Introduction to GIS

By:
Dr. Archana Gupta

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 Introduction To GIS
• A tool to be used by researchers
• System involves collected, tabulated, processed,
analyzed geographical data used to solve,
diagnose or prevent problems
• Maps are heavily utilized
• Not the only means of portraying information
• Differs from a CAD system or a CAC system
• Arguably more powerful due to ability to generate
DERIVATIVE data sets from pre-existing data

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• https://myposhanvatika.in/

• https://communitygis.net/

• https://
gscl.assam.gov.in/projects/detail/gis-platform-
for-guwahati-smart-city
 Subsystems for GIS
• Data input and Preprocessing
– Transformation of spatial data types
• E.g., from topo lines to elevation data points
• Data storage and retrieval
• Data manipulation and analysis
– Modeling, simulations, estimates
• Lloyd expressway example
• Data reporting and display of information
– Tabular, graph-based, or map based

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 Cartography
• Cartography or mapmaking is the study and
practice of making maps.
• Maps function as visualization tools for spatial
data.
• The fundamental nature of cartography has
changed with the evolving technologies,
providing cartographers with new methods for
visualization and communication of spatial
information.

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 GIS
• Geographical Information Science
– Not just computerised maps
• Data Capture
– Survey: GPS, EDM (electronic distance measurement),
Laser scanner
– RS: Aerial/Satellite, but also other sensors, Sensor
Networks
– Primary Data, Secondary Data (verification
techniques/theory/PAI)
• Analysis, 2D Map – Cartography, also whole field of
(Geo)Visualisation, (incl. 3D)
• Visualisation can also permit further analysis
– Exploratory (Spatial) Data Analysis – EDA/ESDA

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 GIS Designing
• Desktop Application / Full Package
• Web Mapping / Feature Server / Server GIS
• Web Browser with GIS Tools / Thick Client
• Apps, Mashups, APIs – Distributed GIS

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 Spatial Usage
• Land Use – Urban, Rural, Building Types
• Flood Risk, Water Transport, Soil Type
• Topography – Elevation, Slope, Aspect
• People – Travel to work, shop, emergency services

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 Modelling
• Conceptual Models
– To understand world, predict conditions at locations in time and/or space

• Mathematical Models
– Numerical models where formalised - some idealised, some less so

• Data Models
– Structure and flow of information in time and space

• Spatial Data – often (not always) represented in maps

– (Lots of) Data with spatial component, some attempts to address time too

• Computerised Spatial Data -> Quick Spatial Analysis over wide extent
– GIS – Geographical Information Science (and/or Systems)

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 GIS History / Software
• Geography Techniques (by hand) pre 1960s: John Snow, Minard’s Map
(Napoleon)
• Forestry – Canada (+E Africa) - CGIS
– First GIS – Roger Tomlinson 1960+, operational from 1971+
• USA – Government Organisations: USGS, US Forest Serv, others incl. CIA
• Academia
– Edinburgh – GIMMS 1970+ (Sold from 1973), MSc GIS 1985+
– Harvard – Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis Lab 1965
• ESRI 1969 Env. Consultancy – Arc/Info 1982 -> ArcView Desktop 1995 ->
ArcGIS 1999
• Physics/Space (Moon landings) later CAD/Utilities –
LaserScan/Intergraph 1969
• Demographics/Consultancy – MapInfo 1986
• OpenSource – GRASS, Quantum GIS (QGIS), gvSIG, … link to DBMS
• Web GIS – WMS, WFS, Google Maps, Google Earth, OGC,
OpenStreetMap

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 Data Types
• Vector – Discrete Entities within space
– Points
– Lines
– Polygons

• Raster – Continuous Field/Surface across

space
– Elevation
– pH

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 Attributes
• Vector – Multiple Attributes (Properties)
– Attributes are of each feature (point, line, poly)

• Raster – Single Attribute (Value) e.g. pH

– Each cell has a different value of this attribute

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• For Mapping Roads
– Lines – A Linear Network (Vector)
– linear road network
– Each road can have multiple attributes: speed limit,
length, width, number of lanes

• To model flow/drainage
– Raster Grid – A continuous surface
– Each cell can have a flow direction
– Need multiple spatially co-incident grids to combine
in order to achieve end result

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 GIS
• Understanding phenomena that have a
spatial or geographic dimensions as well as
temporal dimension
• Spatio-temporal problems
• Study different characteristics for different
locations and also changes in these
characteristics over time.

