测绘专业英语1UNIT 24.ppt

Unit 24 Data Types and Models in GIS Data Types Data for a GIS comes in three basic forms: spatial data, attribute( tabular) data and image data. Spatial Data –What Maps Are Made of Spatial data is usually stored as themes, layers, or coverages. The georeferenced spatial data is displayed in a GIS in its proper place in relation to other spatial data because of the georeference information attached to the data. An example could be the latitude and longitude in decimal degrees of Bonneville Elementary School in Poca’tello, Idaho ( 42052’14”N, 112026’28”W). The latitude and longitude of this school is embedded in the file so it will be displayed in a GIS in its proper location in relation to other features in the city. Themes can be anything that are currently located on a traditional paper map, such as roads, rivers, cities, wells, forest boundaries, school district boundaries, etc. , and they are all georeferenced. Spatial data or spatial objects in the real world can be thought of as occurring as four easily identifiable types: Points, Lines, Areas, and Surfaces. Collectively, they can represent most of the tangible natural and human phenomena that we encounter on an everyday basis. In general, points, lines, and areas are used to explicitly represent real-world objects, where surfaces are mostly used for volumetric representation, such as to represent hills, valleys. Thus, all data can be considered to be explicitly spatial. Point features are spatial phenomena each of which occurs at one location in space. Each feature is said to be discrete in that it can occupy only a given point in space at any time and considered to have no spatial dimension—no width or length. Examples of such feature would be a house or a village. But a village can be represented by point feature or area feature as well depending upon the resolution of data. Line features are conceptualized as occupying only a single dimension in coordinate space. They are represented as the series of si