Chapter 1
This chapter did a lot of introduction to GIS. Going along with the reading we did last week helped me to better understand the basic level things that GIS is about. I think until I start to familiarize myself with the actual software and see what certain things do it will be a bit difficult to understand. While the reading gets my brain thinking about it, I can’t really wrap my head around everything fully. This chapter did a good job of explaining what GIS analysis was (before reading I still wasn’t quite sure). It became clear that geographic patterns and relationships between features is a big part of GIS analysis. I believe that the idea behind GIS analysis is to make visual representations of these patterns and relationships. As humans it seems that we need to see things to understand them. By Using GIS analysis we are able to connect the dots between certain attributes of an area. By using different types of data we can find relationships between things, or provide evidence that there is no relationship between certain features. It was interesting learning about the vector and raster models. Vector models tend to be more precise and are good when it comes to showing fixed features like a mountain range is. But if you were trying to show different elevations of a mountain range using a vector model would get confusing. This is where you would use the Raster model with pixels. Raster models are good but if your pixel size is too large then you lose some information if the pixels are too small then you take up alot of storage space. It was interesting to learn that there are certain things that are good about each model.
Chapter 2
While reading this chapter it seemed to me that it focused on the building blocks of making maps, or at least the things you have to think about and do when making a map. Being able to understand why it is important to map where things are, deciding what to map, preparing your data, making your map, and analyzing geographic patterns are all important if you want to get the most out of your GIS analysis. As I was reading, it made sense that it is good to understand what you are looking for when you are getting ready to make a map. It seems that there is always some sort of question or problem trying to be answered or solved, and that is why a map is being made. For example if a law enforcement agency wants to know where the most crimes are happening in the area of a given period of time, so they record where each crime is taking place and then from there they can see where a majority of crimes are happening. The audience seems to be a crucial part in deciding what kind of map to make and how to present it. Knowing what kind of categories you want to present on your map is important. I understand that each feature that you want to have visible on your map has a code that identifies its type of feature. The way I understand it there are larger areas of features, for example zoning areas like, rural, residential commercial, etc. within those categories they get split down further. “Rural” may encompass more specific features like, rural residential and agriculture & forestry. However when expressing the more specific features on a map having too many features in a given area can make the map very difficult to understand and “busy” so in some cases less is more.
Chapter 3
I recognised in this chapter that it focused more on the quantitative features of map making. When representing quantities on a graph, different sizes of shape, different gradients, and colors are used to depict different features of the map. Quantities can be shown in the form of counts, and amounts, ratios or ranks. The total amounts are shown as counts. Totals are the value associated with a feature. These two, counts and amounts can be mapped for discrete features or continuous phenomena. Some times when we are mqppign quantities we are looking at quantities in a given area, like anual snowfall in a place. In this case we would not use counts and amounts we would use ratios. Fro example it would be anual rain fall per square mile. When using ranksin a map you are orderign the features of the map from highest to lowest. I enjoyed the part of the reading about contour lines. I fel like those are a very common thing to see on maps and it was interesting to learn about them. Contour lines have to be big enough to show accurately the features that you want to show but not too small that you cant tell what you are trying to represent. Over all this chapter did a great job of explaining more about making maps.