smahabal@uceng.UC.EDU (Sudhir Mahableshwarkar) (01/24/91)
As i get GIS it is Geographic Information System (!Software) I have been using a Transportation GIS called TransCAD by Caliper Corp. (MA). Its a kind of all-purpose-GIS for transportation. It has ability to store huge database in its compact form. Has SQL mode. Graphics is core of GIS where results of recent query/action are put for display. There are lot of ready to use procedures available for the user. For example Network Assignment, Shortest Path etc.. It runs on 80x86, 640K price with edu discount $800 and without it might go to $10000!. Another GIS i have used a little bit and is (I think) used by many others called ARC-INFO. This is avaliable for many platforms including PC, Unix ,VAX and RT's. I am not sure of price for pro use but for edu it comes to $1600 per machine. This is like open architecture GIS in which you can do lot of things as per your wish and in different sequences. This is not as interactive as TransCAD but this is true GIS. This does let you digitize maps and current version has DbaseIII as its data manager(as i am informed). This needs 80Megs of Disc space, 640K and 80x86. The pro price may be as high as $15000. Hope this helps. --Sudhir