Introduction to GIS

• What is GIS?
• What are GIS Components?
Geography has always been important for
discovery, planning, commerce and defense for
the past 3000 years

Spatial information is more important

GIS helps us gather and use spatial data
 Geographic Information Systems

• Definition:
– A computer-based system to aid in the collection,
maintenance, storage, analysis, output, and
distribution of spatial data and information (Bolstad
2002)

– Key to this definition:

• Absolute and relative location of features
• Properties and attributes of features
GIS will give us the location of MT. Everest and height
that is gathered from satellites or other remote sensing
instruments.
We can view other info as well, temperatures,
snowfall, or climbing routes, this can be stored and
visualized using GIS

The user decides what info is important.

A Forestry manager and International paper would
use the same baseline map of a forest but would be
interested in very different information
Forestry manager would want to know buffer
strips near rivers to protect water supply, areas for
clearing or needs for control burns downwind air
pollution
International paper, wants to maximize growth and
yield from a acre of land
GIS used in Hurricane Katrina modeling for flood danger before, during
and after storm.
Levee construction and progress monitored using GIS

GIS used during rescue efforts

Hurricane Katrina
 Other Applications

• Risk assessment
– Natural disasters, disease infection, etc.
• Transportation systems
– Highways and interstates, subway and bus routes
• Infrastructure
– Power grids, sewage, water and gas lines
• Natural resource management
 Geographic Information System

• Resolution can vary:

– Detailed:
• Location of buildings in a city
• Individual trees in a forest
– Coarse
• Population of the Eastern seaboard
• Depths of the Atlantic ocean
 Who does GIS?

GIS
Scientist:
writes algorithms

Increasing Skill Level

GIS Specialist/
GIS Analyst: designs projects

GIS Technician:
works under the direction of a GIS Specialist

Ancillary GIS Duties: Police and Fire Depts., NGOs,

City Planning, Resource Management, Marketing/Business

General Public: GIS in cars, UPS, Elections in Florida

 Who uses GIS?

• Public organizations
– Police and fire dispatch and routes
– Utilities (gas, cable, and water lines)
– Tax assessment and property records
– Land management
 GIS Applications

•Scientists
–Endangered species
–Animal tracking and
migration
–Fisheries management

•NOAA live maps

•Try a GIS Map
NOAA Mako shark track
 GIS functions

• Capture
• Store
• Query
• Analyze
• Display
• Output
Capture : Paper maps, digital data, coordinates,
gps, all together = gis data
Store : Vector (database consisting of points, lines
and polygons) or raster formats (grid cells or
pixels)
Query : Identifying specific features (what country
is this), identify features based on conditions
(counties with population greater than 500,000)
Analyze : Proximity (parcels 100 feet from the
road), overlay, network analysis (how linear
features are connected
Display : Maps, graphs, reports
Output : Paper maps, internet, document (.mxd),
image
 GIS Components

• Five key components of GIS:

– Hardware
– Software
– Data
– People
– Method
Hardware
It consists of the computer system on which the GIS
software will run. The choice of hardware system
range from 300MHz Personal Computers to Super
Computers having capability in Tera FLOPS. The
computer forms the backbone of the GIS hardware,
which gets it's input through the Scanner or a
digitizer board. Scanner converts a picture into a
digital image for further processing. The output of
scanner can be stored in many formats e.g. TIFF,
BMP, JPG etc. A digitizer board is flat board used
for vectorisation of a given map objects. Printers
and plotters are the most common output devices
for a GIS hardware setup.
Hardware
Software
GIS software provides the functions and tools needed
to store, analyze, and display geographic information.
GIS softwares in use are MapInfo, ARC/Info,
AutoCAD Map, etc. The software available can be
said to be application specific. When the low cost GIS
work is to be carried out desktop MapInfo is the
suitable option. It is easy to use and supports many
GIS feature. If the user intends to carry out extensive
analysis on GIS, ARC/Info is the preferred option. For
the people using AutoCAD and willing to step into
GIS, AutoCAD Map is a good option.
Software
 Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)
 Intergraph Corporation
 Autodesk
 Caliper: GIS Software, Mapping Software
Data
Geographic data and related tabular data can be
collected in-house or purchased from a commercial
data provider. The digital map forms the basic data
input for GIS. Tabular data related to the map objects
can also be attached to the digital data. A GIS will
integrate spatial data with other data resources and
can even use a DBMS, used by most organization to
maintain their data, to manage spatial data.
People

GIS users range from technical specialists who

design and maintain the system to those who use it
to help them perform their everyday work. The
people who useGIS can be broadly classified into
two classes. The CAD/GIS operator, whose work is
to vectorise the map objects. The use of this
vectorised data to perform query, analysis or any
other work is the responsibility of a GIS
engineer/user.
Method

And above all a successful GIS operates according to

a well-designed plan and business rules, which are
the models and operating practices unique to each
organization. There are various techniques used for
map creation and further usage for any project. The
map creation can either be automated raster to
vector creator or it can be manually vectorised using
the scanned images. The source of these digital
maps can be either map prepared by any survey
agency or satellite imagery.
 Supporting Technologies and Disciplines
 Geography
 Cartography-art of map making
 Remote Sensing
 Photogrammetry
 Surveying
 Geodesy
 Statistics
 Computer Science
 Math
 ESRI
 ESRI is the world leader in GIS software
 Homepage
 Training
 ArcGIS Desktop
 ArcView (Basic)
 ArcEditor (Standard)
 ArcInfo (Advanced)
 …….and desktop extensions (i.e.: spatial analyst)
 A history of products
Arc/Info ArcGIS

Arc ArcGIS Desktop

ArcMap
ArcPlot
ArcView 3x ArcCatalog
ArcEdit

Info/Tables ArcToolbox

GRID
ArcInfo Workstation

Coverages Shapefiles Geodatabases

Copyright © 2006 by Maribeth H.
Price
1-27
ArcGIS Desktop
 ArcGIS Desktop

ArcCatalog

ArcMap

ArcToolbox

Copyright © 2006 by Maribeth H.

Price
1-29
 ArcGIS functionality
Same interface and
programs
More tools in the
$Basic toolbox

$$Standard

$$$Advanced

Three levels of functionality and cost

Copyright © 2006 by Maribeth H.
Price
1-30
 ArcGIS Extensions
 Spatial Analyst  Extensions are additional tools
 3D Analyst and commands that can be added
 Publisher/ArcReader to the core ArcGIS interface
 Network Analyst
 Maplex
 Appear as new toolbars and
 Geostatistical Analyst
toolsets in ArcCatalog

Copyright © 2006 by Maribeth H.

Price
1-31
 Licensing
 Floating point licenses
 ArcInfo only
 Central server checks out licenses
 Requires a dongle and a license file
 Standalone licenses
 Uses a registration file/ register online
 No dongle needed
 Available for ArcView and ArcEditor only

Copyright © 2006 by Maribeth H.

Price
1-32
 THANKS
SHAKER UL DIN RAHIMOON
sdrahimoon@gmail.com
shaker16@lzu.edu.cn

INSTITUTE OF REMOTE SENSIING AND GIS

COLLEGE OF EARTH & ENVIRONMNETAL SCIENCES
LANZHOU UNIVERSITY, P.R. CHINA