Geographic Information System (GIS) &

Global Positioning System (GPS)

RE211
.
Week 2 Tutorial 2 : Vector Data

PNGUNRE
Vudal Campus

2025 Semester One (1)

Tutor: Mr Rohan Bola

 Objective
Understanding of vector data models
as used in GIS
Keywords:
Vector, Point, Polyline, Polygon, Vertex,
Geometry, Scale, Data, Quality,
Symbology, Data Sources
 Vector Data
Overview

Vector data provide a way to represent real world features

within the GIS environment. A feature is anything you can
see on the landscape. Imagine you are standing on the top
of a hill. Looking down you can see houses, roads, trees,
rivers, and so on (see Figure 9). Each one of these things
would be a feature when we represent them in a GIS
Application. Vector features have attributes, which consist
of text or numerical information that describe the features.
 Vector Data
Figure 9: Looking over a landscape you can see the main features, such as roads, houses and trees

A vector feature has its shape represented using geometry. The

geometry is made up of one or more interconnected vertices. A
vertex describes a position in space using an x, y and optionally z axis.
Geometries which have vertices with a z axis are often referred to as
2.5D since they describe height or depth at each vertex, but not both.
 Vector Data
When a feature’s geometry consists of only a single vertex, it is referred to as a point
feature (see Figure 10a). Where the geometry consists of two or more vertices and the
first and last vertex are not equal, a polyline feature is formed (see Figure 10b). Where
four or more vertices are present, and the last vertex is equal to the first, an enclosed
polygon feature is formed (see Figure 10c).

Figure 10: Vector point, polyline and polygon geometries

 Vector Data
Point features in detail

The first thing we need to realize when talking about point features is
that what we describe as a point in GIS is a matter of opinion, and
often dependent on scale. let’s look at cities for example. If you have a
small scale map (which covers a large area), it may make sense to
represent a city using a point feature. However as you zoom in to the
map, moving towards a larger scale, it makes more sense to show the
city limits as a polygon.

When you choose to use points to represent a feature is mostly a

matter of scale (how far away are you from the feature), convenience
(it takes less time and effort to create point features than polygon
features), and the type of feature (some things like telephone poles
just don’t make sense to be stored as polygons).
 Vector Data
Figure 11: Landscape features as we would present them in a GIS. Rivers (blue) and roads (green) can be
represented as lines, trees as points (red) and houses as polygons (white).

As we show in Illustration 2, a point feature has an X,Y and optionally, Z value. The
X and Y values will depend on the Coordinate Reference System (CRS) being used.
We are going to go into more detail about Coordinate Reference Systems in a later
tutorial. For now let’s simply say that a CRS is a way to accurately describe where a
particular place is on the earth’s surface.
 Vector Data
One of the most common reference systems is Longitude and Latitude. Lines of
Longitude run from the North Pole to the South Pole. Lines of Latitude run from the
East to West. You can describe precisely where you are at any place on the earth by
giving someone your Longitude (X) and Latitude (Y). If you make a similar
measurement for a tree or a telephone pole and marked it on a map, you will have
created a point feature.

Since we know the earth is not flat, it is often useful to add a Z value to a point
feature. This describes how high above sea level you are.

Polyline features in detail

Where a point feature is a single vertex, a polyline has two or more vertices. The
polyline is a continuous path drawn through each vertex, as shown in Illustration 3
above). When two vertices are joined, a line is created. When more than two are
joined, they form a ’line of lines’, or polyline.

A polyline is used to show the geometry of linear features such as roads, rivers,
contours, footpaths, flight paths and so on. Sometimes we have special rules for
polylines in addition to their basic geometry. For example contour lines may touch
(e.g. at a cliff face) but should never cross over each other.
 Vector Data
Similarly, polylines used to store a road network should be connected at
intersections. In some GIS applications you can set these special rules for a
feature type (e.g. roads) and the GIS will ensure that these polylines always
comply to these rules.

If a curved polyline has very large distances between vertices, it may appear
angular or jagged, depending on the scale at which it is viewed (see Figure
12). Because of this it is important that polylines are digitized (captured into
the computer) with distances between vertices that are small enough for the
scale at which you want to use the data.

