GIS Dictionary

[ESRI software] Acronym for Library Identifier. A type of GUID consisting of a unique string assigned to a type library.

1 [programming] In object-oriented programming, a logical grouping of classes, usually with a header section that lists the classes in the library. 2 [ESRI software] In ArcInfo, a collection of … Read more

[intellectual property rights] The grant to a party of the right to use a software package or component. A license differs from a sale in that the user does not … Read more

[ESRI software] A file that contains License Manager license data. Each license file contains information such as the SERVER, ESRI_SENTINEL_KEY number (Windows only), Version, the number of seats, and so … Read more

[remote sensing] Acronym for light detection and ranging. A remote-sensing technique that uses lasers to measure distances to reflective surfaces.

[ESRI software] In ArcScene and ArcGlobe, vectors normal to a geometry’s surface, stored in that geometry to help define how lighting affects it.

[ESRI software] In Survey Analyst for field measurements, restrictions that define an acceptable level of measurement error for each computation.

[Euclidean geometry] On a map, a shape defined by a connected series of unique x,y coordinate pairs. A line may be straight or curved.

[ESRI software] A procedure that combines groups of individual lines with the same name into a single line for the label engine. This is often necessary because lines such as … Read more

[linear referencing] In linear referencing, a description of a portion of a route using a from- and to-measure value. Examples of line events include pavement quality, salmon spawning grounds, bus … Read more

[symbology] A map feature that has length but not area at a given scale, such as a river on a world map or a street on a city map.

1 [3D analysis] A line drawn between two points, an origin and a target, that is compared against a surface to show whether the target is visible from the origin … Read more

[cartography] A generalization technique in which vertices are selectively removed from a line feature to eliminate detail while preserving the line’s basic shape.

The process of adding extra points to lines to reduce the sharpness of angles between line segments, resulting in a smoother appearance.

[linear referencing] In linear referencing, the overlay of two line event tables to produce a single line event table. The new event table can be the logical intersection or union … Read more

[linear referencing] In linear referencing, the overlay of a line event table and a point event table to produce a single point event table. The new event table can be … Read more

[ESRI software] A collection of states representing the changes that have occurred over time in a versioned geodatabase.

A measurement of the horizontal or vertical dimension of a feature. Linear dimensions may not represent the true distance between beginning and ending dimension points because they do not take … Read more

[spatial statistics use for geostatistics] The estimation of an unknown value using the linear distance between known values.

[linear referencing] A method for storing geographic data by using a relative position along an already existing line feature; the ability to uniquely identify positions along lines without explicit x,y … Read more

[cartography] The unit of measurement on a plane or a projected coordinate system, often meters or feet.

1 [photogrammetry] In georeferencing, connections added between known points in a dataset being georeferenced and corresponding points in the dataset being used as a reference. 2 [computing] An operation that … Read more

[ESRI software] In Survey Analyst for field measurements, a command that finds nearby survey points for each feature vertex and automatically creates links. The command allows the user to specify … Read more

[ESRI software] In Survey Analyst for field measurements, lines displayed on a map after a survey point and a feature vertex are linked.

[ESRI software] In Survey Analyst for field measurements, a tool that allows the user to make a link between a survey point and a feature vertex by snapping and clicking … Read more

[ESRI software] In Survey Analyst for field measurements, one of two types of pages in the Survey Explorer. The List page lists multiple survey objects.

[hardware] A computer hardware architecture in which, within a multibyte numeric representation, the least significant byte has the lowest address and the remaining bytes are encoded in increasing order of … Read more