Data Preparation

Data acquisition

The data for this project came from various sources, and they have different formats. These data are:

GVRD land use data

• Purpose: In order to find commercial or commercial - residential/mixed areas.
• Data Source: Data warehouse of the department of geography of SFU.
• Data Format: Raster data.

Ethnic Chinese in GVRD

• Purpose: In order to find ethnic Chinese population density in GVRD.
• Data Source: Canada census data and DMTI data from data warehouse of the department of geography of SFU.
• Data Format: Tabular data and ESRI vector data.

Family income data

• Purpose: In order to find family income data in GVRD.
• Data Source: Canada census data and DMTI data from data warehouse of the department of geography of SFU.
• Data Format: Tabular data and ESRI vector data.

Location of commercial centers

• Purpose: In order to find the location of Downtown Vancouver, Metrotown, Richmond Center, Coquitlam Center and Surrey Centre.
• Data Source: Google Earth.
• Data Format: kml data.

Location of Skytrain stations

• Purpose: In order to find the location of Skytrain stations.
• Data Source: Translink data from data warehouse of the department of geography of SFU.
• Data Format: ESRI vector data.

Location of bus exchange centers

• Purpose: In order to find the location of bus exchange centers.
• Data Source: Translink data from data warehouse of the department of geography of SFU.
• Data Format: ESRI vector data.

Data manipulation

Data for this project were processed by using ArcGIS Desktop, Idrisi and FME. The important methods and tools are as follows:

• Conversion: All data formats were converted into Idrisi raster data format. For the conversion from kml data to idrisi data, kml data was first converted into ESRI vector data using FME. Then the vector data were converted into raster data in ArcGIS using Feature to raster. Then the raster data were converted into ASCII format using Raster to ASCII, and imported into Idrisi.
• Projection: All data were projected or transformed to NAD_1983_UTM_10N.
• Clip: The study area was selected by using clip in ArcGIS.
• Join: The census tabular data were joined to GVRD_DA map using Dissemination Area number (DA) as joined key.