GIS and Earth Observation University

Location information is crucial for modern applications. From simple applications requiring only positional information (e.g. geo-tagging) to complex ones interweaving multi-modal/multi-temporal data (e.g. gps routing/fleet management, environmental studies, defense applications), common queries that need to be answered can be expressed as: “Where do I stand?” and “how should I represent my data?”.

The answer to the first question requires the establishment of a coordinate reference system having an one-to-one relationship with the contained physical entities. However, since we are dealing with a 3D planetary system, but applications usually require 2D representations (maps), there is also the need to transform (project) the 3D information onto the 2D plane.

To address the second question, it is needed to identify the purpose of the application at hand e.g. is it required to utilize high-precision location information (e.g. points, lines, or polygons) or sampled information in a dense matter (e.g. grid) to represent the desired phenomena?

To this end, the aim of this course is to provide the required background needed to understand:
- how planetary coordinate reference systems work,
- what types of common map projections are available, along with major advantages and disadvantages of each one,
- which are the available data representation models (raster, vector) and how a user selects between them,
- sources of (primarily free) available geospatial data, and
- how all this information is expressed and represented within current Geographic Information Systems (GIS).