Many disciplines are concerned with manipulating geometric (or spatial) objects in the computer - such as geology, cartography, computer aided design (CAD), etc. - and each of these have developed their own data structures and techniques, often independently. Nevertheless, in many cases the object types and the spatial queries are similar, and this book attempts to find a common theme.

This open access book provides insights into the novel Locally Refined B-spline (LR B-spline) surface format, which is suited for representing terrain and seabed data in a compact way. It provides an alternative to the well know raster and triangulated surface representations. An LR B-spline surface has an overall smooth behavior and allows the modeling of local details with only a limited growth in data volume. In regions where many data points belong to the same smooth area, LR B-splines allow a very lean representation of the shape by locally adapting the resolution of the spline space to the size and local shape variations of the region. The iterative method can be modified to improve the accuracy in particular domains of a point cloud. The use of statistical information criterion can help determining the optimal threshold, the number of iterations to perform as well as some parameters of the underlying mathematical functions (degree of the splines, parameter representation). The resulting surfaces are well suited for analysis and computing secondary information such as contour curves and minimum and maximum points. Also deformation analysis are potential applications of fitting point clouds with LR B-splines.

In cognitive science, mental representations of spatial knowledge are metaphorically referred to as cognitive maps. However, investigations in cognitive psychology reveal that the cognitive map metaphor is inadequate and that more suitable conceptions of human spatial knowledge processing are needed.This book addresses mental processing of knowledge about geographic space from an AI point of view by presenting an experimental computational modeling approach. Results about human memory and visual mental imagery from cognitive psychology are combined with AI techniques of spatial and diagrammatic knowledge processing. The author develops the diagrammatic reasoning architecture MIRAGE as a comprehensive conception of human geographic knowledge processing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Geographic Information Science, GIScience 2002, held in Boulder, Colorado, USA in September 2002.The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 paper submissions. Among the topics addressed are Voronoi diagram representation, geospacial database design, vector data transmission, geographic information retrieval, geo-ontologies, relative motion analysis, Web-based maps information retrieval, spatial pattern recognition, environmental decision support systems, multi-scale spatial databases, mobile journey planning, searching geographical data, indexing, terrain modeling, spatial allocation, distributed geographic internet information systems, and spatio-thematic information programming.

State-of-the-art GIS spatial data management and analysis tools are revolutionizing the field of water resource engineering. Familiarity with these technologies is now a prerequisite for success in engineers' and planners' efforts to create a reliable infrastructure. GIS in Water Resource Engineering presents a review of the concepts and applications of GIS in the various sub-fields of water resource engineering. After a summary review of analyses and database functions, the book addresses concepts and applications in the following areas: Surface Water Hydrology Groundwater Hydrology Water Supply and Irrigation systems Wastewater and Stormwater Systems Floodplain Management Water Quality Water Resource Monitoring and Forecasting River Basin Planning and Management The book develops a general understanding of the nature of GIS and how it is used to create and analyze geographic data. The author first introduces primary field data collection methods and describes procedures for interpretation and analysis. The second portion of the book focuses on the linkage of GIS data with water resource analysis and management models. Applications are presented with descriptions of GIS database development, analysis background theory, and model integration with GIS. The profound impact of GIS systems on water resources engineering continues to grow. GIS in Water Resource Engineering arms engineers and planners with an arsenal of tools to assist in the creation of a reliable, environmentally sensitive, infrastructure.

Sea Ice Image Processing with MATLAB addresses the topic of image processing for the extraction of key sea ice characteristics from digital photography, which is of great relevance for Artic remote sensing and marine operations. This valuable guide provides tools for quantifying the ice environment that needs to be identified and reproduced for such testing. This includes fit-for-purpose studies of existing vessels, new-build conceptual design and detailed engineering design studies for new developments, and studies of demanding marine operations involving multiple vessels and operational scenarios in sea ice. A major contribution of this work is the development of automated computer algorithms for efficient image analysis. These are used to process individual sea-ice images and video streams of images to extract parameters such as ice floe size distribution, and ice types. Readers are supplied with Matlab source codes of the algorithms for the image processing methods discussed in the book made available as online material. Features Presents the first systematic work using image processing techniques to identify ice floe size distribution from aerial images Helps identify individual ice floe and obtain floe size distributions for Arctic offshore operations and transportation Explains specific algorithms that can be combined to solve various problems during polar sea ice investigations Includes MATLAB (R) codes useful not only for academics, but for ice engineers and scientists to develop tools applicable in different areas such as sustainable arctic marine and coastal technology research Provides image processing techniques applicable to other fields like biomedicine, material science, etc

