Gis and Information Systems
Gis and Information Systems
Gis and Information Systems
The GIS software’s being used today belong to either of the category –proprietary or open
source. ArcGIS by ESRI is the widely used proprietary GIS software. Others in the same
category are MapInfo, Microstation, Geomedia etc. The development of open source GIS has
provided us with freely available desktop GIS such as Quantum, uDIG, GRASS,
MapWindow GIS etc., GIS softwares.
1.6.3 Data: The data is captured or collected from various sources (such as maps, field
observations, photography, satellite imagery etc) and is processed for analysis and
presentation.
1.6.4 Methods/Procedures: These include the methods or ways by which data has to be
input in the system, retrieved, processed, transformed and presented.
1.6.5 People: This component of GIS includes all those individuals (such as programmer,
database manager, GIS researcher etc.) who are making the GIS work, and also the
individuals who are at the user end using the GIS services, applications and tools
1.8 APPLICATIONS OF GIS
GIS is involved in various areas. These include topographical mapping,
socioeconomic and environment modeling, and education. The role of GIS is best illustrated
with respect to some of the representative application areas that are mentioned below
Tax Mapping,
Business,
Logistics,
Emergency evacuation,
Environment
1.3 COORDINATE SYSTEM
A coordinate system is a reference system used for locating objects in a two or three
dimensional space
Geographic Coordinate System
A geographic coordinate system, also known as global or spherical coordinate system
is a reference system that uses a three-dimensional spherical surface to determine
locations on the earth. Any location on earth can be referenced by a point with
longitude and latitude.
We must familiarize ourselves with the geographic terms with respect to the Earth
coordinate system in order to use the GIS technologies effectively.
Pole: The geographic pole of earth is defined as either of the two points where the
axis of rotation of the earth meets its surface. The North Pole lies 90º north of the
equator and the South Pole lies 90º south of the equator
Latitude : Imaginary lines that run horizontally around the globe and are measured
from 90º north to 90º south. Also known as parallels, latitudes are equidistant from
each other.
Equator : An imaginary line on the earth with zero degree latitude, divides the earth
into two halves–Northern and Southern Hemisphere. This parallel has the widest
circumference.
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GIS SUBSYSTEMS / SOFTWARE FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS
A GIS has four main functional subsystems. These are:
a data input subsystem;
a data storage and retrieval subsystem
a data manipulation and analysis subsystem
a data output and display subsystem
3.
2.10 Data Quality
Data quality is the degree of data excellency that satisfy the given objective. In other words,
completeness of attributes in order to achieve the given task can be termed as Data Quality.
Data created from different channels with different techniques can have discrepancies in
terms of resolution, orientation and displacements.
Data quality is a pillar in any GIS implementation and application as reliable data are
indispensable to allow the user obtaining meaningful results. The following review of data
quality focuses on three distinct components, data accuracy, quality, and error.
2.10.1 Accuracy
The fundamental issue with respect to data is accuracy. Accuracy is the closeness of results
of observations to the true values or values accepted as being true. This implies that
observations of most spatial phenomena are usually only considered to estimates of the true
value. The difference between observed and true (or accepted as being true) values indicates
the accuracy of the observations.
Basically two types of accuracy exist. These are positional and attribute accuracy
Positional accuracy is the expected deviance in the geographic location of an object from its
true ground position. There are two components to positional accuracy. These
are relative and absolute accuracy.
Absolute accuracy concerns the accuracy of data elements with respect to a coordinate
scheme.
Relative accuracy concerns the positioning of map features relative to one another.
Attribute accuracy is equally as important as positional accuracy. It also reflects estimates
of the truth. Interpreting and depicting boundaries and characteristics for forest stands or soil
polygons can be exceedingly difficult and subjective.
