Anyone know what GIS tools are?

Question

What exactly is GIS?

Answer 1

This article from Wikipedia seems like it would be a good start for you.

Answer 2

Geographic Information systems. Basically data on mapping.

Answer 3

you should follow this link and read the article on wikipedia : GIS

Answer 4

Both the previous answers are correct, but I believe they're somewhat incomplete.

GIS is the abbreviation for Geographic Information System. It does include information about location. Wikipedia GIS does have a nice overview, but I think misses the real point.

To be really useful, that information about location has to be important to the application/business.

For example:

A service company wants to be able to know, at a glance, what areas of their service coverage receive the most call-backs. A GIS along with some mapping software can quickly display this information, along with other important information to this company, simply by using different colors or icons for 'Open Calls', 'Overdue Calls', 'Tech On-Site', etc.

It is the combination of location data and business specific data that makes a GIS valuable.

Answer 5

One of the more popular tool makers for creating / managing and working with GIS Data is Esri

Another one that I have seen that is open source is GRASS

Some very applicable application of GIS information, is for example during times of disaster, being able to give the people in authority the information to make informed guess as to where best to apply their limited resources. Instead of having 5 high way patrol units physically go to 5 bridges to see if they are still standing, you can make a estimated guess based on previous data, as to which one's are likely to still be standing.

Agriculture is probably the biggest users of GIS information, where the combine harvester, while harvesting is gathering data, which allows the farmer to make decisions next year about what crops to plant, or what supplements to use where.

The range of inputs that could be used to gather GIS data is huge, from high resolution Infrared satellite images, to indicate plant growth activity, to a low tech tractor with plow capturing GPS coordinates while plowing.

The tools that GIS professionals use, generally is extremely specialized and in price comparison rival most CAD application.

I personaly think the biggest challenge comes in consistancy in the data, and the problem is, that the earth is not any shape, so there is loads of diffrent ways to identify a point on earth, and that causes a lot of the problems with GIS.

Answer 6

GIS can be either Geographic Information Science or Geographic Information Systems. I think of the System part to be a subset of the Science part.

GISci is more an academic versus I think of GISys as more practical.

The most visible use of GIS right now would be Google Earth, Virtual Earth and other mapping applications that are available to everyone. 10 years ago your mom couldn't go easily look at aerial photos of her house for example. Now that is pretty common place. There are still very specific GIS applications such as fleet management, military intelligence, etc as well. Though with increased spatial support in things such as SQL 2008 GISys will become more and more common for everday applications.

Answer 7

Geographic Information System is an industry standard root of the acronym GIS.

A GIS is a technological infrastructure that provides presentation-based (static maps), analytical (data and statistics) and organizational (process) decision support.

Many non-GIS professionals focus their interests on presentation and lightweight user interfaces (see Google Maps), but the full power of an enterprise-grade GIS is only available in large application suites such as that offered by ESRI, Inc.

Like any other information system, however, the utility of a given geospatial system is determined by the underlying user requirements. What truly sets a GIS apart from any other IT system is the native support for real world coordinate systems and the complex geometric transformations inherent therein. By supporting real-world coordinates, a GIS guarantees that (within a given resolution) the relationships depicted between datasets are true-to-life. With the addition of extended attributes in the underlying database, a framework exists to make real-world decisions using real-world data in real-world relationships with a visual interface that most people can easily interpret.

With this basic premise, all other aspects of modern Geographic Information Systems, whether light or heavy, are merely additional features.

A picture is worth a thousand words.