The past 20 years can be regarded as the adolescence of geographic information science (GIS), as it grew from a burgeoning area of study into a mature and thriving field. During those two decades, the International Journal of Geographic Information Science (formerly Systems) (IJGIS) was one of the most prominent academic guiding forces in GIScience, and looks to remain so for the foreseeable future. To celebrate this important milestone, Peter Fisher-the second editor of IJGIS-has compiled 19 of the most significant and influential articles ever published in the journal. Classics from IJGIS: Twenty Years of the International Journal of Geographical Information Science and Systems contains articles that shaped the way we approach the science of GIS, provided seeds from which grew key developments that have molded the field, opened new avenues of discovery across the landscape of modern GIScience, and some that may mark how it will change in the future. Accompanying nearly every article is a commentary written by at least one of the original authors. In these commentaries, the authors reflect on various aspects of the original work, including what drove their original research, why the concepts were widely adopted (or in some cases, why not), and what the future may hold for new research embarking on these and similar areas. The 20th article in this collection is an original contribution that examines the social and collaborative networks operating within and shaping the body of research in the field.

This book is a collection of papers on spatial statistics for remote sensing. The book emerges from a study day that was organized in 1996 at the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, ITC, in Enschede, The Netherlands. It was by several means a memorable event. The beautiful new building, according to a design by the famous modern Dutch architect Max van Huet was just opened, and this workshop was the first to take place there. Of course, much went wrong during the workshop, in particular as the newest electronic equipment regularly failed. But the workshop attrackted more than hundred attendants, and was generally well received. The results of the workshop have been published in Stein et al. (1998). The aim of the workshop was to address issues of spatial statistics for remote sensing. The ITC has a long history on collecting and analyzing satellite and other remote sensing data, but its involvement into spatial statistics is of a more recent date. Uncertainties in remote sensing images and the large amounts of data in many spectral bands are now considered to be of such an impact that it requires a separate approach from a statistical point of view. To quote from the justification of the study day, we read: Modern communication means such as remote sensing require an advanced use of collected data. Satellites collect data with different resolution on different spectral bands.

Ideal for both undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of geography, forestry, ecology, geographic information science, remote sensing, and photogrammetric engineering, LiDAR Remote Sensing and Applications expertly joins LiDAR principles, data processing basics, applications, and hands-on practices in one comprehensive source. The LiDAR data within this book is collected from 27 areas in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Ghana, and Haiti and includes 183 figures created to introduce the concepts, methods, and applications in a clear context. It provides 11 step-by-step projects predominately based on Esri's ArcGIS software to support seamless integration of LiDAR products and other GIS data. The first six projects are for basic LiDAR data visualization and processing and the other five cover more advanced topics: from mapping gaps in mangrove forests in Everglades National Park, Florida to generating trend surfaces for rock layers in Raplee Ridge, Utah. Features Offers a comprehensive overview of LiDAR technology with numerous applications in geography, forestry and earth science Gives necessary theoretical foundations from all pertinent subject matter areas Uses case studies and best practices to point readers to tools and resources Provides a synthesis of ongoing research in the area of LiDAR remote sensing technology Includes carefully selected illustrations and data from the authors' research projects Before every project in the book, a link is provided for users to download data

Linking People, Place, and Policy: A GIScience Approach describes a breadth of research associated with the study of human-environment interactions, with particular emphasis on land use and land cover dynamics. This book examines the social, biophysical, and geographical drivers of land use and land cover patterns and their dynamics, which are interpreted within a policy-relevant context. Concepts, tools, and techniques within Geographic Information Science serve as the unifying methodological framework in which landscapes in Thailand, Ecuador, Kenya, Cambodia, China, Brazil, Nepal, and the United States are examined through analyses conducted using quantitative, qualitative, and image-based techniques.

Linking People, Place, and Policy: A GIScience Approach addresses a need for a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of GIScience for research and study within the context of human-environment interactions. The human dimensions research community, land use and land cover change programs, and human and landscape ecology communities, among others, are collectively viewing the landscape within a spatially-explicit perspective, where people are viewed as agents of landscape change that shape and are shaped by the landscape, and where landscape form and function are assessed within a space-time context. This book articulates some of these challenges and opportunities.

