Geographic Information System

lastmod 2025-06-12created 2014-07-0972 edits

A geographic information system (Geographic information system; GIS) is an integrated whole of computer hardware, software, geographic data, and human resources designed to effectively collect, store, update, manipulate, analyze, and display all forms of geospatially referenced information.

Categories

• OpenStreetMap (OSM)
  • Planet OSM - The files found here are regularly-updated, complete copies of the OpenStreetMap database.
  • OpenStreetMap Korea
• Geographic coordinate systems
  • Geodetic datum (Datum)
  • Earth Ellipsoid
• Global navigation satellite system (GNSS)
  • GPS (Global Positioning System)
    • NMEA 0183
    • Inertial navigation system (INS)
    • Real-time kinematic positioning (RTK)
    • Virtual Reference Station (VRS)
• Navigation
  • Personal navigation assistant (Personal Navigation Device; Portable Navigation Device; PND)
• GIS-related software (Gis Softwares)
• Spatial analysis (a.k.a. Geospatial analysis)
• Cartography
• Map matching
• EPSG Geodetic Parameter Dataset (EPSG)
• Spatial reference system (Coordinate Reference System; CRS)
• Map projection
• Routing engine
• Map rendering engine
• General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS)
• GeoServer
• QGIS
• JOSM
• Overpass
• PyGEOS
• STRtree
• Foursquare Open Source Places (FSQ OS Places) - a new foundational dataset for the geospatial community
• Mapbox - an American company that provides custom online maps for websites and applications.
• GeoSpy - finds locations on Earth from photos.
• DuckDB - has emerged as the most important geospatial software of the past decade
• OSMnx is a Python package to easily download, model, analyze, and visualize street networks and other geospatial features from OpenStreetMap

Math

See Math. The following topics are mainly used:

Given point 1 (x1, y1) and point 2 (x2, y2), how to compute point 3 (x3, y3) located a distance w between them

Used in map matching for navigation.

Consortium

Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international voluntary consensus standards organization, originated in 1994. In the OGC, more than 400 commercial, governmental, nonprofit and research organizations worldwide collaborate in a consensus process encouraging development and implementation of open standards for geospatial content and services, GIS data processing and data sharing.

OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is an open-source, participatory free map service run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, a UK non-profit organization founded in 2005.

Data files

Shapefile

A representative vector data format for geographic information.

GeoJSON

An open standard designed to represent geographic features. Uses JSON.

E.T.C

• Data science for spatial statistics - GADM map data, full administrative dong codes, etc. (available on the Statistics Korea site)

Software

• Current status of open source 3D GIS software and libraries

Mapnik

Mapnik is an open-source mapping toolkit for desktop and server-based map rendering, written in C++.

MapServer

MapServer is an Open Source platform for publishing spatial data and interactive mapping applications to the web.

PROJ (PROJ4; PROJ.4)

Cartographic Projections and Coordinate Transformations Library.

wradlib

An Open Source Library for Weather Radar Data Processing

gpxpy

gpx-py is a python GPX parser.

LeuvenMapMatching

Leuven.MapMatching toolbox for aligning GPS measurements to locations on a map.

OSMnx

Python for street networks.

pyproj

Python interface to PROJ (cartographic projections and coordinate transformations library)

Leaflet.PolylineMeasure

Leaflet Plugin to measure distances of simple lines as well as of complex polylines (javascript)

geopy

Geocoding library for Python.

SciPy

Python-based ecosystem of open-source software for mathematics, science, and engineering.

SymPy

SymPy is a Python library for symbolic mathematics.

LiDAR/Point Cloud

• LASTools - LiDAR processing
• PgPointCloud - PostgreSQL extension for storing Point Clouds
• PDAL - Point Cloud Data Abstraction Library like GDAL

CityGML

• 3D City Database - The CityGML 3D City DB

JS Libraries

• CesiumJS - JavaScript library for world-class 3D globes and maps
• Cesium 3D Tiles - 3D tiles spec for CesiumJS
• ThreeJS - 3D javascript library. QGIS has a plugin.

Projects

• iTowns - JS/WEBGL FRAMEWORK FOR 3D GEOSPATIAL DATA VISUALIZATION
• Horao - PostGIS 3D
• Apache Baremaps - a toolkit for creating, publishing, and operating online maps

Python libraries

• GeoPandas
• folium
• Plotly
• Basemap
• cartopy
• Geometry engine open source (GEOS)

Routing engine

• [Recommended] Routing - OpenStreetMap Wiki

A routing service automatically generates directions for people to get from one place to another. See that page.

Frameworks

• [Recommended] Frameworks - OpenStreetMap Wiki

Deep learning

• Where Deep Learning Meets GIS
• Machine Learning in ArcGIS
• Arxiv - Deep Learning Techniques for Geospatial Data Analysis - Provides a survey of the current state of deep learning techniques applied to geospatial data analysis.

Glossary

IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit).

An electronic device that measures acceleration and rotational motion; it measures and records an aircraft's velocity, orientation, and gravity.

INS (Inertial Navigation System).

A kind of automatic navigation that obtains the distance traveled by integrating the acceleration of a moving vehicle.

POI (Point of Interest).

A searchable geographic feature marked on a map.

Map sheet (Mesh).

A map sheet is the extent of the recorded map information; it is also called a mesh (Mesh).

Longitude And Latitude

Longitude and latitude

Azimuth

Azimuth angle

Building geospatial web services

• A collection of recommended tools for building geospatial web services | GeekNews
  • [Original] Tools I recommend for building Geospatial Web Applications | by Ramiz Sami | The Startup | Medium

See the following projects:

• Frontend: Leaflet, Openlayers, GeoExt, Turf.js
• Backend: GeoDjango, GeoServer
• DB: PostGIS
• Data: QGIS, Mapshaper
• Data sources: OpenStreetMap, Diva-GIS

OpenStreetMap switching guide

• Switch2OSM - a guide to switching to OpenStreetMap | GeekNews
  • Home – Switch2OSM

A summary of what you need when switching to OSM to host maps yourself instead of using a paid map API such as Google Maps. Includes explanations of Leaflet and OpenLayers for setting up and using a map tile server, as well as tools related to geocoding/routing/vector map libraries.

Favorite site

• Wikipedia (en) Description of geographic information systems