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 GIS can be used by
• Urban Planner, Biologist, Natural Hazard Analyst,
Geological Engineer, Mining Engineer,, mining
engineer , geoinformatics engineer , forest manager
, hydrological engineer Positional Data also called
Spatial Data are related to geographic space
relative to the Earth’s surface.
• Non Spatial Data
• Positional data of a non-geographic nature also
exists Ex: location of headlights on a car.

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• El Nin˜o is an aberrant pattern in weather and
sea water temperature , that occurs with some
frequency (every 4–9 nine years) in the Pacific
Ocean along the Equator.

• Actual

• Difference with Normal

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• A GIS is a computer-based system that provides
the following four sets of capabilities to handle
georeferenced data:
– Data capture and preparation
– Data management, including storage and maintenance
(georeference data)
– Data manipulation and analysis
– Data presentation (maps and other types)
support for various kinds of coordinate systems and
transformations between them, options for analysis of
the georeferenced data, and obviously a large degree of
freedom of choice in the way this information is
presented (such as colour scheme, symbol set, and
medium used)

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• Functional Definition
• GIS is a system for inputting, storing,
manipulating, analyzing, and reporting data. 
Component Definition
• GIS is an organized collection of computer
hardware, software, geographic data,
procedures, and personnel designed to handle
all phases of geographic data capture, storage,
analysis, query, display, and output.

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 Geospatial Data
• Data, we mean representations that can be operated upon
by a computer
• Spatial data we mean data that contains positional values as
(x, y) co-ordinates
• Geospatial data is used as a further refinement refers to
spatial data that is georeferenced
• Geoinformation is a specific type of information resulting
from the interpretation of spatial data
• the collection and maintenance of ‘base’ data remain the
responsibility of the various governmental agencies, such as
National Mapping Agencies (NMAs), which are responsible
for collecting topographic data for the entire country
following pre-set standards
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Components of spatial data quality
• Positional accuracy (both horizontal and vertical)
• Temporal accuracy (that the data is up to date)
• Attribute accuracy (e.g. in labelling of features or of
classifications)
• Lineage (history of the data including sources)
• Completeness (if the data set represents all related
features of reality)
• Logical consistency (that the data is logically
structured).

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 GISystems and GIScience

• Geographic Information Science

• is the science concerned with the systematic and
automatic processing of spatial data and
information with the help of computers
• is the theory behind how to solve spatial
problems with computers
• presents a framework for using information
theory, spatial analysis and statistics, cognitive
understanding, and cartography

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• Geographic Information System
• is a system designed for storing, analyzing,
and displaying spatial data
• is the use of hardware, software, people,
procedures, and data
• focuses on the processes and methods that
are used to sample, represent, manipulate
and present information about the world

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 The real world
• Model and Modelling
• Maps
• Database
• Spatial databases and spatial analysis

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 Basic Elements of GIS
• People
• Data
• Software
• Hardware
• Procedures/Methods

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 People
• are the most important part of a GIS
• Ground truth data collection
– Data storing, processing and analysis
• define and develop the procedures used by a
GIS
• can overcome shortcoming of the other 4
elements (data, software, hardware,
procedure)

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 Data
• Data is the information used within a GIS
• Since a GIS often incorporates data from
multiple sources, its accuracy defines the
quality of the GIS.
• GIS quality determines the types of questions
and problems that may be asked of the GIS

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 GIS Softwares
• It encompasses not only to the GIS package,
but all the software used for databases,
drawings, statistics, and imaging.
• The functionality of the software used to
manage the GIS determines the type of
problems that the GIS may be used to solve.
• The software used must match the needs and
skills of the end user.

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 Popular GIS Softwares
• Vector-based GIS
– ArcGIS (ESRI)
– ArcView
– MapInfo
• Raster-based GIS
– Erdas Imagine (Leica)
– ENVI (RSI)
– ILWIS (ITC)
– IDRISI (Clark Univ.)

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 Hardware
• The type of hardware determines, to an
extent, the speed at which a GIS will operate.
• Additionally, it may influence the type of
software used.
• To a small degree, it may influence the types/
personalities of the people working with the
GIS.

