CGB 213: Principle

of Cartography -
Lecture 4 – Data
Sources
 Introduction
 Not so long ago, all information used in a GIS had its
origin in a paper map whose content was later
transformed to adapt it to the nature of that GIS.

 Geographical data were obtained from the

digitalization of printed cartography; that is, from the
conversion of analogical maps into digital data that GIS
can handle.
Introduction
 Digital data have many advantages and
represent an important qualitative improvement.

 Digital data are easier to update, easier to

distribute (especially since the Internet was
created), use less physical space, and are easier
to maintain (digital data do not degrade and
they are easy to replicate without losing quality).
 Introduction
 Techniques for geographical data acquisition have
advanced and it is possible now to create data that
can be directly integrated into GIS.

 Data sources that produce data ready for use in GIS

are called primary data sources.

 Those that generate data that must be adapted or

converted are called secondary data sources.
Data Sources

 Surveying
 Remote Sensing
 Photogrammetry
 Printed Cartography
 GPS
 Voluntary Geographic Information
Systems
 Surveying
 Directly determines the actual horizontal and vertical
positions of objects.

 Two kinds of measurements are made: Distance and

direction.

 Distance is measured using a pedometer, chains, and

tapes. The direction measurements were made with
transits and theodolites.
 Surveying
 The modern surveyors have several automated tools to
make distance and direction measurements easier.

 More electronic systems measure distance using the

time of travel of beams of light or radio waves. The
total station captures distance and direction in digital
form.
Remote sensing

 Remote sensing is the acquisition of

information about an object or
phenomenon without making physical
contact with it.

 In our case, it is applied to objects on the

Earth's surface.
 Remote sensing
A remote sensing system contains the following elements:
❑ A source of radiation (A). It can be natural or artificial. Radiation
emitted by the source reaches the Earth's surface and it is altered
by the presence of the objects on that surface. Remote sensing
studies that alteration. Objects themselves can emit radiation as
well.
❑ Objects (B) that interact with radiation or can emit it, as mentioned
above.
❑ An atmosphere (C)through which radiation moves from the source
to the objects. The atmosphere also interacts with the radiation
and alters it.
❑ A receiver (D) that receives the radiation once it has been emitted
or altered by the objects. The receptor measures the intensity of the
radiation coming from different points in the area being studied
and, with them, generates its final product (in most cases, an
image).
Remote Sensing: Sensors
and Platforms
 The two main technological elements in a remote
sensing system, both related to the receiver, are the
sensor and the platform.

 The sensor is the element that can read the

electromagnetic radiation and register its intensity for a
given zone of the spectrum. It can be a simple
photographic camera or a more specialized sensor.
 Remote Sensing: Sensors
 Passive sensors use natural sources of radiation (in most
cases, sunlight), and just measure that radiation when it
is reflected on the Earth's surface.
 Active sensors emit their own radiation and then collect
it back after it has been reflected.
 An example to better understand this: a photographic
camera is a passive sensor, while a photographic
camera that uses a flash unit is an active one.

 The radiation emitted by an active sensor does not have

to be visible light (as in the case of the flash); the sensor
can emit in other regions of the spectrum.
 Remote Sensing: Sensors
 Technologies such as radar and LiDAR are based on
active sensors.

 The sensor is mounted on a platform, and it performs its

data acquisition from it. Several sensors can be
mounted on a single platform.

 The two main types of platforms are those located

inside the Earth's atmosphere (mostly on airplanes) and
those outside of it (on satellites).
 Remote Sensing: Platforms
 The advantage of airplanes is their availability since
they can be piloted and used to cover any place on
Earth at any moment.

 Satellites, on the other hand, cannot be guided, and

their movement is fixed and defined by a set of
parameters known as orbital parameters, which define
the orbit described by the satellite around the Earth.
 Remote Sensing: Data
Resolution
 Resolutions depend on both the sensor and the platform
as a single operative unit, and on the individual
characteristics of each of them. Four resolutions can be
defined:
❑ Spatial resolution. It indicates the size of the smaller object
that can be distinguished. If the output is an image, the
spatial resolution is the real size of the area represented
by a single pixel.
❑ Spectral resolution. Refers to the ability of a satellite sensor
to measure specific wavelengths of the electromagnetic
spectrum. The finer the spectral resolution, the narrower
the wavelength range for a particular channel or band.
Remote Sensing: Data
Resolution
 Radiometric resolution indicates the level of detail of
the intensity measurement taken for each of the
spectral regions that are registered. It describes the
ability of a sensor to discriminate very slight changes in
energy.
 Temporal resolution indicates the time that it takes the
sensor to return to a given place.
 Photogrammetry
 Photogrammetry is the technique used to
study and precisely define the shape, size, and
position in space of any object, using
measurements from photographs.

 Of special interest to Cartography and GIS is

the branch of photogrammetry known as
aerial photogrammetry, which uses aerial
photographs, and is mainly used for
generating elevation data.
 Photogrammetry
 Instead of single images, this branch of
photogrammetry uses pairs of images, each of
them taken from a different point.

 These images form a stereo pair and with them,

a three-dimensional reconstruction of the
original scene can be produced.
 This can be used by an operator to see the
scene with depth and volume so that terrain
forms can be identified, and elevation
information obtained.
 Printed cartography.
Digitization
 A large amount of cartography exists in printed
form, such as maps or old analogical aerial
photographs. To be used in a GIS, this
cartography must be digitized, which means
creating raster or vector layers from them.

