Geoinformatics

Geoinformatics has been described as "the science and technology dealing with the
structure and character of spatial information, its capture, its classification and
qualification, its storage, processing, portrayal and dissemination, including the
infrastructure necessary to secure optimal use of this information or "the art, science or
technology dealing with the acquisition, storage, processing production, presentation and
dissemination of geoinformation" .

Geoinformatics combines geospatial analysis and modeling, development of geospatial

databases, information systems design, human-computer interaction and both wired and
wireless networking technologies. Geoinformatics
uses geocomputation and geovisualization for analyzing geoinformation.

Applications

Many fields benefit from geoinformatics, including urban planning and land use
management, in-car navigation systems, virtual globes, public health, local and national
gazetteer management, environmental modeling and analysis, military, transport network
planning and management, agriculture, meteorology and climate change, oceanography
and coupled ocean and atmosphere modelling, business location planning, architecture
and archeological reconstruction, telecommunications, criminology and crime simulation,
aviation and maritime transport.

Branches of geoinformatics include:

1. Cartography
2. Geodesy
3. Geographic Information Systems
4. Global Navigation Satellite Systems
5. Photogrammetry
6. Remote sensing
7. Web Mapping
 1. Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics,
and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that
communicate spatial information effectively.
The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:
• Set the map's agenda and select traits of the object to be mapped. This is
the concern of map editing. Traits may be physical, such as roads or land
masses, or may be abstract, such as toponims or political boundaries.
• Represent the terrain of the mapped object on flat media. This is the
concern of map projections.
• Eliminate characteristics of the mapped object that are not relevant to the
map's purpose. This is the concern of generalization.
• Reduce the complexity of the characteristics that will be mapped. This is
also the concern of generalization.
• Orchestrate the elements of the map to best convey its message to its
audience. This is the concern of map design.
• Modern cartography is closely integrated with geographic information
science (GIScience) and constitutes many theoretical and practical
foundations of geographic information system.

2. Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline
that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its
gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also
study geodynamical phenomena such as crustial motion, tides, and polar motion. For this
they design global and national control network, using space and terrestrial techniques
while relying on datums and coordinate system.
 3. GIS
Geographic information systems (GIS) or geospatial information systems is a set of tools
that captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and presents data that are linked to location(s).
In the simplest terms, GIS is the merging of cartography, statistical analysis, and database
technology. GIS systems are used in cartography,remote sensing, land surveying, public
utility management, natural resource mangagement,precision
agriculture, photogrammetry, geography, urban planning, emergency
management, navigation, aerial video, and localized search engine.

As GIS can be thought of as a system, it digitally creates and "manipulates" spatial areas
that may be jurisdictional, purpose or application oriented for which a specific GIS is
developed. Hence, a GIS developed for an application, jurisdiction, enterprise, or purpose
may not be necessarily interoperable or compatible with a GIS that has been developed
for some other application, jurisdiction, enterprise, or purpose. What goes beyond a GIS
is a spatial data infrastucture (SDI), a concept that has no such restrictive boundaries.

Therefore, in a general sense, the term describes any information system that integrates,
stores, edits, analyzes, shares, and displays geographyc information for
informing decision making. GIS applications are tools that allow users to create
interactive queries (user-created searches), analyze spatial information, edit data, maps,
and present the results of all these operations.Geographic information science. is the
science underlying the geographic concepts, applications and systems.GIS can be studied
in degree and certificate programs at many universities.