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 Procedures/ Methods
• The procedures used to input, analyze, and
query data determine the quality and validity
of the final product.
• The procedures used are simple the steps
taken in a well defined and consistent method
to produce correct and reproducible results
from the GIS system.

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 TYPES OF GIS DATA
• Vector
• In the vector data model, features on the
earth are represented as:
– Points
– Lines
– Polygons
• Raster
• In the raster data model, a geographic feature
like land cover is represented as:
– single square cells
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 Computer representations of geographic
information
• Raster Representation
– Regular Tessellation
– Irregular tessellations
• Vector representations

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 Regular Tessellation

• A tessellation (or tiling) is a partitioning of

space into mutually exclusive cells that
together make up the complete study space
                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

                         

Square cells Hexagonal cells Triangular cells

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• In all regular tessellations, the cells are of the
same shape and size, and the field attribute
value assigned to a cell is associated with the
entire area occupied by the cell
• A raster is a set of regularly spaced (and
contiguous) cells with associated (field) values.
The associated values represent cell values, not
point values. This means that the value for a
cell is assumed to be valid for all locations
within the cell.
• The size of the area that a single raster cell
represents is called the raster’s resolution
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• The field value of a cell can be interpreted as one for the complete
tessellation cell, in which case the field is discrete, not continuous or
even differentiable.
• Some convention is needed to state which value prevails on cell
boundaries; with square cells, this convention often says that lower
and left boundaries belong to the cell.
• To improve on two things can be done:
– Make the cell size smaller, so as to make the ‘continuity gaps’
between the cells smaller
– Assume that a cell value only represents elevation for one specific
location in the cell, and to provide a good interpolation function
for all other locations that has the continuity characteristic.
Values for other positions than these must be computed through
some form of interpolation function, which will use one or more
nearby field values to compute the value at the requested position.
This allows us to represent continuous, even differentiable, functions

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 Irregular tessellations
• Partitions of space into mutually disjoint cells
• The cells may vary in size and shape, allowing them to
adapt to the spatial phenomena that they represent
• Irregular tessellations are more complex than the
regular ones, but they are also more adaptive, which
typically leads to a reduction in the amount of memory
used to store the data.
• A well-known data structure in this family—upon
which many more variations have been based—is the
region quadtree

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An 8 8, three-valued raster and its representation as a region
quadtree. To construct the quadtree, the field is
successively split into four quadrants until parts have only a
single field value. After the first split, the southeast quadrant
is entirely blue, and this is indicated by a blue square at
level two of the tree. Other quadrants had to be split further

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• Quadtrees are adaptive because they apply the spatial
autocorrelation principle
• Locations that are near in space are likely to have similar
field values. When a conglomerate of cells has the same
value, they are represented together in the quadtree,
provided boundaries coincide with the predefined
quadrant boundaries.
• We can also state that a quadtree provides a nested
tessellation: quadrants are only split if they have two or
more values. The square nodes at the same level
represent equal area sizes, allowing quick computation of
the area associated with some field value.
• The top node of the tree represents the complete raster.

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 Vector representations
• In vector representations, an attempt is made to
explicitly associate georeferences with the
geographic phenomena
• A georeference is a coordinate pair from some
geographic space, and is also known as a vector
• Point
• Line
• Area

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 Point
• extra data is stored for each point object
called attribute or thematic data that can
capture anything that is considered relevant
about the object.

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 Line
• Line data are used to represent one-
dimensional objects such as roads, railroads,
canals, rivers and power lines
• Collections of (connected) lines may represent
phenomena that are viewed as networks.

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 Area / Polygon
• apply a boundary model
• Polygon structure
• Boundary Model

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• GISs help to analyse and understand more about
processes and phenomena in the real world.
• spatial phenomena occurs in a two- or three-
dimensional Euclidean space
• ES is a model of space in which locations are
represented by coordinates—(x, y) in 2D; (x, y, z)
in 3D—and distance and direction can defined
with geometric formulas

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 Geographic Phenomenon
• Geographic phenomenon is defined as a
manifestation of an entity or process that:
– Can be named or described,
– Can be georeferenced, and
– Can be assigned a time (interval) at which it is/was
present
• Phenomena come as triplets (description,
georeference, time- interval)

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• Water management, the objects of study might
be river basins, agro-ecologic units,
measurements of actual evapotranspiration,
meteorological data, ground water levels,
irrigation levels, water budgets and
measurements of total water use.
• In multipurpose cadastral administration, the
objects of study are houses, land parcels,
streets of various types, land use forms, sewage
canals and other forms of urban infrastructure
may play a role.

