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Oct 18, 2007 ArcGIS

Many have characterized GIS as one of the most powerful
of all information technologies because it focuses on
integrating knowledge from multiple sources and creates a
crosscutting environment for collaboration.
In addition, GIS is attractive to most people who
encounter it because it is both intuitive and cognitive. It
combines a powerful visualization environment with a
strong analytic and modeling framework that is rooted in
the science of geography.
This combination has resulted in a technology that is
science-based, trusted, and easily communicated across
cultures, social classes, languages, and disciplines.
To support this vision, a GIS needs to support several
views for working with geographic information:

1. The geodatabase view: A GIS is a spatial database
containing datasets that represent geographic
information in terms of a generic GIS data model—
features, rasters, attributes, topologies, networks, and
so forth.

2. The geovisualization view: A GIS is a set of
intelligent maps and other views that show features
and feature relationships on the earth’s surface. Various
map views of the underlying geographic information
can be constructed and used as “windows into the
geographic database” to support query, analysis, and
editing of geographic information. Each GIS has a
series of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional
(3D) map applications that provide rich tools for
working with geographic information through these

3. The geoprocessing view: A GIS is a set of
information transformation tools that derive new
information from existing datasets. These geoprocessing
functions take information from existing datasets,
apply analytic functions, and write results into new
derived datasets. Geoprocessing involves the ability to
program your work and to automate workflows by
assembling an ordered sequence of operations.
These three GIS views are represented in ESRI ® ArcGIS ®
by the catalog and the geodatabase (a GIS is a collection
of geographic datasets), the map (a GIS is an intelligent
map view), and the toolbox (a GIS is a set of
geoprocessing tools). Together, all three are critical parts
of a complete GIS and are used at varying levels in all GIS
applications.