GeoHub NI Glossary

Glossary

Geographic Information (GI) – Geographic Information constitutes any information that can be referenced to a specific location, such as a grid reference or postal address. All GI can be represented on a map.

Geographic Information System (GIS) - an information system for capturing, storing, analyzing, managing and presenting data which is spatially referenced (linked to location).

Metadata – Information describing spatial data, making it possible to discover, inventory and use them.

SDi – ‘Infrastructure for Spatial Information’ – the technology, policies, standards, human resources, and related activities necessary to acquire, process, distribute, use, maintain and preserve spatial data.

INSPIRE – Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

Raster – Raster’s are digital images created or captured (for example, by scanning in a photo) as a set of samples of a given space. A raster is a grid of x and y co-ordinates on a display space.

Vector - spatial data in which the location of features is defined by points and straight lines (vectors). A road network would be described by vector data.

Spatial Query - the process of selecting features based on location or spatial relationship, for example, select all features within 300 metres of a road.

Web Mapping Service (WMS) - WMS specifies a means for a client to request a rendered, projected, cartographically styled map image from a service.

Web Feature Service (WFS) - Interface Standard (WFS) provides an interface allowing requests for geographical features across the web using platform-independent calls.