approach to separation of spatial and attribute information with a second generation

approach to organizing attribute data into database structures. More functions for user
interaction were developed mainly in a graphical way by a user friendly interface
(Graphical User Interface), which gave to the user the ability to sort, select, extract,
reclassify, reproject and display data on the basis of complex geographical, topological
and statistical criteria. During the same time, the development of a public domain GIS
begun by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineering Research Laboratory (USA-CERL) in
Champaign, Illinois, a branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to meet the need of
the United States military for software for land management and environmental
planning.
In the years 1980s and 1990s industry growth were spurred on by the growing
use of GIS on Unix workstations and the personal computers. By the end of the 20th
century, the rapid growth in various systems had been consolidated and standardized
on relatively few platforms and users were beginning to export the concept of viewing
GIS 4 data over the Internet, requiring uniform data format and transfer standards.
More recently, there is a growing number of free, open source GIS packages, which run
on a range of operating systems and can be customized to perform specific tasks. As
computing power increased and hardware prices slashed down, the GIS became a
viable technology for state development planning. It has become a real Management
Information System (MIS), and thus able to support decision making processes.

COMPONENTS OF GIS
GIS enables the user to input, manage, manipulate, analyze, and display
geographically referenced data using a computerized system. To perform various
operations with GIS, the components of GIS such as software, hardware, data, people
and methods are essential.

Software
GIS software provides the functions and tools needed to store, analyze, and
display geographic information. Key software components are (a) a database
management system (DBMS) (b) tools for the input and manipulation of geographic
information (c) tools that support geographic query, analysis, and visualization (d) a
graphical user interface (GUI) for easy access to tools. GIS software are either
commercial software or software developed on Open Source domain, which are
available for free. However, the commercial software is copyright protected, can be
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expensive and is available in terms number of licensees. Currently available commercial
GIS software includes Arc/Info, Intergraph, MapInfo, Gram++ etc. Out of these
Arc/Info is the most popular software package. And, the open source software are
AMS/MARS etc.

Hardware
Hardware is the computer on which a GIS operates. Today, GIS runs on a wide
range of hardware types, from centralized computer servers to desktop computers used
in stand-alone or networked configurations. Minimum configuration required to
Arc/Info Desktop 9.0 GIS application is as follows:

Product: ArcInfo Desktop 9.0

Platform: PC-Intel
Operating System: Windows XP Professional Edition, Home Edition
Service Packs/Patches: SP 1
SP2 (refer to Limitations)
Shipping/Release Date: May 10, 2004

Hardware Requirements
CPU Speed: 800 MHz minimum, 1.0 GHz recommended or higher
Processor: Pentium or higher
Memory/RAM: 256 MB minumum, 512 MB recommended or higher
Display Properties: Greater than 256 color depth
Swap Space: 300 MB minimum
Disk Space: Typical 605 MB NTFS, Complete 695 MB FAT32 + 50 MB for installation
Browser: Internet Explorer 6.0 Requirement:
(Some features of ArcInfo Desktop 9.0 require a minimum installation of Microsoft
Internet Explorer Version 6.0.)

Data
The most important component of a GIS is the data. Geographic data or Spatial
data and related tabular data can be collected in-house or bought from a commercial
data provider. Spatial data can be in the form of a map/remotely-sensed data such as
satellite imagery and aerial photography. These data forms must be properly
georeferenced (latitude/longitude). Tabular data can be in the form attribute data that
is in some way related to spatial data. Most GIS software comes with inbuilt Database
Management Systems (DBMS) to create and maintain a database to help organize and
manage data.

Users
GIS technology is of limited value without the users who manage the system and to
develop plans for applying it. GIS users range from technical specialists who design and
maintain the system to those who use it to help them do their everyday work. 6 These
users are largely interested in the results of the analyses and may have no interest or
knowledge of the methods of analysis. The user-friendly interface of the GIS software
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 allows the nontechnical users to have easy access to GIS analytical capabilities without
needing to know detailed software commands. A simple User Interface (UI) can consist
of menus and pull-down graphic windows so that the user can perform required
analysis with a few key presses without needing to learn specific commands in detail.

Methods
A successful GIS operates according to a well-designed plan and business rules,
which are the models and operating practices unique to each organization.

GIS SOFTWARE
Geographic information can be accessed, transferred, transformed, overlaid,
processed and displayed using numerous software applications. Within industry
commercial offerings from companies such as ESRI and Mapinfo dominate, offering an
entire suite of tools. Government and military departments often use custom software,
open source products, such as Gram++, GRASS, or more specialized products that meet
a well-defined need. Free tools exist to view GIS datasets and public access to
geographic information is dominated by online resources such as Google Earth and
interactive web mapping.
Originally up to the late 1990s, when GIS data was mostly based on large
computers and used to maintain internal records, software was a stand-alone product.
However with increased access to the Internet and networks and demand for
distributed geographic data grew, GIS software gradually changed its entire outlook to
the delivery of data over a network. GIS software is now usually marketed as
combination of various interoperable applications and APIs.

GIS Software Examples

File software for a geographical information system may be split into five functional
groups. (a) Data input and verification (b) Data storage and database management (c)
Data output and presentation (d) Data transformation (e) Interaction with the user. (f)
Environmental Systems Research Institute ( ESRI ): ArcInfo, ArcView. (g) Autodesk:
AutoCAD Map (h) Clark Labs: IDRISI (i) International Institute for Aerospace Survey
and Earth Sciences: ILWIS (j) Mapinfo Corporation: Mapinfo. (k) Bentley Systems:
Microstation. (l) PCI Geomatics: PAMAP (m)TYDAC Inc. : SPANS (n) Arc View Spatial
Analyst (o) Arc View Network Analyst (p) Arc View 3D Analyst (q) GRASS from US
Army Corps of Engineers (r) GRAMM++ for CSRE, IIT, Mumbai (s) Atlas GIS (t) CARIS
(u) SYCAD.

OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE VS. PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE IN GIS

Open Source Software Proprietary Software
It refers to the software that is developed It refers to the software that is solely
and tested through open collaboration owned by the individual or the
organization that developed it.
Anyone with the academic knowledge can Only the owner or publisher who holds
access, inspect ,modify and redistribute the legal property rights of the source code
the source code . can access it
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