GIS terms starting with P

50 terms

  1. page extent Defines a rectangular portion of the graphics page to be displayed.
  2. PAN Polyacrylonatrile [carbon fiber].
  3. Parallel Transmission of all the bits (e.g. in a character) at the same time. If the character has eight bits, there are eight wires.
  4. parcel data Data representing the geographic limits of property ownership as defined by some legal instrument.
  5. Parcel Lot Land often not residing within a square, most of which were created in 1905 by Act of Congress.
  6. path The hierarchical description of where a directory, folder, or file is located on a computer or network.
  7. pathfinding The process of finding a path between an origin and destination, which usually involves determining a least-cost path.
  8. pathname The path to a file or directory located on a disk. Pathnames are always specific to the computer operating system.
  9. Paul Revere tour A traveling salesman tour in which the start is different from the ending stop.
  10. pavement edges The line demarcating the end of an impervious ground cover and the beginning of unconsolidated materials along a traveled path.
  11. peak A point around which all slopes are negative (i.e., downward).
  12. peripheral device A hardware device not part of the central computer (e.g., digitizers, plotters, and printers).
  13. persistent lock A long-term database lock required when users wish to maintain a consistent view of their data while doing modifications over a long transaction.
  14. Petabyte A measure of data size. One petabyte is equivalent to 1,000 terabytes.
  15. photo laboratory process The chemical process of converting a latent image in an emulsion layer to a visible, stable image.
  16. Photogrammetry Techniques of obtaining precise measurements from images. This process can derive elevation from specially created stereo pairs of aerial photos.
  17. Pictometry Shows high resolution images taken at oblique angles of about 45 degrees from the four compass points and from directly above.
  18. Pit An area consisting of a number of gaming tables.
  19. pixel Picture Element.
  20. planimetric The horizontal (x,y) locations of non-topographic features, such as rivers, lakes, buildings, roads, etc.
  21. planimetric data Data about features on the Earth surface that are represented only by their correct horizontal position.
  22. Planimetric Map Contains point and line map layers of visible features from aerial photography, such as streets, sidewalks, alleys, buildings, open space, utilities, etc.
  23. Planning, Land Use, and Zoning For example, resources describing zoning maps, and information used for planning the environment.
  24. point An amount equal to one percent of the principal amount of a mortgage. Loan discount points are a one-time charge assessed at closing by the lender to…
  25. Point Attribute Table / Polygon Attribute Table (PAT) A coverage can have either a point attribute table or a polygon attribute table, but not both.
  26. Point attribute table or polygon attribute table (PAT) A coverage can have either a point attribute table or a polygon attribute table, but not both.
  27. point event See event.
  28. point-in-polygon A topological overlay procedure which determines the spatial coincidence of points and polygons.
  29. Police District Police jurisdictions. See also Police Service Areas (PSA).
  30. Police Service Area (PSA) Every resident lives in a Police Service Area, and every PSA has a team of police officers and officials assigned to it.
  31. polygon A coverage feature class used to represent areas. A polygon is defined by the arcs that make up its boundary and a point inside its boundary for…
  32. polygon overlay A topological overlay procedure which determines the spatial coincidence of two sets of polygon features and creates a new set of polygons based on…
  33. polygon-arc topology The topological data structure ARC/INFO uses to represent connectivity between arcs to form polygons.
  34. POSIX 1003.1A A revision to the POSIX 1003.1 standard that defines a set of standard operating system interfaces and an environment for application programs written in…
  35. POSIX 1003.4a Defines thread support to facilitate writing multitasking operations, particularly server applications.
  36. POSIX character set POSIX character sets support languages which only require 7-bit characters (such as US English). See also extended character set.
  37. PostScript PostScript is a page-description computer language developed, marketed, and trademarked by Adobe Systems, Inc.
  38. Precinct See County Election Precinct and Election Day precinct.
  39. Precision The accuracy with which a number can be represented, i.e., the number of digits used to represent a number.
  40. preliminary topology Refers to incomplete region topology. Region topology defines region-arc and region-polygon relationships.
  41. primary key One or more attributes whose values uniquely identify a row in a database table. See also foreign key.
  42. Production The process of delivering to another party, or making available for that partys review, documents deemed responsive to a discovery request.
  43. profile A sectional view showing grades and distances, usually taken along the centerline.
  44. projection See map projection.
  45. projection file A coverage file that stores the parameters for the map projection and coordinate system of a geographic data set (e.g., a coverage).
  46. Property and Land For example, resources describing cadastral surveys and land ownership.
  47. proximal tolerance The minimum distance in ground units separating all point locations on the horizontal plane.
  48. pseudo node A node where two, and only two, arcs intersect, or a single arc that connects with itself.
  49. Public Safety Resources related to emergency services. For example, Fire, EMS, and Police.
  50. Public Services Resources related to social and governmental services provided to the public.