GIS FAQ Using the Watershed Geodatabase
ArcGIS 9 (ArcGIS 8 is
similar, ArcView 3 requires upgrades to access geodatabase)
Open ArcCatalog, click
once in the left pane on GIS Servers to see options in the right pane.
Click on “Add ArcIMS Server” in the right pane. The screen below will appear. Enter the address of Watershed ( or other
ArcIMS servers, such as the Indiana Geological Survey, or
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Enter the address: watershed.agriculture.purdue.edu Note you may select the radio buttons for “All Services” or “Just the following services” followed by a “Get List” button. Generally “All Services” is the best choice. There is an option to establish secure services connection. You would not do this unless you had been given the password to a secured site |
The connection to watershed appears, double-click the connection to see feature datasets (collections of features or layers.)
The database contains a dozen raster layers and 10 times that many feature classes (map layers) stored in groups called feature datasets. The table of contents (May 05) is displayed below. To see the layers in a feature class either double-click any feature
dataset icon 
or
toggle the expand box in the left pane.
Adding layers from watershed.agriculture.purdue.edu will set the data frame coordinate system to UTM NAD83 Zone16 unless you have already set it to something else.
Watershed will reproject on the fly to match any projection you have set including geographic (lat –long.)
This ability to reproject to any declared coordinate system includes the aerial photos and DEM layers. The original source system is UTM NAD83 Zone16.
- Table of Contents, May 25, 2005; watershed.agriculture.purdue.edu
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The ArcCatalog preview command works with all the feature classes and the raster layers. Rasters load faster than from local or compressed files because they are fully uncompressed already and have pyramid layers already built. |
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To ADD Layers:
The Geodatabase supports drag-and-drop from ArcCatalog to
ArcMap as well as the “Add data” button 
in ArcMap.
If the layer has a grey checkbox in ArcMap, then it has a minimum
Display scale set and will turn on when map is zoomed in. User may change by
right-click on featureclass in ArcMap to get to the properties tabs.
To examine metadata, select a featureclass in the left pane and use the
metadata tab in ArcCatalog.
Adding layers from watershed.agriculture.purdue.edu will set the data frame coordinate system to UTM NAD83 Zone16 unless you have already set it to something else.
Watershed will reproject on the fly to match any projection you have set including geographic (lat –long.)
This ability to reproject to any declared coordinate system includes the aerial photos and DEM layers. The original source system is UTM NAD83 Zone16.