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Assistant Professor of Geography |
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Assistant Professor of Geography |
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Office: 151 Wilkeson Quad Office Hours:
Monday 12:00-1:00Phone: 716-645-2722, ext 38
Wednesday 12:00-1:00
or by email confirmed appointment
Fax: 716-645-2329
email: dougf@geog.buffalo.eduMailing Address: Department of Geography
University at Buffalo
105 Wilkeson Quad.
Box 610023
Buffalo, NY 14261-0023
Courses That I Teach:
GEO 120 Maps and Mapping (3 Cr)
Offered Spring SemestersMaps are essential tools for geographers and others who use spatial information and study spatial phenomena. Maps can be used to both explore and present data, and they play an important role in our society. This course is an introduction to maps and cartography, with an emphasis on how they relate to geographic information systems (GIS). Major topics include data sources, the map abstraction process, "map infrastructure" (scale, projections, reference systems, accuracy), map types, use, and interpretation. The course material covers technical and social issues as well as applications. Geography 120 serves as an introduction to courses in cartography, GIS, and remote sensing offered in the Geography Department
Class Syllabus: HTML
GEO 426/595 - Database Design for Geographic Information Systems (3 Cr)
Students should have completed an introductory computer programming course.
Offered during Fall Semester
Curriculum VitaeThis course offers a theoretical foundation for representation of knowledge in spatial information systems and logic based programming as a tool for fast prototyping and design of geographic systems. Key topics discussed are methods for formalizing interactions of geographic objects; characteristics of various information models including hierarchical, network, relational and object-oriented; overview of database management systems and their suitability for spatial data; the transaction concept; and the design of database scheme for geographic applications using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Oracle RDBMS. Lecture concepts are reinforced through a set of laboratory exercises.
Class Syllabus: PDF or HTML
GEO 481/506 Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (4 Cr)
Students should have completed an introductory computer programming course.
Offered during Fall SemesterThis is an introductory course that covers the development and basic principles of geographic information systems and practical experience in the use of these systems. Geographic information systems cover the technology used to represent observations about the geographic world. The lecture and reading component provide a background on the development of geographic information systems, the organization of such systems and their use. Students will learn to: identify and describe hardware components of a GIS; state differences between databases models; describe and evaluate methods of data capture and sources of data; discuss the nature and characteristics of spatial data; understand typical GIS operations; identify types of GIS products; identify various applications of GIS; and understand differences between raster and vector systems.
Graduate students taking the course as GEO 506 are required to prepare an independent GISproject involving either a software prototype or research paper in addition to the requirements for GEO 481.
GEO 488/556 GIS Design (4 Cr)
Students should have completed an introductory GIS course.
Offered during Spring SemesterThis is an intermediate level course intended for geographers, planners, IT managers and computer scientists. The course will examine the range of considerations necessary to develop a geographic information system in a medium to large government or institutional setting. The course begins with a formal understanding of data and information and compares spatial data to traditional data processing. Building on this, students will be introduced to the system design process. Design studio exercises will be used to give students experience in working in design teams to formalize user requirements, external views, conceptual models, and internal design. An object-oriented analysis and design approach will be used throughout the class. Students will use the Unified Modeling Language (UML) to formalize their designs. Implementation of portions of the designs may be executed in Oracle RDBMS and ARC/INFO version 8.
Class Syllabus: PDF
GEO 489/555 GIS Algorithms and Data Structures with Java (3 Cr)
Students should have completed an introductory computer programming
course and either GEO 481 or 506.
Offered Spring Semesters
This is a course for geographers, spatial software programmers and computer scientists. It is assumed that students are familar with basic computer principles and GIS functionality. The course will introduce Java as an object-oriented programming environment. Lectures will focus on principles of spatial data structures and algorithms for manipulating spatial data and storing them effectively and efficiently. A set of weekly programming studios will focus on building a library of spatial objects of increasing sophistication. Topics that are expected to be covered include: coordinate systems, projections, topologic data structures, spatial indexing methods, n-dimensional trees, and cartographic simplification.