What is a raster calculator used for in GIS?

The raster calculator is a powerful tool within GIS that allows users to apply various mathematical and logical operations to raster data. This capability is essential for manipulating and analyzing spatial data represented in a grid format, where each cell (or pixel) holds a value related to a specific geographic area.

By using the raster calculator, GIS professionals can perform operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and more complex functions like conditional statements or statistical calculations. For instance, users can calculate land cover change by subtracting two raster datasets representing different time periods, or evaluate the suitability of locations for certain activities by combining variables like elevation, slope, and land use.

While data conversion, GPS signal processing, and visualization are important aspects of GIS, they do not specifically pertain to the core functionality of the raster calculator, which is fundamentally about performing calculations directly on the cell values of raster datasets. This ability to manipulate and analyze data mathematically is what sets the raster calculator apart as a key tool in spatial analysis.