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76-551: The United States Bureau of Mines selected a location in Albany to be home to the Northwest Electro-development Laboratory on March 17, 1943. The grounds of the center and some buildings had been the home of Albany College (now Lewis & Clark College) from 1925 until 1937. The facility was planned to develop new metallurgical processes as well as study ways to use low-grade resources using

152-504: A ground sample distance of 1 inch (2.54 cm) in only 12 minutes. The majority of digital data currently comes from photo interpretation of aerial photographs. Soft-copy workstations are used to digitize features directly from stereo pairs of digital photographs. These systems allow data to be captured in two and three dimensions, with elevations measured directly from a stereo pair using principles of photogrammetry . Analog aerial photos must be scanned before being entered into

228-409: A spatial database ; however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system also to include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, the body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations. The uncounted plural, geographic information systems , also abbreviated GIS, is the most common term for

304-409: A "real" physical location or extent. This key characteristic of GIS has begun to open new avenues of scientific inquiry and studies. While digital GIS dates to the mid-1960s, when Roger Tomlinson first coined the phrase "geographic information system", many of the geographic concepts and methods that GIS automates date back decades earlier. One of the first known instances in which spatial analysis

380-596: A GIS database, which can be grouped into three categories: primary data capture , the direct measurement phenomena in the field (e.g., remote sensing , the global positioning system ); secondary data capture , the extraction of information from existing sources that are not in a GIS form, such as paper maps, through digitization ; and data transfer , the copying of existing GIS data from external sources such as government agencies and private companies. All of these methods can consume significant time, finances, and other resources. Survey data can be directly entered into

456-567: A GIS for both kinds of abstractions mapping references: raster images and vector . Points, lines, and polygons represent vector data of mapped location attribute references. A new hybrid method of storing data is that of identifying point clouds, which combine three-dimensional points with RGB information at each point, returning a 3D color image . GIS thematic maps then are becoming more and more realistically visually descriptive of what they set out to show or determine. GIS data acquisition includes several methods for gathering spatial data into

532-551: A GIS from digital data collection systems on survey instruments using a technique called coordinate geometry (COGO). Positions from a global navigation satellite system ( GNSS ) like the Global Positioning System can also be collected and then imported into a GIS. A current trend in data collection gives users the ability to utilize field computers with the ability to edit live data using wireless connections or disconnected editing sessions. The current trend

608-475: A MHD laboratory. United States Bureau of Mines For most of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Mines ( USBM ) was the primary United States government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction, processing, use, and conservation of mineral resources . The Bureau was abolished in 1996. The U.S. Bureau of Mines was established in

684-478: A full suite of capabilities for entering, managing, analyzing, and visualizing geographic data, and are designed to be used on their own. Starting in the late 1990s with the emergence of the Internet , as computer network technology progressed, GIS infrastructure and data began to move to servers , providing another mechanism for providing GIS capabilities. This was facilitated by standalone software installed on

760-507: A geographic methodology in pinpointing the source of an outbreak in epidemiology. While the basic elements of topography and theme existed previously in cartography , Snow's map was unique due to his use of cartographic methods, not only to depict, but also to analyze clusters of geographically dependent phenomena. The early 20th century saw the development of photozincography , which allowed maps to be split into layers, for example one layer for vegetation and another for water. This

836-449: A map made against a local datum may not be the same as one obtained from a GPS receiver . Converting coordinates from one datum to another requires a datum transformation such as a Helmert transformation , although in certain situations a simple translation may be sufficient. In popular GIS software, data projected in latitude/longitude is often represented as a Geographic coordinate system . For example, data in latitude/longitude if

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912-410: A new dimension to business intelligence termed " spatial intelligence " which, when openly delivered via intranet, democratizes access to geographic and social network data. Geospatial intelligence , based on GIS spatial analysis, has also become a key element for security. GIS as a whole can be described as conversion to a vectorial representation or to any other digitisation process. Geoprocessing