The 5th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, COSIT 2001, took place at the Inn at Morro Bay, California, USA, September 19 23, 2001. COSIT grew out of a series of workshops/NATO Advanced Study Institutes/NSF Specialist Meetings during the 1990s concerned with theoretical and applied aspects of representing large scale space, particularly geographic or environmental space (this history is elaborated in the prefaces of previous COSIT proceedings). These are spaces in which (and on which) human action takes place, and which are represented and processed in digital geographic information systems. In these early meetings, the need for well founded theories of spatial information representation and processing was identified, particularly theories based on cognition and on computation. This concern for theory provided an early foundation for the newly emerging field of geographic information science. COSIT is not backed by any particular scientific society but is organized as an independent enterprise. The conference series was established in 1993 as an interdisciplinary biennial European conference on the representation and processing of large scale spatial information after a successful international conference on the topic had been organized by Andrew Frank et al. in Pisa in 1992 (frequently referred to as "COSIT 0"). After two successful European COSIT conferences with strong North American participation (COSIT '93: Island of Elba, Italy; COSIT '95: Semmering, Austria), COSIT '97 moved across the pond to the United States, and was held in the Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania.

This book draws on author's wealth of knowledge working on numerous projects across many countries. It provides a clear overview of the development of the SDI concept and SDI worldwide implementation and brings a logical chronological approach to the linkage of GIS technology with SDI enabling data. The theory and practice approach help understand that SDI development and implementation is very much a social process of learning by doing. The author masterfully selects main historical developments and updates them with an analytical perspective promoting informed and responsible use of geographic information and geospatial technologies for the benefit of society from local to global scales. Features Subject matter spans thirty years of the development of GIS and SDI. Brings a social science perspective into GIS and SDI debates that have been largely dominated by technical considerations. Based on a world-wide perspective as a result of the author's experience and research in the USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Peru, China, India, Korea, Malaysia, and Japan as well as most European countries. Draws upon professional and academic experience relating to pioneering UK and European GIS research initiatives. Includes updated historical material with an analytical perspective explaining what was done right, and what didn't work.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have developed rapidly in recent years and now provide powerful tools for the capture, manipulation, integration, interrogation, modelling, analysis and visualisation of data - tools that are already used for policy support in a wide range of areas at almost all geographic and administrative levels. This holds especially for emergency preparedness and health risk reduction, which are all essentially spatial problems. To date, however, many initiatives have remained disconnected and uncoordinated, leading to less powerful, less compatible and less widely implemented systems than might otherwise have been the case.
The important matters discussed here include the probabilistic nature of most environmental hazards and the semi-random factors that influence interactions between these and human exposures; the effects of temporal and spatial scales on hazard assessment and imputed risk; the effects of measurement error in risk estimation and the stratification of risks and their impacts according to socioeconomic characteristics; and the quantification of socioeconomic differences in vulnerability and susceptibility to environmental hazards.
GIS are powerful analytical tools in their own right, but what is needed is much more effective communication between the many disciplines, professions and stakeholders concerned - something which this book helps to achieve.

The 15th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster offered a timely opportunity for an expert assessment of the current situation and suggestions for approaches to managing the information associated with the site and surrounding contaminated territories.
The great quantity of data coming from the contaminated region was and is very difficult to use without he aid of modern information technologies, especially Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS). Application of these technologies, and related expertise, became crucial to the region's economic recovery and sustainability planning. Given the real possibility of a similar accident at nuclear facilities elsewhere around the world, the development of recovery strategies based on experience gained at Chernobyl, using modern scientific methods and technologies, will be invaluable in the future. The presentations and discussion reported in the book have led to some key conclusions. Image maps derived from satellite imagery are the most economical, up to date and readily available basis for Chernobyl-related applications, as well as for other future applications. The study of soil-plant transfer of radionuclides afforded comparatively much more reliable data. GIS in association with adequate knowledge is a valuable tool in decision making and modelling of contaminated areas and objects.

