{"id":404,"date":"2009-08-17T19:39:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-17T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/2009\/08\/17\/did-you-know-6-raster-vs-vector\/"},"modified":"2009-08-17T19:39:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-17T19:39:00","slug":"did-you-know-6-raster-vs-vector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/2009\/08\/17\/did-you-know-6-raster-vs-vector\/","title":{"rendered":"Did You Know? #6 Raster Vs. Vector"},"content":{"rendered":"
Geographic Information Systems (GIS<\/a>) primarily use two categories of digital data: 1) Raster Data and 2) Vector Data.\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Figure #1. <\/span>Left: Raster Data. Right: Vector Data.<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n
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Raster Data:<\/span><\/span> <\/div>\n
Raster Data portrays real world data as a matrix or a grid of cells (see Figure #1<\/a>). Raster data is very good at storing continuous data (for example: precipitation, temperature, and elevation). Each cell stores information numerically, usually between 0-255 and has a geographical location. A weakness of raster data is that the cells are squares and most real world information doesn\u2019t fit into a perfect square(See Figure#2<\/a>). So sometimes a map made with satellite imagery will either underestimate or overestimate a land cover type.<\/div>\n
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Vector Data:<\/span><\/span> <\/div>\n
Vector Data portrays real world data as a point, line or polygon. Vector data is very good at storing discrete data (for example: political boundaries, rivers, lakes, land parcels, and streets). Each point, line, or polygon is called a feature and has a unique ID# (see Figure #2<\/a>). Attribute information can be added to each feature in geographical space. A weakness of vector data is that it sometimes needs great amounts of processing power to run a complex analysis.<\/div>\n
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<\/span>Figure #2<\/span>. Left: Raster Data. Right: Vector Data<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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Below are links to examples of raster (Source: ESR<\/a>I) and vector data (Source: CT DEP<\/a>, MAGIC<\/a>) <\/div>\n
Click to view an example of vector data (point features):
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Click to view an example of vector data (polygon features):<\/span><\/div>\n
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Click to view an example of vector data (Line features):<\/span><\/div>\n
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Click to view an example of raster data.<\/span><\/a> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) primarily use two categories of digital data: 1) Raster Data and 2) Vector Data. Figure #1. Left: Raster Data. Right: Vector Data. Raster Data: Raster Data portrays real world data as a matrix or a grid … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,45],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NL4O-6w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/outsidetheneatline\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}