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• A simple rule-of-thumb is that natural
geographic phenomena are usually fields, and
man-made phenomena are usually objects.

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 Geographic Field

• A field is a geographic phenomenon that has a value

‘everywhere’ in the study area.
• function f associates a specific value with any position in
the study area
• f(x,y)
• Fields can be discrete or continuous
• Examples of continuous fields are air temperature,
barometric pressure, soil salinity and elevation
• A continuous field can even be differentiable
• if the field is elevation, this measure would be slope

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• Discrete fields divide the study space in
mutually exclusive, bounded parts, with all
locations in one part having the same field
value. Typical examples are land classifications,
for instance, using either geological classes, soil
type, land use type, crop type or natural
vegetation type
• integer raster
• continuous raster

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 Data types and values
• Nominal Data Qualitative Data

• Ordinal Data
• Ratio data values Quantitative Data

• Interval data values (10 degree and 5

degree)

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 Geographic Objects
• objects are usually easily distinguished
and named, and their position in space is
determined by a combination of one or
more of the following parameters:
– Location (where is it?),
– Shape (what form is it?),
– Size (how big is it?), and
– Orientation (in which direction is it facing?).

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 Crisp and Fuzzy Boundaries
• A crisp boundary is one that can be determined
with almost arbitrary precision, dependent only
on the data acquisition technique applied.
• Fuzzy boundaries contrast with crisp boundaries
in that the boundary is not a precise line, but
rather itself an area of transition.
• crisp boundaries are more common in man-
made phenomena, whereas fuzzy boundaries
are more common with natural phenomena.

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Geographic Information Technologies
• Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
– a system of earth-orbiting satellites which can provide
precise (100 meter to sub-cm.) location on the earth’s
surface (in lat/long coordinates or equiv.)
• Remote Sensing (RS)
– use of satellites or aircraft to capture information
about the earth’s surface
– Digital ortho images a key product (map accurate
digital photos)
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
– Software systems with capability for input, storage,
manipulation/analysis and output/display of
geographic (spatial) information
 The GIS Model: example
Here we have three layers or themes:
--roads,
de

roads --hydrology (water),

tu
lati

--topography (land elevation)

They can be related because precise
longitude
geographic coordinates are recorded for each
theme.
de

Layers are comprised of two data types

tu

•Spatial data which describes location (where)

lati

hydrology
•Attribute data specifing what, how much,when
longitude Layers may be represented in two ways:
•in vector format as points and lines
de

•in raster(or image) format as pixels

tu

topography
lati

All geographic data has 4 properties:

projection, scale, accuracy and resolution
longitude
 Spatial and Attribute Data
• Spatial data (where)
– specifies location
– stored in a shape file, geodatabase or similar geographic file

• Attribute (descriptive) data (what, how much, when)

– specifies characteristics at that location, natural or human-
created
– stored in a data base table

• GIS systems traditionally maintain spatial and attribute

data separately, then “join” them for display or analysis
– for example, in ArcView, the Attributes of … table is used to link
a shapefile (spatial structure) with a data base table containing
attribute information in order to display the attribute data
spatially on a map
 Representing Data with Raster and Vector Models
Raster Model
• area is covered by grid with (usually) equal-sized, square cells
• attributes are recorded by assigning each cell a single value based
on the majority feature (attribute) in the cell, such as land use
type.
• Image data is a special case of raster data in which the “attribute”
is a reflectance value from the geomagnetic spectrum
– cells in image data often called pixels (picture elements)
• Vector Model
The fundamental concept of vector GIS is that all geographic
features in the real work can be represented either as:
• points or dots (nodes): trees, poles, fire plugs, airports, cities
• lines (arcs): streams, streets, sewers,
• areas (polygons): land parcels, cities, counties, forest, rock type
Because representation depends on shape, GIS system refers to files containing
vector data as shapefiles
 Projection, Scale, Accuracy and Resolution
the key properties of spatial data
• Projection: the method by which the curved 3-D surface of the earth is
represented by X,Y coordinates on a 2-D flat map/screen
– distortion is inevitable

• Scale: the ratio of distance on a map to the equivalent distance on the

ground
– in theory GIS is scale independent but in practice there is an implicit range of scales for
data output in any project

• Accuracy: how well does the database info match the real world
– Positional: how close are features to their real world location?
– Consistency: do feature characteristics in database match those in real world
• is a road in the database a road in the real world?
– Completeness: are all real world instances of features present in the database?
• Are all roads included.

