Although the term geographic information systems (GIS) may sound foreign to most, chances are, they’ve used GIS in the last week or even day.
The software program responsible for the popular Google Maps and Google Earth, as well as Cal Poly’s campus map, can also be utilized in countless ways for students and professionals alike.
To help promote understanding of GIS use, the Kennedy Library and the San Luis Obispo GIS Users Group will be having its annual GIS Day Thursday.
The event will feature about 20 exhibitors from on and off campus, including businesses such as engineering companies, consultants who do GIS work and government agencies such as CAL FIRE.
Other GIS users will be giving half-hour presentations on the software’s various aspects.
“It’s sort of geared towards students just to come and look and see what’s going on,” said Tom Mastin, coordinator for the GIS minor that Cal Poly offers. “It’s not highly technical at all.”
GIS Resources Coordinator Carole Schuldt put up large posters printed with examples of GIS map use by local businesses in preparation for the event.
“Anywhere that you have a place on the Earth and you have data about it, you can probably make a map,” Schuldt said. “Let’s say you want to know how long houses have been on the market in San Luis Obispo County over the last year. You could plot every single dot for each house that’s sold and color code it according to how long it was on the market before it sold and you could plot that on your map and you could just look at it and see what the answer is.”
The software package for GIS comes with various applications that allow the user to custom create maps with several different layers. For example, one of several posters currently hanging in the library shows residents of San Luis Obispo how long it would take the city’s fire department to respond to a fire at their residence, depending on where they live on the map.
“They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words and this is a perfect example because (instead of) to tell someone ‘this is about how long it takes to get our fire response out to your property’, you can show them the map,” Schuldt said. “You can show them the map and all of a sudden it makes perfect sense.”
Other posters showed a projection of which local neighborhoods would flood if Laguna Lake overflowed, prompting homeowners to raise the foundations of their houses in areas that would be affected. A map for Cal Trans employees shows all the land-use designations of Paso Robles. This in turn helps them see how land use changes would affect traffic.
Mastin said that although the maps can be used with many majors, he mostly sees students studying engineering, forestry, agricultural systems management and biology.
“There are quite a number of majors that have GIS as a tool that they use quite a bit once they get out of college,” said Mastin, a lecturer in bioresources and agricultural engineering. “People start to easily see the benefit of it; it’s easier to put in the info, it’s easier to get the info out.”
Schuldt said that agricultural students frequently utilize GIS.
“It’s used in agriculture to plant crop rotations, used in planning to make sure you fertilize properly because you can set up monitors on a plant and track soil moisture (and) particular chemicals in the soil. Then you can upload your info on your map where you need to do less fertilizing or more fertilizing,” she said. “One student wanted to do an atlas based on GIS using on the human body. Instead of having the intersection of Madonna Road and Los Osos Valley Road, you would have a spot on the chest and that would be where the heart was. It’s just so versatile.”
For students who can’t take the minor but still want to learn about GIS, the library also offers a free online class where they can get tutoring in how to use GIS properly.
“Some of the students have never seen it before and have no idea that they can use it for their major,” Schuldt said. “I probably say (GIS) is so cool way too much (but) it’s just amazing what you can do.”
The event will take place from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday on the library’s third floor.