The attributes of a polyline describe its properties or characteristics. For

example a road polyline may have attributes that describe whether it is
surfaced with gravel or tar, how many lanes it has, whether it is a one way
street, and so on. The GIS can use these attributes to symbolize the polyline
feature with a suitable color or line style.
 Vector Data
Figure 12: Polylines viewed at a smaller scale (1:20 000 to the left) may appear smooth and curved. When zoomed in to a
larger scale (1:500 to the right) polylines may look very angular

Polygon features in detail

Polygon features are enclosed areas like dams, islands, country boundaries and so on. Like
polyline features, polygons are created from a series of vertices that are connected with a
continuous line. However because a polygon always describes an enclosed area, the first
and last vertices should always be at the same place! Polygons often have shared geometry
boundaries that are in common with a neighboring polygon. Many GIS applications have the
capability to ensure that the boundaries of neighboring polygons exactly coincide. We will
explore this in the topology topic later in this tutorial.
 Vector Data
As with points and polylines, polygons have attributes. The attributes
describe each polygon. For example a dam may have attributes for depth and
water quality.

Vector data in layers

Now that we have described what vector data is, let’s look at how vector data
is managed and used in a GIS environment. Most GIS applications group
vector features into layers. Features in a layer have the same geometry type
(e.g. they will all be points) and the same kinds of attributes (e.g. information
about what species a tree is for a trees layer). For example if you have
recorded the positions of all the footpaths in your school, they will usually be
stored together on the computer hard disk and shown in the GIS as a single
layer. This is convenient because it allows you to hide or show all of the
features for that layer in your GIS application with a single mouse click.
 Vector Data
Editing vector data

The GIS application will allow you to create and modify the geometry data in a layer - a
process called digitising - which we will look at more closely in a later tutorial. If a
layer contains polygons (e.g. farm dams), the GIS application will only allow you to
create new polygons in that layer. Similarly if you want to change the shape of a
feature, the application will only allow you to do it if the changed shape is correct. For
example it won’t allow you to edit a line in such a way that it has only one vertex
- remember in our discussion of lines above that all lines must have at least two
vertices.

Creating and editing vector data is an important function of a GIS since it is one of the
main ways in which you can create personal data for things you are interested in. Say
for example you are monitoring pollution in a river. You could use the GIS to digitise all
outfalls for storm water drains (as point features). You could also digitise the river
itself (as a polyline feature). Finally you could take readings of pH levels along the
course of the river and digitise the places where you made these readings (as a point
layer).
 Vector Data
Creating and editing vector data is an important function of a GIS since it is one of the
main ways in which you can create personal data for things you are interested in. Say
for example you are monitoring pollution in a river. You could use the GIS to digitize all
outfalls for storm water drains (as point features). You could also digitize the river itself
(as a polyline feature). Finally you could take readings of pH levels along the course of
the river and digitize the places where you made these readings (as a point layer).

As well as creating your own data, there is a lot of free vector data that you can obtain
and use. For example, you can obtain vector data that appears on the 1:50 000 map
sheets from the Chief Directorate : Surveys and Mapping.

Scale and vector data

Map scale is an important issue to consider when working with vector data in a GIS.
When data is captured, it is usually digitized from existing maps, or by taking
information from surveyor records and global positioning system devices. Maps have
different scales, so if you import vector data from a map into a GIS environment (for
example by digitizing paper maps), the digital vector data will have the same scale
issues as the original map. This effect can be seen in Figure 13. Many issues can arise
from making a poor choice of map scale. For example using the vector data in Figure
13 plan a wetland conservation area could result in important parts of the
wetland being left out of the reserve!
 Vector Data
On the other hand if you are trying to create a regional map, using data captured at
1:1000 000 might be just fine and will save you a lot of time and effort capturing the
data.

Figure 13: Maps with different scales

 Vector Data
Symbology

When you add vector layers to the map view in a GIS application, they
will be drawn with random colours and basic symbols. One of the great
advantages of using a GIS is that you can create personalized maps very
easily. The GIS program will let you choose colours to suite the feature
type (e.g. you can tell it to draw a water bodies vector layer in blue). The
GIS will also let you adjust the symbol used. So if you have a trees point
layer, you can show each tree position with a small picture of a tree,
rather than the basic circle marker that the GIS uses when you first load
the layer (see Figure 14).