988-564: A radiological survey was conducted of the site in 1985. Portions of 18 buildings and 37 exterior locations were designated as needing decontamination. The cleanup was done in two phases: Phase I from July 1987 to January 1988 and Phase II from August 1990 to April 1991. The hazardous waste material was sent to the Hanford Site for disposal. The site was certified to Department of Energy standards and guidelines for cleanup of residual radioactive contamination in 1993. In conjunction with

1064-998: A relational database containing text or numbers can relate many different tables using common key index variables, GIS can relate otherwise unrelated information by using location as the key index variable. The key is the location and/or extent in space-time. Any variable that can be located spatially, and increasingly also temporally, can be referenced using a GIS. Locations or extents in Earth space–time may be recorded as dates/times of occurrence, and x, y, and z coordinates representing, longitude , latitude , and elevation , respectively. These GIS coordinates may represent other quantified systems of temporo-spatial reference (for example, film frame number, stream gage station, highway mile-marker, surveyor benchmark, building address, street intersection, entrance gate, water depth sounding, POS or CAD drawing origin/units). Units applied to recorded temporal-spatial data can vary widely (even when using exactly

1140-502: A result of this, Tomlinson has become known as the "father of GIS", particularly for his use of overlays in promoting the spatial analysis of convergent geographic data. CGIS lasted into the 1990s and built a large digital land resource database in Canada. It was developed as a mainframe -based system in support of federal and provincial resource planning and management. Its strength was continent-wide analysis of complex datasets . The CGIS

1216-479: A road network, lines must connect with nodes at an intersection. Errors such as undershoots and overshoots must also be removed. For scanned maps, blemishes on the source map may need to be removed from the resulting raster . For example, a fleck of dirt might connect two lines that should not be connected. The earth can be represented by various models, each of which may provide a different set of coordinates (e.g., latitude, longitude, elevation) for any given point on

1292-449: A scale of 1:50,000. A rating classification factor was also added to permit analysis. CGIS was an improvement over "computer mapping" applications as it provided capabilities for data storage, overlay, measurement, and digitizing /scanning. It supported a national coordinate system that spanned the continent, coded lines as arcs having a true embedded topology and it stored the attribute and locational information in separate files. As

1368-492: A server, similar to other server software such as HTTP servers and relational database management systems , enabling clients to have access to GIS data and processing tools without having to install specialized desktop software. These networks are known as distributed GIS . This strategy has been extended through the Internet and development of cloud-based GIS platforms such as ArcGIS Online and GIS-specialized software as

1444-498: A service (SAAS), and mobile computing . The distinction must be made between a singular geographic information system , which is a single installation of software and data for a particular use, along with associated hardware, staff, and institutions (e.g., the GIS for a particular city government); and GIS software , a general-purpose application program that is intended to be used in many individual geographic information systems in

1520-508: A service (SAAS). The use of the Internet to facilitate distributed GIS is known as Internet GIS . An alternative approach is the integration of some or all of these capabilities into other software or information technology architectures. One example is a spatial extension to Object-relational database software, which defines a geometry datatype so that spatial data can be stored in relational tables, and extensions to SQL for spatial analysis operations such as overlay . Another example

1596-779: A similar process to his own because of the similarity in electronic structure between Ti and Zr . This interested the Navy and the Atomic Energy Commission who were developing the USS ; Nautilus  (SSN-571) the first nuclear-powered submarine, because Zr had been selected to line the reactor vessel. In 1955, production of zirconium at the research center stopped when it was taken over by private industry. Other work at Albany included research on titanium casting, recycling metals and alloys, creating sulfurcrete, and studying metal corrosion among other areas. The center

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1672-548: A soft-copy system, for high-quality digital cameras this step is skipped. Satellite remote sensing provides another important source of spatial data. Here satellites use different sensor packages to passively measure the reflectance from parts of the electromagnetic spectrum or radio waves that were sent out from an active sensor such as radar. Remote sensing collects raster data that can be further processed using different bands to identify objects and classes of interest, such as land cover. The most common method of data creation

