Dana Tomlin

Last updated

Charles Dana Tomlin is an author, professor, and originator of Map Algebra, a vocabulary and conceptual framework for classifying ways to combine map data to produce new maps. Tomlin's teaching and research focus on the development and application of geographic information systems (GIS). He is currently a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, having also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Ohio State University School of Natural Resources. [1] His coursework in Landscape Architecture has extensively included GIS and cartographic modeling applications.

Contents

Contributions to GIS

Tomlin's contributions to GIS extend across a number of years and a wide variety of applications. As a student at Harvard University in the mid-1970s, he developed the Tomlin Subsystem of IMGRID as a master's thesis. Many analytical functions in IMGRID were later integrated into Imagine, a satellite image processing application developed by ERDAS.

As a doctoral student at Yale University in the late 1970s, and as a junior faculty member at Harvard in the early 1980s, Tomlin developed MAP (the Map Analysis Package), one of the most widely used programs of its kind. The open source GRASS application derives many of its raster analytical capabilities directly from MAP and was extensively used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies throughout the late 1980s. Tomlin's work on MAP has also been directly inherited by a long list of other software packages, including, OSUMAP, MAP II, MapFactory, MFWorks, MacGIS, IDRISI, MapBox, pMap, and MGE.

In 1990, Tomlin led an informal group of City and Regional Planning doctoral students at the University of Pennsylvania in founding the Cartographic Modeling Laboratory. The Cartographic Modeling Lab conducts academic research and urban and social policy analysis using GIS and spatial research applications. Tomlin has been co-director of the lab since 1995.

Map algebra

Tomlin's landmark book, Geographic Information Systems and Cartographic Modeling, was published in 1990 to expand on his earlier dissertation work on Map Algebra. [2] A significantly revised version was released as GIS and Cartographic Modeling in 2012. Map Algebra is used for a broad array of GIS modeling applications, including suitability modeling, surface analysis, density analysis, statistics, hydrology, landscape ecology, real estate and geographic prioritization.

Early in its development, Tomlin made the decision to openly share all of the source code, documentation and algorithms associated with Map Algebra. Consequently, the overall concepts of Map Algebra are still used today in every GIS application that supports raster calculations. Esri’s Spatial Analyst solution, as well as its predecessor, the GRID module of ArcInfo, has incorporated most of the Map Algebra concepts.

While primarily applied to raster data, Map Algebra has also been extended to support 3D, temporal and other cartographic modeling applications. [3] Tomlin continues to freely share his ideas on Map Algebra with students, educators, software developers and others in the GIS industry through articles in cartographic and environmental journals,. [4] [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographic information system</span> System to capture, manage and present geographic data

A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database, however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system also to include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, the body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations.

A GIS file format is a standard for encoding geographical information into a computer file, as a specialized type of file format for use in geographic information systems (GIS) and other geospatial applications. Since the 1970s, dozens of formats have been created based on various data models for various purposes. They have been created by government mapping agencies, GIS software vendors, standards bodies such as the Open Geospatial Consortium, informal user communities, and even individual developers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GRASS GIS</span> Geographical information system software

Geographic Resources Analysis Support System is a geographic information system (GIS) software suite used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, producing graphics and maps, spatial and temporal modeling, and visualizing. It can handle raster, topological vector, image processing, and graphic data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waldo R. Tobler</span> American geographer

Waldo Rudolph Tobler was an American-Swiss geographer and cartographer. Tobler is regarded as one of the most influential geographers and cartographers of the late 20th century and early 21st century. He is most well known for coining what has come to be referred to as Tobler's first law of geography. He also coined what has come to be referred to as Tobler's second law of geography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TerraLib</span> Geographic information system software library

TerraLib is an open-source geographic information system (GIS) software library. It extends object-relational database management systems (DBMS) to handle spatiotemporal data types.

A GIS software program is a computer program to support the use of a geographic information system, providing the ability to create, store, manage, query, analyze, and visualize geographic data, that is, data representing phenomena for which location is important. The GIS software industry encompasses a broad range of commercial and open-source products that provide some or all of these capabilities within various information technology architectures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Health geography</span>

Health geography is the application of geographical information, perspectives, and methods to the study of health, disease, and health care. Medical geography, a sub-discipline of, or sister field of health geography, focuses on understanding spatial patterns of health and disease in relation to the natural and social environment. Conventionally, there are two primary areas of research within medical geography: the first deals with the spatial distribution and determinants of morbidity and mortality, while the second deals with health planning, help-seeking behavior, and the provision of health services.

Geovisualization or geovisualisation, also known as cartographic visualization, refers to a set of tools and techniques supporting the analysis of geospatial data through the use of interactive visualization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spatial analysis</span> Formal techniques which study entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties

Spatial analysis is any of the formal techniques which studies entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties. Spatial analysis includes a variety of techniques using different analytic approaches, especially spatial statistics. It may be applied in fields as diverse as astronomy, with its studies of the placement of galaxies in the cosmos, or to chip fabrication engineering, with its use of "place and route" algorithms to build complex wiring structures. In a more restricted sense, spatial analysis is geospatial analysis, the technique applied to structures at the human scale, most notably in the analysis of geographic data. It may also be applied to genomics, as in transcriptomics data.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GDAL</span> Translator library for raster and vector geospatial data formats

The Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) is a computer software library for reading and writing raster and vector geospatial data formats, and is released under the permissive X/MIT style free software license by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. As a library, it presents a single abstract data model to the calling application for all supported formats. It may also be built with a variety of useful command line interface utilities for data translation and processing. Projections and transformations are supported by the PROJ library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Field (geography)</span> Property that varies over space

In the context of spatial analysis, geographic information systems, and geographic information science, a field is a property that fills space, and varies over space, such as temperature or density. This use of the term has been adopted from physics and mathematics, due to their similarity to physical fields (vector or scalar) such as the electromagnetic field or gravitational field. Synonymous terms include spatially dependent variable (geostatistics), statistical surface ( thematic mapping), and intensive property (physics and chemistry) and crossbreeding between these disciplines is common. The simplest formal model for a field is the function, which yields a single value given a point in space (i.e., t = f(x, y, z) )

Map algebra is an algebra for manipulating geographic data, primarily fields. Developed by Dr. Dana Tomlin and others in the late 1970s, it is a set of primitive operations in a geographic information system (GIS) which allows one or more raster layers ("maps") of similar dimensions to produce a new raster layer (map) using mathematical or other operations such as addition, subtraction etc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web mapping</span> Process of using the maps delivered by geographic information systems (GIS) in World Wide Web

Web mapping or an online mapping is the process of using, creating, and distributing maps on the World Wide Web, usually through the use of Web geographic information systems. A web map or an online map is both served and consumed, thus, web mapping is more than just web cartography, it is a service where consumers may choose what the map will show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MapWindow GIS</span> Open-source GIS desktop application

MapWindow GIS is a lightweight open-source GIS (mapping) desktop application and set of programmable mapping components.

A geographic data model, geospatial data model, or simply data model in the context of geographic information systems, is a mathematical and digital structure for representing phenomena over the Earth. Generally, such data models represent various aspects of these phenomena by means of geographic data, including spatial locations, attributes, change over time, and identity. For example, the vector data model represents geography as collections of points, lines, and polygons, and the raster data model represent geography as cell matrices that store numeric values. Data models are implemented throughout the GIS ecosystem, including the software tools for data management and spatial analysis, data stored in a variety of GIS file formats, specifications and standards, and specific designs for GIS installations.

Geographic information systems (GIS) play a constantly evolving role in geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) and United States national security. These technologies allow a user to efficiently manage, analyze, and produce geospatial data, to combine GEOINT with other forms of intelligence collection, and to perform highly developed analysis and visual production of geospatial data. Therefore, GIS produces up-to-date and more reliable GEOINT to reduce uncertainty for a decisionmaker. Since GIS programs are Web-enabled, a user can constantly work with a decision maker to solve their GEOINT and national security related problems from anywhere in the world. There are many types of GIS software used in GEOINT and national security, such as Google Earth, ERDAS IMAGINE, GeoNetwork opensource, and Esri ArcGIS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Array DBMS</span> System that provides database services specifically for arrays

An array database management system or array DBMS provides database services specifically for arrays, that is: homogeneous collections of data items, sitting on a regular grid of one, two, or more dimensions. Often arrays are used to represent sensor, simulation, image, or statistics data. Such arrays tend to be Big Data, with single objects frequently ranging into Terabyte and soon Petabyte sizes; for example, today's earth and space observation archives typically grow by Terabytes a day. Array databases aim at offering flexible, scalable storage and retrieval on this information category.

In spatial analysis and geographic information systems, cost distance analysis or cost path analysis is a method for determining one or more optimal routes of travel through unconstrained (two-dimensional) space. The optimal solution is that which minimizes the total cost of the route, based on a field of cost density that varies over space due to local factors. It is thus based on the fundamental geographic principle of Friction of distance. It is an optimization problem with multiple deterministic algorithm solutions, implemented in most GIS software.

Vector overlay is an operation in a geographic information system (GIS) for integrating two or more vector spatial data sets. Terms such as polygon overlay, map overlay, and topological overlay are often used synonymously, although they are not identical in the range of operations they include. Overlay has been one of the core elements of spatial analysis in GIS since its early development. Some overlay operations, especially Intersect and Union, are implemented in all GIS software and are used in a wide variety of analytical applications, while others are less common.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technical geography</span> Study of using and creating tools to manage spatial information

Technical geography is the branch of geography that involves using, studying, and creating tools to obtain, analyze, interpret, understand, and communicate spatial information.

References

  1. ↑ "C. Dana Tomlin". University of Pennsylvania.
  2. ↑ Tomlin, C. Dana (1983). Digital Cartographic Modeling Techniques in Environmental Planning. Yale University (PhD Dissertation). ProQuest   303197020.
  3. ↑ Mennis, J., R. Vigier, and C. D. Tomlin. Cubic map algebra functions for spatio-temporal analysis, in Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Vol. 32, No. 1, 2005, pp. 17-32.
  4. ↑ Shirabe, Takesha; C. Dana Tomlin. Decomposing Integer Programming Models for Spatial Allocation [ permanent dead link ], in Geographic Information Science, Second International Conference, GIScience 2002 Boulder, CO, USA, September 25–28, 2002 Proceedings.
  5. ↑ Tomlin, C. Dana. Speaking of GeoDesign, Preliminary Proceedings: Teaching Landscape Architecture, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences Bernburg & Dessau (2011): 136-144.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.