GNR402: Introduction to Geographic Information

Systems: Concept of Spatial Data

Surya S. Durbha, PhD

Professo
CSRE, IITB
r

 Outline

❖ Background
❖ Spatial
Data
❖ Components

 Geotechnology
❑ U.S. Department of Labor has designated Geotechnology as
one of the three “mega-technologies” of the 21st century—
right up there with Nanotechnology and Biotechnology.  
❑ This broad acceptance and impact is in large part the result of the
general wave of computer pervasiveness in modern society.
❑ An obvious advantage with computer mapping is the ability to
change a portion of a map and quickly redraft the entire area.
❑ Updates to resource maps which could take weeks, such as a
forest fire burn, can be done in a few hours.
❑ The less obvious advantage is the radical change in the format of
mapped data— from analog inked lines on paper, to digital values
stored on disk.

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 Basic Map Features

Based on spatial objects (discrete)

New map feature

type based on grid
cells
(continuous)

The digital map provides additional dimensions of depth and time to extend the
features to Surfaces, Volumes, hyper-Volumes and fuzzy-Features
(Berry)

Storing Points, Lines and Areas

(Berry)
Spatial Resolution

(Berry)
Thematic and Temporal Resolutions

(Berry)
Characteristics of Spatial Data
 Continuous Variation

Some characteristics exist everywhere and vary

continuously over the earth’s surface. For
example,
❑ elevation,
❑ Atmospheric temperatur
and pressure,
❑ natural vegetation or
❑ soil type
❑ does not present any visible boundary in the
real world.

Geographic phenomenon as a manifestation

of an entity or process of interest that:
• Can be named or described,
• Can be georeferenced, and
• Can be assigned a time (interval) at which
it is/was present.
Triplets: description,georeference,time- interval

 Geographic Field Vs. Object

A (geographic) field is a geographic phenomenon for which, for

every point in the study area, a value can be determined.

Eg: air temperature, barometric pressure and elevation

(Geographic) objects populate the study area, and are usually

well- distinguished, discrete, and bounded entities. The space
between them is potentially ‘empty’ or undetermined.

In general natural geographic phenomena are usually fields,

and man-made phenomena are usually objects.

 Continuous Variation

Continuous variation can be

presented in several ways:
▪ by taking measurements
at sample points (e.g.
weather stations),
▪by taking transects,
▪by dividing the area into
patches or zones, and
assuming the variable is
constant within each zone
(e.g. soil mapping)
▪by drawing contours (e.g.
topographic mapping)

 Components of Spatial Data

Location
The spatial mode of information is
generally called location. 
Spatial relationship
The connections between spatial
objects are described as spatial
relationships (e.g. A contains B; A is
adjacent to B, A is North of B, etc.). 
Attributes:
Attributes capture the thematic mode
by defining different characteristics of
object
In an attribute table, each object
corresponds to a row of the table, while
each characteristic or theme corresponds
to a column of the table. Thus the table
shows the thematic and some of the
spatial modes. 
s

 Components of Spatial Data

Time:
The temporal mode can be captured in several ways:

- by specifying the interval of time over which an object
exists, 

- by capturing information at certain points in time, or

- by specifying the rates of movement of objects.
❑ Depending on how the temporal mode is captured, it
may be included in a single attribute table, or be
represented by series of attribute tables on the same
objects through time. 

 Modes of Spatial Data

❑ Phenomena in the real world can be observed in
three "modes", namely, spatial, temporal and
thematic.
❑ Spatial mode deals with variation from place to
place
❑ Temporal mode deals with variation from time to
time (one scenario to another);
❑ Thematic mode deals with variation from one
characteristic to another (one layer to another).  

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;

 Scales (Levels) of Measurement

❑ Numerical values may be defined with respect

to nominal, ordinal, interval, or ratio scales of
measurement (or levels of measurement)
❑ It is important to recognize the scales of
measurement used in spatial data as this
determines the kinds of mathematical
operations that can be performed on the data. 

Scales (Levels) of Measurement

 Scales (Levels) of Measurement
1. Nominal 
❑ On a nominal scale, numbers merely establish identity.
For example, a phone number signifies only the unique
identity of the phone. 

❑ Ιn the marathon race, the numbers issued to racers that

are used to identify individuals are on a nominal scale,
since these identity numbers do not indicate any order
or relative value in terms of the race outcome. 

2. Ordinal 
❑ In the race, the finishing places of each racer, i.e. 1st
place, 2nd place, 3rd place, etc. are measured on an
ordinal scale. However, at this level, we do not know
how much time difference is there between each racer. 
 

 Scales (Levels) of Measurement

3. Interval 
❑ On interval scales, the difference (interval) between
numbers is meaningful, but numbering scale does not
start at 0 (there is no absolute starting point). At this
level, subtraction makes sense but division does not.
For example, it makes sense to say that 20°C is 10
degrees warmer than 10°C, so that Celsius temperature
is an interval scale, but 20°C is not twice as warm as
10°C. 

