Editing Geographic information system (section)

===Data modeling===
{{Main|Data model (GIS) | GIS file formats}}
GIS data represents phenomena that exist in the real world, such as roads, land use, elevation, trees, waterways, and states. The most common types of phenomena that are represented in data can be divided into two conceptualizations: [[Geographical feature|discrete objects]] (e.g., a house, a road) and [[Field (geography)|continuous fields]] (e.g., rainfall amount or population density).<ref name="longley2015" /> {{rp|pages=62–65}} Other types of geographic phenomena, such as events (e.g., location of [[World War II]] battles), processes (e.g., extent of [[suburbanization]]), and masses (e.g., types of [[soil]] in an area) are represented less commonly or indirectly, or are modeled in analysis procedures rather than data.

Traditionally, there are two broad methods used to store data in a GIS for both kinds of abstractions mapping references: [[raster images]] and [[Vector graphics|vector]]. Points, lines, and polygons represent vector data of mapped location attribute references.

A new hybrid method of storing data is that of identifying point clouds, which combine three-dimensional points with [[RGB]] information at each point, returning a [[Anaglyph 3D|3D color image]]. GIS thematic maps then are becoming more and more realistically visually descriptive of what they set out to show or determine.