GIS

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(Geographic Information Systems)

Fundamentals
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Compiled by Aamir Hussain

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 Course Nuts and Bolts
Texts
– Longley, Goodchild, Maguire, Rhind Geographic Information Systems and
Science 2nd Ed. Wiley, 2005
– Software & Training: Gorr and Kurland GIS Tutorial: Workbook for
ArcView 9 ESRI Press 2005 (includes 9.1 software)
• or Ormsby, et. al, Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop 2nd Ed. (ESRI Press, 2004)
(includes 9.2 software on latest version)
– Alternatives to Longley:
• Chang, Introduction to GIS McGraw-Hill, 3rd ed. 2006 (used also in GISC
6384)
• Lo, C.P. and Albert Yeung Concepts and Techniques of GIS Prentice Hall, 2nd
Ed. 2006 (best technical intro.)
• Worboys, Michael GIS: A Computing Perspective Taylor & Francis, 2nd Ed
2004 (Computational focus)
Evaluation
– midterm exam (35%) (“T/F with explanation”)
– final exam (40%) (“T/F with explanation”)
– five lab exercises (25% total).

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 GIS--What is it?
No easy answer anymore!
• Geographic/Geospatial Information
– information about places on the earth’s surface
– knowledge about “what is where when”
(Don’t forget time!)
– Geographic/geospatial: synonymous

• GIS--what’s in the S?
– Systems: the technology
– Science: the concepts and theory
– Studies: the societal context
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 Geographic Information Technologies
• Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
– a system of earth-orbiting satellites which can provide precise
(100 meter to sub-cm.) location on the earth’s surface (in
lat/long coordinates or equiv.)
• Remote Sensing (RS)
– use of satellites or aircraft to capture information about the
earth’s surface
– Digital ortho images a key product (map accurate digital photos)
• Geographic Information Systems (GISy)
– Software systems with capability for input, storage,
manipulation/analysis and output/display of geographic (spatial)
information

GPS and RS are sources of input data for a GISy.

A GISy provides for storing and manipulating GPS and RS data.
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 GI Systems, Science and Studies
Which will we do?
• Systems
– technology for the acquisition and management of spatial information
The focus of this course (GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals)
• Science
– comprehending the underlying conceptual issues of representing data and
processes in space-time
– the theory and concepts behind the technology
Introduce enough of the science to apply the systems correctly and understand their
capabilities and limitations
• Studies
– understanding the social, legal and ethical issues associated with the application
of GISy and GISc
Discuss societal implications primarily in GISC 6383 (GIS Management and
Implementation), and in GISC 6381 (GIS Fund) as they arise

Combine hands-on technical training with an understanding of the

underlying science, and an emphasis on multidisciplinary applications
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 Defining Geographic Information Systems
(GIS)
• The common ground between information processing and
the many fields using spatial analysis techniques.
(Tomlinson, 1972)
• A powerful set of tools for collecting, storing, retrieving,
transforming, and displaying spatial data from the real
world. (Burroughs, 1986)
• A computerised database management system for the
capture, storage, retrieval, analysis and display of spatial
(locationally defined) data. (NCGIA, 1987)
• A decision support system involving the integration of
spatially referenced data in a problem solving
environment. (Cowen, 1988)
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 An Inelegant Definition for GISy
A system of integrated computer-based tools for end-to-
end processing (capture, storage, retrieval, analysis,
display) of data using location on the earth’s surface
for interrelation in support of operations
management, decision making, and science.
• set of integrated tools for spatial analysis
• encompasses end-to-end processing of data
– capture, storage, retrieval, analysis/modification, display
• uses explicit location on earth’s surface to relate data
• aimed at decision support, as well as on-going operations and
scientific inquiry

