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Atlas Information Systems

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of GIS

  • 285 Accesses

Synonyms

Atlas information system; Atlas, electronic; Atlas, interactive; Atlas, multimedia; Atlas, virtual; Atlas, web; Cartographic information system; Earth, digital; Globe, virtual; Google Map/Earth

Definition

Atlas information systems (AIS) are systematic, targeted collections of spatially related knowledge in electronic form, allowing a user-oriented communication for information and decision-making purposes. As in a conventional atlas, an AIS mainly consists of a harmonized collection of maps with different topics, scales, and/or from different regions. The maps usually come in standardized scales or degrees of generalization, respectively. The different map types have a common legend and symbolization. The access to the maps is granted through thematic or geographic indexes. AIS dispose of special interactive functions for geographic and thematic navigation, querying, analysis, and visualization in 2D and 3D mode. Unlike in many geographic information systems (GIS)...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation, ETH Zurich, Stefano-Franscini-Platz 5, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland

    Lorenz Hurni

Authors
  1. Lorenz Hurni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lorenz Hurni .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Shashi Shekhar

  2. Management Science and Information Systems Department, Rutgers Business School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, USA

    Hui Xiong

  3. Department of Management Sciences, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Xun Zhou

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

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Hurni, L. (2017). Atlas Information Systems. In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H., Zhou, X. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17885-1_847

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