1748-415: A specific aspect of the surface. Some of the most common include: Most of these are generated using algorithms that are discrete simplifications of vector calculus . Slope, aspect, and surface curvature in terrain analysis are all derived from neighborhood operations using elevation values of a cell's adjacent neighbours. Each of these is strongly affected by the level of detail in the terrain data, such as

1824-459: A variety of application domains. Starting in the late 1970s, many software packages have been created specifically for GIS applications. Esri's ArcGIS , which includes ArcGIS Pro and the legacy software ArcMap , currently dominates the GIS market. Other examples of GIS include Autodesk and MapInfo Professional and open-source programs such as QGIS , GRASS GIS , MapGuide , and Hadoop-GIS . These and other desktop GIS applications include

1900-406: A variety of forms, such as a collection of separate data files or a single spatially-enabled relational database . Collecting and managing these data usually constitutes the bulk of the time and financial resources of a project, far more than other aspects such as analysis and mapping. GIS uses spatio-temporal ( space-time ) location as the key index variable for all other information. Just as

1976-438: Is digitization , where a hard copy map or survey plan is transferred into a digital medium through the use of a CAD program, and geo-referencing capabilities. With the wide availability of ortho-rectified imagery (from satellites, aircraft, Helikites and UAVs), heads-up digitizing is becoming the main avenue through which geographic data is extracted. Heads-up digitizing involves the tracing of geographic data directly on top of

2052-511: Is a GIS operation used to manipulate spatial data. A typical geoprocessing operation takes an input dataset , performs an operation on that dataset, and returns the result of the operation as an output dataset. Common geoprocessing operations include geographic feature overlay, feature selection and analysis, topology processing, raster processing, and data conversion. Geoprocessing allows for definition, management, and analysis of information used to form decisions. Many geographic tasks involve

2128-653: Is a rapidly changing field, and GIS packages are increasingly including analytical tools as standard built-in facilities, as optional toolsets, as add-ins or 'analysts'. In many instances these are provided by the original software suppliers (commercial vendors or collaborative non commercial development teams), while in other cases facilities have been developed and are provided by third parties. Furthermore, many products offer software development kits (SDKs), programming languages and language support, scripting facilities and/or special interfaces for developing one's own analytical tools or variants. The increased availability has created

2204-461: Is captured, the user should consider if the data should be captured with either a relative accuracy or absolute accuracy, since this could not only influence how information will be interpreted but also the cost of data capture. After entering data into a GIS, the data usually requires editing, to remove errors, or further processing. For vector data it must be made "topologically correct" before it can be used for some advanced analysis. For example, in

2280-464: Is collected and stored in various ways, the two data sources may not be entirely compatible. So a GIS must be able to convert geographic data from one structure to another. In so doing, the implicit assumptions behind different ontologies and classifications require analysis. Object ontologies have gained increasing prominence as a consequence of object-oriented programming and sustained work by Barry Smith and co-workers. Spatial ETL tools provide

2356-437: Is far more precise than the machines of conventional map analysis. All geographical data are inherently inaccurate, and these inaccuracies will propagate through GIS operations in ways that are difficult to predict. Data restructuring can be performed by a GIS to convert data into different formats. For example, a GIS may be used to convert a satellite image map to a vector structure by generating lines around all cells with

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2432-420: Is more commonly used, heads-down digitizing is still useful for digitizing maps of poor quality. Existing data printed on paper or PET film maps can be digitized or scanned to produce digital data. A digitizer produces vector data as an operator traces points, lines, and polygon boundaries from a map. Scanning a map results in raster data that could be further processed to produce vector data. When data

2508-445: Is no single standard for data quality, because the necessary degree of quality depends on the scale and purpose of the tasks for which it is to be used. Several elements of data quality are important to GIS data: The quality of a dataset is very dependent upon its sources, and the methods used to create it. Land surveyors have been able to provide a high level of positional accuracy utilizing high-end GPS equipment, but GPS locations on

