GIS Lecture GIS & RS

GIS AND REMOTE SENSING

Course Code: CIEG 302

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Overlay
• Visual overlay
• Data merging overlay
• Overlay principles
• Intersect and Union
• Overlay options
• Clip operations
• Mask and replace
• Database merging
• Append themes

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Visual Overlay
• Overlay is a GIS operation that superimposes multiple data sets
(representing different themes) together for the purpose of
identifying relationships between them.
• An overlay creates a composite map by combining the geometry and
attributes of the input data sets.
• Tools are available in most GIS software for overlaying both Vector
or raster data.
• Before the use of computers, a similar effect was developed by Ian
McHarg and others by drawing maps of the same area at the same
scale on clear plastic and actually laying them on top of each other.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Visual Overlay

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Data Merging Overlay

• There are many needs in GIS for combining several themes into a
single one for permanent use.
• By merging the data rather than just visually overlaying, new themes
with derived data are constructed.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Overlay Principles
• There are various spatial relationship overlays that can be performed.
• The basic overlay relationships sometimes termed as Boolean
Overlays because of the logic used.
Intersection and Union
• Two of the most useful overlays are the intersect and union
operations.
– Intersect merges only the parts that share common space (where
the two themes overlap.)

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Intersection and Union

• Union is Analysis tool used to perform overlay analysis on feature
classes.
• Union combines all of the features involved.
• Union provides the comprehensive data merging rather than just
visual display overlay.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Clip operation
• In GIS, to clip is to overlay a polygon on one or more target features
(layers) and extract from the target feature (or features) only the
target feature data that lies within the area outlined by the clip
polygon.
• In other words, the boundaries of the second polygon are imposed
on the first polygon.
• All other area is discarded and is no longer part of the first polygon
feature.
• The clipped data becomes a new feature.
• Clipping to form a new feature class creates a study area or specific
area of interest that is an important function when working in GIS.
• This becomes advantageous when an analyst only needs to work
with a certain focus area; he/she can discard the unnecessary spatial
information with no loss to his/her core data.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Clip operation
• An example of using the clip tool would be analyzing traffic patterns
at a college campus.
• An analyst does not need road data outside of the college campus, so
he/she may clip the road data to the college campus boundary.
• A clip operation can be done using raster or vector data.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Append Themes
• GIS permits joining adjacent or partially overlapping themes.
• This is called append, or sometimes merge or mosaic.
• In effect, the append operation adds one or more themes or maps to
an existing one.
• Two requirements normally are that, both must be properly
georeferenced and that they share at least one common item in the
database in order to have a join item.
• Append is simply a matter of joining features according to their
actual world locations.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Map Algebra
• The use of mathematical operation is called map algebra, which
usually includes add, subtract, multiply, divide etc.
• The multiplication and maximum functions are two other common
types of overlay operations that make use of map algebra.
• There are three ways to use Map Algebra:
– The Raster Calculator tool
– The Python window
– Python integrated development environment (IDE).

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

The Raster Calculator tool

• The Raster Calculator tool executes Map Algebra expressions.
• The tool has an easy-to-use calculator interface from which most
Map Algebra statements can be created by simply clicking buttons.
• Raster Calculator can be used as a stand-alone tool, but it can also
be used in Model Builder.
• As a result, the tool allows the power of Map Algebra to be
integrated into Model Builder.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Buffers
• Building zone around features is a standard and very useful GIS
capability (but difficult to do manually).
• Buffer is the common term for the zones, though other names are
associated with this process, such as spread, search and corridor.
• Buffers have many uses, mostly dealing with distance from selected
features.

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018
GIS Lecture GIS & RS

Buffers

Er. Santosh Chaudhary Faculty of Civil & Geomatics Engineering Kathmandu University 27/01/2018