GIS and the Social Sciences offers a uniquely social science approach on the theory and application of GIS with a range of modern examples. It explores how human geography can engage with a variety of important policy issues through linking together GIS and spatial analysis, and demonstrates the importance of applied GIS and spatial analysis for solving real-world problems in both the public and private sector. The book introduces basic theoretical material from a social science perspective and discusses how data are handled in GIS, what the standard commands within GIS packages are, and what they can offer in terms of spatial analysis. It covers the range of applications for which GIS has been primarily used in the social sciences, offering a global perspective of examples at a range of spatial scales. The book explores the use of GIS in crime, health, education, retail location, urban planning, transport, geodemographics, emergency planning and poverty/income inequalities. It is supplemented with practical activities and datasets that are linked to the content of each chapter and provided on an eResource page. The examples are written using ArcMap to show how the user can access data and put the theory in the textbook to applied use using proprietary GIS software. This book serves as a useful guide to a social science approach to GIS techniques and applications. It provides a range of modern applications of GIS with associated practicals to work through, and demonstrates how researcher and policy makers alike can use GIS to plan services more effectively. It will prove to be of great interest to geographers, as well as the broader social sciences, such as sociology, crime science, health, business and marketing.

For those addressing ecological and natural resource management problems this volume presents a set of coherent, cross-referenced perspectives on incorporating the spatial representation and analytical power of GIS with agent-based modeling of evolutionary and non-linear processes and phenomena. Many recent advances in software algorithms for incorporating geographic data in modeling social and ecological behaviors and also the success in applying such algorithms have not been adequately represented in the present literature. This book fills that gap and provides much needed information on applications for the research community as well as those in the management of natural resources.

For those addressing ecological and natural resource management problems this volume presents a set of coherent, cross-referenced perspectives on incorporating the spatial representation and analytical power of GIS with agent-based modeling of evolutionary and non-linear processes and phenomena. Many recent advances in software algorithms for incorporating geographic data in modeling social and ecological behaviors and also the success in applying such algorithms have not been adequately written about This book fills that gap and provides much needed information on applications for the research community as well as those in the management of natural resources.

The book deals with two central themes: data modeling and management for 3D objects during different time states and the opening of geoinformation systems to a new generation of component-based GIS. The way from first geo-database kernel systems to a component-based GeoToolKit is presented. Furthermore, the implementation of a component-based GIS with geological and geophysical applications is described. With the common data access to a geo-database the geological and the geophysical applications are brought closer together and profit from each other's interpretations of the data.

This book describes the why and how of green infrastructure mapping and implementation through text, maps and on-line illustrations. It explains how to utilize the national green infrastructure model that Esri has built using the Green Infrastructure Center's methodology. It demonstrates though print and online map layers, how to develop a prioritized strategy for conserving or restoring the highest values to natural resources. It also explains how this analysis is then used to inform a host of planning applications from drinking water protection, to endangered species conservation, to recreation, as well as preservation of culturally significant landscapes. The book uses actual data to create two real case studies, one for a western and one for an eastern landscape showing how the Esri model can be adapted using local data to create a custom GI plan. The reason for this is to demonstrate the application of the national GI model to local planning. The book also demonstrates how data from the Esri Living Atlas can be included and used to customize maps.

Geographis Information Systems (GIS) and related technologies have a new and powerful role to play in archaeological interpretation
Beginning with a conceptual approach to the representation of space adopted by the GIS; the book examines spatial databases; the acqusition and compilation of data; the analytical functionality of GIS and the creation and utilisation of critical foundation data layers such as the Digital Elevation Model (DEM).
The ways in which GIS can most usefully facilitaate archaeological analysis and interpretation is then explored, particularly as a tool for the management of archaeological resources. Formal analysis of archaeological material, and the use of trend surface, contouring and interpolation proceedures are considered. Predictive modeling analysis of visibility and intervisibility are explained. Finally, there is a discussion of leading-edge issues, including three-dimensional GIS, object oriented GIS, the relationship between GIS and 'Virtual Reality' technologies, and the integration of GIS with distributed systems and the internet.
The approach is light, and the detail is kept to a minimum, recognising that most readers are simply interested in using GIS effectively. The text is carefully illustrated with worked case-studies usingarchaeological data. The book provides a single reference source for archaeologists - students, professional archaeologists and academics in archaeology as well as those in anthrolpology and related disciplines.
Key Features
* accessible textbook
* heavily illustrated
* full colour section

A comprehensive source book for anybody interested in the potential of remote sensing and GIS technology for the Eastern Europe countries in transition, and less developed countries in general. Leading experts from Europe, Canada and the USA cover a wide variety of applications, from the provision of satellite data to land, water and atmosphere planning issues. The individual contributions present a nice balance between theory and proved application methods. The book is suitable for a wide spectrum of readers, such as graduate students of the environmental and geo sciences, teachers and professors, specialists at various administrative levels, political decision makers and policy makers, and technical aid GOs and NGOs.