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 Geographic Information System:
intuitive description
• A map with a database behind it.
• A virtual representation of the
real world and its infrastructure.
• A consistent “as-built” of the
real world, natural and manmade
Which is
• queried to support on-going
operations
• summarized to support strategic
decision making and policy
formulation
• analyzed to support scientific
inquiry
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 How GIS differs from Related Systems
• DBMS--typical MIS data base contains implicit but not explicit locational information
– city, county, zip code, etc. but no geographical coordinates
– is 100 N. High around the corner or across town from 200 E Main?
• automated mapping (AM) --primarily two-dimensional display devices
– thematic mapping (choropleth,etc such as SAS/GRAPH, DIDS, business mapping
software) unable to relate different geographical layers (e.g zip codes and counties)
– automated cartography--graphical design oriented; limited database ability
• facility management (FM) systems --
– lack spatial analysis tools
• CAD/CAM (computer aided design/drafting)--primarily 3-D graphic creation
(engineering design) & display systems
– don’t reference via geographic location
• CAD sees the world as a 3-D cube, GIS as a 3-D sphere
– limited (if any) database ability (especially for non-spatial data)
• scientific visualization systems--sophisticated multi-dimensional graphics, but:
– lack database support
– lack two-dimensional spatial analysis tools

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 Why Study GIS?
• 80% of local government activities estimated to be geographically based
– plats, zoning, public works (streets, water supply, sewers), garbage collection, land
ownership and valuation, public safety (fire and police)
• a significant portion of state government has a geographical component
– natural resource management
– highways and transportation
• businesses use GIS for a very wide array of applications
– retail site selection & customer analysis
– logistics: vehicle tracking & routing
– natural resource exploration (petroleum, etc.)
– precision agriculture
– civil engineering and construction
• Military and defense
– Battlefield management
– Satellite imagery interpretation
• scientific research employs GIS
– geography, geology, botany
– anthropology, sociology, economics, political science
– Epidemiology, criminology
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 Where Most UT-D Students Come From/Go To
The major areas of GIS application
• Local Government
– Public works/infrastructure management (roads, water, sewer)
– Planning and environmental management
– property records and appraisal
• Real Estate and Marketing
– Retail site selection, site evaluation
• Public safety and defense
– Crime analysis, fire prevention, emergency management, military/defense
• Natural resource exploration/extraction
– Petroleum, minerals, quarrying
• Transportation
– Airline route planning, transportation planning/modeling
• Public health and epidemiology
• The Geospatial Industry
– Data development, application development, programming
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 Examples of Applied GIS
• Urban Planning, Management & Policy • Civil Engineering/Utility
– Zoning, subdivision planning – Locating underground facilities
– Land acquisition – Designing alignment for freeways, transit
– Economic development – Coordination of infrastructure maintenance
– Code enforcement • Business
– Housing renovation programs – Demographic Analysis
– Emergency response – Market Penetration/ Share Analysis
– Crime analysis – Site Selection
– Tax assessment
• Education Administration
• Environmental Sciences – Attendance Area Maintenance
– Monitoring environmental risk – Enrollment Projections
– Modeling stormwater runoff
– School Bus Routing
– Management of watersheds, floodplains, wetlands,
forests, aquifers • Real Estate
– Environmental Impact Analysis – Neighborhood land prices
– Hazardous or toxic facility siting – Traffic Impact Analysis
– Groundwater modeling and contamination tracking – Determination of Highest and Best Use
• Political Science • Health Care
– Redistricting – Epidemiology
– Analysis of election results – Needs Analysis
– Predictive modeling – Service Inventory

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 What GIS Applications Do:
manage, analyze, communicate
• make possible the automation of activities involving geographic data
– map production
– calculation of areas, distances, route lengths
– measurement of slope, aspect, viewshed
– logistics: route planning, vehicle tracking, traffic management
• allow for the integration of data hitherto confined to independent domains (e.g
property maps and air photos).
• by tieing data to maps, permits the succinct communication of complex spatial
patterns (e.g environmental sensitivity).
• provides answers to spatial queries (how many elderly in Richardson live
further than 10 minutes at rush hour from ambulance service?)
• perform complex spatial modelling (what if scenarios for transportation
planning, disaster planning, resource management, utility design)

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 GIS System Architecture and Components

Data Input

Geographic
Query Input
Database

Output: Display Transformation

and Reporting and Analysis

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 Knowledge Base for GIS
Computer
Science/MIS
graphics Application Area:
visualization
public admin.
database GIS planning
system administration
geology
security
mineral exploration
forestry
site selection
Geography marketing
and related: civil engineering
cartography criminal justice
geodesy surveying
photogrammetry
landforms The convergence of technological
spatial statistics. fields and traditional disciplines.
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 Take a Break!

