Sensors & Systems - Perspectives

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What are the considerations between buying geospatial technologies directly as compared to services?

Details: 14 November 2008 | 1208

Jeff Thurston — "We are at a point in time along the geospatial maturity curve where product development and innovation has been mastered to a high degree for many technologies. The focus for many people has changed from tightening and adjusting the nuts and bolts under the hood, to one of acting to solve problems and becoming engaged in understanding others. Technological maturity and advancement has meant freedom and empowerment. It has also propelled these spatial tools and geodata to center stage to engage in the world’s most pressing and complex problems."

Matt Ball — "There are many considerations when contemplating whether to cultivate in-house capabilities or to rely on the expertise of others. A large part of this equation revolves around how often the toolset is used, and the level of benefit that it brings to your business. An infrequent user requiring spatial analysis and reporting would be much more likely to rely on outside help as opposed to users where geospatial tools are integral to everyday business."

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What innovations would you most like to see in online mapping tools?

Details: 07 November 2008 | 1275

Jeff Thurston — "I reason that online mapping tools ought to be highly interoperable, allowing one to fuse, integrate and manipulate spatial information from numerous sources in a myriad of ways. Secondly, they should provide a higher level link to visualisation that is more seamless - I’m thinking of more than cartographic presentation alone. They could include more Virtual Reality functionality. Thirdly, the link from online map information to mobile devices, laptops and other devices should be ’smarter’."

Matt Ball — "The increasing innovation of online mapping continues to amaze and surprise me, particularly this week after viewing many interactive maps dealing with the U.S. elections. Clever interfaces for map-based views push the interest in mapping, and expand the prospects for the entire geospatial industry. While the innovation is at a fast and exciting pace, there are some areas that I’d like to accelerate in order to spread more intermediate and advanced geospatial capabilities to much broader audiences."

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Can we do some jobs today without GIS? What would it be like?

Details: 30 October 2008 | 1505

Jeff Thurston — "GIS is an integral tool set for conducting business and many tasks and operations in society today. It is hard to imagine running an electricity grid, performing land management over a wide area or working with environmental information without a GIS today. Like financial systems or human relations functions, GIS are embedded throughout daily life in many ways. Without them we would be reduced to slow moving paper trails and awkward database operations."

Matt Ball — "Going back to paper, mylar map sheets, and rows upon rows of drafting tables is truly a frightening thought. It’s frightening primarily due to the loss of efficiency and productivity that this would represent. It’s also scary to think that the real-time collaboration that digital tools provide would go away completely, as paper-based maps and plans provide little means for interactivity."

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As scientists contemplate geoengineering, how do geospatial tools assist in assessing feasibility?

Details: 23 October 2008 | 1260

Jeff Thurston — "Geoengineering suggests that wide ranging change for the positive can be applied to large-scale processes, such as climate change, to reverse and improve upon the current situation. Many geospatial technologies are new technologies, less than a few decades old, and only now beginning to provide a glimpse into these processes."

Matt Ball — "There are an increasing number of big science ideas for reversing the warming course of our planet, such as massive dumps of iron into the ocean to foster carbon-sucking algae growth or pumping sulfur into the atmosphere to deflect the sun’s heat. While all of these efforts are an enormous gamble, escalating pressures placed on our planet by global warming may elevate how seriously these ideas are contemplated. Any contemplation will require in-depth modeling and analysis, and geospatial technologies will play a role."

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What is a spatial data model and why are they important to understand?

Details: 16 October 2008 | 1488

Jeff Thurston — "The spatial data model is the heart of a GIS and CAD system. It is more than data alone. More than format. The data model governs how well your software will perform useful functions because it represents your depth of understanding of the process(s) that you are attempting to apply spatial data and associated geoprocessing functions toward. It is not a random happening that modeling and simulation lie so close to GIS - they are a manifestation of this realisation. This also explains why data translation is an art - not a simple database operation."

Matt Ball — "A well thought out spatial data model is critical to get the most out of geographic information systems (GISs), because it dictates how spatial data are stored and represented within the database, and the rules for how the data can be analyzed and manipulated. In addition to different data models to represent vector or raster data, the data model is also the means to create a common set of attributes, rules and workflows for specific application areas."

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