DATA COLLECTION

The majority of my data was collected from the tattoo shop websites and over the phone for data that was not provided online. Data from the Simon Fraser S drive includes: 2003 Translink data for the skytrain route and stations, City of Vancouver area (to obtain the downtown Vancouver portion).

Processing involved ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and geocoder. First I converted all my addresses to latitude and longitude using geocoder and created an x,y file using excel. I added a third column for ID so that I would be able to identify the shops later on.

Before adding the x,y file, I had to created a basemap. Using the City of Vancouver area I cropped out all but the downtown area. I also removed the skytrain route and stations that extend outside the area of interest. Once that was ready, I imported my x,y file to ArcMap using WGS 1984 projection. This created a sheet event and so I had to export the sheet as a shapefile and project it using the same NAD 1983 UTM 10 N coordinate system as the rest of the shapefiles.

After all my data was in shapefile format, I had to convert it to IDRISI raster format.

Step 1- Using IDRISI: file> import> software-specific formats> ESRI formats> SHAPEIDR for each of my shapefiles

Step 2- Initial> to produce blank rasters for my vector to raster converstions

Step 3- Reformat> RASTERVECTOR> to convert area, skytrain line, stations, and shops to raster files