Many people talk about the relationship of geographic information systems (GIS) to surveying. To a distant observer, it sounds as if they are connected, seamless and supporting work flows beyond singular operations alone. Are surveying equipment manufacturers creating work flows outside of computer-aided design (CAD) that truly integrate GIS? Are GIS users working with surveying data for all kinds of measurements? What are the issues and where are the limitations?
Many people talk about the relationship of geographic information systems (GIS) to surveying. To a distant observer, it sounds as if they are connected, seamless and supporting work flows beyond singular operations alone. Are surveying equipment manufacturers creating work flows outside of computer-aided design (CAD) that truly integrate GIS? Are GIS users working with surveying data for all kinds of measurements? What are the issues and where are the limitations?
Any discussion about work flows in terms of geospatial and geomatics technologies will invariably need to discuss and include the delivery of solutions. But are there companies (large or small) that can include both surveying and GIS into seamless workflows? Some have commented that survey instrument and technology manufacturers orient their products toward CAD-based work flows, avoiding integrated workflows that connect surveying and GIS in an interchangeable and closer way.
In many cases surveying technology strength lies in data capture and creation. Total stations, light imaging, detection and ranging systems (LIDAR) and GNSS are used to make a measurement, identify a point or to perform a measurement whereas GIS technologies create new data through analysis and modeling – they depend upon original data prior to creating new data.
To achieve the later, GIS use a number of spatial analysis techniques that are not integral to CAD-based software systems. Most manufactured surveying equipment will connect with a CAD-based system. This is how survey data is often integrated toward useful work flows and solutions.
However, many GIS-based users have used surveying data for a along time. They have regularly imported LIDAR, GPS, total station and other data, stored and displayed it. They have not regularly connected back directly to surveying equipment though. Is that because most survey equipment manufacturers are oriented toward CAD only?
A gap exists between these two work flows though. Few GIS-based work flows integrate all the way back to the surveying equipment itself. And, few surveying-based work flows integrate all the way forward into spatial analysis and modeling. This is not to say that we don’t see survey data being used in a GIS, or GIS based data used in surveying sometimes. But this usually comes about through a break – or gap – between the users where data crosses a threshold through import routines. And as is often the case, there are far fewer people who can knowledgeably work with GIS-surveying data together – and we need more of them.
This ability to connect directly to either CAD or GIS systems is a characteristic that signifies a close (or closed, GIS-surveying gap). It is different than simply being able to use the data of either. It more closely represents true work flows that combine and integrate the data of surveying and GIS both whole or in part, exposing not only the data to analysis, but the capture phases of the data as well.
This raises questions like:
On the other hand there are many people using surveying related technologies, who aren’t interested in legal land surveyors per se. Is a savvy agronomist with survey technology-GIS knowledge more useful to a farm producer than either a surveyor or GIS specialist?
We might begin to ask ourselves, “if the world of social media technologies is revolutionizing how media is being distributed and giving rise to major social events like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street and Mapping Haiti – then can we expect the right combination of surveying-GIS tools and technologies in right hands cannot be just as effective for bringing about change?”
New workflows that integrate all phases of surveying-GIS data collection, processing and distribution are coming. People will seek to connect events to data driven solutions. As a social movement their combined intelligence will deliver the emergence of new solutions, the question for manufacturers and professional geo-users is, “do they wish to be on the back end or the leading edges of these changes?”
As Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk said in New York Times recently, ““If we sell 300,000 apps on the iPhone for $3 a pop, that doesn’t exactly pay the rent,” Mr. Bass said. “But in the history of the company we have sold 10 million licenses of software, and now we’ve made a favorable impression on 1.5 million other people in a completely different way.”
———————————————————————–
Additonal Reading:
Is the Gap Between Surveying and GIS Contributing to Lower Precision Farming Uptake?
Bridging the Gap: About Integrating Survey and GI
Mind the Gap: Finding the Dividing Line Between GIS and CAD
