Principles of Geographic Information Systems GeES 332

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems

Presented by: Daniel Alemayehu

Chapter One Outline

1.1 Definition 1.1.1 GIS is a toolbox 1.1.2 GIS is an Information System 1.1.3 GIS is an approach to Science 1.1.4 GIS plays a role in the society 1.2 History or Evolution of GIS 1.2.1 Computer Mapping (Beginning Years, 1970s) 1.2.2 Spatial-database management (Adolescent Years, 1980s) 1.2.3 Map Analysis and Modeling (Maturing Years, 1990s)

 1.3 GIS Application 1.4 Components of GIS 1.4.1 Hardware 1.4.2 Software 1.4.3 Data 1.4.4 Live Ware or Analyst 1.4.5 Procedures or Methods 1.5 Capabilities of GIS 1.5.1 Data Capture 1.5.2 Data Storage 1.5.3 Data Management 1.5.4 Data Retrieval 1.5.5 Data Analysis 1.5.6 Data Display

Definition
There is no clear-cut definition for GIS. Different people defined GIS according to capability and purposes for which it is applied. A typical GIS can be understood by the help of various definitions given below:

GIS is a toolbox
A GIS can be seen as a set of tools for analyzing spatial data. one definition of a GIS is the software in the box that gives us the geographic capabilities we need. Peter Burrough, in his pioneering textbook, defined GIS as a powerful set of tools for storing and retrieving at will, transforming and displaying spatial data from the real world for a particular set of purposes (Burrough, 1986).

 The key word in this definition is Powerful. Burroughs definition implies that GIS is a tool for geographic analysis. This is often called the toolbox definition of GIS because it stresses a set of tools each designed to solve specific problems.

GIS is an Information System

Jack Estes and Jeffrey Star defined a GIS as an information system that is designed to work with data referenced by spatial or geographic coordinates. In other words, a GIS is both a database system with specific capabilities for spatially-referenced data, as well as a set of operations for working with the data (Star and Estes, 1990)

Another information system definition of a GIS

In 1979 during the infancy of the technology, Ken Dueker defined a GIS as a special case of information systems where the database consists of observation on spatially distributed features, activities or events, which are definable in space as points, lines or areas. A geographic information system manipulates data about these points, lines, and areas to retrieve data for ad hoc queries and analyses (Dueker, 1979).

GIS is an approach to Science

Goodchild defined geographic information science as the generic issues that surround the use of GIS technology, impede its successful implementation, or emerge from the understanding of its potential capabilities. He also noted that this involved both research on GIS and research with GIS. Supporting the science are the uniqueness of geographic data, a distinct set of pertinent research questions that can only be asked geographically, the commonality of interest of GIS meetings, and a supply of books and journals.

GIS plays a role in the society

Nick Chrisman (1990) has defined GIS as organized activity by which people measure and represent geographic phenomena then transform these representations into other form while interacting with social structures.

 This definition has emerged from an areas of GIS research that the examined how GIS fits into society as a whole, including its institutions and organizations, and how GIS can be used in decision making, especially in a public setting such as a town meeting, or on a community group Web site. This latter field is termed PPGIS, for public participation GIS.

History or Evolution of GIS

Manual GIS systems evolved from the discipline of cartography, where architects or site designers needed to visually compare the building plan with the site survey. In the early 1950s, where geographers and transportation engineers developed quantitative methods for analyzing transportation study data. The history of GIS dates back 1960 where computer based GIS have been used.

 A sound and stable data structures to store and analyze map data became dominant in the early 1970s. Another significant breaks through occurred with the introduction and spread of personal computers in 1980s In the 1990s, GIS has matured somewhat, with research directed away from the basic issues of map production and encoding, which have been solved after a fashion.

Computer Mapping (Beginning Years, 1970s)

The early 1970's saw computer mapping automate map drafting. The points, lines and areas defining geographic features on a map are represented as an organized set of X,Y coordinates. The pioneering work during this period established many of the underlying concepts and procedures of modern GIS technology.

