Classified Images

These two images of the same area reflect two types of classification - the top one is Unsupervised, where ArcGIS classifies the land cover based on a selected number of land types, in this case 8.  It creates its own signature first, then does the classification.  As you can see, there are errors and overlaps in the land types, and it is not very accurate.

The second image shows a Supervised classification, where I created signatures for 5 different land cover types based on 30 points spread out to capture the land types most accurately, especially in the area of the Cahokia Monk's Mound.  I also used only 5 classes.  Clearly this was much more accurate and effective.  The Unsupervised classification is a good starting point, but it is important to further refine that information for accuracy.

3D Map Models

This week's lab gave us a taste of what is one of the coolest new ways of visualizing archaeological data, in my opinion - 3D models.

The first task was to create a 3D box representing the study area.  Then points representing shovel test pits were extruded upwards into "poles" with 3 different colored sections, each representing the depth of that layer in that particular test pit.  Then rasters were created from the data, and an interpolated surface resulted, showing each layer as a continuous surface with elevation based on the original point data.

A third task was to do a fly-through of the 3D scene showing the extruded test pits.  Here is a link to the video.  Clearly I am not a fantastic pilot - more practice is necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFUhG8E3kM0


The last task involved taking a series of points representing the path of a proposed pipeline that would cut across the study area, and extruding them to show the levels of each layer at each point in the cross section/proposed path.  For some reason the shapefile with the elevations did not have z values, so I wasn't able to extrude the points and complete this part.

3D Map Models

This week's lab gave us a taste of what is one of the coolest new ways of visualizing archaeological data, in my opinion - 3D models.

The first task was to create a 3D box representing the study area.  Then points representing shovel test pits were extruded upwards into "poles" with 3 different colored sections, each representing the depth of that layer in that particular test pit.  Then rasters were created from the data, and an interpolated surface resulted, showing each layer as a continuous surface with elevation based on the original point data.

A third task was to do a fly-through of the 3D scene showing the extruded test pits.  Here is a link to the video.  Clearly I am not a fantastic pilot - more practice is necessary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ5vKog3rx4

The last task involved taking a series of points representing the path of a proposed pipeline that would cut across the study area, and extruding them to show the levels of each layer at each point in the cross section/proposed path.  For some reason the shapefile with the elevations did not have z values, so I wasn't able to extrude the points and complete this part.