NCSU GIS/MEA582:
Geospatial Modeling and Analysis

Midterm exam

This is a take home, open book exam handled in Moodle, no on-campus presence needed. The exam is the same for the on-campus and distance sections. You can use any on-line and printed resources, but the responses should be your own work. Questions will be available in Moodle on Day 1, before noon, answers are due on Day 2 at 11.45 pm EST, by submitting a pdf file named LastnameFirstname_Exam.pdf to Moodle. See the Schedule for the dates for Day 1 and Day 2.

  • Sample questions
    • What is a cartographic projection and which common projections are used in US? What does NAD83 and WGS84 stand for?
    • What is the difference between cost surface and cumulative cost surface? What are they used for?
    • Compute cumulative cost surface and least cost path between two given locations
    • What is spatial interpolation, provide general interpolation equation and describe spatial interpolation methods and their properties
    • Demostrate impact of interpolation parameters on the resulting surface for a given interpolation method, for example inverse distance weighting or splines
  • Most questions require computation of a graphical output or development of a GIS-based workflow. The answer should include bullets describing the sequence of operations, actual commands used where applicable, and results in form of images or maps.