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 The GIS Data Model

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 The GIS Data Model: Purpose
• allows the geographic features in real
world locations to be digitally represented
and stored in a database so that they can be
abstractly presented in map (analog) form,
and can also be worked with and
manipulated to address some problem

(see associated diagrams)

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A layer-cake of information

GIS Data Model

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 The GIS Data Model: Implementation
Geographic Integration of Information
Administrative Boundaries
Utilities

Zoning
Buildings
Parcels
Hydrography
Streets
Digital Orthophoto

• Data is organized by layers, coverages or themes (synonomous

concepts), with each layer representing a common feature.
• Layers are integrated using explicit location on the earth’s
surface, thus geographic location is the organizing principal.
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 The GIS Model: example
Here we have three layers or themes:
ude
--roads,
t

roads --hydrology (water),

lati

--topography (land elevation)

longitude They can be related because precise
geographic coordinates are recorded for each
ude

theme.
Layers are comprised of two data types
t
lati

hydrology •Spatial data which describes location (where)

•Attribute data specifing what, how much,when
longitude
Layers may be represented in two ways:
•in vector format as points and lines
ude

topography •in raster(or image) format as pixels

t
lati

longitude All geographic data has 4 properties:

projection, scale, accuracy and resolution
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 Spatial and Attribute Data
• Spatial data (where)
– specifies location
– stored in a shape file, geodatabase or similar geographic file
• Attribute (descriptive) data (what, how much, when)
– specifies characteristics at that location, natural or human-created
– stored in a data base table
GIS systems traditionally maintain spatial and attribute data
separately, then “join” them for display or analysis
– for example, in ArcView, the Attributes of … table is used to link a
shapefile (spatial structure) with a data base table containing attribute
information in order to display the attribute data spatially on a map

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 Representing Data with Raster and Vector Models
Raster Model
• area is covered by grid with (usually) equal-sized, square cells
• attributes are recorded by assigning each cell a single value based on the majority feature (attribute) in the cell, such as
land use type.
• Image data is a special case of raster data in which the “attribute” is a reflectance value from the geomagnetic spectrum
– cells in image data often called pixels (picture elements)
• Vector Model
The fundamental concept of vector GIS is that all geographic features in the real work can be represented either as:
• points or dots (nodes): trees, poles, fire plugs, airports, cities
• lines (arcs): streams, streets, sewers,
• areas (polygons): land parcels, cities, counties, forest, rock type
Because representation depends on shape, ArcView refers to files containing vector data as shapefiles

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 Concept of
Vector and Raster Real World

Raster Representation Vector Representation

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
0 R T
1 R T
2 H R
point
3 R line
4 R R
5 R
6 R T T H
7 R T T polygon
8 R
9 R

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 Smart Vector—Pavement polygons
Dumb Images
& Smart GIS Data

Smart Raster—5 feet grids

Images—dumb rasters
(although they look good!)
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 Projection, Scale, Accuracy and Resolution
the key properties of spatial data
• Projection: the method by which the curved 3-D surface of the earth is
represented by X,Y coordinates on a 2-D flat map/screen
– distortion is inevitable
• Scale: the ratio of distance on a map to the equivalent distance on the ground
– in theory GIS is scale independent but in practice there is an implicit range of scales for data
output in any project
• Accuracy: how well does the database info match the real world
– Positional: how close are features to their real world location?
– Consistency: do feature characteristics in database match those in real world
• is a road in the database a road in the real world?
– Completeness: are all real world instances of features present in the database?
• Are all roads included.
• Resolution: the size of the smallest feature able to be recognized
– for raster data, it is the pixel size

The tighter the specification, the higher the cost.

