A geographical information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. GIS has its applications in geography, remote sensing, navigation, archaeology, and land surveying.
The tools of GIS application are used for creating interactive queries, analyzing spatial information, editing data, and creating maps. Digital information is used by the geographical information system technologies. Various digitized data creation methods are used for the system. Digitization is the most common method of data creation. A computer aided design (CAD) program is used for transferring a hard copy map or a survey plan into a digital medium. Most of the geographic data is extracted from the heads-up digitizing process. The process involves tracing the geographical data directly on the top of the aerial imagery instead of the traditional means of tracing on a separate digitizing tablet.
A broad range of applications are encompassed by GIS software. A combination of digital maps and geo referenced data is involved in the software. Some of the examples of GIS software are GRASS GIS, SAGA GIS, Quantum GIS, MapWindow GIS, ILWIS, FalconView, and TerraView.
There has been development in GIS software for businesses and industries including applications in crime mapping, national defense, natural resources, landscape architecture, and transportation. A spatial ETL tool is involved in providing the data processing functionality of traditional Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) software. The ability to manage spatial data is the main focus of the spatial ETL.
Spatial relationships in structural formal representations are encoded by digital cartography and GIS. A semi automated process of making maps is done through the use of GIS software in digital cartography modeling. In this way software in conjunction with GIS has many applications.