Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop is a workbook and CD for learning ArcGIS, the newest GIS technology from ESRI. The three GIS products that comprise ArcGIS -- ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo -- are built on a common interface and core capability, with each product offering a different level of functionality. Users of Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop gain a thorough understanding of ArcView, which they can put to work immediately or use as a firm foundation for learning ArcEditor and ArcInfo. Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop employs the teaching approach used so effectively in the best-selling Getting to Know ArcView GIS from ESRI Press. Richly detailed illustrations and step-by-step exercises teach basic GIS tasks -- from mapmaking, to spatial analysis, to database creation. Readers learn to use the software that forms the building blocks of ArcGIS: ArcMap, for displaying and querying maps; ArcCatalog, for managing geographic data; and ArcToolbox, for setting map projections and converting data. Also included in the book are explorations of the newest ESRI data format, the geodatabase, which stores spatial and attribute information in a relational database.Included with the book is a fully functioning 180-day trial version of ArcView 8 software on CD-ROM, as well as a CD of data for working through the book's exercises. PLEASE NOTE: The ArcGIS Demo Edition software on the CD in this edition requires the Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, or NT(Service Pack 6a) operating system. Hardware requirements: a minimum 450 MHz processing speed; 128 MB RAM; 800 MB hard disk space, including 50 MB on the operating system drive; an additional 215 MB hard disk space is required for the exercise data; exercise data.