2584-683: Is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention within the Department of Health and Human Services . A total of 413 full-time equivalent employees were transferred to NIOSH on October 11, 1996: 336 in Pittsburgh and 77 in Spokane. A position of Associate Director for Mining in the NIOSH headquarters office was created. Under NIOSH, the Pittsburgh and Spokane Research "Centers" were renamed

2660-521: Is the proliferation of geospatial libraries and application programming interfaces (e.g., GDAL , Leaflet , D3.js ) that extend programming languages to enable the incorporation of GIS data and processing into custom software, including web mapping sites and location-based services in smartphones . The core of any GIS is a database that contains representations of geographic phenomena, modeling their geometry (location and shape) and their properties or attributes . A GIS database may be stored in

2736-498: Is to utilize applications available on smartphones and PDAs in the form of mobile GIS. This has been enhanced by the availability of low-cost mapping-grade GPS units with decimeter accuracy in real time. This eliminates the need to post process, import, and update the data in the office after fieldwork has been collected. This includes the ability to incorporate positions collected using a laser rangefinder . New technologies also allow users to create maps as well as analysis directly in

2812-789: The Bureau of Land Management . The Bureau's archive of mining maps was transferred to the National Mine Map Repository (NMMR), a part of the Office of Surface Mining (OSM). Closure of the Bureau of Mines, and the accompanying transfers of functions and employee layoffs were essentially complete in March 1996. The Bureau's Minerals Information functions were transferred to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in early 1996. The "Mineral Industry Surveys", "Mineral Commodity Summaries", and

2888-640: The CAD  platform, Environmental Systems Research Institute ( ESRI ), CARIS  (Computer Aided Resource Information System), and ERDAS (Earth Resource Data Analysis System) emerged as commercial vendors of GIS software, successfully incorporating many of the CGIS ;features, combining the first-generation approach to separation of spatial and attribute information with a second-generation approach to organizing attribute data into database structures. In 1986, Mapping Display and Analysis System (MIDAS),

2964-698: The Department of Energy , and NASA . USBM originally provided safety and health inspection for mines on a nationwide basis, replacing some, but not all state inspection operations. This division comprised the majority of personnel in USBM. In 1973 the Secretary of the Interior created a separate agency within the department, the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA), and the safety and health enforcement responsibilities were transferred to

3040-426: The Internet , requiring data format and transfer standards. More recently, a growing number of free, open-source GIS packages run on a range of operating systems and can be customized to perform specific tasks. The major trend of the 21st Century has been the integration of GIS capabilities with other Information technology and Internet infrastructure, such as relational databases , cloud computing , software as

3116-404: The Office of Fossil Energy , the facility investigates many of the nation's challenges in the production and use of all types of fossil energy systems to include the need to produce new materials for the energy systems of tomorrow and to develop new methods to ameliorate the releases associated with these new systems. Three directorates of NETL's Research & Innovation Center are represented at

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3192-666: The Pittsburgh Research Laboratory and Spokane Research Laboratory. Both labs currently reside under NIOSH's Office of Mine Safety and Health Research . On May 28, 2010, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) released a list of proposed changes to mine safety laws including re-establishing the Bureau of Mines. In July 5, 2024, a renewed push by mining companies to revive the Bureau of Mines occurred who are seeking to streamline regulations. The Bureau had 19 permanent directors from its inception in 1910 to its abolishment in 1996. Acting Since its founding,

3268-512: The U.S. States Department of the Interior on May 16, 1910, pursuant to the Organic Act (Public Law 179), to deal with a wave of catastrophic mine disasters. The Bureau's mission was gradually expanded to include: The first director of the USBM was Joseph Austin Holmes , a pioneer in occupational safety and health. He served from 1910 until his death in 1915. From its creation, the USBM

3344-400: The terrain , the shape of the surface of the earth, such as hydrology , earthworks , and biogeography . Thus, terrain data is often a core dataset in a GIS, usually in the form of a raster Digital elevation model (DEM) or a Triangulated irregular network (TIN). A variety of tools are available in most GIS software for analyzing terrain, often by creating derivative datasets that represent

