Topics in GIS

This is a basic introduction to working with GIS data, that will involve both reading and a little hands-on work. Although you may be able to jump straight to the demo applications, I would encourage you to review the following reference materials first:

• Geography Matters Basic introduction to GIS concepts and why it's important.
• Your textbook* has sections on map projections, remote sensing, and GIS in Chapter 1.
• The MapServer documentation is on the home site at UMN, and has a nice New User doc with info on data types, etc. Read at least the definitions of raster and vector data.

After reviewing the above material, use the Mapserver Demo applications to answer the following questions. Browse the map and associated data layers (use either Ctl-click or click and drag to select multiple layers). Try each of the sample applications, select different layers, zoom in/out several times, etc. Have fun and experiment a little bit, then give your best answers to the following:

The above demo consists of several basic web applications to view and query the data. Each application is initialized from the start page by selecting one of menu options, and demonstrates several of the mapserver operations. Essentially, each one adds more javascript functionality, which you can see as the additional options are rendered (ie, pan and zoom, scale bars, query results in a separate frame, etc). The last one adds a Java applet (not javascript) to the basic application, so it requires a Java plugin in order to execute the applet. All of the above operate on the same set of data, which mapserver displays as the selectable data layers.

1. How many total data layers are there?
2. Which of the data layers are vector data and which are raster data? How can you tell?
3. What are some advantages/disadvantages of the different application types?
4. Why is it important for the average person to know something about GIS?

* Christopherson: Elemental Geosystems, 5th Ed.