CMSC 725:  GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND SPATIAL DATABASES

Fall 2002

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course will go over topics in geographic information systems and
spatial databases.  The field of geographic information systems is
becoming increasingly important as the basis of spatially-based
decision systems.  It overlaps many areas of computer science
research.  The aim of the course is to tie together related results
from databases, cartography, geography, computer graphics, file access
methods, computational geometry, image processing, data structures,
and programming languages.  The main topics to be discussed are
cartographic modeling, principles of cartography, methods from
computational geometry, principles of spatial databases, access
methods, and spatial data structures.  Some related work in image
databases and similarity searching will also be discussed.  In
addition, the architecture of some existing spatial databases and
geographic information systems  will be examined in greater detail. 

TOPICS TO BE COVERED (not necessarily in this order or depth):

Introduction to GIS (1 lecture)
Principles of cartography (2 lectures)
Projections (1 lecture)
Sampling the world - errors, conversion, coordinate systems (1 lecture)
Generalization (1 lecture)
The raster vs. vector debate (1 lecture)
Cartographic modeling (4 lectures)
	Representations
	Operations
	Modeling
Database issues (3 lectures - optional)
	Review of hierarchical, network, and relational models
	Integration of spatial and non-spatial data
	Object-oriented methods
	Image databases
Review of existing geographic information systems (1 lecture)
Spatial data structures (4 lectures)
Representations of topology (1 lecture)
Point databases (2 lectures)
Line segment databases (1 lecture)
Digital terrain models (1 lecture)
Triangulated Irregular Networks (TINs) (1 lecture)
Triangulations methods (1 lecture)
Spatial interpolation (1 lecture)
Similarity Searching, neighbor finding, and distance-based indexing (3 lectures)

PREREQUISITES:

CMSC 420 and CMSC 424 or consent of the instructor.

POSSIBLE WORKLOAD:

Occasional homework problems
One project/paper and writeup
Class participation in discussions
Midterm and Final Exam

The date of the Midterm Exam will be announced in class.

The Final Exam will be held on Thursday, December 12, 2000 in class,
unless announced otherwise.

The workload will depend on the number of students in the course.

Required Texts:

1.  Copy of lecture note slides titled ``GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
SYSTEMS (GIS):  A TECHNICAL APPROACH'' to be found at the University
Book Center.

2.  C. D. Tomlin.  "Geographic Information Systems and Cartographic
    Modeling", Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989.

3.  H. Samet.  "Applications of Spatial Data Structures:  Computer
    Graphics, Image Processing, and GIS". Addison Wesley, Reading, MA,
    1990. 

References 2 and 3 may be impossible to obtain due to being out of
print.  Copies of Reference 3 will be made available for sale at the
University Book Center if there is sufficient interest.

Recommended Texts:

1.  K. C. Clarke, ``Analytical and Computer Cartography''
    Second Edition, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1995.

2.  H. Samet.  "The Design and Analysis
    of Spatial Data Structures", Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, 1990.

Reference 2 is out of print but copies will be made available for sale
at the University Book Center if there is sufficient interest.