• Resolution: the size of the smallest feature able to be recognized

– for raster data, it is the pixel size
 Map Projection
• Location of map features are based on a
coordinate system whereas the location of
spatial features are based on geographic grid
expressed in latitude and longitude values.
• The transformation from the geographic grid
to a coordinate system is called map
projection.
• Map layers used must be based on the same
coordinate system.
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• When maps are not of same coordinate
systems , processing is required.
• Processing means projection and re-
projection.
• Projection means converting digital maps from
latitude – longitude values to 2 dimensional
coordinates system.
• Re-projection means converting from one
coordinate system to another.
• Every Map preserves some spatial properties
and sacrifice other properties.

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 Geographic Grid
• GG is a location reference system for spatial features on the Earth’s
surface.
• GG consist of meridians and parallels
• Meridians are lines of longitude for E-W directions (prime meridian, 0-
180 Degrees)
• Parallels are lines of latitude for N-S directions (Equator, 0-90 Degrees)
• The geographic grid of Spherical Earth’s surface is similar to a plane
coordinate system.
• (0,0) is represented where prime meridian meets equator
• Longitude – X values, Latitude – Y values
• Eastern Hemisphere – positive values
• Western Hemisphere – negative values
• North of equator - positive values
• South of equator – negative values
• Measured in degree-minute-second (DMS) / decimal degrees (DD)
systems
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 Map Projection
• Map projection is the transformation of the spherical Earth’s
surface to a Plane Surface.
• The outcome of this transformation is a systematic construction
of lines on a plane surface representing the geographic grid.
• Two dimensional coordinates rather than spherical or three
dimensional coordinates.
• cos D = sin a sin b + cos b cos c
• D is distance b/w A and B, a is latitude at A, b is latitude at B, c
is difference in Longitude of A and B
• Length of one degree at the equator = 111.32 kms/ 69.17 miles
• Transformation from earth’s surface to flat surface involves
distortion and no projection is perfect.

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Cartographer’s Map Projection Classification
based on their preserved properties
• Conformal
– Preserves Local Shapes
• Equal area / equivalent
– Area in correct relative size
• Equidistant
– Consistency of scale for certain distances
• Azimuthal / true direction
– Retains accurate directions

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• Conformal and Equivalent properties are
mutually exclusive
• These are global properties – applied to
entire Map projection.
• Equidistant and Azimuthal properties are
local properties
• May be true only only for from or to the
centre of map projection.

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How map projection constructed?
• Various projections are used to represent
the curved surface of the Earth to the plane
surface of a map.
• The three transformations are:
• Cylindrical Projection:
– Using Cylinder (projection surface)
• Conic projection:
– Using Cone
• Azimuthal Projection:
– Using Plane
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Cylindrical projection

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Conical projection

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Azimuthal projection

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• Use of geometric objects explain two other
concepts in map projections
– Case
• Simple case (one line of tangency) and secant case
(two lines of tangency)
• Cylindrical and conical projections have one line of
tangency and two lines of tangency in simple and
secant cases respectively.
• Azimuthal projection has point of tangency in
simple case and a line of tangency in secant case
– Aspects
• Aspects describes the placement of a geometric
objects relative to a globe
• A plane may be tangent at any point on the globe

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Cases

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 Aspects

Polar aspect – refers to tangency at Poles

Equatorial aspect – refers to tangency at Equator
Oblique Aspect – refers to anywhere between the equator and pole

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• Case relates directly to the standard line in Map
Projection
– Refers to the line of tangency between the projection
surface and the reference Globe.
– For cylindrical and conic cases,
• the standard line is called standard parallel if it follows a
parallel
• And Standard Meridian if it follows a meridian
There is no projection distortion along standard line because it
has same scale as that of reference globe.
Standard line has scale factor of 1.