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 Examples

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 Layers

Vector
Layers

Street Network layer: lines Land Parcels layer: polygons

Raster (image) Layer

Digital Ortho Photograph Layer:
Digital Ortho photo: combines the
visual properties of a photograph
with the positional accuracy of a
map, in computer readable form.
Projection: State Plane, North Central Texas Zone, NAD 83
Resolution: 0.5 meters
0 1500 3000 Feet Accuracy: 1.0 meters
Scale: see scale bar 29
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 Overlay based on Common Geographic Location

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 Analysis
Data Table

Scanned Drawing
Photographic Image

Parcels within a half mile buffer of Park and Central

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 Vector Layers
Attribute Tables

Raster
Layers

Anatomy of a GIS Database:

City of Plano 32
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 Course Content
Part I: Overview
• Fundamentals of GIS Part III: Practice
• Hands-on Intro to ArcGIS • Data Input: preparation,
– (lab sessions @ 1:00-4:00 or 7:00- integration, and editing
10:00pm in GR 3.602)
• Data analysis and
modeling
Part II: Principles
• Terrestrial data structures • Data output and
– representing the real world application examples
• GIS Data Structures
– representing the world in a computer
Part IV: The Future
• Data Quality
– An essential ingredient • Future of GIS

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 • Locating a Day-care
Hands-on Projects
– intro to GIS capabilities
– illustration of a major application: site selection
• Texas Demographic growth
– manipulation of data and mapping principles
– another major application: analysis of spatial patterns with polygon data
• Geocoding Housing Sales, or Analyzing Earthquake Locations
– techniques and data requirements for geocoding and point patterns
– another application: geocoding/address matching
• Creating a Census Tract layer, or a Geological Map
– editing and creating topologically consistent data
– how new data layers can be created
• Pipeline Routing
– data selection, buffering and spatial analysis
– another major application: corridor studies

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 Appendix

GIS Software Packages

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 Software for GIS: The Main Players
• ESRI, Inc., Redlands, CA
– clear market leader with about a third of the market
– originated commercial GIS with their ArcInfo product in 1981
– privately owned by Jack Dangermond, a legend in the field The main two
– Strong in gov., education, utilities and business logistics
• MapInfo, Troy N.Y.
“pure GIS”
– Aggressive newcomer in early 1990s, but now well-established. companies.
– Strong presence in business, especially site selection & marketing, and telecom
• Intergraph (Huntsville, AL)
– origins in proprietary CAD hardware/software
– Older UNIX-based MGE (Modular GIS Environment) evolved from CAD
– Current GeoMedia was the first true MS Windows-based GIS
– strong in design, public works, and FM (facilities management), but weakening
• Bentley Systems (Exton, PA)
– MicroStation GeoGraphics, originally developed with Intergraph, is now their exclusive and main product..
– Strong in engineering; advertises itself as “geoengineering”
• Autodesk (San Rafael, CA)
– Began as PC-based CAD, but now the dominant CAD supplier
– First GIS product AutoCAD Map introduced in 1996
– Primarily small business/small city customer base

