GE has a common section on mathematics, remote sensing, GNSS and GIS, followed by either Surveying and Mapping or Image Processing and Analysis.

Geomatics Engineering is tested within a 100-mark paper. The paper also includes General Aptitude. The sections below show the complete subject syllabus.

GATE GE Syllabus and Marks Distribution

Choose one of the two optional sections during the examination. The common section remains compulsory. The two options do not have separate ranks and qualifying marks; they are choices within the same test paper.

Geomatics Engineering Unit-wise Syllabus

Common Section

• Engineering Mathematics: Surveying measurements, Accuracy, Precision, Most probable value, Errors and their adjustments, Regression analysis, Correlation coefficient, Least squares adjustment, Statistical significant value, Chi-square test.
• Remote Sensing: Basic concept, Physical Principles of Remote Sensing, Spectral signature, Resolutions: Spectral. Spatial, Temporal, Radiometric, Platforms and Sensors, Remote Sensing Data Products - PAN, Multispectral, Microwave, Thermal, Hyperspectral data; Visual and digital interpretation methods.
• GNSS: Principle used, Components of GNSS, Data collection methods, DGPS, Errors in observations and corrections.
• GIS: Introduction, Data Sources, Data Models and Data Structures, DBMS, Creation of Databases (spatial and non-spatial), Basic Spatial analysis: Interpolation, Buffer, Overlay, Terrain Modeling and Network analysis.

Surveying and Mapping

• Maps: Importance of maps to engineering projects, Types of maps, Scales, and uses, Plotting accuracy, Map sheet numbering, Coordinate systems - Cartesian and geographical, Map projections, Map datum – MSL, Geoid, spheroid, WGS-84.
• Land Surveying: Levelling instruments, Levelling methods, Compass, Theodolite, Total Station and COGO functions, Tachometer, Trigonometric levelling, Traversing, Triangulation and Trilateration.
• Aerial Photogrammetry: Types of photographs, Flying height and scale, Relief (height) displacement, Stereoscopy, Height determination using Parallax Bar, Digital Elevation Model (DEM).

Image Processing and Analysis

• Data Quantization and Processing: Sampling and quantization theory Principle of Linear System, Convolution.
• Digital Image Processing: Digital image characteristics: image histogram and scattergram and their significance, Variance-Covariance and Correlation matrix and their significance.
• Basic Radiometric and Geometric Corrections: Registration and Resampling techniques.
• Image Enhancement: Spatial Enhancement: Noise and Spatial filters, Contrast Enhancement: Linear and Non - linear methods.
• Image Transformation: Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Discriminant Analysis, Color transformations (RGB - IHS, CMYK), Indices (Ratios, NDVI, NDWI).
• Basic Image Classification and Segmentation: Supervised and unsupervised techniques, accuracy analysis.

General Aptitude Syllabus

General Aptitude contributes 15 marks within the 100-mark paper. It is not an additional paper that can be left out when choosing the technical sections.

Chapter-wise Weightage and Important Topics

Only the section-wise marks are fixed. IIT Madras has not assigned a guaranteed number of marks to each chapter of Geomatics Engineering. A topic may appear in one year and receive fewer questions in another; a past-paper count is not an official 2027 weightage.

For a chapter-weightage comparison, record the year, paper code, session, question number and marks of each matching question. Keep a combined question under one main topic or label the overlap explicitly; counting it twice inflates the total. GATE previous-year question papers can be used for this topic-by-topic practice.

Question Types and Negative Marking

The paper uses one-mark and two-mark questions. The number of MCQ, MSQ and NAT questions is not a fixed chapter-wise quota. In an MSQ, selecting one correct option is not enough when the correct answer contains two options.