3420-657: The "Minerals Yearbook" continued to be published. The Bureau's technical reports are archived by the Technical Report Archive & Image Library . The Health and Safety Research Program at the Pittsburgh and Spokane Research Centers was assigned on an interim basis to DOE (Public Law 104-99). In fiscal year 1997, it was permanently transferred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) (Public Law 104-134). NIOSH

3496-433: The Albany site: Geological and Environmental Systems, Materials Engineering and Manufacturing, and Energy Conversion Engineering. Specific research is conducted on geographic information systems for fossil fuels, advanced alloys and ceramics for coal and natural gas power plants, and magnetohydrodynamic generators . Their facilities include a GIS visualization laboratory, fabrication plant, a melting and casting facility, and

3572-411: The Bureau of Mines and to transfer certain functions to other federal agencies. With USBM's closure, almost $ 100 million, or 66%, of its 1995 programs ceased, and approximately 1,000 of its employees were dismissed. Certain specific health, safety, and materials programs were transferred to the Department of Energy , and certain minerals information activities moved to the U.S. Geological Survey and

3648-548: The Earth's surface. The simplest model is to assume the earth is a perfect sphere. As more measurements of the earth have accumulated, the models of the earth have become more sophisticated and more accurate. In fact, there are models called datums that apply to different areas of the earth to provide increased accuracy, like North American Datum of 1983 for U.S. measurements, and the World Geodetic System for worldwide measurements. The latitude and longitude on

3724-521: The U.S. Department of Energy. At first it reported directly to the department's Office of Fossil Energy , but in 2005 it was realigned under the National Energy Technology Laboratory with the name changing to NETL-Albany. At that time the research center had a staff of 85 people and an annual budget of $ 10 million. Though the research center began additional upgrades in 2009 to add on two new modular office complexes to

3800-620: The USBM Coal Productivity Research division. However, the work was left unfunded by the newly created DOE as other priorities took the budget. These reorganizations led to a reduction in USBM staff, from approximately 6,000 in 1968 to 2,600 in the late 1970s. At its peak, USBM had 14 centers throughout the nation, but that was eventually reduced to four "mining research centers" in Denver, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and Spokane. In September 1995, Congress voted to close

3876-517: The aerial imagery instead of by the traditional method of tracing the geographic form on a separate digitizing tablet (heads-down digitizing). Heads-down digitizing, or manual digitizing, uses a special magnetic pen, or stylus, that feeds information into a computer to create an identical, digital map. Some tablets use a mouse-like tool, called a puck, instead of a stylus. The puck has a small window with cross-hairs which allows for greater precision and pinpointing map features. Though heads-up digitizing

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3952-439: The average smartphone are much less accurate. Common datasets such as digital terrain and aerial imagery are available in a wide variety of levels of quality, especially spatial precision. Paper maps, which have been digitized for many years as a data source, can also be of widely varying quality. A quantitative analysis of maps brings accuracy issues into focus. The electronic and other equipment used to make measurements for GIS

4028-455: The data processing functionality of traditional extract, transform, load  (ETL) software, but with a primary focus on the ability to manage spatial data. They provide GIS users with the ability to translate data between different standards and proprietary formats, whilst geometrically transforming the data en route. These tools can come in the form of add-ins to existing wider-purpose software such as spreadsheets . GIS spatial analysis

4104-429: The datum is the ' North American Datum of 1983' is denoted by 'GCS North American 1983'. While no digital model can be a perfect representation of the real world, it is important that GIS data be of a high quality. In keeping with the principle of homomorphism , the data must be close enough to reality so that the results of GIS procedures correctly correspond to the results of real world processes. This means that there

4180-752: The early 1960s. In 1963, the world's first true operational GIS was developed in Ottawa, Ontario , Canada, by the federal Department of Forestry and Rural Development. Developed by Roger Tomlinson , it was called the Canada Geographic Information System (CGIS) and was used to store, analyze, and manipulate data collected for the Canada Land Inventory , an effort to determine the land capability for rural Canada by mapping information about soils , agriculture, recreation, wildlife, waterfowl , forestry and land use at