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 Software for GIS: other players
Vector GIS Raster GIS
• ERDAS/Imagine
• Smallworld Systems
– long established leader
(Englewood, CO) – acquired by Leica Geosystems in 2001
– first to use OO (early ‘90s), • ER MAPPER
but failed to compete as – aggressive newcomer originating in Australia
established vendors did • Envi,
same – relative newcomer, radar specialization
– Purchased by GE in 2000 – acquired by Kodak in 2000
– emphasis on FM & utilities • PCI--Geomatica
• Manifold – long-term Canadian player
• CARIS
(CDA International Corp):
– newer Canadian entry
– low cost, but low market
• GRASS (Rutgers Univ.)
share
– Classic old-timer originally developed by US
• Maptitude Army Construction Engineering Research
Lab(CERL) in Champaign, IL;
(Caliper Corp, Newton, MA):
– army ended dev. & support in 1996 but
– another low cost one assumed by Baylor University.
• IDRSI (Clark Univ)
– pioneering, university-developed package
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ESRI Product Line-up: ArcGIS client products (Fall 2007)
ArcReader (“adobe acrobat” for maps) & ArcExplorer (spatial data viewer)
– Free viewers for geographic data.
ArcGIS 9.x Desktop: two primary modules (MS only)
1. ArcMap: for data display, map production, spatial analysis, data editing
2. ArcCatalog: for data management and preview
ArcToolbox, for specialized data conversions and analyses, available as a window in both
Available capabilities within these modules are “tiered” in three levels
• ArcView: viewing, map production, spatial analysis, basic editing:
• ArcEditor: ArcView, plus specialized editing:
• ArcInfo: ArcView & ArcEditor plus special analyses and conversions:
Extensions: for special apps.: Spatial Analyst, 3D Analyst, Geostatistics, Business Analyst, etc.
ArcObjects: to build specialized capabilities within ArcMap or ArcCatalog using VB for Applications
ArcGIS Workstation (for UNIX and MS)
– the old command line ArcInfo 7.1
ArcGIS Engine (MS NT/2000/XP)
– Set of embeddable GIS components (ArcObjects software objects) for use in building custom applications
– Runs under Windows, Unix and Linux, with support for Java, C++, COM and .NET
– Replaces MapObjects which were based upon a previous generation of GIS objects
Notes:
ArcView 3.3 the only GUI option for UNIX.
ArcGIS 8 released 2000 to integrate two previous standalone products: ArcView and ArcInfo
ArcGIS 9 released 2004 providing the full capability that should have been in ArcGIS 8!!!
--full support for all data types (coverages, shapefiles, geodatabases)
--full support for all previous geoprocessing analyses
--Modelbuilder for scripting and repetitive processing
--ArcEngine for building custom applications
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 ESRI Product Line-up: ArcGIS server products (Fall 2007)

ArcGIS Server: three tiers of capability

Data services: ArcSDE (Spatial Database Engine)
• middleware to support spatial data storage in standard DBMS on server
• Supports all major industry databases:
– Oracle, SQL-Server, IBM DB2, Ingres
Map services: ArcIMS (Internet Map Server)
• Provides maps and simple query to a user without a desktop GIS
• Accessed via web interface
Analytic services:
• Permits the creation of server-based specialized GIS applications
• Provides full range of GIS capabilities to a user without a desktop GIS
• Accessed via web interface

(prior to 9.2 these were sold as three separate products)

ArcGIS On-line Services

– On-line services made available on the Internet with a subscription
– Normally charged on a “per transaction” basis, but can be flat fee
– built and operated by ESRI (or other others), usually based on ArcGIS Server
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 ESRI
ESRI ArcGIS
ArcGIS System
System
Consistent interface
c:\ ArcGIS Workstation Clients Increasing capability

ArcInfo ArcEditor ArcView $ ArcExplorer Browser

ArcMap ArcMap ArcMap
ArcCatalog ArcCatalog ArcCatalog
ArcToolbox ArcToolbox ArcToolbox

ArcEngine/
ArcServer Services
Full GIS analysis
ArcObjects
Application ArcIMS Services
Development & ArcSDE Services Map display & query
Customization Database storage/access

ArcPad
Internet
Databases
Files Multi-user Geodatabases
(Personal Geodatabase,
Shapefiles, Coverages, (in Oracle, SQL Server, Source: ESRI with mods.
Handheld/Wireless Grids, tins, etc) IBM DBII, etc)
 Future Generic GIS Internet Enterprise

Browsers Applications

Web

Web Server Broker

Services
( built on
.Net, SOAP/XML, Java API)
Dallas Delhi Durban
Source: Reza Wahadj, CSIG04, with mods.
Databases
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 REFERENCE
Ron Briggs, Utdallas, GIS Fundamentals

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 Thanks

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