Geospatial Information Systems (GIS)

From Wikiversity

[edit] Data Creation

GIS Processing software is used for the task preparing data for use within a GIS. This is transforms the raw or legacy geographic data into a format usable by GIS products. For example an aerial photograph may need to be stretched (orthorectified) so that its pixels align with longitude and latitude gradations (or what ever grid is needed). This can be distinguished from the transformations done within GIS analysis software by the fact that these changes are permanent, more complex and time consuming. This a specialized high-end type of software is generally used by person skilled in photogrammetry and / or GIS processing aspects of computer science. In addition, AutoCAD, normally used for draughts of engineering projects, can be configured for the editing of vector maps, and has some products that have migrating towards GIS use. It is especially useful as it has strong support for digitization. Raw geographic data can be edited in many standard database and spreadsheet applications and in some cases a text editor may be used as long as care is taken to properly format data. Examples are OrthoEngine and ArcEditor.