Intro & Ch 1 Flashcards
What does GIS stand for?
Geographic Information System or Science
What is A system of hardware and software that links mapped objects to attribute information that describes them and provides tools to store retrieve and manipulate both types of data?
GIS
What is GIS?
A system of hardware and software that links mapped objects to attribute information that describes them and provides tools to store retrieve and manipulate both types of data.
Give 3 examples of areas of study that benefit from GIS
City and Regional Planning
Hydrologic Modeling
Security
Geotechnical Engineering
Transportation
Marketing
Real Estate
Business
Politics
Environmental Studies
Name 3 General GIS tasks
- visualize database information
- combine data from various sources
- understand special relationships
What can a GIS do?
Fill in on computer
What are the 4 system components of GIS?
People/staff, data, hardware, software
discrete vs continuous data
discrete objects: objects exist in a defined location
continuous: data exist everywhere
What is the kind of data that exists in a defined location?
discrete
What is the name for data that exists anywhere?
Continuous
Canoe shelter locations is an example of what kind of data?
Discrete
An elevation raster is an example of what kind of data?
continuous
Is the raster data model grid-based or object-based?
grid-based
Is vector data models grid-based or object-based?
object-based
Are raster continuous or discrete data?
Continuous
Are vectors continuous or discrete data?
discrete
What are stored map objects?
features
What is a collection of similar features stored together, like states or rivers?
feature class
what are the 3 features?
points, lines, polygons
In the ____ model, Spatial features linked to table by unique identifier (FID or OID)
vector
In the vector model, what is the relationship between feature and row in table?
1:1 relationship
In the ____ model, Geographic space is quantized into uniformly-sized discrete units, called pixels or cells
raster model
Name at least two strengths of the vector model:
Can store individual features such as roads or streams with a high degree of precision
Linked attribute table provides capability to store and manipulate feature attributes
Suitable for mapmaking due to great feature detail
Ideal for network modeling
What is a weakness of the vector model?
Poorly suited to map continuous data
Some analysis can be time consuming (updating county level parcel data)
_______ is the ratio of distance on the map to distance on the ground
map scale
What is map scale’s dimension?
it is dimensionless
A ____ scale map covers a larger geographic region such as the world
small