Exercise 1: Introduction to GIS software, spatial data creation and

editing
Geographic Information System (GIS)
Geographical Information System (GIS) is a technology that provides the means to collect and
use geographic data to assist in the development of Agriculture. GIS is a system for capturing,
storing, analyzing and managing data and associated attributes, which are spatially referenced to
the Earth. The geographical information system is also called as a geographic information system
or geospatial information system. It is an information system capable of integrating, storing,
editing, analyzing, sharing and displaying geographically referenced information.
In a more generic sense, GIS is a software tool that allows users to create interactive queries,
analyze the spatial information, edit data, maps and present the results of all these operations. In
the year 1962, the world's first true operational GIS was developed by the federal Department of
Forestry and Rural Development in Ottawa, Canada by Dr. Roger Tomlinson. It was called the
"Canada Geographic Information System" (CGIS) and was used to store, analyze, and
manipulate data collected for the Canada Land Inventory (CLI). It is an initiative to determine
the land capability for rural Canada by mapping information about soils, agriculture, recreation,
wildlife, forestry, and land use at a scale of 1:50,000.

Components of GIS
GIS enables the user to input, manage, manipulate, analyze, and display geographically
referenced data using a computerized system. To perform various operations with GIS, the
components of GIS such as software, hardware, data, people and methods are essential.

 Software
GIS software provides the functions and tools needed to store, analyze, and display
geographic information.

 Hardware
Hardware is the computer on which a GIS operates. Today, GIS runs on a wide range of
hardware types, from centralized computer servers to desktop computers used in stand-
alone or networked configurations.

 Data
The most important component of a GIS is the data. Geographic data or Spatial data and
related tabular data can be collected in-house or bought from a commercial data provider.
Spatial data can be in the form of a map/remotely-sensed data such as satellite imagery
and aerial photography.
Spatial data refers to information that has a geographic or spatial component. It represents
the physical location, size and shape of objects on the Earth’s surface. Non-spatial data,
 in contrast, lacks any geographical components. This data represents the information that
is independent of any spatial constraints.

 Users
GIS technology is of limited value without the users who manage the system and to
develop plans for applying it. GIS users range from technical specialists, who design and
maintain the system, to those who use it to help them do their everyday work.

 Methods
A successful GIS operates according to a well-designed plan and business rules, which
are the models and operating practices unique to each organization.

GIS software
Geographic information can be accessed, transferred, transformed, overlaid, processed and
displayed using numerous software applications. Within industry commercial offerings from
companies such as ESRI- ArcGIS, ERDAS and Mapinfo dominate, offering an entire suite of
tools. Government and military departments often use custom software, open source products,
such as QGIS, GRASS, or more specialized products that meet a well-defined need. Free tools
exist to view GIS datasets and public access to geographic information is dominated by online
resources such as Google Earth and interactive web mapping. Many GIS software applications
are available–both commercial and open source. Two popular applications
are ArcGIS and QGIS.

ArcGIS
A popular commercial GIS software is ArcGIS developed by ESRI (ESRI, pronounced ez-
ree), was once a small land-use consulting firm which did not start developing GIS software
until the mid 1970s. The ArcGIS desktop environment encompasses a suite of applications
which include ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcScene and ArcGlobe. ArcGIS comes in three
different license levels (basic, standard and advanced) and can be purchased with
additional add-on packages. As such, a single license can range from a few thousand dollars
to well over ten thousand dollars. In addition to software licensing costs, ArcGIS is only
available for Windows operating systems; so if your workplace is a Mac only environment,
the purchase of a Windows PC would add to the expense.

QGIS
A very capable open source (free) GIS software is QGIS. It encompasses most of the
functionality included in ArcGIS. If you are looking for a GIS application for your Mac or
Linux environment, QGIS is a wonderful choice given its multi-platform support.

