Terminology

The following terminology applies:

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A “Feature class” is the GIS data holder. A feature class may be of type point, line or polygon. A feature class contains feature geometries and a set of associated attributes. Feature classes are managed using the GIS explorer in feature class groups.
Each feature class defines various “attributes” such as “id” or “name1”. The value for an attribute may vary, and usually varies, from one feature to another. Each row in the attribute table represents a specific feature.
A “Feature layer” represents how a feature class is represented in the Map data view. A “Feature” is a specific point, line or polygon within a feature class that is displayed in the map. The “legend” is the list of feature layers and that appears in the Map data view. The layout of a Feature layer is controlled by clicking a feature layer in the legend and modifying the feature layer properties in the properties control.
A “raster” is a set of values arranged in a regular grid. There are two general types of rasters. One is an “image” where the values represent colors (e.g. a picture or satellite image), while the other is called a “grid” where the values represent some measure, such as elevation or rainfall. The grid is usually made of square cells which have a predefined size and extent.
Rasters are displayed in the GIS Explorer in a node representing a “raster provider.” A raster provider is a plug-in component of the Workbench which knows how to read and display raster data.
A “raster layer” represents how a raster is represented in the Map data view.

Organizing GIS Data

GIS data are stored in the database and may be queried and organized in groups using the GIS explorer. The GIS explorer provides access to standard explorer functionality related to organizing groups, feature classes, and rasters.

All GIS vector data exposed in the GIS explorer are denoted “feature classes”. If a feature class is added to a map the visualization of a feature class is denoted a “feature layer”. Grid and image based data is exposed in the GIS explorer as “rasters”. These are added to the map as a “raster layer”.

Create a new group

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Create a new group by right clicking on the root node or an existing group, and select Add new group from the context menu. The new group is created as a subgroup under the root (database) node or the group that was selected.
Once the new group has been added it can be renamed by right clicking on the group. Additional functionality for copy, cut, delete and paste groups are also available. Shortcuts for each of these action are also available (see context menu). Once a group has been created it can be populated with GIS data either by importing GIS data or by using “Create New Feature Class….”.