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Spatial Data Types: Faculty of Applied Engineering and Urban Planning Civil Engineering Department

This document provides an overview of geographic information systems (GIS) concepts including: - Geographic phenomena such as fields and objects and how they are represented - Common data types including nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio measurements - Representations of geographic fields using tessellations and geographic objects using vectors - Key concepts for geographic objects including location, shape, size, orientation, and boundaries

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Mohammed Al Maqadma
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26 views

Spatial Data Types: Faculty of Applied Engineering and Urban Planning Civil Engineering Department

This document provides an overview of geographic information systems (GIS) concepts including: - Geographic phenomena such as fields and objects and how they are represented - Common data types including nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio measurements - Representations of geographic fields using tessellations and geographic objects using vectors - Key concepts for geographic objects including location, shape, size, orientation, and boundaries

Uploaded by

Mohammed Al Maqadma
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Faculty of Applied Engineering and

Urban Planning

Civil Engineering Department

Geographic Information Systems

Spatial data types

Lecture 2
Week 3
1st Semester 2012/2013
Content

• Geographic Phenomena
• Geographic Field
• Geographic Object

• Geographic Data Representation


• Tessellation
• Vector
Geographic Phenomena

We might define a geographic phenomenon as


something of interest that
• can be named or described,
• can be georeferenced, and
• can be assigned a time (interval) at which it
is/was present

Relevant phenomena depends entirely on the


purpose of GIS.
Field Vs. Object

Object
Field
Field Vs. Object

(Geographic) objects populate the study area, and


are usually well distinguishable, discrete,
bounded entities. The space between them is
potentially empty.

A (geographic) field is a geographic phenomenon


for which, for every point in the study area, a
value can be determined.
Field View Vs. Object View

Examples:

Object View: Trees, Houses, Streets.

Field View: Elevation, Temperature, Rain


Intensity.

General rule-of-thumb is that natural geographic


phenomena are more often fields, and man-
made phenomena are more often objects.
Data Measurement
• The four measurements and their definitions are:
1. Nominal Qualitative measurements (name, type,
state)
2. Ordinal Quantitative measurements with a clear order,
but without a defined 0 value (small, medium, large)
3. Interval Quantitative measurements with a defined
beginning point (temperature, height, distance)
4. Ratio Quantitative measurements that provide a
relationship between two properties where the 0 value
indicates the absence of the relationship (particulates
mg/m3, time to cover a distance, dissolved oxygen in a
liter of water)
Nominal data values
are values that provide a name or identifier so that
we can discriminate between different values, but that is about all
we can do. Specifically, we cannot do true computations
with these values. An example are the names of geological units.
This kind of data value is sometimes also called categorical data.
Ordinal data values
are data values that can be put in some natural
sequence but that do not allow any other type of computation.
Household income, for instance, could be classified as being
either ‘low’, ‘average’ or ‘high’. Clearly this is their natural
sequence, but this is all we can say—we can not say that a high
income is twice as high as an average income.
Interval data values & ratio data values
do allow computation. The first differs from the second in
that it knows no arithmetic zero value, and does not support
multiplication or division. For instance, a temperature of 20 C is
not twice as warm as 10 C, and thus centigrade temperatures are
interval data values, not ratio data values. Rational data have a
natural zero value, and multiplication and division of values are
sensible operators: distances measured in meters are an
example.
Geographic fields

We can think of a field f as a function from any


position in the study space to the domain of
values of the field. If (x, y) is a position in the study
area then f(x, y) stands for the value of the field f
at locality (x, y).
Geographic fields

Fields can be discrete or continuous, and if they are


continuous, they can even be differentiable.
Geographic fields

Continuous field: the underlying function is assumed


to be continuous.
(temperature, barometric pressure or elevation)

Continuity means that all changes in field values are


gradual.
A continuous field can even be differentiable. In a
differentiable field we can determine a measure of
change (in the field value) per unit of distance
anywhere and in any direction. If the field is elevation,
this measure would be slope,
Geographic fields

Discrete fields cut up the study space in mutually


exclusive, bounded parts, with all locations in one part
having the same field value. Typical examples are land
classifications, for instance, using either geological
classes, soil type, land use type, crop type or natural
vegetation type.
Geographic Objects

When the geographic phenomenon is not present


everywhere in the study area, but somehow
‘sparsely’ populates it, we look at it in terms of
geographic objects.
Geographic Objects

Such objects are usually easily distinguished and


named. Their position in space is determined by a
combination of one or more of the following
parameters:
• location (where is it?),
• shape (what form is it?),
• size (how big is it?), and
• orientation (in which direction is it facing?).
Geographic Objects

Roads are objects, they are characterized by:


• location (where does it begin and end)
• shape (how many lanes does it have)
• size (how far can one travel on it)
• orientation (in which direction can one travel on it)
Geographic Objects
Boundaries
Location, shape and size are fully determined if we know an
area’s boundary,

so the boundary is a good candidate for representing it.

A crisp boundary is one that can be determined with almost


arbitrary precision, dependent only on the data
acquisition technique applied.

Fuzzy boundaries contrast with crisp boundaries in that the


boundary is not a precise line, but rather itself an area of
transition.
Boundaries

As a general rule-of-thumb

Crisp boundaries are more common in


man-made phenomena, whereas

Fuzzy boundaries are more common with natural


phenomena.
Computer representations of
geographic information

In GIS, fields are usually implemented with a


tessellation approach, and objects with a
(topological) vector approach.

This, however, is not a hard and fast rule, as


practice sometimes demands otherwise.
Regular tessellations

A tessellation (or tiling) is a partition of space into


mutually exclusive cells that together make up the
complete study space.

The simplest example is a rectangular raster of unit


squares, represented in a computer in the 2D case
as an array of n × m elements
Regular tessellations
Regular tessellations

• The square cell tessellation is by far the most


commonly used, mainly because georeferencing
a cell is so straightforward.
• Square, regular tessellations are known under
various names in different GIS packages: raster
or raster map.
• The size of the area that a raster cell represents
is called the raster’s resolution.
Point representations

• Points are defined as single coordinate pairs (x, y)


when we work in 2D or coordinate triplets (x, y, z) when
we work in 3D.
• Points are used to represent objects that are best
described as shape- and sizeless, single-locality
features.
Line representations

• Line data are used to represent one-dimensional


objects such as roads, railroads, canals, rivers and
power lines.
• The two end nodes and zero or more internal nodes
define a line.
• Another word for internal node is vertex (plural:
vertices);
Line representations

• Another phrase for line that is used in some GISs is


polyline, arc or edge.
• A node or vertex is like a point (as discussed above)
but it only serves to define the line; it has no special
meaning to the application other than that.

Vertex
Vertex Vertex

Start Point End Point


Area representations

• Employed when area objects are stored using a vector


approach

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