Visual Interpretation Lab

The map on the top shows the different types of textures (very fine, fine, mottled, coarse, very coarse) and tones (very light, light, medium, dark, very dark) in an aerial image from USGS. The second map on the bottom shows different land features on a USGS aerial image that were identified using association, pattern, shadow, and shape/size. 

This was a pretty good reintroduction to map-making and basic GIS skills. I've realized that I'm quite a perfectionist with maps (which makes these labs take so much longer than they need to be). A few struggles I had were finding out why neither of these maps were supposed to have North arrows or scales and why the tone shapefile from the first map didn't show a coordinate system of any kind, a datum, and units after creation. The Help forum was very helpful, though, so I learned that I would have had to manually choose a coordinate system for the tone shapefile for there to be one. This lack of projection was what caused no datum or units to appear. The unknown coordinate system is the reason why a North arrow and scale would not have been appropriate as well. There is no way to calculate direction or scale without a projection. Overall, this was an easy-going lab for which I am grateful.