4. Ratio 
❑ On a ratio scale, measurement has an absolute zero and
the difference between numbers is significant. At this
level, division makes sense. For example, it makes
sense to say that a 50 kg person weighs half as much
as a 100 kg person, so weight in kg is on a ratio scale.
 

 Multiple Representations

In practice, it is often difficult to convert from

one representation to another, e.g. from a
small scale (1:250,000) to a large scale
(1:10,000). Thus it is common to find data
bases with multiple representations of the
same phenomenon. Techniques to handle
them simultaneously are very limited. 
 Sources of spatial data
Primary Data Collectio
 Some of the data in a spatial data base may have been
measured directly. For example, they may be derived by
field sampling or remote sensing.

The density of sampling determines the resolution of the

data. For example, samples taken every hour will
capture hour-to-hour variation, but miss shorter-term
variation. Samples taken every 1 km will miss any
variation at resolutions less than 1 km.

A sample is designed to capture the variation present in a

larger universe. For example, a sample of places should
capture the variation present at all possible places. A
sample of times will be designed to capture variation at
all possible times. 
 

Minimum Mapping Resolution

(Berry)
 Spatial Object Contd..
A spatial entity can be defined by five categories of
information

▪ An identifier (name, code number)

▪ Position on the earth’s surface
▪ Character of the entity
▪ Role, behavior or function of the entity
▪ Spatial properties of the entity
 Spatial Object Contd..
❑ Spatial object or entity is
defined by a few parameter

❑ To get a comprehensive
inventory, a number of
attributes are added
depending on the
applicatio

❑ These attributes are given in http://gis.tavanir.org.ir/maghalat/unesco/

an organized form in a UNESCO%20Training%20Module%20on%20GIS%20-%20Module%20E-2_files/

Image44.gif

single table or multiple

tables
n

 Nonspatial Attributes

▪ There may be hundreds of

attributes for encoding in an
information system. Attributes can
be characterized according to
purpose by creating attributes
classes.

▪ Grouping of attributes are done

for the ease of working with data
and gives some particular use of
that information.
 Nonspatial Attributes

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 GEOMETRIC OBJECTS

❑ Points may denote locations of features. They are

considered to be without size
❑ Notion of a line comes from the connection of two
point
❑ Node is considered as a point from which a line starts
or terminates or at which the lines cros
❑ These lines are called links or arcs or edge
❑ A minimum three links are needed to bound a two
dimensional are
❑ A solid is made up of set of areas of facets which
combine to produce an object with an inside and
outside
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 Geometry Hierarchy

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Point objects : defined for a given scale of observation, will
appear in a database as separate lines of information in
a table, with two items of information for position, one
or possibly two items for identification and other
attributes of interest
Line objects : (also referred to as polylines, arcs or edges)
in a simple view of phenomena like pipes and railroads,
are separately occurring phenomena, unrelated to each
other in any way
1. Length of object : for instance, length of canals
2. Orientation such as direction of mineral veins
;

Area Objects : (sometimes referred to as polygons or zones) may

be identified for natural or man-made phenomena, assuring
in most cases a part of the earth’s surface, without heigh
1. Areal extent : for example, the size of lakes
2. Perimeter length : for example, the extent of a shore line
3. Being isolated, or connected to others
4. Holes
5. Overlapping
Volume Objects : (solids or blocks or polyhedra in some contexts)
bring the third dimension of height or depth into the picture
like buildings
1. Volume, as in engineering cut-and-fill operations
2. Area for each two-dimensional component
3. Length of perimeters
4. Holes
5. Having isolated or connected pieces
;

 Transforming Objects

▪ GIS supports creation of new spatial objects from

primitive objects
Example : Overlay of maps generate new polygons
▪  Thiessen polygons are areal objects defined on a set of
point object
▪     Areal objects are defined by point objects using
centroid
▪   Surfaces can be the transformations of lower
dimensional objects
Example : Digital Terrain Mode
    Complex objects get generated in spatial analysis and
modeling
 
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 SPATIAL RELATIONS

    Relations exist between spatial objects like distance,

proximity, nearness, contained in etc.

Points Lines Areas

is a neighbor of is near to is a centroid of
Points
is allocated to lies on is within

crosses intersects
Lines
joins is a boundary of
is overlaid by
Areas
is adjacent to

 Time - Distance

▪  Set of spatial objects by locations or nodes on

network and a table of travel times between all
pairs of places gets constructed

▪ While physical distance remain constant, travel

times are time dependent and the relations are
not in metric space
 
▪ Isochrone maps can be generated showing
contours which represent lines of equal travel
time
 Spatial Data Base

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‘Much of the life of the mind consists in applying concepts to things’
(Fodor 1998:24)