Spatial Data
Spatial data is any type of data that directly or indirectly references a specific geographical area
or location. Maps are common practice of presenting spatial data as they can easily communicate
complex topics.
Various steps involved in preparing spatial data area:
1. Assessing Your Spatial Data Needs
You use a geographic information system when you want to explore data in the context of a map,
so you must have a map in in the form of spatial data in order to use SAS/GIS software.
2. Assessing Your Attribute Data
The first step in deciding what spatial data you need is to assess the attribute data that you want
to analyze. Obviously, the attribute data must have a spatial component. That is, the data must
contain at least one variable with values that relate to location.
3. Determining Your Spatial Data Requirements
In order to analyze the attribute data with SAS/GIS software, you need spatial data that contain
representations of features to at least the same level of detail as the location information in your
attribute data. For example, if your attribute data consist of demographic data for states, then
your spatial data must provide at least state boundaries.
4. Locating a Source of Spatial Data
You may be able to purchase appropriate spatial data that have already been prepared in
SAS/GIS format by a commercial data vendor. Contact SAS Institute Technical Support for
information on sources for spatial data in SAS/GIS format.
The other way to acquire spatial data for use with SAS/GIS software is to import it from other
formats. One readily accessible source of maps for importing is the map data sets that are
provided with SAS/GRAPH software, although these maps provide only political boundaries and
not other physical features such as rivers or major highways.
5. Importing Your Spatial Data
Suppose you are given the task of determining average household income by county for the
states of North Carolina and South Carolina, based on the information that is collected in the
MAPS. In order to analyze the data in MAPS, you need a map with corresponding state and
county boundaries and compatible identifier values. The MAPS map data set that is supplied
with SAS/GRAPH software has coordinates for U.S. state and county boundaries and also uses
FIPS codes to identify states and counties, so it is a compatible source of spatial data.
6. Changing the Default Characteristics of a Map
Once you have imported a new map or loaded a new SAS/GIS software spatial database from a
commercial vendor, you may want to change some of the default characteristics of the map to
suit your needs and preferences.
7. Linking the Attribute Data to the Spatial Data
Before you can use your spatial data as a basis for exploring your attribute data, you must link
the attribute data to the spatial data.
8. Saving the Map Characteristics

Data editing
Geographic Information System simply represents real world conditions with the aid of
computer. It is a tool for analyzing the problems. For that we need some data that may be spatial
or non-spatial. These data may include errors. We could expect errors from the original source as
well as derived during encoding. Before the processing of data it is essential to identify and
eliminate the error, otherwise it will contaminate the GIS data base.
The pre-processing of GIS data i.e. data editing can be grouped in to the following:
 Detecting and correcting errors
 Reprojection, transformation and generalization.
 Edge matching and rubber sheeting.
Spatial data editing
Spatial data error creates more problems and it is difficult to identify. We have two types of
spatial data one is raster and the other is vector. Raster data is a spatial data model that uses a
grid and cells to represent the spatial variation of a feature, while vector data is adata model that
uses points and their x-y coordinates to construct spatial features. Both types have different types
or errors and correcting measures.
1. Raster data editing
Raster data editing refers to correcting specific contents of raster images than their general
characteristics. Commonly used raster data editing functions are:
 Filling holes and gaps: it used to fill holes and gaps appear in raster images.
 Edge smoothing and boundary simplification: remove or fill single pixel irregularities
along line edges.
 Deskewing: it is used to rotate the image.
 Speckle removal or filtering: to remove speckles or random high or low valued pixels in
the image.
 Erase and delete: remove unwanted pixels.
 Thinning: to reduce the representation of linear features to single cell width. It is done to
preserve sharp corners and round corners.
 Clipping: to cut and remove specific portions of raster image.
 Drawing and rasterisation: to add vector graphics or text to raster form in a new image.

2. Vector data editing

Errors may occur in vector data also. These errors are mainly because of digitizing process. Most
GIS packages are providing editing tools for identification and removal of errors in vector data.
Some of the errors and correcting measures are:
 Pseudo nodes
These are false nodes occur where a line connects itself, or where two lines intersect
along a parallel path rather than crossing. These incorrect nodes can be corrected by
either selecting or deleting when necessary or by adding nodes where needed to convert a
polygon.
 Dangling nodes
It can be defined as a single node connected to a single line entity and it can be result
from three possible mistakes.
 Failure to close the polygon [unclosed polygon]: failure to close the polygon.
 Undershoot: failure to connect the node to the object it was supposed to be
connected.
 Overshoot: if a node going beyond the entity where it is supposed to be connected
is called overshoot.
 For undershoot, the node is moved or snapped to the object to which it should be
connected. Overshoot errors can be corrected by identifying intended line
intersection points and clipping the line so that it connects where it is supposed to.
Open polygon merely move one of the nodes to connect with other.
Label errors
There are two types of errors can be occur related with polygons. One is missing labels and the
other is too many labels. We can rectify it by adding or deleting labels wherever necessary.