4256-489: The early days of GIS: Ian McHarg 's publication Design with Nature and its map overlay method and the introduction of a street network into the U.S. Census Bureau's DIME ( Dual Independent Map Encoding ) system. The first publication detailing the use of computers to facilitate cartography was written by Waldo Tobler in 1959. Further computer hardware development spurred by nuclear weapon research led to more widespread general-purpose computer "mapping" applications by

4332-574: The facility and bringing to total staff up to 120 people. During that same year the center received an R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine . From 1945 until 1978, the Research Center was involved in working with radioactive materials, first for the Atomic Energy Commission and later for the Energy Research and Development Administration . As part of Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) cleanup operations,

4408-527: The field, making projects more efficient and mapping more accurate. Remotely sensed data also plays an important role in data collection and consist of sensors attached to a platform. Sensors include cameras, digital scanners and lidar , while platforms usually consist of aircraft and satellites . In England in the mid-1990s, hybrid kite/balloons called helikites first pioneered the use of compact airborne digital cameras as airborne geo-information systems. Aircraft measurement software, accurate to 0.4 mm,

4484-597: The first desktop GIS product, was released for the DOS operating system. This was renamed in 1990 to MapInfo for Windows when it was ported to the Microsoft Windows platform. This began the process of moving GIS from the research department into the business environment. By the end of the 20th century, the rapid growth in various systems had been consolidated and standardized on relatively few platforms and users were beginning to explore viewing GIS data over

4560-408: The first examples of general-purpose GIS software that was not developed for a particular installation, and was very influential on future commercial software, such as Esri ARC/INFO , released in 1983. By the late 1970s two public domain GIS systems ( MOSS and GRASS GIS ) were in development, and by the early 1980s, M&S Computing (later Intergraph ) along with Bentley Systems Incorporated for

4636-587: The foundation of location-enabled services, which rely on geographic analysis and visualization. GIS provides the ability to relate previously unrelated information, through the use of location as the "key index variable". Locations and extents that are found in the Earth's spacetime are able to be recorded through the date and time of occurrence, along with x, y, and z coordinates ; representing, longitude ( x ), latitude ( y ), and elevation ( z ). All Earth-based, spatial–temporal, location and extent references should be relatable to one another, and ultimately, to

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4712-747: The industry and profession concerned with these systems. It is roughly synonymous with geoinformatics . The academic discipline that studies these systems and their underlying geographic principles, may also be abbreviated as GIS, but the unambiguous GIScience is more common. GIScience is often considered a subdiscipline of geography within the branch of technical geography . Geographic information systems are utilized in multiple technologies, processes, techniques and methods. They are attached to various operations and numerous applications, that relate to: engineering, planning, management, transport/logistics, insurance, telecommunications, and business. For this reason, GIS and location intelligence applications are at

4788-484: The layers were finished, they were combined into one image using a large process camera. Once color printing came in, the layers idea was also used for creating separate printing plates for each color. While the use of layers much later became one of the typical features of a contemporary GIS, the photographic process just described is not considered a GIS in itself – as the maps were just images with no database to link them to. Two additional developments are notable in

4864-762: The new agency. In 1977 Congress passed the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act , which expanded the federal authority for health and safety regulation, and created a new agency, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). MSHA is located in the Department of Labor , and replaced MESA. Congress created the Office of Surface Mining with the passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 , and this agency inherited USBM's surface mining activities. The Department of Energy (DOE), also established in 1977, took over

4940-609: The numerous accomplishments of the Bureau of Mines have included the identification and development of many new processes, including: [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from Department of Interior 1995 Annual Report (PDF) . United States Government . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-11-09. Geographic information system A geographic information system ( GIS ) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze , edit, output, and visualize geographic data . Much of this often happens within

