Geographic Information Systems
From Isopedia
How Geographic Information Systems works?
Geographic Information Systems(GIS) are computers systems that capture, store, analyze and display geographic information. GIS is a tool that allows users to search for a certain area, map, or landscape and analyze what they see. It can be used for many reasons and by many organizations, such as emergency services, environmental agencies, businesses, governments, industrial companies and for educational purposes. The data for GIS are digitized and scanned maps, data tables, accurate GPS locations, and aerial photography. These data inputs can be purchased from the person in possession, donated to someone or put up free on the internet. When a GIS is formed, it is compiled of scanned maps and pictures than can be searched through by a user. Search criteria for a GIS can be coordinates, a city, a landmark, anything really. The GIS will then search its system for that criterion and then return what pictures or maps it has about the subject that was searched.
Popular Geographic Information Systems: GRASS, MapServer, Google Earth
GRASS is a GIS that was originally developed by the U.S. Army for land management and environmental planning. It is currently used by many agencies such as NASA, the National Park Service, the U.S. Census Bureau and many environmental consulting companies.
MapServer was created by the University of Minnesota and is an Open Source development environment for building GIS applications. MapServer allows you to create “geographic image maps” and also search the database of maps that MapServer contains. It was created in cooperation with NASA and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. It is supported by many developers from all over the world and is still expanding.
Google Earth is a service provided by Google that was developed by Keyhole and acquired by Google in 2004. Google Earth provides high resolution satellite images and maps that users can browse through by entering coordinates, addresses or simply using the mouse button.
History of Geographic Information Systems:
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the product of thousands of years of the study of landscapes throughout the world. Although complex today, the characteristics used in hieroglyphics of the early Homo Sapiens were the building blocks of GIS as we know it today. The images portrayed in hieroglyphics tell a story of there own and in respective situations convey information of the land that these early Homo Sapiens wished to represent. One of the first and most significant uses of GIS was accomplished by John Snow, who was able to locate the source of a cholera outbreak in 1854 in London, using a point based method that represented the location of the population that were indeed infected with this disease. The point system he used, was based upon areas of high and low concentration of the disease, the lower the concentration in one area alluded to the source of the outbreak being further from that point and closer to the areas of higher concentration. What was so revolutionary about John Snow’s use of a process that had been around for years, was based on the geographical dependence of clusters in cartography (the production of maps). In other words, the principle aspects of topology up until this point, were established on the invariant characteristics of the natural environment unaffected by man. The only problem with the new method and the newfangled process created by Snow was the numerous amounts of sheets of paper used to show different characteristics within the environment.
Finally, in the early 1960’s, as a result of the Cold War and the threat of Nuclear Weapon research and use, computer hardware was developed to study photo lithography. Around the same time, the Federal Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources in Ottawa, Ontario realized the useful capabilities that such a system may provide, and as a result, the head researcher on the project Roger Tomlinson coined the name Canadian Geographic Information Systems (CGIS). Which was created “to store, analyse, and manipulate data collected for the Canada Land Inventory (CLI) –an inititiative to determine the land capability for rural Canada by mapping information about soils, agriculture, recreation, wildlife, waterfowl,, forestry, and land use at a scale of 1:250,000.”
The potential use of the system CGIS was observed into the 1990’s and developed one of the largest digital land resource databases in Canada. Individuals quickly realized that CGIS had the ability to be extremely profitable, and as a result, the software was utilized to produce applications such as CARIS, Intergraph, ESRI, and MapInfo for public purchase. Two innovations, the personal computer and the internet, led to GIS as being easily accessible and understandable, to the point that one application called GRASS GIS helped create Google’s popular program Google earth, in which any individual can use satellite maps to observe any location.
Future of Geographic Information Systems:In the future GIS will be able to help do many more things for its users than it does today. As it does already in storing images, in the future it will be able to compare the stored images of the past and compare to stored images of the future. Graphs and images will be produced to be analyzed and compared with each other.
Space Exploration – As we learn more about space and space exploration, the application of GIS can be used to track and record the climate, position, and other patterns of planets and solar systems. The study of these patterns has the ability to influence space missions with more efficient information.
Real Estate – Based on satellite images, real estate companies and individual’s looking to purchase property will be able to better assess these properties. The images will be used to determine for example proximity to water, cities, and whether it is an urban or rural area.
Interactive and Live – The images produced from such services as Google Earth are usually photograph images of prior years and not necessarily the most recent view. The ability for such software and satellite use to produce live video feeds that can be stored and interpreted for its intended use, will allow for more up to date images which in turn will allow for the capability of such programs to be much more useful while observing an area.
Three Dimensional Images – Currently most of the images stored are of the two dimensional view of the area. The ability to view a photo in three dimensions will only increase the accuracy of the actual object photographed and have the potential to show depth and other characteristics that could only be shown in three dimensions.
Global Warming - The GIS will be able to track the deterioration of the Earth’s o-zone and ice caps by comparing images from the past and present. Given current data it will soon be able to produce maps and an image of what the GIS believes something may look like.
Tracking urbanization and population density changes – images from the past will be compared with the future and will aid in tracking the patterns of humans moving to less densely populated areas. It will also be able to be used in helping the U.S. Census Bureau better assess the census and areas of living of Americans.
Citations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system
http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/gis_poster/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_GIS_software
http://www.innovativegis.com/basis/present/Global/global3.htm
Group Members:
Joseph Miraglia
Francesco Pellegrino
Cullen Onstott
Mike Joyce
Mike Graziano
