Welcome to BIOS Advanced Tools,
the final part of a three part training
course covering everything you need
to know to get started working in
the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife's (CDFW) web-map viewer.
My name is Joel Boros, I am the
BIOS Lead, and your primary point of contact
for questions and comments regarding BIOS.
In this final session
we will cover the tools and methods
used for selecting and filtering data.
In this video we will
cover the following topics:
how to select features geographically
using the Select tool, using the Query
Builder tool to select features
based on attribute information,
and applying layer filters to limit
which features are displayed in the map.
As we covered in the previous video,
BIOS has tools grouped into three menus.
Quick Tools, which work with
the search box adjacent to it.
Map Tools, which work within the map frame.
Advanced Tools, which require
additional input from the user.
From the Map Tools menu we will
be covering the Select tool.
From the Advanced Tools menu we
will be covering the Layer Filter
and Query Builder tool.
The Select tool works in a similar
fashion to the Identify Features tool.
Both select features within the map.
However,
while the Identify Features tool selects
features from one point within the map,
the Select tool allows you to define a
broader geographic area for your selections.
The Select tool has three methods
for defining your geographic area:
you can draw a rectangle or
polygon, or buffer a point.
To use the rectangle method,
click the option in the tool,
then click and drag to
create a box within the map.
If you choose the polygon method,
click the option in the tool,
then click the map to begin the polygon,
then click once to place
each vertex or point,
then double-click to complete the polygon.
The point buffer works first by
defining the buffer radius in miles,
then selecting a point within the map.
By default,
the select tool creates a new
selection on the dataset.
However,
by selecting the "Select from Set"
operation at the bottom of the tool panel,
you can instead narrow an existing selection.
For example,
if all osprey in the California
Natural Diversity Database
(CNDDB) dataset are selected,
we can further refine that
selection by drawing a polygon
around the project site with the
"Select from Set" operation chosen.
This will narrow the selection to just
those osprey within the project area.
Three things to remember:
as with all tools,
the Select tool works on the active layer,
selections cannot be made on raster data,
and be wary of creating large selections, as
they may affect performance of the tool.
The results from the Select
tool appear in the Graphics and
Selection section, above
the BIOS Layers. Selected features
are symbolized with a yellow border
and a red fill and can be toggled on
and off in the map, independently
from the source BIOS layer.
The selection symbology is
retained when printing a
map, this can be useful for
highlighting an area of interest.
The attributes from the selected
feature are displayed in a
table at the bottom of the map.
If the table is closed,
it can be re-opened by pressing the
T button on the selection item in
the Graphics and Selections section.
You can export the contents of the
attributes to either an Excel file or a PDF.
To remove a selection,
use the X button on the selection item.
You can only have one selection
on a dataset,
but each data set can have its own selection.
The select tool functions to select
features within a map and return
associated attribute values. While the
Query Builder tool does the opposite,
it selects attributes and
returns associated features.
Selecting of attributes within
the Query Builder tool is done by
writing a conditional statement.
Records that meet the conditions of
that statement are then selected, as are
the corresponding features within the map.
A conditional statement
is composed of Fields,
Operators, and Values, written in
a particular format or syntax.
As with the Select tool,
you have the option to create
a new selection with your query
or select from within a set.
The first step in creating your conditional
statement is selecting the field of interest.
As you can see here,
some fields are self explanatory,
while others are a bit more complex.
If you want more information about
fields, they are defined in the full metadata.
As you remember from the BIOS Basics video,
the full metadata is accessed
from the BIOS Layer section.
Click the metadata button,
then click the Complete Metadata button, and
scroll down to the Field Definition section.
Here you will see a complete definition
of each field in the attribute table.
The second component of the
conditional query is the Operator.
Operators are values such as greater than (>),
less than (<), or equal to (=), and Boolean
operators such as "AND", "OR", and "LIKE".
If you are unfamiliar with
the use of operators,
please refer to the BIOS User
Guide for a definition and example
of the available operators.
The last component of the
conditional query is the Value.
This refers to the actual values found
in the field in the attribute table.
To begin building your conditional statement,
first choose a field from the
fields list by double-clicking it.
You will see it is added to
the query box below.
Then you will need to single-click an
operator to add it to the query box.
Now to select your Value,
be sure you have a field
selected in the Fields list,
then click the List button above the
Values box to generate a list of values.
If you are querying from a set,
you can check the In Selection
box above the values list to
filter the available values to
only those within the selection.
You can also search the values list
using the search box immediately
below the listed values.
