Technical sciences

Salykova O.S. Ph.D., docent, Iskakova А.М., undergraduate

Akhmet Baitursynov Kostanay State University

Global geographic information system

A breakthrough in the field of geoinformation systems and the development of geoinformation science is the design and development of Geographical Information System in Canada. The GIS were: first, to examine and analyse large amounts of data that were available in Canada by land registry; secondly, to obtain the statistical data about the Earth for the further use of the data for land-use plans of large land area intended mainly for agriculture and forestry. Working with large plans (land and hydrographic) was carried out using a specially designed and created by the scanning device. The developers made a completely the new decision to separate the cartographic information to the thematic layers, with a record of the information in the tables of attribute data. This concept laid the Foundation to separate the geoinformation about the location of objects and information about these objects, with the creation of coherent file system. Canadian scientists have developed functions and algorithms for calculating areas and other indicators are necessary when working with cartographic information.

Among the studied GIS include Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics & Spatial Analysis at the Massachusetts Institute of technology. Laboratory of the 60 's was involved in research in the field of GIS and had great conceptual and practical developments in the field of geoinformation technologies, enabling them to use up to 80-s of the last century. Software products of GIS in Harvard lab are widespread in the world and helped to lay the platform for development of various GIS applications. A striking example is the development of software, ARC/INFO GIS Environmental Systems Research Institute, ESRI Inc.

In the ARC/INFO separate rules were applied the geometric (cartographic) and attribute information, storage and work with the attributive information in tables (INFO), and to store and work with graphics in the form of arcs (ARC).

ARC/INFO software developers managed to create the first product to GIS which effectively applies to the PC and is available for different platforms and operating systems.

Another example of the excellent commercial implementation in the production of hardware and software for GIS became, and still is, Intergraph Corp. The firm's successes in the field of GIS were associated with the implementation for the armed forces of the United States missile control systems in real time. The merit of the company Intergraph Corp. is also a system of interactive mapping to control territories.