Transcript Geographic Information Technologies Past, Present and Future

The Future of GIS
2005 and 2025
 What
is the state of geospatial
computing today?
 What are the issues today?
 What will geospatial computing be
like in 2025?
 What issues will be of concern then?
Computing issues in 2005







Building the cyberinfrastructure
The digital divide
The “where” of computing
User interfaces: The end of GUIs, WIMPs, and the
desktop
Wireless internet
Who owns software
Too much data
Geographic information
technology in 2005
Countering industry trends, LBS
 GPS mature, GLONASS, Galileo, GPS II,
indoor?
 Geobrowser era, and VGI
 Mobile GIS
 Cellular phones and location technology
 New generation of space imaging
 Interoperability and standards
 The data fire hose

What will the issues be in 2025?
Cyberinfrastructure





aka Grid computing
NSF Vision for next era of computing
“ integrated suite of computational engines, mass
storage, networks, digital libraries and databases,
sensors, software and services” (NSF, 2003).
Can include human users and the user interface
NSF (2003) Revolutionizing Science and Engineering Through
Cyberinfrastructure: Report of the National Science Foundation BlueRibbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure: Atkins report.
Forecast: Cyberinfrastructure vision
•Services available on demand
•Independence of source
•“The computer is the network”
Geospatial elements of the
GRID: 1. GPS
Source: U. Minnesota IVS Lab
Geospatial elements of the
GRID: 1. Portability
Geospatial elements of the GRID:
Sensor webs
Forecast: Wearable GIS
 We
will wear our computers,
not sit in front of them
Wearable GIS
http://www.itmedia.co.jp/broadband/0309/18
UCSB Battuta project
Field Test Prototype:
YAH, Map view, text off, perspective on
Field Test Prototype:
YAH, Image view, text off, perspective on
Forecast : No more data problems
 Digital
earth will exist
 It will be achieved by VGI, not
top-down
 There will be many and specialized
geobrowsers
 Open standards rule
Digital Earth







Visionary concept: Holistic perspective
Popularized by former US VP Al Gore
Virtual and 3-D representation of the Earth
Spatially referenced
Connected with digital knowledge archives
Vast amounts of scientific, natural, and cultural
information
“to describe and understand the Earth, its systems,
and human activities. “
Mary Baker Eddy Library for the
Betterment of Humanity 1935
Geoscope
“This giant, 200-foot diameter sphere will be a
miniature earth -- the most accurate global
representation of our planet ever to be realized."
"This…Geoscope would make it possible for
humans to identify the true scale of themselves
and their activities on this planet. Humans could
thus comprehend much more readily that their
personal survival problems related intimately to all
humanity's survival." — R. Buckminster Fuller, 1962
Figure The Geoscope, as drawn by Tom
Shannon, for the Buckminster Fuller Institute
Gore’s Earth in the Balance (1992)
“A multi-resolution, three dimensional
representation of the planet, into which
we can embed vast quantities of georeferenced data.”
Consensus definition 1999

Digital Earth will be a virtual
representation of our planet that enables a
person to explore and interact with the
vast amounts of natural and cultural
information gathered about the Earth.
(Consensus definition adopted at 2nd
interagency workshop, 1999 Sept 23)
World wide participation
The NASA web site
Is DE Google Earth?
Keyhole Earthviewer. In-Q-tel funding,
Dual use
 Google Maps
 Google buys Keyhole (Oct. 2004)
 Google Earth (June 2005)
 Google Earth Community added
 Partnership with National Geographic

NO, beacuse
DE = Geobrowser(s) + Global data
 DE covers all time scales
 Possibly several browsers

NASA Worldwind (2003)
 GeoFusion GeoPlayer (2001)
 ESRI ArcGlobe

NASA Worldwind
So what about data? Global maps

Crosses boundary between
MAPS
 IMAGERY
 TOPONYMY

We’ve been there before:
Global Maps
International Millionth Map of the World
 VMAP0 (DCW)
 GlobalMap

Millionth Map of the World Project






German Geographer Albrecht Penck (1858-1945)
proponent of consistent and accurate maps of all earth,
including its natural and human features.
Penck proposed a worldwide system of maps at the Fifth
International Geographical Conference in 1891.
International Map of the World, would consist of 2500
individual maps, each at a scale of 1:1,000,000
Each four degrees of latitude and six degrees of longitude.
1913, Penck's idea came to fruition, international
conference established standards for the maps, aka
Millionth Map of the World
The 1913 standards established that maps would use the
local form of each place name in the Roman alphabet
Australia Series (Part)
International Map of the World










Legend to be printed in English and French , title of the maps in
French, Carte Internationale du Monde au 1 000 000
"Central Bureau of the Map of the World" was established in Great
Britain's Ordnance Survey.
36 countries involved, but by World War I only eight maps produced.
1921, American Geographic Society took on Central and South
America.
1921 to 1946 to produce 107 maps
1930s, 405 maps but only half adhered to standards
World War II, Bureau offices, archives and data destroyed by bombing.
1953 United Nations took control
By the 1980s, only about 800 to 1000 total maps had been created
Project terminated incomplete
Global Map: VMAP0 plus
Massive amounts of data: LU
Digital Earth Issues Today
 Linking
text, maps and imagery:
Fusion
 Making maps and images text
searchable
 Data structures
 Global grids
Colorado State system
New global/spatial grids: QTM
Go2 Grids
38:53:22.08N 077:02:06.86W
US.DC.WAS.54.18.28.83.11
US.CA.SBA.UCSB.UCEN
Forecast: Interfaces
 GUI
and WIMP will be dead
 Long live perceptual and
multimodal interfaces
Gesture recognition and AR
Images/Movies courtesy of Mathias Kolsh, UCSB
Computing issues in 2025








Network monitors itself, who sees?
Spyware and security vs Personal privacy
Who pays for services?
Who are the digit police?
Competing solutions and liability
The limits of accuracy
Tractability envelope: New methods
Simulation is everywhere, for everything
Geospatial issues in 2025

Who owns your lifeline? (Huisman and Forer, 1998;
students in Auckland)
Forecast: Geospatial privacy
 You
are where you are!
 Your geospatial data rights will
be under threat
The threat from commerce
“I dread the day when I am woken from a
sound sleep by a noisy, flashing
advertisement projected on my retina urging
me to download a new free Web-browser,
one that I cannot turn off without mentally
focusing on a dark grey ‘Decline’ button
hovering at the far range of my peripheral
vision. “(Clarke, 1999).
Loss of anonymity
The threat from government
FOIA vs.
“Mapping the
Risks”
Geoslavery
Scott McNealy of Sun
Microsystems "You have no
privacy - get over it."