Spatial-database management (Adolescent Years, 1980s)

During 1980's, the change in data format and computer environment was exploited. Spatial database management systems were developed that linked computer mapping capabilities with traditional database management capabilities. In these systems, identification numbers are assigned to each geographic feature Early in the development of GIS, two alternative data structures for encoding maps were debated.

 Vector Data Model & Raster Data Model By the mid-1980's, the general consensus within the GIS community was that the nature of the data and the processing desired determines the appropriate data structure. This realization of the duality of mapped data structure had significant impact on geographic information systems.

Vector and Raster models

Vector models - points, lines, polygons - more complex objects

Real World

Raster models - grid cell

Vector

Raster

Map Analysis and Modeling (Maturing Years, 1990s)

As GIS continued its evolution, the emphasis turned from descriptive query to prescriptive analysis of maps. Digital representation, on the other hand, makes a wealth of quantitative (as well as qualitative) processing possible. The application of this new theory to mapping was revolutionary and its application takes two formsspatial statistics and spatial analysis.

 Meteorologists and geophysicists have used spatial statistics for decades to characterize the geographic distribution, or pattern, of mapped data. Spatial analysis applications, on the other hand, involve context-based processing. For example, foresters can characterize timber supply by considering the relative skidding and log-hauling accessibility of harvesting parcels.

 What do we do with GIS?

GIS Application

Master Planning Site development planning; Site management. Suitability Analysis: Screening & Potential Development site selection; Suitable Site Selection; Resource Potential; Land Use Plans. Natural Resources Management Habitat Analysis; Forest Management; Land Conservation; Production/extraction analysis

Other Disciplines Defense/Homeland Security; Real Estate and Site Selection; Health Care Management and Planning; Epidemiology; Archaeology; Conservation/Land Management (Global, national, regional local); Any other discipline that operates in or studies phenomena across time and space.

Components of GIS
GIS comprises of five components: 1. The Expertise (Live ware): the human element required to drive the system to meet need 2. The Hardware: used to store, process and display. 3. The Software: used to control and perform operations. 4. The Data: on which GIS operations are performed (Spatial, nonspatial) 5. Procedures or Methods

Components of GIS

Hardware
The general hardware components of Geographic Information System are the main computer system or the Central Processing Unit (CPU), the terminal, keyboard and the visual display unit (VDU), digitizer, disk drive, plotter, printer etc.

Hardwares

GIS Hardware-CPUs

Creating graphic data for GIS applications

Large format plotters

Software
The GIS software is used to carry out the GIS operations. These are required for driving the hardware. Common interfaces in GIS are menus, graphical icons and commands. Most Common GIS Software available in the market are: ESRI products like Arc/Info, Arcview, ArcGIS, Map Info from Map Informatics Inc, Intergraph, IDRISI etc.

 All packages must be capable of data input, storage, management, transformation, analysis, and output, but the appearance, methods, resources, and ease of use of the various systems may be very different. Todays software packages are capable of allowing both graphical and descriptive data to be stored in a single database, known as the object-relational model.

 Before this innovation, the geo-relational model was used. In this model, graphical and descriptive data sets were handled separately.

MapInfo

Arc/Info

ArcView

IDRISI

Data
Includes both spatial and non-spatial data on which GIS operations are performed to derive new information. Spatial data from various sources such as Remote sensing images, Aerial Photographs or Map Data can be integrated with corresponding nonspatial data in GIS. Perhaps the most time consuming and costly aspect of initiating a GIS is creating a database.

Live Ware or Analyst

Equally important as the computer hardware and software, the brain ware refers to the purpose and objectives, and provides the reason and justification, for using GIS. The people are the component who actually makes the GIS work. They include a plethora of positions including GIS managers, database administrators, application specialists, systems analysts, and programmers.

