GEOG 201 Midterm!

What is GIScience?

Geographic Information Science is the scientific context and underpinnings of Geographic Information Systems

What is GISystems?

a computer-based system that edits, stores, manages, alters, analyzes, models, and displays geospatial data

• integrates basic geographic base data (basemaps) with specialized geospatial data (from thematical data bases)

What does a GISystem consist of?

• hardware

• people

• software

• methods

• data

What does GIScience consist of?

• Get info:

  • Remote sensing

  • Geography

  • Database Management Systems

  • Digital Imaging Processing/Geo-Visualization

• Make something:

  • Cartography

  • Computer aided design

Define spatial technology

• any tech that records and represents info spatially (think about this broadly)

Define geospatial technologies

• any tech that records explicit locations on the earth’s surface (or any other planet)

How does a GI System work?

1. phenomena are turned into data

2. Data is saved in a layer

3. One theme per layer

= GIS is a collection of theme layers that are not a representation of the real world - but only of selected phenomena

What can a GISystem do? In terms of basic functionality?

• enter

• save

• manipulate

• query

• analyse

• model

• visualize

• print data