2.10.2 Quality
Quality can simply be defined as the fitness for use for a specific data set. Data that is
appropriate for use with one application may not be fit for use with another. It is fully
dependent on the scale, accuracy, and extent of the data set, as well as the quality of other
data sets to be used. The recent U.S. Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) identifies five
components to data quality definitions. These are :
Lineage
Positional Accuracy
Attribute Accuracy
Logical Consistency
Completeness
Lineage
The lineage of data is concerned with historical and compilation aspects of the data such as
the:
source of the data;
content of the data
data capture specifications
geographic coverage of the data
compilation method of the data, e.g. digitizing versus scanned;
transformation methods applied to the data; and
the use of an pertinent algorithms during compilation, e.g. linear simplification,
feature generalization
Positional Accuracy
The identification of positional accuracy is important. This includes consideration of inherent
error (source error) and operational error (introduced error).
Attribute Accuracy
Consideration of the accuracy of attributes also helps to define the quality of the data. This
quality component concerns the identification of the reliability, or level of purity
(homogeneity), in a data set.
Logical Consistency
This component is concerned with determining the faithfulness of the data structure for a data
set. This typically involves spatial data inconsistencies such as incorrect line intersections,
duplicate lines or boundaries, or gaps in lines. These are referred to as spatial
or topological errors.
Completeness
The final quality component involves a statement about the completeness of the data set. This
includes consideration of holes in the data, unclassified areas, and any compilation
procedures that may have caused data to be eliminated.
The ease with which geographic data in a GIS can be used at any scale highlights the
importance of detailed data quality information. Although a data set may not have a specific
scale once it is loaded into the GIS database, it was produced with levels of accuracy and
resolution that make it appropriate for use only at certain scales, and in combination with data
of similar scales.
2.10.3 Error
Two sources of error, inherent and operational, contribute to the reduction in quality of the
products that are generated by geographic information systems.
Inherent error is the error present in source documents and data.
Operational error is the amount of error produced through the data capture and
manipulation functions of a GIS.
Possible sources of operational errors include:
Mis-labelling of areas on thematic maps;
misplacement of horizontal (positional) boundaries;
human error in digitizing
classification error;.
GIS algorithm inaccuracies; and
human bias.
An awareness of the error status of different data sets will allow user to make a subjective
statement on the quality and reliability of a product derived from GIS processing.
The validity of any decisions based on a GIS product is directly related to the quality
and reliability rating of the product.
Depending upon the level of error inherent in the source data, and the error operationally
produced through data capture and manipulation, GIS products may possess significant
amounts of error.
2.10.4 Sources of Spatial Data Discrepancy:
DataInformationExchange:
Data information exchange is basically the information about the data provided by the client
to organization. The degree of information provided by the client defines the accuracy and
completeness of data.
TypeandSource:
Data type and source must be evaluated in order to get appropriate data values. There are
many spatial data formats and each one of them is having some beneficiary elements as well
as some drawbacks.
DataCapture:
There are many tools that incorporate manual skills to capture the data using various
softwares like ArcGIS. These softwares allows user to capture information from the base
data. During this data capture, the user may misinterpret features from the base data and
captures the features with errors. Data capture must be performed on a perfect scale where
one must be able to view the features distinctly.
CartographicEffects:
After capturing the data, some cartographic effects like symbology, pattern, colors,
orientation and size are assigned to the features. This is required for a better representation of
reality. These effects must be assigned according to the domain of the features
DataTransfer:
Some discrepancies may occur while transferring the data from one place to another “There is
no bad or good data. There are only data which are suitable for a specific purpose.” So, Data
must be evaluated according to the domain for which it is supposed to be used.
Metadata:
Sometimes metadata is not updated according to the original features. So, metadata must be
updated with the original data.
2.10.5 Data Quality Improvement Techniques:
Choice of relevant data from a relevant source.
Derive precisions in the origin itself.
Data quality testing in each phase of data capture.
Using automated software tools for spatial and non-spatial data validation.
Assessment of the mode of data uses and user.
Determining the map elements like scale, visualization and feature orientation.