GIS & Digital Cartography

The GIS and Digital Cartography Program focuses on teaching the required discipline and applications used by people in this field. Cartography is the art of creating maps with interpreted data. A cartographer, or mapmaker “digitally” illustrates the visualization of data with some spatial dimension. GIS is a model of such data in a computer environment. Using GIS, we can simplify, focus, or generalize information in maps with multimedia and annotation.

With the massive investments in infrastructure funding, those knowledgeable in GIS Technology will be poised to benefit from this economic opportunity. Additionally, maps and digitized cartographic products are in high demand in a countless multiplicity of industries such as construction, mining, resource management, demographic analysis, aerospace, property survey, law enforcement, smart agriculture, and outdoor recreation.

Our GIS and Digital Cartography program is one of our most advanced and in-depth programs to date – touching upon countless related ideas and processes to provide an extremely comprehensive knowledge set for anyone seeking a career in this expanding field.

You’ll first be introduced to an overview of GIS fundamentals and learn about the various types and formats of cartographic data, how it is collected, stored, processed, and the various sensors involved. Students will be afforded ample opportunity to engage in hands-on data reduction and map drafting exercises using both open-source and licensed software such as ENVI, QGIS, and the ESRI ArcGIS family of products. At each step, graded courses will introduce you to ancillary applications that facilitate map creation such as input parsers, database management functions, file format handlers, scripting languages, and graphics routines to output beautiful publish-ready 2D and 3D displays.

Discover aspects of the GIS industry above and beyond simple map drafting through your elective courses and investigate sophisticated tools in the Python and R libraries that vastly extend the power of ArcGIS and QGIS through the coding of macros and API (Application Interface) calls and allow the construction of complex layered terrain models.