Abstract
The amount of geospatial data continues to increase everyday. At the same time, the computing resources available to workers in the field are improving very rapidly. The result is that using applications based on geospatial data in the field is becoming more practical everyday.

This presentation looks at the available computing equipment and the basic issues in software development that are needed to support geospatial data in the field. Both software issues for the field applications and the infrastructure to gather and integrate the required data are examined. Expectations for future developments are also reviewed.

1. Introduction
Organizations at all levels actively collect and analyze data. Many organizations also depend on the usage of data in the field. As the amount and quality of geospatial data increases, organizations are actively looking at ways of incorporating and/or collecting geospatial data in their field operations.

Geospatial data has three obvious uses in the field. Navigation is an important use in most applications. Field crews need the appropriate maps/images to plot their course and adjust to unexpected obstacles and circumstances.

A second important use of geospatial data is to provide the field personnel with in depth information on the characteristics of the region that they are exploring. An application program can have access to a wide range of maps showing things like terrain, soil/rock types, weather conditions, etc.

Collection of geospatial data is another critical field application. Field operations gather information about the sites being explored for future operations. The new information can be used to augment existing maps. Collecting data in the field using software that uses current maps as a basis improves the accuracy of the integration of old and new data. Incorporating GPS data in real time provides additional improvement.

While all of these operations can be achieved using paper, computer applications provide several advantages. The three most important advantages are faster access, the ability to integrate existing maps, and more accurate data collection procedures.

To improve the use of geospatial data in the field, we look at software development considerations for supporting the use of geospatial data in field computing and a new approach to integrating data. After a brief overview of field considerations in Section 2, we look at the basic issues of developing software to support geospatial data in the field in Section 3. The model and prototype of an infrastructure that has been used to support use of geospatial data in the field is reviewed in Section 4. A brief discussion of future considerations is given in Section 5.



Figure 1. Geospatial data types.

2. FieldD Considerations
Before we can look at software issues, we need to examine what it is that we are supporting in the field. We must understand what kind of data that we are manipulating, what users in the field expect, what can be expected from users in the field, and the type of devices that should be considered.