Double-click a value to add
it to your conditional
query. Now that you have
your conditional query,
choose either "New Query" to create
a new selection, or "Query from Set"
to refine your existing selection,
then press Execute Query.
Multiple conditional statements can be
linked together to form a more complex
query using the "AND" or "OR" operators.
The "AND" operator is used to further
restrict the results, because
both conditions must be true.
For example, using the conditional
statement as seen above,
Common_Name = 'burrowing owl'
AND Common_Name = 'Mojave
ground squirrel', would return no
results, because this cannot be
true for a single species record.
Changing the operator to "OR" would give
us Common_Name = 'burrowing owl' OR
Common_Name = 'Mojave ground squirrel',
which would return a list of all of the
records for burrowing owl and all the
records from Mojave Ground Squirrel.
The "OR" operator returns results where
either of the conditions are met,
as opposed to the "AND"
which requires both to be met.
The formatting or syntax of the
conditional statement is very important;
to maintain the proper syntax
we suggest building the statement
by double-clicking Fields and Values,
rather than typing them into the box.
If when you execute your query
and nothing happens,
re-open the tool and check your syntax.
Here you see the results from the Query
Builder, highlighting all burrowing owls
and Mojave ground squirrels in the map
and a table containing the returned records.
As with the Select tool, the selection is
saved to the Graphics and Selections section.
If you are working with the CNDDB data
and want to get additional information
for the selected CNDDB features,
you can click these Special Options
button in the BIOS Layer section.
A panel will open on the right and you will
see the Full Report with Sources button.
Clicking this button will generate
a one page report for each selected
feature with all the detailed comments
and sources used to map the feature.
Be sure to limit your selection as
these reports can get very lengthy.
Although the Layer Filter looks
much like the Query Builder,
it performs a very different function.
You can use the interface to
build a conditional statement,
just like you did in the Query Builder tool.
However,
when you apply it as a filter
rather than creating a
selection,
it will instead use it to limit
the data visible in the map.
Here you will see the results of
the same conditional statement
used in the Query Builder tool,
but instead applied with
the Layer Filter tool.
The features on the map only represent
the burrowing owl and the Mohave
ground squirrel, while the other
species have been filtered out.
You may notice there is a new filter
button on the CNDDB data, indicating
a filter has been applied, and any
tools used on this data will return
results only on the filtered data
rather than the full dataset.
To remove the filter,
click the filter button,
and choose remove filter.
Here is a side by side comparison
from those last two examples.
On the top you see the selection results from
the Query Builder tool and on the bottom
the results from the Layer Filter tool.
Let's go through another example of Query
Builder tool versus Layer Filter tool.
Here we have one of our vegetation datasets
from these Vegetation Classification
and Mapping Program (VegCAMP).
We have just added the data and no
queries or filters are applied.
Now we are going to use the Query
Builder tool to create a conditional
statement searching for all NVCS_Names
that begin with the word "Juncus".
We are expecting multiple results and
rather than creating a complex query
listing each of them out, we are going
to use what is called a wildcard.
The percent symbol (%) is used to represent
any string of text following the word "Juncus".
The wildcard can be used before,
after, or before and after any string
of text you want to search for.
In our example,
we know the values began with "Juncus",
so we are placing the wildcard
symbol after "Juncus".
After executing the Query Builder
tool, you can see the selected
features an records with the NVCS
names beginning with "Juncus".
The selection appears in the Graphics
and Selections section and the selected
attributes are returned in a table.
If we wanted to apply the same
conditional statement as a Layer Filter,
you can either recreate the statement
or use the Selection as Filter
button on the Layer Filter tool.
If this button is used,
the current selection will be
cleared and used to create a filter.
Here I have used to Selection as Filter
button and the selection was removed.
You will notice the vegetation
dataset under the BIOS Layers
section now has a filter button.
The only visible features are those
that have their NVCS name
beginning with "Juncus".
There are no records returned
because nothing was selected.
As one of our more prominent datasets,
CNDDB, has additional filter
options in the Instant Filter tool.
It is available as a separate
tab within the Layer Filter tool
when CNDDB is the active layer.
By clicking the button next to
one of the taxonomic groups,
the dataset is instantly
filtered within the map.
To review in this video we cover the
following topics: selecting features
in the map with the Select tool,
using the Query Builder tool to select
features using their attributes,
and filtering data using the
Layer Filter tool.
Thank you for watching the
BIOS Advanced Tools tutorial.
If you would like more training
information on CNDDB or VegCAMP,
please check out our videos
at the URL shown here,
wildlife.ca.gov/data/training.