Monday, March 5, 2007

Few useful links for GIS and GPS

Overview of GIS
Introduction : Geographic Information System (GIS) is a computer based information system used to digitally represent and analyse the geographic features present on the Earth' surface and the events (non-spatial attributes linked to the geography under study) that taking place on it. The meaning to represent digitally is to convert analog (smooth line) into a digital form. "Every object present on the Earth can be geo-referenced", is the fundamental key of associating any database to GIS. Here, term 'database' is a collection of information about things and their relationship to each other, and 'geo-referencing' refers to the location of a layer or coverage in space defined by the co-ordinate referencing system. Work on GIS began in late 1950s, but first GIS software came only in late 1970s from the lab of the ESRI. Canada was the pioneer in the development of GIS as a result of innovations dating back to early 1960s. Much of the credit for the early development of GIS goes to Roger Tomilson. Evolution of GIS has transformed and revolutionized the the ways in which planners, engineers, managers etc. conduct the database management and analysis.

Some Interesting Links :

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/tutorials/tuman006pf.htm

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ORNIS Georeferencing Guidelines4

This document contains information about assigning geographic coordinates, and maximum error distances for those coordinates, to locality descriptions. This document does not attempt to describe the tools and methods for finding named places on maps or in gazetteers. The process of assigning coordinates and errors, called "georeferencing" or "geocoding", can be rather complicated. The complexity of the process can be greatly reduced and the consistency of the results can be greatly increased by establishing some guidelines that cover most commonly encountered locality descriptions. The guidelines for assigning geographic coordinates are presented, with examples.

http://manisnet.org/GeorefGuide.html
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The GIS History Project

AbstractThe GIS History Project was launched in 1996, to attempt to foster and coordinate research on the history of GIS. The Project plans to establish an archive for published, semi-published, and unpublished documents about the early history of GIS. Interviews will be conducted with key individuals, and where possible, will be recorded, transcribed, and archived. The project will also study these materials, looking for evidence of the influences of technical, social, and institutional contexts on innovation in early GIS, and in the diffusion of those innovations. Of particular interest will be the degree on independent re-invention or rediscovery of key ideas, a phenomenon that may be under-played in the literature because of the tendency to claim prior knowledge when it is later discovered that someone else had already come up with the idea. Five case studies have been identified for high priority research: The GBF-DIME files of the US Bureau of the Census; the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis; the Minnesota land Management Information System; Triangulated Irregular Networks for terrain representation; and a comparative study of ESRI and Intergraph, focusing on corporate cultures. This paper presents an overview of The GIS History Project, the methodological framework for the research, the justification for the choice of high priority case studies, and a progress report on the Project in general and the case studies in particular.

http://www.ncgia.buffalo.edu/gishist/bar_harbor.html

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GIS RESOURCES

This web page provides links to online material that may be mentioned in classes. This list is primarily provided for students Totonto University, although others might find it useful. It is by no means exhaustive.

http://www.geog.utoronto.ca/info/facweb/Boyes/GIS/Weblinks_Theory.htm

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Links to Online Education Sites for Geeographic Information Systems

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/Education/online/index.htm

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Basics of GPS

First of all GPS stands for Global Positioning System and usually refers to the GPS receiver. The receiver basically receives the signals incoming from constellation of 27 satellites which are orbiting the Earth (actually there are only 24 satellites that are operational and 3 additional for backup in case one of the 24 fails) and from those signals can calculate it’s absolute position on Earth. This satellite system was developed by the U.S. military and after a while U.S. government opened it up for public. Those satellites are circling the Earth making two complete rotations every day. Their orbits are planned the way that at any time and anywhere on Earth there are at least four satellites “visible” in the sky. A GPS receiver locates four or more satellites from the signals those satellites send constantly towards the Earth, calculates the distance to each of the satellites and from this information calculates its’ absolute location on Earth. This process of pinpointing the location of the GPS receiver is based on mathematical principle called trilateration.

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