INTRODUCTION TO GIS

JACK RUZAINI
jacketphisher@yahoo.com
16th AUGUST 2010

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 WHAT IS GIS?
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer
system that displaying, analyzing, capturing, storing
and querying geographical data.

It also called “geographically referenced data”.

Geographic data combines and links graphic
representations of "features", or "events" found on
the earth with corresponding tabular data, which is
also called attribute data.

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 HISTORY OF GIS
 1854 – John Snow possibly the earliest use the geographic method depicted a cholera outbreak
in London. He’s not only using cartographic methods but also analyze clusters of geographically
dependent phenomena for the first time.

 Early 20th Century – The development of photolithography which maps were separated into
layers

 1962 – Dr. Roger Tomlinson (known as father of GIS) developed Canada Geographic
Information System (CGIS) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
CGIS was the world’s first such an improvement of mapping application as it provided
capabilities for overlay, measurement, scanning and digitizing. It also supported coordinate
system, true embed topology and store the attribute and locational information in separate files.
It was developed as continent-wide analysis of complex dataset and as a mainframe based
system in support of federal and province resource planning.

 1964 – Howard T. Fisher formed Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis
(LCGSA) at Harvard where number of important theoretical concepts in spatial data handling
were developed.

 1970 - LCGSA distributed seminal software code and system – SYMAP, GRID and ODYSSEY
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 HISTORY OF GIS
 Early 1980 – M&S Computing, Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI),
Computer Aided Resource Information System (CARIS) and ERDAS emerged as
commercial vendors of GIS software which successfully incorporating many of the
CGIS features, combining first generation approach (separation of spatial and
attribute information) and second generation approach (organizing attribute date into
database structures)

 Later 1980 & 1990 – growing the use of GIS on Unix workstation and personal
computer.

 End 20th Century – rapid growth of GIS where user were begin to export the
concept of viewing GIS data over the internet, requiring data format and transfer
standards.

 Recently – a growing number of free, open source GIS packages run on a range of
operating system and can be customized to perform specific tasks.

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 COMPONENTS OF GIS
 People – Viewers, general users, database
administrators and GIS Specialist  

 Procedures - how the data will be retrieved,

input into the system, stored, managed,
transformed (coordinate system, projection,
vector-raster-vector), analyzed, and finally
presented in a final output. 

 Hardware - the technical equipment needed

to run a GIS including a computer system with
enough power to run the software, enough
memory to store large amounts of data, and
input and output devices such as scanners,
digitizers, GPS data loggers, media disks, and
printers.

 Software - GIS software packages that

capable of data input, storage, management,
transformation, analysis, output for both
graphical and descriptive data.

 Data – Lineage, Positional Accuracy, Attribute

Accuracy, Logical Consistency, Completeness
is important.
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GIS DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

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 GIS DATA TYPE
GIS technology utilizes two (2) basic types of data:

1. Spatial Data
- describes the absolute and relative location of
geographic features.

2. Attribute Data
- describes characteristics of the spatial features
- These characteristics can be quantitative and/or

qualitative in nature.
- Attribute data is often referred to as tabular
data.
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 GIS DATA TYPE (Spatial Data)
Spatial data model falls into two (2) main categories:

1. Raster-based format
- represents features as a matrix of cells in continuous space.
- Each layer represents one attribute.
- Most analysis occurs by combining the layers to create new layers
with new cell values.

2. Vector-based format
- represents each feature as a row in a table, and feature shapes are
defined by x, y locations in space.
- Features can be discrete locations or events, lines, or polygons.

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GIS DATA TYPE (Spatial Data)

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 GIS DATA TYPE (Attribute Data)
 Also called a Tabular data or descriptive data. It is
statistical, numerical, or characteristic information that
can be attributed to spatial features. 

 the tabular data is stored by the GIS software which

allows it to be accessed and viewed, usually in a
relational database format. 

 Attributes that may be useful to assign to a feature

would be population of an area, traffic measurement
of a road, or types of landmines in a particular area. 

 The GIS software allows the attribute data to be linked

to the spatial data in such a way that it gives the
attributes a location. Two or more tabular databases
can be linked when there is a common data filed. 

 A GIS user, after integrating both spatial and attribute

data, has the capability to learn a great deal about the
defined study area.

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GIS DATA REPRESENTATION

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 APPLICATION OF GIS
(Effective Crime Control Using GIS)
 Sources:
http://www.gisdevelopment.net/application/military/d
efence/mi04184.htm
 Title of Paper: Effective Crime Control using GIS
 Name of Author: Dr. R. Sahu & Peeyush
Srivastava
 Published Year: 2004
 Abstract: how law enforcement agencies can use
GIS to control the crime and apprehend the
offenders; the paper gives the details of how GIS
cane be effectively used for two most popular
mechanisms of crime control; reducing crime and
investigating crime.
 Methodology:

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 APPLICATION OF GIS
(GIS Applications for Dumping Site Selection)
 Sources:
http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/proc98/proceed/to150/pap107/p107.htm
 Title of Paper: GIS Applications for Dumping Site Selection
 Name of Author: M. M. Yagoub and Taher Buyong
 Published Year:
 Abstract: The use of GIS in locating a suitable dumping site due to increasing of
commercial, residential and infrastructure development and population growth.
 Methodology:
 The aim of this paper is oriented towards developing a user interface for selecting a
dumping site in Langkawi-Malaysia with special emphasis on ease of use using
ArcView 3.0a from Esri.
 The main intention here is to reduce the circle (access to existing functions) through
which non- GIS user will revolve around ArcView to carry out suitability analysis
(modeling).
 The ability to describe complex geographic modeling with straightforward options for a
greater number of users is well recommended by many researchers (Wilson, 1990).
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 GIS APPLICATIONS ADVANTAGES
Health and Anemities planning
Market Research
Operations Management - Distribution and Retail Services
Spatial Information Services - Tourist & Tour Operators
Spatial Services Management – Defense and Disaster
Management
Spatial Services Management - Land & Utilities Planning &
Management
& Many Others
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 GIS APPLICATIONS ADVANTAGES
• Interactive Visualization/Analysis

• Planning and Management

• Spatial Data Management and Access

• Environmental Risk Assessment

• Multi-Dimensional Planning

• Custom Applications Development For Decision Support

• Web-accessible Spatial Information

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 REFERENCES
• GIS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system
• Components of a GIS
http://maic.jmu.edu/sic/gis/components.htm
• GIS Application

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/application/index.htm

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