Geographic Information Systems

What is GIS ?

Geographic information systems

A piece of software but a scientific approach to the problem because of the two primary elements of where and how that allowed for it to be analyzed and data displayed spatially

An outcome of both social and technological developments

GIS surpasses the limitations of conventional analyses though its ability of visualization to manufacture meaning from data through rendering it in an image  

Emphasis on social interactions between users, affected populations and technology

History of GIS

Grew out to answer the problem with intergrating technology and epistemology

1962- McHarg method overlay of multiple layers that lead to spatial analysis

Today: Draws upon models developed in the quantitative revolution but meaningful implementations still require an understanding of how models act in shaping the spatial and algorithmic context

Spatial analysis different from mapping because it generates more information or knowledge than can be taken from maps or data alone spatial analysis is a means of extracting information form spatial data

 GISsystems

Incorporate processes such as classification, digital encoding, spatial analysis and output into software 

 GISscience

Interested in the boundaries and how they are defined and how different parameters lead to new boundaries and explore how spatial objects become digital entities what effect that transformation has on their ontologies how to represent different epistemologies within GIS how to model relationships between spatial entities and how to visualize them so that human beings can interpret the results that provides the theoretical bases and justification for the way  that these processes are carried out      

(GISsystems are the medium for ideas that emerge from GISscience)

 Geographic visualization traditional cartography and to the ability to express knowledge about space and spatial relations in a visual form and to picture spatial objects in a way that allows users to interpret pattern