Terminology Flashcards
Certification
A process, often voluntary, by which individuals who have demonstrated a level of expertise in the profession are identified to the public and other stakeholders by a third party. Designed to recognize expertise. -GISCI
Deontology
Treat others with respect, and not as a means to an end.
Virtue ethics
View highly moral people as a personal guide or role model
Utilitarianism
Do the most good for the most people.
Kantianism
Follow maxims of conduct that anyone could follow or adopt.
HIPAA
Health insurance portability and accountability act; for the GISP, you must never expose an individuals health records or reveal their address. You can generalize the data so as to not reveal discrete info.
Data dictionary
Not a part of a software, and is often stored in a largely accessible system; describes the content of your data model; you can put codes, units of measurement, coordinate system, update frequency and data sources.
Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
International industry consortium of over 526 companies that develop interface standards; FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable location info and services.
Geopackage
.gpkg extension; based on SQLLite, it’s an open format supported by OGC that supports vector and raster data.
Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
Chaired by the secretary of the Interior, it is an org. Of US Federal geospatial professionals that focus on providing executive, managerial, and advisory direction and oversight for geospatial decisions and initiatives across the federal government.
National Map Accuracy Standards (NMAS)
Overseen by the Federal Bureau of Budget; says that 90% of at least 20 points need to have a horizontal accuracy of either 1/30” for >1:20,000 (ie. Large scale, small area), 1/50” for <= 1:20,000 (ie. Small scale, large area), or a vertical accuracy of 1/2 the contour interval.
Geomorphology
Study of earth’s physical features and their relation to its geologic structures.
Divergent boundaries
Ocean ridge spreading
Convergent boundaries
Plates pushing together
Transform boundaries
Plates sliding past each other
DOQQ
Digital other ortho quad; old aerial file type; USGS
DLG
Digital line graph; old vector file type used by USGS
Root Means Square Error (RMSE)
The average of the distances between the mapped location and the actual location (distance in x and y)
RMSE = √(x1-x2)^2+(y1-y2)^2
Relationship between RMSE and NMAS
Measure the RMSE of 20 points, then compare those values to the NMAS for your map and see if the RMSE is less than or equal to the standard (both accurate and precise). If it is then your map is compliant with NMAS
Accurate
Attributes and features match the real-world data and locations.
Precise
Measurements are replicatable and come close to each other.
Raster Accuracies
Spatial, Spectral and Classification
Vector Accuracies
Spatial and attribute
Fuzzy Tolerance
an extremely small distance used to resolve inexact intersection locations due to a limited arithmetic precision of computers; usually digitizer precision uses a constant of 0.002”
Tenets of Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS)
- Accuracy testing should be performed against an independent source of higher accuracy, such as survey or GPS coordinates
- Compare well known and easily identifiable locations on the raster to known locations on the ground and compute an RMSE
- Raster accuracy should be reported at 95% confidence level
- 20 points minimum should be tested, and should be distributed across the raster area
Pixel
A pixel is a cell, but not all cells are pixels. Pixels have records of a reflected value, used in remotely sensed imagery to identify ground cover or buildings/objects.
Confusion Matrix
A statistical method used to determine the land classification accuracy of a raster-derived classification layer; also called an Error Matrix
Kappa Coefficient
Similar to confusion matrix, a statistical measurement of how the land classification layer lines up with the ground truth; 0 is no agreement, and 1 is complete agreement.
Ground-truthing
Used in error or confusion matrices; Process of taking a set of random areas, called sample classes, and going out into the field to check to see if the land classification layer is accurate and precise compared to the “truth on the ground”.
4 kinds of raster resolution and accuracy
Spectral: are cell values the proper value?
Temporal: Does the raster accurately represent conditions for the time period claimed?
Spatial: is the raster in the proper location and does the cell size accurately represent the area modeled?
Radiometric: Are various features distinguishable from each other? Greater bit depth=higher resolution
CSDGM
Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata; this is the standard created by the FGDC
ISO
International metadata standard endorsed by the FGDC; makes mandatory certain metadata fields, such as Title, Date, Geographic location, Language, Topic Category, Abstract and metadata. Also includes domains and their values.
Geoid
Surface of the earth’s gravity field; wide at the equator, and the pull of gravity is stronger over mountains. Geoid is the earth at 0 elevation
Spheroid (ellipsoid)
The approximate shape of the geoid as a mathematical model; bulges a little around the equatorial region, like the geoid
WGS84
GCS WGS84 is used by GPS units and is the globally preferred spheroid; SRID 4326
Geomatics
The mathematics of the Earth; is an umbrella term for every method and tool used for gathering, storing, processing, and delivering geographic information.
Geographic Coordinate System (GCS)
Used to define locations on the earth/3d surfaces as well as flat, 2d surfaces using grids; made up of Lats, Longs, Extents, the Prime meridian, international date line, the equator, and hemispheres
Datum
Mathematical model related to real world features; are used to shift the spheroid a bit so that it fits part of the earth really well
Control Points
Brass or aluminum survey points installed in the ground by the USGS in the US as well as internationally where the location is calculated to create a reference grid.
Datum Shift
The error of change you see by overlaying features represented in different datums.
NADCON
North American Datum Conversion Software; created by National Geodetic Survey; converts between NAD27 and 83
HARN
High Accuracy Reference Networks; US State Plane Coordinate Systems have been calculated in HARN; incorporates highly accurate measures of elevation
ITRF
International Terrestrial Reference Frame; determined by the intl association of geodesy (IAG) which updates it when tectonic plates move; not based on a spheroid, but upon very sophisticated calculations that come out to about the same as a spheroid-based datum.
Planimetric
Independent of elevation; represented on 2D maps as seen from the air. They contain no relief or elevation representation and are often digitized from ortho-rectified imagery.
Central Meridian
Centers your coordinate system on the area of the globe that you want to be the most accurate (line of longitude)
Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM)
A cylindrical projection that preserves direction and is rotated horizontally; is very useful around the equator; parallels and meridians are at right angles, and are 6 degrees wide, 60 longitude “slices”; typically in meters
Robinson Projection
Used for whole world maps, however it distorts shape; better for mapping higher latitudes
Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area
An azimuth maintains direction and area; lambert conformal conic projections are used for areas that are broader in the E-W range
WGS84 Web Mercator
Used by base maps and web maps; tries to preserve shape, but not area; SRID 3857
SRID/EPSG
Spatial Reference Identifier; Used by OGC
Georeference
Any data tied to real-world coordinates
Euclidean Distance
Bee-line distance, computed using the Pythagorean Theorem.
C = sqrt (a2 + b2)
Manhattan Distance
Sum of the length of the edges
Loxodromic
A line of constant bearing
North Azimuth Direction
Angle is clockwise from N
South Azimuth Direction
Angle is clockwise from S
Polar Azimuth Direction
Angle is counterclockwise from the positive X-axis (E)
Quadrant Bearing Direction
Specify N or S, the angle and the direction; ie. S15E or N45W
Angle of Deflection
Measured as a positive or negative angle away from the previous line
Typography
Process of putting text on a map, such as Labels, annotation, layout text; never use more than 2 font families on a single map
Color Formats and Qualities
RGB, CMYK, HSV
RGB: most common, each color has a value from 0-255
HSV: stands for hue, saturation and value; hue ranges from 0-360 and defines base color; saturation defines lightness and darkness (1-100%); value defines the color intensity (1-100%)
CMYK: all 4 colors are defined as a percentage (1-100%)
Multivariate
Defined literally as “many variables”, describes a map or display that has more than one layer displayed, or overlayed on one another.