Chapter 1:
Chapter one was the backbone of what GIS is and certain criteria that is needed for the application and data collection. GIS is used to see geographical patterns within data and relationships. Through GIS you can compile various datasets to create the results that are catered to your question you’re proposing. There are different layers to GIS that will create your data set such as features that will represent your data. These features are: discrete, continuous phenomena, and summarized by area. These features will create different maps based on the question you’re proposing and working with. GIS is about layering maps and information to create an end result. This means that on top of the features there are two different ways to represent the information which is vector and raster. On top of this information there are different ways of presenting the data points such as with percentages, numerical, pinpoints and more. A point was made in the book that it’s important to make sure the projections and coordinate systems are the same to ensure the data is presented correctly. All in all, GIS has many different factors that can be collected and compiled which makes each map and creation be different from one another even if they are focused on the same question.
This was a really important chapter and with all the definitions and examples I am understanding more thoroughly what GIS is and how it can be used. The use of visual examples really helped me understand the content a bit better and I feel more prepared to work with GIS with this new information. Some of the parts were confusing for me like the understanding of the difference between vector and raster. To me I just see that Raster is less clear and Vector has more definitive boundaries but I am not sure if there is more to the difference and use of them.
Chapter 2:
Chapter two was talking more about the in-depth understanding of the maps in GIS. There was information about putting your data into GIS and if a certain location isn’t already in the GIS platform, you do have to input it yourself manually. This means that you have to know the location information such as the street address or geographic coordinates. In this chapter there were descriptions about how you should designate your values, how they should be set up, the variations that come with that as well as the limitations. One of the limitations that was described was that a single map should not have more than seven categories. This resulted in being able to combine things that might be harder to put together which can change the outcome of the perception on the dataset. This limits the dataset because some areas shouldn’t be grouped together therefore it caused a disturbance in the creation of the dataset. Through this chapter it also talked about map skills which can really determine what catches the audience’s eyes such as having a zoomed in image of a map or a further away picture. In regards to the limitations of having only seven categories it was also talked about that sometimes having fewer categories can make the understanding easier but also have a more broader result. The final part of the chapter talked about analyzing Geographic patterns, which was really interesting to read about and seeing the variations that Maps can present and what data can be pulled from the data set.
This chapter was mainly focused on zeroing in on mapping and points in which there were limitations benefits to certain areas as well as the orientation that map should have. I thought this was a really good continuation of the first chapter which really helped me understand the ideas behind GIS and what can be achieved from GIS analysis.
Chapter 3:
Chapter three elaborates on the ideas that were talked about in chapter two and dives into the comparison between most and least data sets. As well as focusing on why maps are important and what you can get out of that by summarizing certain data points. Another point that was talked about in chapter three was the idea of exploring the data or presenting a map. Which goes into why you’re creating this therefore understanding whether you need to accommodate it for other audiences or just tailor it to yourself. This chapter touches on just like chapter two did about the counts and amounts, ratios, and ranks, which are all quantities that can be utilized to illustrate information. Further in the chapter there was discussion about dealing with outliers, which is understanding the data set and getting to the most clear and concise map that you can have. It is possible that data sets will have outliers that will result in skewed data therefore they need to be analyzed and adapted to. The part about using charts was really surprising to see the visuals on page 90-91. The data sets were pinpointed as bar charts or pie charts. I had never seen anything like this before so that was something that caught my eye and I thought it was really interesting to see that you can make that type of dataset. This chapter also ended with the ideas of looking at patterns throughout GIS mapping which is really important.
I really thought this chapter connected very well with chapter two and elaborated more on the points that were discussed in chapter two. It was also really interesting to see the further understanding of GIS and how there are so many avenues that GIS can be used for in many different areas.