Definition
GIS is the acronym for Geographical Information System. Geographical Information System is the art, science, engineering and technology combined to display simple geographic queries like population, physical features, soil conditions etc of a region or the whole earth’s surface.
GIS is a generic term that explains the use of computer hardware, software and geographic data for capturing, managing, analyzing, computing and then displaying all the types of geographically referenced information.
GIS and Geography
GIS revolves around the discipline of geography. In simple terms, Geography is the comprehensive study of place and space. This means that those who study geography question the location of things and phenomena on the surface of the earth, the reasons for the location and occurrences, how the places differ from each other and how humans interact with the environment.
One of the notable aspects of GIS is that the features present on earth’s surface can be geo-referenced’ with a database’ related to it. Geo-referencing refers to providing accurate location of a point or area in the space in terms of true earth co-ordinate system while Database is simply a collection of raw facts which are stored in a structural manner related to each other. To put it simply, Spatial data can be described as where thing are and attribute data are what things are.
Geospatial
GIS specifically explores information related to locations on the earth’s surface including the zones of atmosphere. So, Spatial’ is often used as a synonym to geographical’. Since spatial’ can be misconstrued for frames other than on the earth surface like body imaging (medical term) or buildings, geospatial’ has become popular in the context of GIS.
Layers and GIS Views
For the purpose of GIS applications the world is viewed as a set of largely independent layers and spatial elements. Each of the layers represents a specific assigned component of the environment and some set of environmental concerns as well.
GIS has three basic ways of showcasing analyzed information:
- Database view
- Maps
- Models
Geographical Information System or GIS is valuable to a wide range of public and private enterprises for explaining events, predicting outcomes and planning strategies.
LiDAR data