Visual Basic and Geographic Information Systems

Visual Basic and GIS is not intended as a programming book but as a technical guide for readers who need to customise commercially available software to perform a specific operation or task. This is a growing market as GIS software customisation is becoming more widespread, taught on GIS degree programmes and modules and required by professional users of GIS  - such as local authorities and insurance companies to name but a few.

Section 1 of Visual Basic and GIS presents the programming environment;- key operating systems (COM, DCOM and .NET) and programming interfaces of the Visual Basic family. It proceeds to delve into GI systems architecture and conclude by guiding the reader to the most suitable programming environments for different projects. Section 2 looks at practical programming issues and serves as an introduction to VB, class diagrams using UML and web programming. Related examples will develop as the section progresses to provide readers with a ?building-block? learning approach. Section 3 provides training on writing a GIS application that can be incorporated into another programme. The advantages and disadvantages of customisation and extension in the three main classes of stand-alone programmes, off-the-shelf programmes and web-based programmes will be analysed. The example applications (environmental and a socio-economic) in Section 3 use the common theme of the kernal density estimation.

A Companion Website for the book will be developed, containing the code used in the book, helpful internet links and other resources.

Visual Basic and GIS is the latest book in the Mastering GIS: Technology, Applications and Management series.