GIS and Remote Sensing Lecture Notes
Introduction



What is a GIS?

The US Government says...

".. a system of computer software and procedures designed to support the capture, management, manipulation, analysis, and display of spatially referenced data for solving complex planning and management problems."

Antenucci, 1991, p. 7

Let's see what the US Geological Survey says....

How does a GIS move us toward understanding?

·       How much support can hardware and software give to the brain? (implying that our brain is an expert pattern recognition machine)
vs

·       How much better is a GIS at the task finding spatial patterns than the brain?



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author: harbord@wlu.edu