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Geographical Information System (GIS) Drafting
GIS illustration

GIS (Geographic Information System) is a way of displaying practically any kind of information that has a geographic component. GIS can display very simple information much in the manner of ordinary CAD drawings. But it can just as easily display highly complex information. It merely depends on what users want to know and how detailed their data may be.

There can be a great overlap between ordinary CAD drafting and GIS and we often use both disciplines on many projects. The

strength of GIS is making drawings "smart." By that we mean that GIS maps can hold tremendous amounts of behind-the-scenes information. The challenge is asking the right questions and making those questions appropriate to the information.

The strength of GIS is its ability to combine geographic information from widely different sources in order to answer crucial questions that may not have otherwise been apparent. We could, for example, combine land, wildlife and hydrologic information from both private and public sources. If our client company wants to lower its annual rental payments, we could ask questions such as, "Show us all the claims that are expiring in the next six months that lie within the  Snake River drainage basin and within a crucial elk wintering area that also lie within two miles of a wilderness area."  Similarly, we could ask questions such as, "Show us all the monitoring wells with a particular level of contamination that lie within a half mile of some land or property feature."

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