GEOG 286 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Geographic Information System, Data Management, Data Analysis
Document Summary
Gis: stands for geographic information system, can be defined by functions or applications. By function: a set of tools/systems for spatial data, which has may capabilities such as acquisition, analysis, capture, collection, display, editing, management, manipulation, querying, retrieval, storage, summarization, transformation, use, and visualization (all related to inputting and outputting data) Meant to work with mapped data, handles both spatial and aspatial data (data with no spatial data attached to it), whereas other databases handle mainly aspatial data (such as a budget record) By application: researchers and professionals may informally define gis by how they use it. Software: computer programs for managing and analyzing spatial data. Data: geospatial data (i. e. vector and raster) Methods may be the fifth component of gis depending on how you look at it. Gis software should allow for data entry, data management, data analysis, thematic mapping, map layout. Data entry: reading common file formats, digitizing and scanning data.
