Spatial Portal Userguide

General Overview

The Fisheries Spatial Portal is a service to provide end users the ability to view, query and download Fisheries NSW spatial data. This guide is not a detailed help but an overview of the user interface with a description of the avalable tools and an overview of the download process. All of the data that can be downloaded from this site is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) with full credit given to NSW DPI.

Main components of the user interface

Parts of the Webmap page

There are two tabs on the Toolbar, a quick access tool and context options.

Toolbars

These toolbars provide map navigation and user interaction on this map service.

Map Navigation

Explanation of the navigation toolbar

Map Tools

Explanation of Tools Toolbar

Quick Tools

Available in the top left of the main map.

Quick Tools

The options available are

  • Extract Data: starts the extract data workflow, that allows the user to choose and download shapefiles to use in their own GIS system.
  • View the home panel: Provides general overview of the webmap
  • Find data on the map: Allows the user to query the data with a point or rectangle method.
  • Show map layer list: Opens the tab of the map layers on the left hand panel
  • Return to initial map extent

Context Tools

Right mouse click on the main map

Quick tools - right click

Left mouse click on the main map

Quick tools- Left Click

Scale and select coordinate system

These allow user modifications

Scale and coordinate system

Data and Information Panels

Home Panel

This panel contains general information about the site, basic operation and updates.

Layers Panel

This panel shows layers that are available for viewing and downloading. The layers can be enabled and disabled via the associated tick boxes.  Layer groups can be expanded by clicking on the “+” next to the layer group name. Legends can be displayed and layer transparency can be adjusted via the slider on the right of each layer. Note that a layer within a layer group will not display unless the main layer group tick box is also ticked.

Extra Actions in Layers

When a layer is activated (ticked) you can change the opacity / transparency, view the metadata or zoom to the layer

Layer Options

Downloading Data

Spatial data can be downloaded via one of two methods, either via Extract Data tool on the Quick Tools menu or the Extract Data tool on the Data Download toolbar tab. The data will be extracted as shapefiles and packaged as a zip file. This data can be used in most GIS and mapping software.

Once the tool has been select the download panel will load, see below, with the first of the four screens in the download process.

  1. Select the desired layers to download. It is best to select either the one you want of several layers but not all. Use control to select more than one layer. Once the desired layer/s have been selected press Next
  2. Select the desired area to extract. This can either be a user drawn polygon (rectangle or irregular shape) or the current map extent. If you wish to download the full extent of a layer then zoom to the full extent of the map and then select map extent. NOTE – Downloading entire data extent is slow and may result in very large files, as such only single layers should be downloaded this way. Select Next once the area has been defined
  3. Fill out the user information and agree to the Creative Commons licence. A valid email is required as the data download link will be made available via this email.  Similarly the data download process will not begin unless the CC licence is agreed to. Once done select Next.
  4. A panel will display indicating that the data has been processed and that an email with the link has been sent. Depending on the service it may take a little while for the email to arrive. Select Close to the Data Download panel.

Data Download process

More help on Geocortex can be found in the Online Help & Tutorial System