The GIS data on this CD-ROM is organized into Chapters and Libraries, as discussed in the Introduction. Each Chapter and Library is described in an HTML document viewable with any Web browser, and displayed in a View window in the ArcView projects. It is recommended that the user run both at the same time. Each Chapter and Library is accessible through the Table of Contents in the HTML document and the Project window in the ArcView project.

To view the GIS data using the accompanying project files, you must have ArcView 3.0 or ArcView 3.1 (and Spatial Analyst) installed on your computer. For the ArcView 3.1 project file to function properly, the user must copy the ArcView extensions that are in the tools directory under av_ext and put them in the users ArcView directory under the ext32 directory.  The Chartview.dll file must be copied to the bin32 directory. 

To open ArcView project files:

Relative paths have been inserted into the following files so that they work from any CD drive letter.
Go to the mbaygis directory of the CD-ROM and double-click on the project file:
mbay_30.apr  (for ArcView version 3.0)
mbay_31.apr  (for ArcView version 3.1 with Spatial Analyst)

or open the project from your ArcView application.

The ArcView 3.1 project file loads all data available including grids, imagery, and video and, therefore, requires a high performance system (>10x  CD-ROM reader and   >200Mhz processor). A less demanding alternative for the user, regardless of the version of ArcView software, is to use the ArcView 3.0 project file which has a more limited data set.

Some of the shapefiles have features with hotlinks to imagery and videos. Two buttons have been added to the toolbar in the ArcView 3.1 project file that activate imagery and video. The imagery symbol is the lightning bolt and the video symbol is the letter V. In order for these hotlinks to work correctly, the global variable "mbimage" must be defined in the user's system as follows: 

For Windows 3x or Windows 95 users you must edit the autoexec.bat file located on drive C: (usually c:\autoexec.bat) and add the following line:

    SET MBIMAGE=(Use the drive letter assigned to your CD-ROM drive):\mbaygis

    Example:  for CD-ROM on E drive,  "SET MBIMAGE=E:\mbaygis"

    Once the CD-ROM path variable has been added to your autoexec.bat file, you must reboot the system.

For Windows NT users:

This setting is defined in the Control Panel System environment window. For a system with the CD-ROM drive assigned the letter E, set the user variable MBIMAGE to the value E:\mbaygis.

Copying GIS layers

The entire CD-ROM may be copied to your hard drive to improve speed. This may be done through Windows Explorer (or other file manager) since the entire directory structure must be moved as a whole to retain necessary pathnames.

Individual coverages or shapefiles may be copied off the CD-ROM to hard drive through ArcView's "Manage Data Sources" under the File menu. ARC/INFO coverages and grids are stored as a series of files in two separate directories (the directory with the same name as the coverage/grid, and the "info" directory). Each shapefile is actually a package of at least 3 files with the extensions .shp, .dbf, .shx (and perhaps .sbn, .sbx, .ain, or .aih). Using "Manage Data Sources" for ANY copying, moving, deleting, or renaming of these coverages ensures that all the files will get moved and the GIS layer will still function properly.

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