5016-663: The real world, such as roads, land use, elevation, trees, waterways, and states. The most common types of phenomena that are represented in data can be divided into two conceptualizations: discrete objects (e.g., a house, a road) and continuous fields (e.g., rainfall amount or population density). Other types of geographic phenomena, such as events (e.g., location of World War II battles), processes (e.g., extent of suburbanization ), and masses (e.g., types of soil in an area) are represented less commonly or indirectly, or are modeled in analysis procedures rather than data. Traditionally, there are two broad methods used to store data in

5092-414: The same classification, while determining the cell spatial relationships, such as adjacency or inclusion. More advanced data processing can occur with image processing , a technique developed in the late 1960s by NASA and the private sector to provide contrast enhancement, false color rendering and a variety of other techniques including use of two dimensional Fourier transforms . Since digital data

5168-622: The same data, see map projections ), but all Earth-based spatial–temporal location and extent references should, ideally, be relatable to one another and ultimately to a "real" physical location or extent in space–time. Related by accurate spatial information, an incredible variety of real-world and projected past or future data can be analyzed, interpreted and represented. This key characteristic of GIS has begun to open new avenues of scientific inquiry into behaviors and patterns of real-world information that previously had not been systematically correlated . GIS data represents phenomena that exist in

5244-573: The surplus of electricity in the region. In 1945 the name was changed to the Albany Metallurgy Research Center, and William J. Kroll was hired to scale up his titanium process . By 1947 it had successfully produced two tons of titanium sponge , which is typically melted down to produce ingots or standard geometrical shapes. Research at the facility in the early years included studying zirconium , which led to advances in producing ductile zirconium under Kroll, who used

5320-460: Was able to determine the source of a cholera outbreak in London through the use of spatial analysis. Snow achieved this through plotting the residence of each casualty on a map of the area, as well as the nearby water sources. Once these points were marked, he was able to identify the water source within the cluster that was responsible for the outbreak. This was one of the earliest successful uses of

5396-608: Was never available commercially. In 1964, Howard T. Fisher formed the Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (LCGSA 1965–1991), where a number of important theoretical concepts in spatial data handling were developed, and which by the 1970s had distributed seminal software code and systems, such as SYMAP, GRID, and ODYSSEY, to universities, research centers and corporations worldwide. These programs were

5472-411: Was particularly used for printing contours – drawing these was a labour-intensive task but having them on a separate layer meant they could be worked on without the other layers to confuse the draughtsman . This work was initially drawn on glass plates, but later plastic film was introduced, with the advantages of being lighter, using less storage space and being less brittle, among others. When all

5548-701: Was renamed as the Albany Research Center in 1977, and in 1985 it was listed by the American Society for Metals as a historical landmark. During the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, the center worked with the Oregon Department of Transportation on preventing corrosion on bridges exposed to salt water. In 1996, the United States Congress eliminated the Bureau of Mines, with the Albany facility then transferred to

5624-599: Was used came from the field of epidemiology in the Rapport sur la marche et les effets du choléra dans Paris et le département de la Seine (1832). French cartographer and geographer Charles Picquet created a map outlining the forty-eight districts in Paris , using halftone color gradients, to provide a visual representation for the number of reported deaths due to cholera per every 1,000 inhabitants. In 1854, John Snow , an epidemiologist and physician,

5700-460: Was used to link the photographs and measure the ground. Helikites are inexpensive and gather more accurate data than aircraft. Helikites can be used over roads, railways and towns where unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are banned. Recently aerial data collection has become more accessible with miniature UAVs and drones. For example, the Aeryon Scout was used to map a 50-acre area with

5776-588: Was viewed, both nationally and internationally, as the focal point for new and emerging science and technology in the minerals field. Since entering competition in 1978, the Bureau of Mines won 35 R&D 100 Awards, given annually by R&D Magazine for the 100 most important research innovations of the year. This achievement is especially impressive considering the small size of the Bureau's research budget, compared to those of competing organizations, such as E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , Westinghouse Electric Corporation , General Electric Company , Hitachi ,

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