[OSM-talk] Slightly OT: Learning GIS?

[andrzej zaborowski]

2009/12/14 Serge Wroclawski <emacsen at gmail.com>:
> I'm sorry for spamming this list with something that's a bit off
> topic, but my involvement with OSM has me interested in GIS generally,
> and learning the algorithms that I can use to do analysis of the data-
> everything from simple functions like calculating the bounding box for
> an area and a radius, to knowing if (and where) two polygons
> intersect, to more complex questions I don't know enough to ask about
> yet.

This may sound strange but at most universities these topics are
covered in courses with the word 'Graphics' in the title, sometimes
also something to do with 'geometry'.  There are obviously interesting
things in GIS that are not related to graphics like the datums and
projections and geometry on a sphere and I don't know where one learns
these, I know little about them.

For practical aplications however you'll use libraries (gdal etc) or
PostGIS for all this stuff so understanding them deeply is rarely
required.

Cheers