Data representation

GIS data represents real objects (such as roads, land use, elevation, trees, waterways, etc.)
with digital data determining the mix. Real objects can be divided into two abstractions:
discrete objects (e.g., a house) and continuous fields (such as rainfall amount, or
elevations). Traditionally, there are two broad methods used to store data in a GIS for
both kinds of abstractions mapping references: raster images and vector. Points, lines,
and polygons are the stuff of mapped location attribute references. A new hybrid method
of storing data is that of identifying point clouds, which combine three-dimensional
points with RGB information at each point, returning a "3D color image". GIS Thematic
maps then are becoming more and more realistically visually descriptive of what they set
out to show or determine.
Raster

A raster data type is, in essence, any type of digital image represented by reducible and
enlargeable grids. Anyone who is familiar with digital photography will recognize Raster
graphic pixel as the smallest individual grid unit building block of an image, usually not
readily identified as an artifact shape until an image is produced on a very large scale. A
combination of the pixels making up an image color formation scheme will compose
details of an image, as is distinct from the commonly used points, lines, and polygon area
location symbols of scalable vector graphics as the basis of the vector model of area
attribute rendering. While a digital image is concerned with its output blending together
its grid based details as an identifiable representation of reality, in a photograph or art
image transferred into a computer, the raster data type will reflect a digitized abstraction
of reality dealt with by grid populating tones or objects, quantities, cojoined or open
boundaries, and map relief schemas. Aerial photos are one commonly used form of raster
data, with one primary purpose in mind: to display a detailed image on a map area, or for
the purposes of rendering its identifiable objects by digitization. Additional raster data
sets used by a GIS will contain information regarding elevation, a digital elevation
model, or reflectance of a particular wavelength of light, Landsat, or other
electromagnetic spectrum indicators.
Raster data type consists of rows and columns of cells, with each cell storing a single
value. Raster data can be images (raster images) with each pixel (or cell) containing a
color value. Additional values recorded for each cell may be a discrete value, such as
land use, a continuous value, such as temperature, or a null value if no data is available.
While a raster cell stores a single value, it can be extended by using raster bands to
represent RGB (red, green, blue) colors, colormaps (a mapping between a thematic code
and RGB value), or an extended attribute table with one row for each unique cell value.
The resolution of the raster data set is its cell width in ground units.

Raster data is stored in various formats; from a standard file-based structure of TIF,
JPEG, etc. to binary large object (BLOB) data stored directly in a relational database
management system (RDBMS) similar to other vector-based feature classes. Database
storage, when properly indexed, typically allows for quicker retrieval of the raster data
but can require storage of millions of significantly sized records.

Vector

In a GIS, geographical features are often expressed as vectors, by considering those

features as geometrical shapes. Different geographical features are expressed by different
types of geometry:

• Points
Zero-dimensional points are used for geographical features that can best be expressed by
a single point reference — in other words, by simple location. Examples include wells,
peaks, features of interest, and trailheads. Points convey the least amount of information
of these file types. Points can also be used to represent areas when displayed at a small
scale. For example, cities on a map of the world might be represented by points rather
than polygons. No measurements are possible with point features.
• Lines or polylines
One-dimensional lines or polylines are used for linear features such as rivers, roads,
railroads, trails, and topographic lines. Again, as with point features, linear features
displayed at a small scale will be represented as linear features rather than as a polygon.
Line features can measure distance.
• Polygons
Two-dimensional polygons are used for geographical features that cover a particular area
of the earth's surface. Such features may include lakes, park boundaries, buildings, city
boundaries, or land uses. Polygons convey the most amount of information of the file
types. Polygon features can measure perimeter and area.
Each of these geometries is linked to a row in a database that describes their attributes.
For example, a database that describes lakes may contain a lake's depth, water quality,
pollution level. This information can be used to make a map to describe a particular
attribute of the dataset. For example, lakes could be coloured depending on level of
pollution. Different geometries can also be compared. For example, the GIS could be
used to identify all wells (point geometry) that are within one kilometre of a lake
(polygon geometry) that has a high level of pollution.
Vector features can be made to respect spatial integrity through the application of
topology rules such as 'polygons must not overlap'. Vector data can also be used to
represent continuously varying phenomena. Contour lines and triangulatet irregular
networks (TIN) are used to represent elevation or other continuously changing values.
TINs record values at point locations, which are connected by lines to form an irregular
mesh of triangles. The face of the triangles represent the terrain surface