Symbology is a powerful feature, making maps come to life and the data
in your GIS easier to understand. In the topic that follows (working with
attribute data) we will explore more deeply how symbology can help
the user to understand vector data.
 Vector Data
Figure 14: How can you adjust the symbology of vector features
 Vector Data

What can we do with vector data in a GIS?

At the simplest level we can use vector data in a GIS Application in much the same way you
would use a normal topographic map. The real power of GIS starts to show itself when you
start to ask questions like ’which houses are within the 100 year flood level of a river?’;
’where is the best place to put a hospital so that it is easily accessible to as many people as
possible?’; ’which learners live in a particular suburb?’. A GIS is a great tool for answering
these types of questions with the help of vector data. Generally we refer to the process of
answering these types of questions as spatial analysis. In later topics of this tutorial we will
look at spatial analysis in more detail.
 Vector Data
Common problems with vector data

Working with vector data does have some problems. We already

mentioned the issues that can arise with vectors captured at different
scales. Vector data also needs a lot of work and maintenance to ensure
that it is accurate and reliable. Inaccurate vector data can occur when the
instruments used to capture the data are not properly set up, when the
people capturing the data aren’t being careful, when time or money don’t
allow for enough detail in the collection process, and so on. If you have
poor quality vector data, you can often detect this when viewing the data
in a GIS. For example slivers can occur when the edges of two polygon
areas don’t meet properly (see Figure 15). Overshoots can occur when a
line feature such as a road does not meet another road exactly at an
intersection. Undershoots can occur when a line feature (e.g. a river) does
not exactly meet another feature to which it should be connected. Figure
16 demonstrates what undershoots and overshoots look like. Because of
these types of errors, it is very important to digitise data carefully and
accurately. In the upcoming topic on topology, we will examine some of
these types of errors in more detail.
 Vector Data
Figure 15: Slivers occur when the vertices of two polygons do not match up on their borders. At a small scale (e.g. 1 on
left) you may not be able to see these errors. At a large scale they are visible as thin strips between two polygons (2 on
right)

Figure 16: Undershoots (1) occur when digitized vector lines that should connect to each other don’t quite touch.
Overshoots (2) happen if a line ends beyond the line it should connect to
 Vector Data
What have we learned?

Let’s wrap up what we covered in this worksheet:

• Vector data is used to represent real world features in a GIS.

• A vector feature can have a geometry type of point, line or a polygon.
• Each vector feature has attribute data that describes it.
• Feature geometry is described in terms of vertices.
• Point geometries are made up of a single vertex (X,Y and optionally Z).
• Polyline geometries are made up of two or more vertices forming a connected line.
• Polygon geometries are made up of at least four vertices forming an enclosed area. The
first and last vertices are always in the same place.
• Choosing which geometry type to use depends on scale, convenience and what you
want to do with the data in the GIS.
• Most GIS applications do not allow you to mix more than one geometry type in a single
layer.
• Digitizing is the process of creating digital vector data by drawing it in a GIS application.
• Vector data can have quality issues such as undershoots, overshoots and slivers which
you need to be aware of.
• Vector data can be used for spatial analysis in a GIS application, for example to find the
nearest hospital to a school.
• We have summarized the GIS Vector Data concept in Figure 17.
 Vector Data
Figure 17: This diagram shows how GIS applications deal with vector data.
 Vector Data
Here are some ideas for you to try with your learners:

• Using a copy of a toposheet map for your local area (like the one shown in Figure 18),
see if your learners can identify examples of the different types of vector data by
highlighting them on the map.

• Think of how you would create vector features in a GIS to represent real world
features on your school grounds. Create a table of different features in and around
your school and then task your learners to decide whether they would be best
represented in the GIS as a point, line or polygon. See Table 1 below for an example.

Figure 18: Can you identify two point features and one polygon feature on this map?
 Vector Data
Table 3: Create a table like this (leaving the geometry type column empty) and ask your learners to decide on suitable
geometry types.

Something to think about

If you don’t have a computer available, you can use a toposheet and transparency sheets to show
your learners about vector data.

Further reading

The QGIS User Guide also has more detailed information on working with vector data in QGIS.

What’s next?

In the section that follows we will take a closer look at attribute data to see how it can be used to
describe vector features.