Technical Paper

''EXplore India'' Using GIS - An Overview

A GISystem Designed and Developed by Anil B. Marali & Prasad R. Pandit

GIS - The Technology

GIS is an integrated product of information, manpower, software and hardware. It is a system to input, store, manipulate and to get the visual output of spatial information. It is a class and combination of different software to present information in digital format for Geographic and Spatial analysis. In other words, GIS is a science of mapping information to solve various kinds of real time problems. The system is also known as Spatial Information System (SIS).

What is ''EXplore India''?

The project is specially designed to explore the Indian Territory, which includes details about Indian Transport Network, States & Union Territories, Population Trends, Annual Rainfall, Temperature Zones, Major Rivers, Forest, Major Earthquakes, Tourism, Languages, National Insignia and other information.

The Project is still under execution and considered to be a beta version in this first Phase. We pla n to do the further development by using other GIS tools.

The Objective

In today''s world, to get the information about any country and locating various places on the map is slightly difficult. It becomes more tedious and cumbersome in case of querying. To overcome this problem, we have designed ''Explore India'', which will be useful for general query, thematic query, path trace, flood trace and other analysis to get visual results. The query can be executed from the query library, which has the predefined statement. Query can be user defined, which should contain relevant query attributes (Attributes present in Database). This GI System is useful for any individual who wants to know more about India.

Methodology

The project is designed and developed by using AutoDesk Map 4.5 as front-end and MS Access 2000 as back-end. The Data and Maps are collected from Books, Magazines, Internet and other sources. The raster maps are then scanned and converted into vector format (R2V) by using VP studio 6.73. The user is provided with a main web page to view the web enabled dynamic maps. The interactive web page is linked with AutoDesk Map 4.5 to query the object about specific information sought, regarding Object and Trace (these queries are Path Trace, Flood Trace, Buffer Trace and Thematic Query). These web-enabled maps support real-time panning, zooming as well as control over the display of layers, named views and embedded hyperlinks. For user convenience, predefined views are created with each map to see a particular location on a mouse click. The maps are in .dwf format, which can be viewed and plotted by using Volo-View Express or an Internet browser with the AutoDesk WHIP! 4.0 plug-in. The maps can be downloaded in .bmp, .dwf and .dwg format for further analysis.

Design Stages

• Project Concept and Analysis.
• Data and Map collection
• Map Scanning and R2V Conversion.
• Data source configuration and OLE.
• Topology Creation, Analysis & Query.
• System Integration and Testing.
• Implementation.

Following are the few questions that can be answered by    ''EXplore India''.

• Which is the highly populated state?
• Where are Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai located?
• Which state has the largest forest cover?
• Which is the state that has male population > 20 lakhs and population density < 250 persons/sq km?
• Which is the least literate state?
• Which state has a population < 20 lakhs and an area > 2000 sq km where sex ratio is the highest?
• Which is the shortest route between two cities by air, road or rail and it''s alternatives?

''EXplore India'' Using GIS - An Overview Continued…

Let''s catch a glimpse of ''EXplore India''...

Main Web Page:
This web page provides the facility to view the linked maps and images in Internet browser. The maps deliver information about Transportation Networks, All States, National Insignia, NCT, Union Territories and lot of information about the nation. The dynamic maps are also linked with another web page to query the map elements.

Maps in Drawing Web Format (.dwf):
The pop-up menu of web-enabled maps is available with zoom, pan, layer management and Named view options. To reduce the complexity of map, Layer Management option is very useful where you can turn OFF and ON the particular layers as per your convenience. The Named views (predefined views) are also available to get the quick view of the particular location, city, district and Key map etc.e.g. Tamilnadu State Map: One of the all web enabled state-maps available in ''Explore India''.

Limitations of ''EXplore India'':

1. Area and Population details covered are limited up to country, states and districts.
2. Maps are not to scale.
3. Query options are restricted up to country, state and district level.
4. River depth & width, Road width, flow and Air traffic frequency are assumed.

Software Requirements:

5. AutoDesk Map 4.5 or later software is necessary to achieve results.
6. AutoCAD WHIP! 4 plug-in is essential to view web format maps.
7. Internet Explorer 5 or later/ Netscape Navigator 4.6 or later.
8. MS Office 2000.
9. Adobe Acrobat reader 4 or later.

System Requirements:

1. Intel Pentium 233MHz based PC
2. MS Windows 98/ 2000/ Me/ NT or later
3. 128MB RAM
4. 1024x768x64K graphics card and color monitor

''Explore India'' Designed and Developed by: