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FGBOU VPO Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering

THE HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT

Mitkina N.A., Smirnova E.V.

Abstract

the given article deals with the history of creating geographic information system.It describes various periods of its development and provides valuable information about the ways the new technologies used

Key words: geographic information system, innovations, digital methods, data base.

The main text

A geographic information system (GIS) is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present spatial or geographical data and provide the technological process of their collection, storage, processing, visualization, exchange, spread and practical use. GIS is a computer based tool for mapping and analyzing things that exist and happen on the earth. Now GIS cover a huge area of a human`s life and are an important tool to gain some knowledge about the earth, separate territories, areas and collect some necessary and sufficient spatial data for the users for more efficient work. A lot of scientific papers were written in order to study and create modern geographic information systems. It makes the history of GIS development extremely interesting.

Innovative period from 1950's-to 1970's of the XX century. During this period a number of scientific works to study the new cartography opportunities with the use of the new computer technology was growing rapidly. Created by Roger Tomlinson «The Canada Geographic

Information System» (CGIS) became a breakthrough in the field of geographic information systems and the beginning of the Geoinformatics. At the heart of the innovations that led to the Canada Geographic Information System was the fundamental idea of using computers to ask questions of maps and to render useful information from them. To do this, maps had to be in digital form. This led to the idea that many digital maps could be stitched together to represent the whole of Canada and that the maps could be linked intelligently to digital databases of statistics, such as the Census. Fifty years later, this brief article recalls the people, organizations, and circumstances that gave rise to these original ideas, and how the ideas played out [1; 2].

In 1960, Spartan Air Services of Ottawa, Canada, was a large surveying and mapping company whose business included topographic mapping, geophysical surveys, land resources surveys, and other projects worldwide. Some projects required manual analysis of mapped data. However, since manual analysis was almost as costly as the surveys themselves, not infrequently the proposals for map analysis were rejected by both clients and Spartan's management because they were too costly. George Brown, chief of Spartan's land resources division, permitted to try digital methods as a potentially cost-effective alternative two small test maps in numerical coordinate form--each 5 x 5 inches and containing five polygons were created. It was found that they could be digitally overlaid and measured the resulting areas from the digital record [3].

Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics & Spatial Analysisof Massachusetts Institute of Technology also involved in the research of GIS had great conceptual and practical achievements in the field of GIS's development. GIS software products of Harvard Laboratory were widespread in the world and helped to lay the base for the development of various GIS applications.

The period from 1970's- to 1980's of the XX century is characterized by the creation and development of large geographic information projects under governmental control. During this period, the United States Census Bureau developed a format of GBF - DIME (Geographic Base File, Dual Independent Map Encoding), which was designed to work with the census data. The innovation was offered by the mathematician James Corbett. It was named the topology. The topology is the scheme of the definition (description) of the spatial relations between the objects. The volume of the research and experimental works in the field of GIS, based on the data bases of street networks was increasing during that period. In addition, GIS was also applied in the navigation systems with cartographical support in the management of the urban transport. Creation of the maps scale 1:50000 had become the most significant achievement of using CGIS.

The period of commercial development from 1980's- to 1990's of the XX century. During this period, the area of GIS technologies application had been considerably increasing. It was dealing with the certain fields of science, production and education activities because of the computing capabilities expansion. Using of GIS and databases with the subject to the network technologies, navigation systems let the put on the market a large number of GIS software. These products supported individual work with cartographical data on the desktop computers and in the government and commercial organizations as well. The product ARC/INFO of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (USA) is one of the most important GIS software of that time.

The user's period from the end of the 1990's of the XX century till present. During the 1990's GIS was used in practice in the scientific management areas. Intense development and improvement of geographic information systems has been continued up till now. Great attention is paid to intellectual data analysis and database management systems for spatial data. The methods of cartographic visualization in GIS have been improving. It allows the specialists to transform huge number of paper maps into a digital form. During this period, the developers of GIS software product "GRASS" made it free for the users [4].

GIS packages "Panorama", "Park", "Sinteks ABRIS" are the most well-known GIS software packages of 1990's in Russia. However, the products of the Western companies such as ESRI, Intergraph, Autodesk and MapInfo represent most of the GIS software market in Russia. At the same time the emergence of systems with the open source appear. The users and programmers have had the opportunity to create their own applications, linking existing GIS with other software products. Global sales in the field of GIS are estimated as more $ 9 billion dollars a year. geographic information system technological

Now, GIS technology is an indispensable research tool in the various fields of a human activity. GIS is also used in the study of the outer space because of the unique ability of working with the geographic surface [5].

Bibliography

1. Roger Tomlinson, M. A. G. Toomey, "GIS and LIS in Canada," chapter 15 in Mapping a Northern Land: The Survey of Canada 1947-1994, Gerald McGrath and Louis Sebert, eds. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999.

2. Roger Tomlinson. An Introduction to the Use of Electronic Computers in the Storage, Compilation and Assessment of Natural and Economic Data for the Evaluation of Marginal Lands, 1962.

3. https://gisandscience.com/history ( дата обращения 15.12.2016).

4. Kaschenko N.А. Geoinformation systems: manual for universities / N.А. Kaschenko, Е.V. Popov, А.V. Chechin; NNGASU, N. Novgorod, 2012. 130p.

5. http://isicad.ru/ru/articles.php?article_num=15737 GIS today: tendencies, overview. ( дата обращения 15.12.2016).

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