Preface


Shunji Murai Professor and Doctor of Engineering
Institute of Industrial Science
University of Tokyo, Japan
Chair Professor, STAR Program
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Geographic Information System (GIS) has undergone a sort of boom all around the world in this decade as personal computers and engineering workstations have become available at reasonable prices. There were and are so many applications of GIS on various levels of central governments, local governments, utility service corporations, distribution service companies, car navigation systems, marketing strategies etc., but unfortunately not all them are successful. For successful GIS one of the keys is education and training, particularly with well organized teaching materials.

When I was teaching at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand for three years between 1992 and 1995, and also when I organized an international symposium on AM/FM GIS ASIA'95 in Bangkok, Thailand, August 1995, I was strongly requested by many people in the developing countries in Asia to publish a GIS text book, which is easily understandable in not only theory and principle but also in planning and application for a successful GIS. If you look at the exiting text books, most of them are not very much unified because some are collection of articles written by multiple authors, some are too thick and too expensive for educational purposes, some are too conceptual and theoretical background. Thus I have attempted to write an easily understood text with short explanation in not more than a page for each item on the left together with another page of only figures, tables and/or pictures on the right page, in organized manner.

In 1996 and 1997, I published GIS Work Book- Fundamental Course and Technical Course respectively with bi-lingal of English and Japanese. As some readers request me to publish only English version, I reedited the two volumes into a book with only English version.

I believe that this text book with its two parts ; "fundamental course" and "technical course" would be useful and helpful to not only students, trainees, engineers, salesmen but also to top managers or decision makers.

I would like to thank Mr. Minoru Tsuzura, Japan Association of Surveyors for his administrative support to make this English version possible.

August, 1998
Tokyo, Japan


The production of this CD-ROM was funded by National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan (RESTEC). The conversion into electronic form was implemented by Asian Center for Research on Remote Sensing (ACRoRS) of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand in March 1999. The editing team members were Professor Shunji Murai (Team Leader), Mr. Tin Aung Moe, Ms. Wandee Kijpoovadol and Mrs. Nancy Canisius.

March, 1999
AIT, Thailand