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Jeff Thurston Editor - Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia Vector 1 Media jeffahurston@vector1media.com  Improvements in image analysis have enabled people to extract value from a growing library of satellite imagery. Removal of selective availability (SA) from the global positioning system in 2000 represented a fundamental shift in the use of GPS. This act immediately increased accuracy, lowered costs and initiated the concept of GPS as a tool for everyday navigation and positioning purposes. I would consider Microsoft MapPoint as the first real consumer mapping software. It imported your own data points, put them on a map and could be used to determine travel distances and routes and so on, all at a reasonable price. This really brought mapping to the first wave of masses, later to be followed by Google. The release of ESRI's ArcView Version 2.0 geographic information system (GIS) software around 1990. With the shapefile came openness and a proliferation of people writing their own scripts. This meant people could tailor GIS to their own needs. This really heralded a working desktop GIS ordinary folks could buy and use, which had support and could do quite a few things. Establishment of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) mean that the geospatial community was talking about interoperability and sharing of data between systems very early on. If you look around many other industries today you will not see such coordination. Even aside from producing anything, the OGC has put harmonization on the agenda for geospatial professionals and that has worked to build capacity. 
Google Earth has revolutionized how people share and
interact, connecting private spaces with each other, using
virtual globes. Microsoft is now perfecting this with exceptionally
sharp imagery and new visualization initiatives and
a host of products that will build out the operating system
into hardware platforms, incorporating spatial data.Educational software for online delivery has greatly impacted the geospatial industry. Much of this was developed in the mid-1990s for course delivery over the internet. This allowed for formal courses in geospatial subjects to be taught and for students to interact. Professionals could teach many people everywhere and students had a wider variety of topics to discuss. Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data permitted a global elevation data set of higher resolution. This impacted spatial modeling processes such as those involving hydrography and raised the value of image draping to a new level. With ORACLE company putting some spatial functionality inside the database, this resulted in spatial analysis at the business/IT interface immediately and represented a different approach for spatial analysis. Microsoft SQL Spatial this year will achieve similar functionality and include the ability to link the Windows environment itself into the process. A trend toward harmonization of data, more sharing, easier sharing.The development of spatial data infrastructure (SDI) and evolution of global spatial data infrastructure (GSDI). More standards and increased collaboration. A trend toward the internet in terms of delivery-federated systems. Computers connecting to computers. The 'cloud' is part of this, as are computing GRID. But Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) is playing heavily into making this all happen. The trend toward sustainability and environment is on the rise, supported by geospatial related legislation. There is a trend to building infrastructure. This means coupling CAD to GIS systems, but also the use and application of technologies for supporting these; like remote sensing, lidar and GPS. Overall then, a trend toward higher levels of system technology integration. With respect to 'emerging markets' the trends are more local in their realization. However, these include: 
The new geometries are
designed as individual data
types with OCC specifications,
i.e. as separate data
types (Figure 1). The two
major advantages of mapping
the conceptual model
into separate freeform data
types are - the data types are
clearly and explicitly
defined, and little redundant
information is stored since
every data type has its own
attribute. Adapted data
types can easily be inherited
from existing prototypes,
and functions on prototype
types will be also operational
for inherited types.The implementation is done in Oracle Spatial, but the approach is applicable for any DBMS. New data types can be designed in Oracle using natively supported data types, such as object types, REFs, VARRAYs, and Nested tables. The userdefined data types in Oracle can be declared using the SQL statement CREATE TYPE. PL/SQL, Java or C++ can be used to implement the declaration. In implementation, Java has been selected because it supports Oracle Spatial well. The procedure for creating data types using Java can be divided into three main steps: creating Java classes, loading the classes in Oracle spatial and declaring the data types in Oracle using the SQL statement CREATE TYPE.
Quality: We are awash in data and the resolution of spatial
information is rising rapidly. Costs are decreasing for that
information, but,
we are faced with
still struggling to
know what is 'good'
information? We
need to understand why geospatial tools and information
are adding value and how we are going about measuring
that, quantifying it?Another key driver is literacy. The geospatial industry can only drive forward if people understand the value, what it can do and why it is important. Automation is a key driver. The idea being to take complexity out of operation while maintaining or even expanding on the background computing complexity – more is hidden. In an application sense, the drivers are environment, defence and urban planning. Realising that earth observation satellites provide pictures of the earth at different times and resolutions, the opportunities are inherently connected to 
re-visitation times and resolution. The processes of flooding,
plant growth, traffic movement, landscape change etc. are all
connected to these
two factors. Opportunities
surround
these issues, not
necessarily who
owns the satellite. We see many companies these days operating
internationally, as do customers.
While an important consideration, I think not. If you give me a choice of service over quality of data, I will take quality of data every time. The Google model, in my view, is a homogenous model. It results 
in a lot of similarity to many people, its wide appeal. For business
purposes
though, I would
want distinction,
difference and
uniqueness. Quality
data gives me more options to provide different services.
Tools that help me to create those opportunities would be a
selling point.SDI is not a business model nor will it ever be. It is a framework designed to integrate spatial information that enable accessibility with consistency and predictability. This goes back to data quality however; consistent and dependable data will yield consistent results, which business decision can begin to depend upon due to less uncertainty. 
However, my thought is that we would be stretching our
wishes to think SDI are business tools for decision making.
Instead, think of SDI more like petrol in your car. You fill up
every time knowing the quality of petrol in the tank and your
engine will run dependably for a while – but where and how
you drive (the business) impacts the longevity of your car –
its resale value too. Do you drive sustainably!?I think standardisation and interoperability in a technical sense are largely resolved in the geospatial community from a technical standpoint. Most people can move or exchange different data. But, standardisation and interoperability in conceptual knowledge, practice and operations is not fully realised at this time and 
needs much more
work. If you talk
with architects,
you will find that
they do not wish to standardise because it sacrifices performance
they like open creative territory. How much order is a
good thing, as compared to high performance? It is a balance.I think the publishing industry is changing rapidly. The motivations for blogging are different than those for creating a publication which is more regular. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain fact from fiction, what is useful and what is non-useful as well as connecting the dots between islands of knowledge 
and efforts. The real impacts of the internet, I think, are
more around changing business processes, and quite a few
organisations have not adapted quickly. More capacity building
is needed and more experienced and knowledgeable people
need to participate and act as filters and aggregator's.
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