NR 658 EXAM 1 QUESTIONS WELL ANSWERED LATEST UPDATE 2026

NR 658 EXAM 1 QUESTIONS WELL ANSWERED LATEST UPDATE 2026 GIS - Answers Geographic Information System: A system of computer hardware, software, and people used for entering, storing, manipulating, analyzing, and displaying geographic or spatial data. What is the most important component in a GIS? - Answers People 5 Core components of GIS - Answers People: most important, develop procedures Data: needed, accuracy can affect results Hardware: processing sped and capability Software: GIS, database, drawing, statistical, imaging and other packages Procedures: requires well defined, consistent methods, to produce correct and reproducible results Map - Answers -Cartographic representation of geographic reality -model of locations and distributions of geographic features -dimensionally proportional to reality. Characteristics of a map - Answers extent legend scale projection coordinate system datum GIS also explained by having these 3 elements - Answers Geometry, Attributes, Behavior Geometry - Answers Represent geographic features associated real-world locations Attributes - Answers The descriptive characteristics of the geographic features Behavior - Answers Geographic features can be made to allow certain types of editing, display, or analysis, depending on what the user defines How long has GIS been around? - Answers Since ancient cave drawings (~3,000 yrs ago), Stone Age What was the first nation to develop a GIS? - Answers Canada: analyze data collected by the Canada Land Inventory (CLI) to produce statistics for use in developing land management plans for large areas of rural Canada GPS is a method of data capture using: - Answers Trilateral geometry and GCS (Geographic Coordinate Systems) Raster Data - Answers GRID. Pixels with area, equal area grids each addressed with attributes. Topology in raster data is: - Answers Implicit. Because of Cartesian coordinate system. Vector Data - Answers LINEAR. Points, lines, and polygons. With "features" and "attributes". Topology in vector data is: - Answers Created through tables Boolean Algebra - Answers used to extract results, uses logical operators AND, OR, NOT to determine whether a particular condition is true or false point analysis - Answers locate and identify features on the ground overlay analysis - Answers separate data sets that share all or part of the same data -- new data set that identifies spatial relationships boundary analysis - Answers defines regions according to certain criteria, districting buffer analysis - Answers used for identifying areas surrounding geographic features point, line, area network analysis - Answers identifies most efficient routes or paths for allocation of resources -location and surface analysis of UTILITIES proximity analysis - Answers locations of features by measuring the distance between them geocoding - Answers linking an address to a physical location, ground coordinates 3D interpolation analysis - Answers surface and subsurface modeling - topography, watershed analyses, etc. statistical analysis - Answers many stats methods Models of storing vector data - Answers Spaghetti Model: series of x,y coordinates, common boundaries digitized twice Topological Model: adjacency, connectivity. (tables) mathematical methods to define spacial relationships arc-node system for topology - Answers -arcs: series of points that start and end with a node -nodes: intersection points Topology - Answers Spacial relationships, what's next to what and what's connected to what. GIS is what view of the real world? - Answers -Simplified, model or abstraction -stores data as set of different layers -physical entities represented as spatial features and cartographic objects GIGO - Answers garbage in, garbage out A data model has - Answers objects in a spacial database, and relationships among them. 2 data types - Answers 1. Coordinate/geometric/spatial data: specific location, such as an address for example 2. Attribute Data: non-spatial, describes the cartographic object Attribute Data types (NOI) - Answers -nominal: descriptive info -ordinal: rank order scale (S,M,L) -interval/ratio: order and absolute difference in magnitude MMU - Answers Minimum Mapping Unit: smallest level of detail, things smaller will be absorbed/not depicted Data TYPES vs. data FORMATS - Answers types: spatial and attribute formats: raster and vector Advantages of Vector Data (GCTA) - Answers Good representation of detail compact data structure topology makes network easier accurate graphics Disadvantages of Vector Data (CDMI) - Answers Complex data structures difficult overlays more expensive info in polygons lost Advantages of Raster Data (SOSSI) - Answers Simple data structure overlay and combinations easy spatial analysis easy simulation easy because of equal area grids inexpensive Disadvantages of Raster Data (VLCN) - Answers Volumes of data large cells lose detail cruder maps network linkages difficult Storing Raster Data - Answers Full length encoding (x,y, attribute) (1,1, tan) or compression -more encoding methods bc it takes up more space so it needs to be compressed more Compression(encoding) methods of raster data - Answers Chain coding: Define polygon boundaries from origin and sequence of unit vectors in cardinal directions clockwise (E=0, N=1, W=2, S=3) (0^2) run-length coding: Stored by row from left to right beginning cell to end cell (Row 10: 2, 3 7, 9 12, 14) block coding: Each square (block) represented by 3 numbers: origin (center or bottom left) and width