Positions, Networks, Fields, and Transformations - A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts - page 184

9. How does a buffer operation transform a geographic representation?
Based on existing geometry (point, line, area) and attribute value(s), it cre-
ates a new area that represents a new geographic representation with a new
thing or event.

10. Why can't maps be transformed?
Maps cannot be transformed because of the cartographic representation
and recording in the fixed media of a map. Maps cannot be directly trans-
formed

into other representations. Information collected from maps

through digitization can, however, be transformed.

Chapter Readings

The second edition of this text contains a wealth of new and additional information,
but the first edition is still a classic. See
Burrough, P. A. (1987). Principles of Geographical Information Systems for Land Resource
Assessment . Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

From the computer science perspective, this is a key topic documenting the develop-
ment of GIS:
Worboys, M. F. (1995). GIS: A Computing Perspective . London: Taylor & Francis.

This topic presents the use of databases for representing GI:
Rigaux, P., M. Scholl, et al. (2002). Introduction to Spatial Databases: Applications to GIS .
San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.

Web Resources

For an introduction to some of the fundamental GI representation issues, see the
Wikipedia entry online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system

For a paper that discusses some of the limitations of the widely used types of GI
representation, see the website www.ucgis.org/priorities/research/research_white/1998%20Papers/
extensions.html

A basic GIS tutorial can be found online at www.gisdevelopment.net/tutorials/

Some examples of how animations help visualize the temporal aspects of geographic
things and events in current GIS can be found at the website www.farmresearch.com/
gis/gallery/animations.asp