THE ‘S’ IN GIS

Abstract

All the requirements of any one user will not necessarily be satisfied within a single GIS software package. Several packages may be required even now. As users' expectations increase, more and more organisations will want to use a wider range of GIS analysis software. The portability and long term usability of spatial data must be ensured at capture, and beyond, to permit users to benefit from the whole range of analysis software, some yet to become available.The paper describes an approach to a geographic information- ‘S’ystem where all data is held independent of any application program. This approach permits controlled data exchange between applications. The database structure adopted is described as are the processes of data preparation before input. The potential for exchange between the database and non specialist GIS software is discussed. The implementation described concentrates on large scale spatial data application and is mainly appropriate for small organisations. The ideas and lessons are however relevant for large corporate systems and any scale of spatial data.