The book is an "all-in-one" combination of basic theory and practical exercises with software and data included on a CD-ROM. Potential readers / users are students of Geography, Cartography, Urban Planning and other sciences, but also all who are interested in this topic. No pre-knowledge is necessary except of the handling of standard PCs. Theory is given "as few as possible but as much as necessary".
In the first parts a theoretical overview is given concerning different types of spatial (geometric) data and the kind of arrangement (raster and vector data), then going to attribute (tabular) data and the way to connect them with the geometry. Geometric data means in particular that co-ordinates are given – therefore a discussion about various kinds of co-ordinate systems, map projections and transformation between them is included.
The main part of the book contains several tutorials. In increasing complexity, accompanied with texts explaining further theory, the reader can go step by step through the particular working parts. Any intermediate as well as the final results are discussed concerning questions about accuracy and error handling and given on the CD-ROM to provide controls. Standard tasks of Geo Information Systems are shown and trained, including spatial modelling, image rectification, mosaicking, creation of thematic maps, map algebra, multispectral data and their classification.
The software is not limited to the included example data but may be used for own projects. A complete description of the software is part of the book. On the CD-ROM, versions in German, English and Spanish are available. Downloads of actual updated versions can be made any time from our homepage.
