PrintIn the next few pages, the steps required to estimate possible outcomes of the 2004 election based on the new districting plan by three different methods (Polygon to point, KDE, and uniform distribution) are described, along with an explanation of what each method will do.
After reviewing these methods, you should get involved in the discussions on the course Discussion Forum for this week's project, and then choose one of these methods and proceed to complete the project by producing a map of the estimated 2004 election result. Completion of the project also requires you to comment on your choice of method.
Before using any of the methods, you should check that the Spatial Analyst extension is enabled. You can do this in Project - Licensing. You should see that it says 'Yes' in the Licensed column in the Esri Extensions table.
Once Spatial Analyst is enabled, you should also select the following settings from the Analysis - Environments... menu:
- Under Processing Extent, select 'Same as Layer "tx_voting108"' as the 'Extent'. This ensures that the analysis is carried out to the state boundary.
- Under Raster Analysis, select tx_voting108 as the 'Mask', and for 'Cell size', type a value of 1000 into the box. This will ensure that output raster layers have a cell resolution of 1 kilometer. You may optionally decide that this resolution is rather high and change it to something larger [using too high a resolution can be a problem if you are using the VPN to access ArcGIS Pro, so keep this in mind].
With these settings completed, you are ready to try the alternative methods for generating voter population surfaces.