Published on GEOG 469: Energy Industry Applications of GIS (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog469)

Home > GEOG 469 Course Outline > Lesson 1 - Roles of GIS in Energy System Siting Decisions > Characteristics or Components of a GIS

Characteristics or Components of a GIS

A GIS consists of five components or characteristics:

  1. hardware
  2. software
  3. data
  4. people
  5. applications

The combination of these five characteristics makes a GIS. Without all these components, a GIS would have limited value as a tool for analyzing and characterizing spatial information.

Reading Assignment

  1. Read "What are the Parts of a Geographic Information System? [1]" to learn more about these five components.
  2. Learn more about data representation [2]at Wikipedia, including the sections titled "Raster," "Vector," "Advantages and Disadvantages," and "Non-spatial Data."
  3. Use of GIS for Efficient Transmission Line Siting. [3]

 

Source URL:https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog469/node/204

Links
[1] https://www.gislounge.com/what-is-gis/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system#Data_representation [3] http://www.elp.com/articles/powergrid_international/print/volume-13/issue-4/features/using-gis-for-efficient-transmission-line-siting.html