 In this latter case it also implies separating the

different types of information that the map might
contain, since the information in a single printed
map would be stored in independent layers, in
GIS.
 Printed cartography.
Digitization
Digitizing a printed cartographic document involves
three steps:
❑ Georeferencing the original document. That is, setting
a geographical context (coordinate system, control
points, etc.), so the digitized elements produced are
correctly referenced.
❑ Digitizing the spatial component. That is, creating the
corresponding geometries.
❑ Digitizing the thematic component. Creating cell
values for raster layers or attributes in the case of
vector layers.
 Printed cartography.
Digitization
 Digitization can be manual or automatic. If
manual, an operator introduces the value, while
an automatic process is done through an
algorithm.

 To create raster layers, the most common

method is scanning the original document using
a scanner which creates a digital image from
an analogical one.
 Digitization Quality
 One of the most important aspects of digitization
is the quality of its result, which should be as
close as possible to the quality of the document
being digitized.

 Digitization is never perfect, regardless of the

accuracy of the equipment that is used or the
skills of the person who performs it. There will
always be errors and deficiencies.
 Digitization Quality
 Information contained in a cartographic
document might include elements that are
problematic and will decrease the quality of the
resulting data.

 A map that contains stains or has some lines that

are not correctly visible will result in errors when
digitizing its vector features (especially in the
case of automatic digitization) regardless of the
quality of the scanning process that is required
before.
 GPS
 One of the most relevant advancements in
geographical data sources has been global
navigation satellite systems (GNSS).

 For any given point and at any time, these systems

allow us to know the exact location of that point with
an accuracy of a few meters or less.

 To do that, they use a constellation of satellites to

which information is transmitted from the study point
and use that transmission to compute the coordinates
of the point.
 GPS
 The first and most popular of these systems is the
Global Positioning System (GPS). It has 24 active
satellites (the satellite segment) along with terrestrial
stations to control them (the control segment) and it
is based on trilateration.
 Distances are measured from a GPS unit (the user
segment) to a certain number of satellites.
 Knowing those distances and the exact position of
the satellites, the position of the unit can be
computed. Position is computed with its x, y and z
coordinates.
 The GPS system uses WGS-84 as its reference ellipsoid.
 Voluntary Geographical
Information
 The participative ideas of the so-called Web 2.0, when
combined with tools such as recreational GPS units, or
with simplified software for editing and digitizing, result
in interesting initiatives in which people, with no specific
training in cartography or surveying, can acquire and
share geographical information.

 Although this cannot be considered a different data

source, there is an important change in the philosophy
behind data collection and usage, which makes it
worthwhile to treat this type of data separately in the
context of this course.
 Voluntary Geographical
Information
 The term Volunteered Geographical Information (VGI) refers
to the use of the Internet to create, manage, and share
geographical information that has been voluntarily
contributed by a community of users, also using the Internet.
The set of techniques and tools used by those users is
termed neogeography.

 Neogeography has changed some fundamental ideas in

cartography since it has modified the traditional concept of
geographical information (which was created by a very
skilled few), its characteristics, or the role it played in certain
fields. The following are some ideas about these changes
and neogeography itself.
 Voluntary Geographical
Information
 Popularization and democratization. Cartographic
production has always been in the hands of
governments or agencies and, in many cases, has been
strongly censored due to its high strategic value. With
the advent of VGI, geographical information has
become more democratic, and its creation is a free,
participative, and unrestricted process. The top-down
approach that had dominated the production and use
of cartography is thus inverted.
 Voluntary Geographical
Information
 Citizens become “sensors” and are more
conscious of their geospatial reality.

 The most relevant VGI project currently is

OpenStreetMap (OSM), a `` collaborative
project to create a free editable map of the
world.''.
 Metadata
 Regardless of their origin, data might need
additional data to be interpreted.

 For instance, if we have the coordinates of a point,

to correctly interpret it we need, among other
things, the coordinate system in which those
coordinates are expressed.

 The data we work with (the coordinates) should be

accompanied by some ancillary data.
Metadata
 This ancillary data is known as metadata.
Metadata is data about the data, and its
purpose is to explain the meaning of the data.

 That is, they help the user to better understand

the meaning of the data and the information
that they contain.

 Metadata is an additional document that

accompanies the data and that allows for
better management and use.
 Metadata
 Two of the main functions of metadata are ensuring the
correct use of data and facilitating its management,
discovery, and exploitation.

 Geographical data, as with many other types of data,

are usually created for a given purpose, and that
purpose does not have to be contained in the data
themselves or be easy to infer from them.
 When data are then used for a different purpose,
problems might arise, since the data might have some
deficiencies when used in this new context. With the
help of metadata, this can be solved.
 Metadata
 Some of the common elements that are added to
metadata in the case of geographical data are:
❖ identification information (information about their quality
(including their origin)).

❖ Data lineage - information about its distribution (access,

license, etc.)

 Metadata can be created at the data origin, at the

same time as the data themselves are created. It can
also be extended later by data distributors, managers,
or users.
 Data editing and quality
assurance
 Data editing and verification is in response to the errors
that arise during the encoding of spatial and non-
spatial data.
 The editing of spatial data is time-consuming. Several
kinds of errors can occur during data input.
 They can be classified as
❑ Incompleteness of the spatial data.
❑ Locational placement errors of spatial data.
❑ Distortion of spatial data.
❑ Incorrect linkages between spatial and attribute
data.