GIS

Raster GIS & Its Functionality

in QGIS

Raghunath Jha

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Raster calculation

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Creation of Suitability Map

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Neighborhood functions

 Use to examine the neighborhood around a target

 The target may be a point, line, polygon, or cell(s) in a raster image
 The neighborhood being examined is called a window
 The window is often a circle or square, but may be any shape
 Typical functions
 Numeric functions: average, max, min, sum, mode, standard deviation
 Categorical functions: diversity, variety, majority
 Example: Variety of cover types found in a 5x5 window
 Example: Average elevation of a watershed

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Summarize Zones
Computes a summary statistic for each zone in a grid or feature
theme (the zone theme) based on the cell values in another grid
theme (the value theme) that fall within each zone. A zone consists
of the set of features or cells in the zone theme that have the same
attribute value.

Grid Statistics for polygon:

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Filters and kernels

 In raster GIS, moving windows are often applied to every cell

 New cell values are based on some function applied to the window
 Often called filters or kernels
 Includes smoothing and edge-enhancement filters and other common image
processing techniques
 Example: Measure fragmentation of forest habitat by evaluating the variety of
tree stands in a 2 km window.

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Moving window filters

Common functions include

Mean, Min, Max, Median, Std. Dev.,
Majority, Minority, Sum, etc.

Neighborhood functions are often

also called filters or kernels.

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Gaussian Filter

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Laplacian filter

5x5 Majority filter

A majority of cells must

have the same value and be
contiguous. Three out of
four or five out of eight
connected cells must have
the same value.
Set all cells in the window
to the value that occurs
most frequently.
Example: Excluding areas
too steep to build a
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Interpolation Functions

 Used to estimate values of a variable in between known values

 Construct the top of a geologic layer from its measured depth in well sites
 Create a precipitation surface from measurements at climate stations
 Determine the elevation of a campsite from a DEM
 Many methods available
 linear interpolation, polynomial regression, area weighting, fourier series,
moving averages, kriging, Thiessen polygons, splines
 For best results, method should mimic behavior of the phenomena
 Example: Linear interpolation would work better than Thiessen polygons for
interpolating thicknesses of sedimentary strata

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Contouring a surface

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Assign Proximity (Thiessen polygons)

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Topographic Functions (DEM

functions)

 Used to describe changes and properties of surfaces such as

elevation
 Most common topographic functions
 Slope: Rate of Change of elevation (first derivative)
 Aspect: Direction that a surface faces
 Gradient: Direction of maximum slope
 Example: Desirable building sites have low slope and southern aspect

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Topographic slope

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Aspect (direction the slope faces)

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More Topographic Functions

 Intervisibility (viewshed)
 Determine the areas than can be seen from one or more viewer locations
 Used for scenery management, choosing parcels with view
 Can use screen areas as well as topography
 Screen areas could include buildings, forested areas, etc.
 Illumination
 Mimics the effects of shining a light on a 3-D surface
 Creates a shaded relief (or color shaded relief) model
 Illumination source has a defined position relative to the surface
 Default usually from the NW at a 45 degree angle
 Perspective View
 Creates a 3-D block diagram showing how surface appears from a defined
position
 Typically displayed with parallel lines or a mesh
 One may also drape other data, such as roads or geology, across this surface
 Forms the basis for flyby animations
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Hillshade (illumination or shaded relief image)

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Perspective viewing

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Hydrologic analysis
 Determining hydrologic
parameters from DEMs
 Very active area in hydrology:
allows rapid determination of
model parameters
 Flow direction: determines
direction water will flow over the
land
 Flow accumulation: determines
number of cells flowing into each
cell
 Stream net: Uses a threshhold
value of flow accumulation to
locate streams
 Functions can delineate drainage
basins, stream locations, stream
gradients, etc.

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Hydrologic analysis

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Contiguity functions
 Combines adjacent units together when they share a common attribute
 May allow areas to be broken by certain features (such as roads)
 Accomplished in raster by collecting pixels until value changes
 In vector, one simply removes arcs separating matching polygons
(dissolve)

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Proximity
 Proximity functions measure distances between features
 Distance functions
 Calculate a surface representing the distance to the nearest target (raster)
 Example: Determine the distance from archeological sites to the nearest stream

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Buffering

 Constructs polygons containing all

areas within a certain distance of
the target
 Targets may be points, lines, or
polygons
 Accomplished in raster using
expand or distance functions
 Example: How much timber is lost if
one does not harvest < 100m from
streams?
 Often combined with overlay to
tabulate areas inside the buffers

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Proximity...
 Nearest-neighbor analysis
 Identifies the closest neighbor for every point in a coverage
 Point to point distance
 Determine distance from a point to every other point in a coverage
 Can generate extremely large output files: maximum search radius may be used
 Implemented in Arcview by Spatial Join (point to point or point to line)

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Spread functions

 Evaluates difficulty in moving across a surface

 Moves step by step outward from target and calculates a variable at each step
 Similar to a distance surface, except the difficulty in moving varies spatially
 Distance function could find shortest route to build a road from A to B
 Spread could use topography to find lowest slope route
 Add even more variables to evaluate cost of road based on slope, terrain type, and
soils
 Barriers to movement may be partial or absolute
 Output usually termed an accumulation surface, or a cost-distance surface
 Examples
 Delineating drainage basins
 Planning roads, pipelines, other transporation features
 Evaluating cross-country travel time

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Spread functions
Simple cost-distance

Calculate “cost” of fuel

for an all-terrain vehicle
to go from Point A to
Point B.

Distance is the only

factor.

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Spread functions
cost distance with a barrier

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Cost-distance factors
for determining amount of fuel consumed on a trip

Horizontal Distance
Bumpiness (friction)
Surface distance
Slope factors
Wind resistance

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Spread functions
Seek or stream functions

 Seek functions search outward

using a specified decision rule
 Movement continues until
further movement would
violate the rule
 Applications
 Determining stream locations and
flow directions from a DEM
 Evaluating erosion potential from
DEM, soil type, and vegetation
cover
 Mapping out shortest-travel-time
routes across a surface

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Network functions

 Implemented in Arcview’s Network Analyst extension

 Network functions analyze the flow of a commodity through a
network
 Networks are commonly roads, streams, pipelines, electric grids
 Principle types of analysis
 Prediction of network loading (electricity usage, real-time flood prediction)
 Route optimization (optimizing bus schedules, 911 routing)
 Resource allocation (Delivering water to rural fire-fighting operations)
 Components of network analysis
 A set of resources or goods to be delivered (fire-fighting crews)
 One or more locations where resources are located (fire stations)
 An objective, such as delivering service or goods (fastest response time to fire)
 A set of contraints on how the resource can move (speed limits, lights, traffic)

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Path functions

 Find most efficient

route through a
series of stops.
 Assign impedance to
arcs and
intersections
 Represents speed
limits, traffic lights,
etc.

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Allocation

 Locating schools so that children can walk to them in 30 minutes

 Determining what areas are within 10 minutes of a fire station

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Tracing functions

 Find path out of sewer system from point A to point B

 sewers are digitized so that all point in direction of flow
 sum length when you are done

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Tracing with accumulation

 Network records traces from power source

 voltage drops on each segment shown in red
 can figure out the total voltage drop at any location in the line network

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Interaction mapping

 What areas of the city are most

likely to use your shop?
 Where is the best place to
locate a shop?
 factors include travel time
 travel time to competitors along
streets

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