Overview of Geographic

Information Systems
©Engr Francis Katende
Georeferenced or Geospatial Data
• Data that contains positional metadata or topological relationship referred to other data
• Allows for precise location on Earth’s surface

Fig. 1. KML file showing geographical coordinates of a location. KML is one of the open spatial data
standards that makes it easy to collect, save, and share georeferenced data.
Geospatial Technologies, Data and
Information Systems
• Geospatial technologies provide solutions for acquiring,
producing, processing, analyzing, displaying, sharing, handling,
and managing geospatial data and information.
• Data is a set of values or features used to represent something
• Information is the result of processing data.
• Information systems are software and hardware systems that
support data-intensive applications.
Geographic Information System (GIS)
• Read the following article from the United States Geological Service (USGS):
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-a-geographic-information-system-gis?qt-news_scienc
e_products=7#qtnews_science_products

• GIS have the capability to work with and render georeferenced data

Layer Stacks
• A layer is a set of georeferenced data referring to a certain variable.
• Most GIS display one layer at a time on the screen
• Sets of geospatial data can be massive, so a fairly powerful computer is required.
Map Projection
• Commonly, we work with geographic data using, flat, 2D devices such as maps and
screens.
• However, a sphere or an ellipsoid cannot be unwrapped into a plane.
• To represent the ellipsoid on a flat surface, some distortions have to be introduced.
• This is done by means of a projection (Please see attached files for more details on this
topic).
• Each projection will require its own coordinate reference system
• There are 4 main coding systems withing GIS
 The well-known text (WKT)
 European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG)
 PRJ files
 Proj-Strings
Models for storing and representing digital
georeferenced data
• Two main models: Vector-based models and Raster models
• In vector-based models, the geographic space is modelled with points, lines and
polygons.
• A vector layer will only contain entities of the same type e.g. a layer of points.
• The industry standard for vector data files is shapefile (SHP)
• In raster models, the geographic space is divided into cells (pixels).
• The cells are adjacent to each other, do not overlap, and cover the whole represented
area.
• A raster layer contains the set of values for the pixels of a single variable e.g
temperature, heights, wind speed, solar irradiance etc.
Thank you!