Procedures or Methods
Procedures include how the data will be retrieved, input into the system, stored, managed, transformed, analyzed, and finally presented in a final output. The procedures are the steps taken to answer the question need to be resolved.

Capabilities of GIS
A GIS is often defined not for what is but for what it can do. This functional definition of GIS is very revealing about GIS use, because it shows us the set of capabilities that a GIS is expected to have.

Data Capture
Getting the map into the computer is a critical first step in GIS. Geocoding must include at least the input of scanned or digitized maps in some appropriate format. The system should be able to absorb data in a variety of formats, not just in the native format of the particular GIS. For example, an outline map may be available as an Auto CAD DXF format file. The GIS should at a minimum be capable of absorbing the DXF file without further modification.

Data Storage
Data storage within a GIS has historically been an issue of both space usually how much disk space the system requires and access, or how flexible a GIS is in terms of making the data available for use. The massive reductions in the cost disk storage, new high-density storage media such as the CD-ROM, and the integration of compression method into common operating systems have made the former less critical and the latter more so.

 Current emphasis, therefore, is upon factors that improve data access. This has been a consequence also of the rise of distributed processing, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. As a result, many GIS packages are now capable of using metadata, or data about data,in an integrated manner.

Data Management
Much of the power of GIS software comes from the ability to manage not just map data but also attribute data. Every GIS is built around the software capabilities of a database management system (DBMS), a suite of software capable of storing, retrieving selectively, and reorganizing attribute information. The database manager allows us to think that all the data are available, that the data are structured in a simple flat-file format and that they constitute a single entity.

 In fact, the database manager may have partitioned the data between files and memory locations and may have structured it in any one of several formats and physical data models. A database manager is capable of many functions. Typically, a DBMS allows data entry, and data editing, and it supports tabular and other list types of output, sometimes independent of the GIS.

Data Retrieval
Another major area of GIS functionality is that of data retrieval. A GIS supports the retrieval of features by both their attributes and their spatial characteristics. All GIS systems allow users to retrieve data. Nevertheless, among systems some major differences exist between the type and sophistication of GIS functionality for data retrieval.

 The most basic act of data retrieval for a GIS is to show the position of a single feature. This can be by retrieving coordinates as though they were attributes, or more commonly by displaying a feature in its spatial context on a map with respect to a grid or other features. GIS allow a set of retrieval operations based on using one or more map features as handles to select attributes of those features.

 Buffering allows the GIS users to retrieve features that lie within perhaps 1 mile of an address, within 1 kilometer of a river, or within 500 meters of a lake. Similarly, weighted buffering allows us to choose a non uniform weighting of features within the buffer, favoring close-by instead of distant points, for example.

Distance Buffers

Data Analysis
The analysis capabilities of GIS systems vary remarkably. Among the multitude of features that GIS systems offer are the computation of the slope and direction of slope (aspect) on a surface such as terrain; interpolation of missing or intermediate values; line-of-sight calculations on a surface; the incorporation of special break or skeleton computations necessary to calculate the amount of material that must be moved during cut-and-fill operations such as road construction.

 Almost unique to GIS, and entirely absent in other types of information systems, are geometric tests. These are described by their dimensions, point-in-polygon, line-in-polygon, and point-to-line distance. point-in-polygon, is how a point database such as a geo coded set of point samples is referenced into regions.

 Thus a set of location for soil samples, generated at random, could be point-inpolygon merged with a digitized set of district boundaries so that a sample list can be sent to each soil district manager.

Data Display
GIS system need to be able to perform what has become called desktop mapping. GIS typically can create several types of thematic mapping, including choropleth and proportional symbol maps; and they can draw isoline and crosssectional diagrams when the data are three dimensional. Almost all GIS packages now either allow interactive modification of map elements moving and resizing titles and legends or allow their output to be exported into a package that has these capabilities, such as Adobe Illustrator.