GIS and Remote Sensing Applications

(PBWN445)

Wael AHMED (PhD)

Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing,
Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University.
 Previous

❖Introduction to GIS and Remote Sensing

❖Coordinate Systems

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 Lecture 3

GIS data sources, representation,

software, and applications

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 GIS Data

➢Data Sources ➢Data Representation

• Field Survey (level, total ▪ Vector Data
station, GPS)
▪ Raster Data
• Paper Maps (Scanned Maps)
▪ Attribute Data
• Aerial Photography
• Satellite Images
• UAVs Images
• Statistics Data
• Census Data
• etc. PBWN445 4
 Thematic layers
At the heart of GIS are thematic layers of spatial data
Cases of disease Answer questions by
Road network
comparing different layers of
Census areas
data
Elevation

Land use

Real world
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 Models of representation

❖Vector ❖Raster
• Points • A grid containing cells (with unique Values)
• Lines • Fixed resolution
• Polygons (areas) • Continuous surface

Object view: the world is made up of discrete objects.

Field (Area) view of continuous surfaces (land cover, terrain) - particularly used in physical
sciences e.g. Geology, remote sensing
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 Data Models
Vector Raster (grid)
(points, lines, polygons)

Digital Elevation Model (DEM)

Some analysis functions can work across vector and raster data models
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 Types of feature (object)

• Real-world entities represented in three basic shapes

Points
Polygons
(address locations, chimneys,
(Areas/Regions)
pollution monitoring
(administrative areas, land use
stations)
zones, building footprint)

Lines (Arcs/Routes)
(roads, streams, disease
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vectors)
Creating a point shapefile
OPTION 1 OPTION 2
From a list using X/Y coordinates (CSV) On-screen in an ArcMap Edit session

Add the table (list) to ArcMap Create a new point

using ‘Add Data’ shapefile in ArcCatalog

Right-click on table and Add the shapefile to ArcMap

choose ‘Display X/Y’ and start an ‘edit session’

Select ‘create features’

Displays points as a
option and use the ‘point’
series of ‘events’
tool to add point features

Export events to a shapefile Save edits and select ‘stop

(right-click -> Export data….) PBWN445 editing’ 9
Line (arc) features

Vertices
(coordinates defining Node
points of inflection /
changes of angle) 2
X C
Node
Node X 1

B
A Node
X 3
D
FID From_node To_node Vertices
1 A B (1,4; 4,5; 8,4.5)
2 B C (8,4.5; 11, 8; 15,9)
3 B D
PBWN445 (8,4.5; 11,-1.5; 15,-1.5) 10
 Vector file formats

• Shapefile (.shp) – current standard vector format for points, lines, and
polygons in ArcMap and other software;

• Coverage (including INFO folder) – older GIS format from ArcInfo

(software prior to ArcMap) that preceded shapefiles (still supported in
ArcMap);

• Layer – a thematic layer in ArcMap that could be one of a range of

formats, including a ‘cosmetic layer’ (largely made up of symbols,
lables, and other cartographic elements).
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 Vector file formats

Components of a shapefile (shp):

• cpg - describes the encoding applied to create the shapefile (optional)
• dbf - database file used to store attribute data and object IDs
• prj – contains information about the shapefile coordinate and projection
system (optional)
• shp – contains the feature geometry
• shx - Esri and AutoCAD shape index position to allow searches sbn/sbx -
spatial index file that optimizes spatial queries (optional)
• xml - contains metadata associated with the shapefile (optional)

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Any Question

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Raster

• 50m pixels (cell)

• 400 rows and
columns
(20x20km)
• One elevation
value per pixel

• Raster (also know as grid)

• Continuous surface
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 Raster

• Real-world entities represented as regular grids

– The relationship between cell size and the number of cells is expressed
as the resolution of the raster
– A finer resolution gives a more accurate and better-quality image

Columns

Rows
Vector to
raster

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Difference between Raster and Vector

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 Converting Data to Raster

Data sequence for ascii file in Arc format:

N_cols 480
N_rows 450
Xll_corner 378923
Yll_corner 4072345
Cell size 30
No_data_value -9999
43 3 45 7 3 56 2 5 23 65 34 6 32 etc
35 45 65 34 2 6 78 4 38 44 89 3 2 7 etc
…etc.

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 Converting Data to Raster

If a camera with format (1280*1024) will

capture the parcel in the figure with its 5200,4300

dimensions. Answer the following questions:

1. Width of column (m)
x, y (m)
2. Width of row (m)
3. Cell size (m)

1450,675

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 Converting Data to Raster

Resulting raster can vary depending on “rules” applied

‘entirely contained’

From vector or image ‘contains cell centroid’

‘>50%’

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 Sources of Raster Data

• Converted from vector (point, line, polygon)

• Remote sensing/earth observation (Landsat, Sentinel, etc.)
• Aerial photographs (following image processing)
• Interpolated from point data (e.g. using a distributed sample to fill in
the gaps)

http://copernicus.eu/main/land-monitoring
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Any Question

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 GIS Attributes
➢Attribute Data Street name, Width, Direction,
• Features are stored in a database along Lanes

with information describing them

• The descriptive information stored with a
feature
• Attributes of a street might include its
name, street type, length, street code,
number of lanes, and pavement type
• The attributes of a park may be its name,
area, hours of operation, and maintenance
schedule Address, Lot #, Type, # Rooms,
Owner, Value
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GIS Attribute Table
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GIS Data Representation (cont.)
➢Attribute Data Relationships

24

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GIS Data Representation (cont.)
➢Attribute Data Relationships

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 Types and examples of attribute data
• Classes
– Land cover type, road type, region name
• Relational
– Area, perimeter, distance
• Counts
– Population, vehicles, altitude
• Intensities
– Pollutant concentrations, unemployment rate, average income, road
density, slope
• Fluxes (between locations)
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– Migration, traffic flow, dispersion rate
 Querying attribute tables using Structured Query Language (SQL)

• Standard language for defining and manipulating data held in a

database;
• Used in ArcMap to query tables using ‘Select By Attributes…..’;
- e.g. SELECT FROM ‘layer’ WHERE ‘variable’ = ‘value’;
• Also, the basis for selecting features based on location (‘Select By
Location….’).

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Any Question

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