GIS Definitions An organised collection of computer hardware, software, geographic data and personnel designed to effectively capture, store,

update, manipulate, analyse and display all forms of geographically referenced information (from ESRI developers of ArcGIS)

Raster A spatial data model that defines space as an array of equally sized cells arranged in rows and columns, and composed of single or multiple bands. Each cell contains an attribute value and location coordinates. Unlike a vector structure, which stores coordinates explicitly, raster coordinates are contained in the ordering of the matrix. Groups of cells that share the same value represent the same type of geographic feature.

Vector A coordinate-based data model that represents geographic features as points, lines, and polygons. Each point feature is represented as a single coordinate pair, while line and polygon features are represented as ordered lists of vertices. Attributes are associated with each vector feature, as opposed to a raster data model, which associates attributes with grid cells.

Spatial Query A statement or logical expression that selects geographic features based on location or spatial relationship. For example, a spatial query might find which points are contained within a polygon or set of polygons, find features within a specified distance of a feature, or find features that are adjacent to each other.

Overlay A spatial operation in which two or more maps or layers registered to a common coordinate system are superimposed, either digitally or on a transparent material, for the purpose of showing the relationships between features that occupy the same geographic space. In geoprocessing, the geometric intersection of multiple datasets to combine, erase, modify, or update features in a new output dataset.

Overlay can identify if a layer has both of the desired features, only one of the desired featurs, or none of the desired features

Problems with Overlay Misregistration; control point digitised at the wrong place Mixed scale and projects; gives artefact polygons Data error Processing model error Information error

Buffer A zone around a map feature measured in units of distance or time. A buffer is useful for proximity analysis A polygon enclosing a point, line, or polygon at a specified distance. Use binary feature

Vector Approach For a point; a single coordinate pair (XY) or triplet (XYZ) For a line; a series of coordinate pairs or triplets For a polygon; a closed series of coordinate pairs or triplets For a surface; either a series of lines (such as contour lines) representing the intersection of the earths surface with a horizontal surface of a given elevation above datum (usually sea level) or a series of points (easting and northings) and elevation above sea level (XYZ)

Raster approach For a point; a single pixel For a line; a connected string of pixels For a polygon; a continuous set of pixels For a surface; a digital terrain model or digital elevation model

Primary Data Source Geographic data captured specifically for GIS use from direct measurements

Secondary Data Source data reused from earlier studies or obtained from other systems

Primary Vector Data Sources surveying point line and area data GPS LIDAR - low flying aircraft that transmits electromagnetic radiation and measures the information scattered back to the receiver after interaction with the earths objects, after collecting excessive data processing is required to remove objects and prepare a bare earth point data set LIDAR data is often rasterised to make it more manageable

Secondary Vector Data Sources Involves digitising vector objects from maps and other geographical data sources Topographic maps Place name databases

Primary Raster Data Sources Remote sensing used to obtain information regarding objects without physical contact Information derived from measurements of electromagnetic radiation reflected, omitted or scattered from objects Aerial photographs normally collected by analogue optical cameras and scanned later The order in which the pixels are stored represents the order in which they were scanned and thus is related to their position in the document/on the earth, hence coordinates of each pixel can be found.

Secondary Raster Data Sources Using a scanner to convert hardcopy media such as CAD drawings, paper maps and aerial photographs Data often must be geo-referenced Scanned input is often vectorised to prelude a spatial analysis

Data Transfer
The process of moving data from one system to another or from one point on a network to another.

Data can be transferred to a suitable format if required

Geo-referencing Aligning geographic data to a known coordinate system so it can be viewed, queried, and analyzed with other geographic data. Georeferencing may involve shifting, rotating, scaling, skewing, and in some cases warping

Control Pointing Form of geo-referencing scanned satellite images, scanned photographs and scanned maps can all have all their pixels locations (i.e. column, row coordinates) converted to e.g. BNG coordinates (Easting, Northings).

Capturing Attribute Data attribute data for geographic objects attached to such objects data is collected giving each different source a common identifier key to relate data to objects geometry eg. Percentage of a given age group living in an area, voting tendencies, population density

Multi-criteria Methods multiple criteria identified to identify most suitable site different criteria weighted based on its significance, influence and impact eg environmental factors, technical factors

Vectorisation The conversion of raster data (an array of cell values) to vector data (a series of points, lines, and polygons).

Thresholding; involves conversion of the file of greylevels resulting from the scanning into a binary file, of black (i.e. line) and white (i.e. space) pixels. A threshold grey level (e.g. 60 which is quite low in the standard grey-level range of 0-255) is chosen. All pixels with a higher value are assigned 0, all equal or below that are assigned 1. Vectorising Connecting pixels until confusion arises The column and row coordinates of the connected pixels can be stored as new vectors

Topology Creation Involves creation of nodes where confusion has arisen Completion of the vector lines are connected to these nodes

Data Integrity maintaining and assuring the accuracy and consistency of data and usage of any system which stores, processes or retrieves data

Vector to raster conversion a vector line is represented as a series of points these coordinate can be converted from northing and eastings to column and row coordinates as is required for the raster system

Maintaining Data Integrity o primary key; An attribute or set of attributes in a database that uniquely identifies each
record. A primary key allows no duplicate values and cannot be null

foreign/common key; An attribute or set of attributes in one table that match the
primary key attributes in another table. Foreign keys and primary keys are used to join tables in a database.

Joins

Spatial Analysis: measurements distance or length measured directly area measured using algorithm, shapes (such as for electoral constituencies), slope etc

Spatial Analysis; Thiessen Polygon using measured data to estimate similar data in the surrounding areas which has not been measured

Comparing Raster and Vector Buffering raster; classification of cells regarding whether or not they lie inside the buffer vector; new set of objects created

spatial interpolation technique that uses values at sampled locations to predict values at un-sampled locations values can be attributes of a point but describe any spatial feature examples; rainfall elevation, temperature, soil depth

Problems with vector overlay data file produced as a result of overlay can be considerably larger than the original map, due to the lines being split into smaller segments, new nodes and polygons silver polygons; spurious polygons produced when 2 sets of data with the same area entities have been required from 2 different sources or digested twice from the same source

Problems with raster overlay cells have to be reclassified in terms of deciding if they have the desirable criteria which can be time consuming the multiplication of cells to given a desired value can be reached in a number of ways giving ambiguous results constructing area entities; identification of area features can be difficult as unlike vector there is no intuitive geometry cell resolution; different resolution for different sources which have been overlain, can be difficult to determine which should be used

general problems with overlay overlain layers have data obtained using different scales of measurement, eg rainfall measured on a ratio scale or soils type measured on a nominal scale

Raster to vector Vector to raster

Generalisation: [map design] The abstraction, reduction, and simplification of features for change of scale or resolution. [data editing] The process of reducing the number of points in a line without losing the line's essential shape. [data editing] The process of enlarging and resampling cells in a raster format. Aggregation; The process of collecting a set of similar, usually adjacent, polygons (with their associated attributes) to form a single, larger entity.

Disaggregation;

Neighbourhood analysis: Methods of defining new values for locations using the values of other locations within a given distance or direction.

Image analysis