All Topics
Computer programming and development are critical to the past, present, and future of geospatial systems and techniques. The increasing ubiquity and diversity of online, mobile, and desktop GIS platforms along with the inclusion of cyber-infrastructure components within the bounds of geographic information systems (e.g., supercomputing, wireless sensor networks) means that GIS researchers and professionals need to be fluent in multiple forms of programming, and the life-cycles of system and software development.
Topics in this Knowledge Area are listed thematically below. Existing topics are in regular font and linked directly to their original entries (published in 2006; these contain only Learning Objectives). Entries that have been updated and expanded are in bold. Forthcoming, future topics are italicized.
| Algorithm Design/Algorithmic Approaches | Programming Languages & Libraries |
| Real-time GIS Programming and Geocomputation | Python for GIS |
| Natural Language Processing in GIScience Applications | PySAL and Spatial Statistics Libraries |
| Machine Learning Programming for GIS | R for Geospatial Analysis & Mapping |
| Linear Programming and GIS | Javascript for GIS |
| GIS and Parallel Programming | SQL Languages for GIS |
| Object-oriented Programming in GIS Applications | GDAL/OGR and IO Libraries |
| Application Development | |
| Development Tools | Design, Development, Testing, and Deployment of GIS Applications |
| Visual Programming for GIS Applications | Verification & Validation of GIS Applications |
| SpatialMPI: Message Passage Interface for GIS Applications | Commercialization of GIS Applications |
| GIS APIs | Licensing of GIS Applications |
| Open Source Software Development | |
| Platform Specific Programming | |
| GIS and GPU Programming | |
| Programming of Mobile GIS Applications | |
| Web GIS Programming |
PD-28 - Visual Programming for GIS Applications
Visual programming languages (VPLs) in GIS applications are used to design the automatic processing of spatial data in an easy visual form. The resulted visual workflow is useful when the same processing steps need to be repeated on different spatial data (e.g. other areas, another period). In the case of visual programming languages, simple graphical symbols represent spatial operations implemented in GIS software (tools, geoalgorithms). Users can create a sequence of operation in a simple visual form, like a chain of graphical symbols. Visual programs can be stored and reused. The graphical form is useful to non-programmers who are not familiar with a textual programming language, as is the case with many professionals such as urban planners, facility managers, ecologists and other users of GIS. VPLs are implemented not only in GIS applications but also in remote sensing (RS) applications. Sometimes both types of applications are bundled together in one geospatial application that offers geoalgorithms in a shared VPL environment. Visual programming languages are an integral part of software engineering (SE). Data flow and workflow diagrams are one of the oldest graphical representations in informatics.