Some Concepts That Underpin GIS - Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS - page 3

CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW

Some Concepts That
Underpin GIS

IN WHICH you begin to understand
the rather large and complex body
of ideas and techniques that allow
people to use computers to
comprehend and design the physical
environment. And in which you use
Esri's ArcCatalog to explore
geographic data. 1

You Ask: “What Is GIS About?”

A poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant” tells the story of six
sightless men who approach an elephant, one by one, to satisfy
their curiosity.

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind)
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and study side,
At once began to bawl,
“God bless em! But the elephant
Is very like a WALL!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk
Cried: “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a SPEAR!”

The Third approached the animal,
And, happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant,
Is very like a SNAKE!”

1 Esri is the Environmental Systems Research Institute. Esri makes the
software, ArcGIS, which you will use in this text to understand the
concepts of geographic information systems.