page layouts for printing. The GIS Editor can be great for any type of project that utilizes data set to geographic boundaries. This means that any piece of information that you could apply to a map can be so applied through this Editor, such as:

• A comprehensive map of your town, showing everything from roads and tollways to restaurants, medical centers, schools and subdivisions.
• A thematic map conveying data in a visual way; for example, a map of global GDP per capita covering the majority of the world's countries.
• A map illustrating precipitation, soil pH, or other environmental factors, interpolated from sample points.
• A map plotting the landing locations and travel paths of all spacecraft deployed to the planet Mars.
• And much more!

Note: Example projects of the above types can be downloaded from our Sample Projects page.

Today's lesson will help you create your first map. We will add our base map into our project and point out the important tools that you will need when using the GIS Editor.

Upon opening the Editor, you will find a blank canvas for you to begin your first map. On the right side of your screen you should see the Data Repository window. If you do not see this feature, select the Home tab on the ribbon at the top of the screen and then click the “Open Data Repository” button. This repository helps you keep all of your map data in one place, amassing all of your different Shapefiles, vector data, aerial imagery, base maps and statistical data. This eliminates wasted time trying to locate all of your data files that live in different areas, and allows you to access all of it quickly from a single location.

Now that you have the necessary tools to create your map, let's start by loading in a base map. Base maps are map data that are delivered to your GIS Editor application over the Internet, rather than loaded from a file on your computer. There are three types of base maps in the GIS Editor, all of which require an Internet connection:

• World Map Kit: ThinkGeo's free online-hosted base maps, which offers detailed street level maps for the United States and Canada. It also includes major road level detail for the rest of the globe. This base map is hosted and maintained by ThinkGeo.
• OpenStreetMap (OSM): A free online hosted base map that is “crowd sourced” from end-user data from all over the world. It is a community-driven project that includes very detailed data for many parts of the world. You can also contribute your own data edits or additions directly via http://www.openstreetmap.org.
• Bing Maps: This is Microsoft's base map, which gives you street level data as well as aerial imagery for the entire world. Upon adding this base map, you will be prompted for a Bing Maps App ID. If you do not have one, you can get one free of charge by creating an account at https://www.bingmapsportal.com/.

Let's begin by adding the World Map Kit base map to our project. To load this base map, either double-click the World Map Kit item in the Data Repository, or drag it into the Map_1 area directly to the left of the Data Repository.

After we have loaded our map, let's locate the pan and zoom features. On the left hand side of the Map_1 tab you will see the zoom bar and circular control pad. On the control pad you'll see a magnifying glass button. This button activates “Track Zoom”, which allows you to quickly select an area that you want magnified. While in “Track Zoom” mode, simply click and drag on the map to draw a rectangle around the area to zoom into. You can also quickly switch back to pan mode temporarily by holding down your space bar.

Another great feature of the Map Suite GIS Editor is the ability to have multiple maps in one project. To add an additional map, locate the Map_1 tab and then move your cursor over to the right, where you will see a “+” symbol. Clicking on the “+” inserts a new, blank map into your project. You can also remove a map by clicking on the “x” button while that map is being displayed.

If you would like to rearrange the layout of your screen, you'll find that the GIS Editor's various tabs and windows are dockable. This means you can move each window to any desired location. As you drag a window, the docking controls will appear as shown in the following screenshot. Simply drop a window onto any of the controls to dock it in the associated area of your screen.

Now that you have finished creating your first project, you will want to save it for use in the next few lessons. To save your project, select the “Save Project” button on the Home tab of the ribbon bar, or click the small blue diskette icon in the top left corner of the screen. Give your project a name when prompted, then click OK.

Now you are ready to begin adding layers to your map! A layer is a container that holds almost any kind of map data you can imagine. Head over to Lesson 2 to learn about layers and see how to add them to your map.

Continue to:
Adding Layers To Your Map

Or return to the index of all lessons.