Ryan Frank is a 23 year old blogger and writer living in San Diego, CA.
Geographic information system, or GIS, is any system that gathers, organizes and analyzes information as it pertains to its geographical location. This includes all computer software that has the ability to represent data in geographical form, whether it is from land surveys, satellite images, aerial photographs or any other source.
By thus combining various layers of information about a particular location, a geographic information system can give its users a better understanding of said location. The layers of information might include rivers, mountains, streams and other natural landmarks; or it might include man-made landmarks like buildings and bridges, or even statistical data gathered from census surveys and other studies. The kind of data that’s imputed into a GIS has to do with what kind of study is being conducted. For example, if one wanted to figure out which areas of a city are more prone to car theft, you can input recent crime statistics into a GIS and come out with a visual map representation of the various kinds of crimes committed in the city you’re studying. You can then use the resulting map to derive patterns and conduct further analysis. The same thing can be done if one seeks to analyze the extent of environmental damage caused by people or machine at a particular location, or to figure out what the best demographics are for a particular type of business venture.
Today’s GISs make use of sophisticated computer software to gather data. The range of uses for GISs is possible because geographical data can be gathered from almost any kind of data. Meaning that most data sets come with some kind of geographical location attached to them, whether it’s a zip code, city, county, country, or address. The digital maps produced by GISs are dynamic, and the data one puts into them can be changed and modified at any time to fit any study’s criteria.
Future Uses
Typically, in the past, GIS technology has been employed mostly by governments and corporations to analyze and produce demographical statics. But with the advent of personal computers and the ever improving abilities of cellphones and other portable computing devices, GIS technology is being put to use more and more in the sphere of consumer electronics. On-board GPS devices for vehicles, iPods and cellphones all have come out with features that make use of GIS technology to prove users with a variety of location based services, or LBS. Using their GPS enabled devices, people can do things like find the nearest gas station or see where the best restaurants in town are located based on reviews.
To learn more about digital maps and digital elevation models please visit http://www.intermap.com.
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