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 Scale Factor
• Ratio of the local scale to the scale of the
reference globe or the principal globe
• Degree of projection distortion increases away
from the standard line
• Central line and standard lines are different
• Standard lines indicate the distribution pattern of
projection distortion
• Centre line defines centre or origin of map
projection
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 Projection Surface

a b c Earth’s srface

Scale Factor
a = 1.0
b= 0.99
c= 1.0
Central meridan is at b

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• The centre of Map Projection is defined by the central Parallel and
central Meridians

• To avoid having negative coordinates, GIS can make use of False Easting
or False Northing
• Move the origin to the SW corner
• So that all points fall in NE quadrant and have positive values
• Coordinates based on false origin have very large numbers, to preserve
data precision, x-shift and y-shift values applied to all coordinates
readings

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 Geo Referencing

• Advantages:
– It covers entire Earth
– Can be transformed to Cartesian coordinate
• Disadvantage:
– The elevation reference system is not same as
for normal national elevation system

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 Commonly used Map Projections
• Transverse Mercator
– cylindrical., standard Meridian
• Lambert Conformal Conic
– Secant projection, first and second standard parallels,
central meridian, latitude of projections origin, false
easting and false northing
• Albers Equal Area Conic
– Equal Area
• Equidistant Conic
– Equidistant

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 Spheroid and Datum
• A spheroid is a model that approximates the earth.
• Also called Ellipsoid
• Due to irregularities or mass anomalies in the distribution of
the ‘global ocean’ results in an undulated surface. This
surface is called the Geoid
• Has major axis at equator and minor axis at poles
• Datum is a mathematical model serves as the reference
base to calculate the geographical coordinates of a location.
• Relationship between earth and spheroid is defined through
a Datum.

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• Clarke 1866 (united states, equatorial radius
and polar radius)
• NAD 27 ( North American datum of 1927,
centre at Meades Ranch, Kansas)
• WGS 84 World Geodetic System 1984
• GRS 80 Geodetic Reference system 1980
• NAD 83
• Horizontal shift from NAD 27 to NAD 83

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 Coordinate Systems
• Coordinate systems are used to locate data either
on the Earth’s surface in a 3D space, or on the
Earth’s reference surface (ellipsoid or sphere) in a
2D space.
• 2D Geographic coordinates (φ, λ)
• 3D Geographic coordinates (φ, λ, h)
• 3D Geocentric coordinates (X, Y, Z)
• 2D Cartesian coordinates (X, Y )
• 2D Polar coordinates (α, d)
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 2D Geographic coordinates (φ, λ)
• The most widely used global coordinate
system consists of lines of geographic latitude
(phi or φ or ϕ) and longitude (lambda or λ).

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 3D Geographic coordinates (φ, λ, h)

• 3D geographic coordinates (φ, λ, h) are

obtained by introducing the ellipsoidal height
h to the system. The ellipsoidal height (h) of a
point is the vertical distance of the point
above the ellipsoid.

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3D Geocentric coordinates (X, Y, Z)
• The system has its origin at the mass-centre of
the Earth with the X and Y axes in the plane of
the equator. The X-axis passes through the
meridian of Greenwich, and the Z-axis
coincides with the Earth’s axis of rotation. The
three axes are mutually orthogonal and form a
right-handed system. Geocentric coordinates
can be used to define a position on the surface
of the Earth

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 2D Cartesian coordinates (X, Y )
• A flat map has only two dimensions: width
(left to right) and length (bottom to top).
Transforming the three dimensional Earth into
a two-dimensional map is subject of map
projections and coordinate transformations
• Two-dimensional Cartesian coordinates (x, y),
also known as planar rectangular coordinates

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 2D Polar coordinates (α, d)
• Defining a point in a plane is by polar
coordinates. This is the distance d from the
origin to the point concerned and the angle α
between a fixed (or zero) direction and the
direction to the point. The angle α is called
Bearing or azimuth.
• Azimuth or bearing and is measured in a
clockwise direction.

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 Coordinate transformations

• Transformations may be done on the basis of a

set of selected points whose coordinates are
known in both systems. These points are
ground control points (GCPs) or common
points such as corners of houses or road
intersections, etc.
2D Polar to 2D Cartesian Transformations
The transformation of polar coordinates (α, d), into Cartesian
map coordinates (x, y) is done when field measurements,
angular and distance measurements are transformed into
map coordinates. The equation for this transformation is:
• x = d(sin(a))
• y = d(cos(a))

• The inverse equation is: 

• a = tan−1(x/y)
• d2 = x2 + y2