One of the key geographical developments over the last two centuries has been that of urbanisation. In recent years this has exploded globally, particularly in developing countries. It is essential for governments, planners and researchers in geography and allied fields to understand this process and the main way of being able to do this is to accurately map these changes. The main method of this mapping is Remote Sensing. This up-to-date analysis of the area looks at a wide range of methodologies currently being used to produce and analyse remotely sensed data of urban areas. The authors examine the various techniques used to extract information from digital, multispectral images of urban areas. Donnay and Barnsley then go on to look at the identification of urban forms, the delineation of agglomerations and the development of urban morphology, considering the analysis of integrated data sets and surface models and going on to look at the estimation of human population levels.

These proceedings collect the papers selected for the 2nd International Conf- ence on Interoperating GeographicInformationSystems held in Zur .. ich, Switz- land, 10-12 March, 1999. Interoperabilityhasbecomeanissueinmanyareasofinformationtechnology in the last decade. Computers are used everywhere, and there is an increasing need to share various types of resources such as data and services. This is es- ciallytrueinthecontextofspatialinformation.Spatialdatahavebeencollected, digitized and stored in many di?erent and di?ering repositories. Computer so- ware has been developed to manage, analyse and visualize spatial information. Producing such data and software has become an important business oppor- nity. In everydayspatialinformation handling in manyorganisationsand o?ces, however, interoperability is far from being a matter of fact. Incompatibilities in data formats, software products, spatial conceptions, quality standards, and models of the world continue to create as synchronicity among constituent parts of operating spatial systems. As a follow-upto the ?rst InternationalConference on Interoperating Geographic Information Systems held 1997 in Santa Barbara, California, the Interop'99 tries to provide a scienti? c platform for researchers in this area. Theinternationalprogramcommitteecarefullyselected22papersforpres- tation at the conference and publication in this volume. Additionally, this v- ume contains three invited contributions by Gio Wiederhold, Adrian Cuthbert and Gun .. ther Landgraf. Every paper was sent to three members of the program committee and other experts for review. The reviews resulted in a three-day single-track conference program that left some room for a few half-day tutorials on various topics regarding GIS interoperability.

The Conference on Spatial Information Theory - COSIT - grew out of a series of workshops / NATO Advanced Study Institutes / NSF specialist meetings concerned with cognitive and applied aspects of representing large-scale space, particularly geographic space. In these meetings, the need for a well-founded theory of spatial information processing was identified. The COSIT conference series was established in 1993 as a biennial interdisciplinary European conference on the representation and processing of information about large-scale space, after a successful international conference on the topic had been organized by Andrew Frank et al. in Pisa, Italy, in 1992 (frequently referred to as 'COSIT zero'). After two successful European conferences with strong North-American participation (COSIT '93, held on the Island of Elba, Italy; COSIT '95, held in Semmering, Austria), the conference became a truly international enterprise when COSIT '97 was held in the Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania, USA. COSIT '99 will take place in Stade, Germany. All aspects of large-scale space, i. e. spaces too large to be seen from a single vantage point, are addressed in the COSIT conferences. These include spaces of geographic scale, as well as smaller spaces in which humans, animals, or autonomous robots have to find their way around. Spatial information theory also deals with the description of objects, processes, or events in spatial environments and it forms the foundation for the construction of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and for spatial information and communication system design in general.

This tutorial survey brings together two lines of research and development whose interaction promises to have significant practical impact on the area of spatial information processing in the near future: geographic information systems (GIS) and geometric computation or, more particularly, geometric algorithms and spatial data structures. In nine uniformly structured and coherent chapters, the authors present a unique survey ranging from the history and basic characteristics to current issues of precision and robustness of geometric computing. This textbook is ideally suited for advanced courses on GIS and applied geometric algorithms. Research and design professionals active in the area will find it valuable as a state-of-the-art survey.