RECENT 'GIS DEVELOPMENTS'
Before attempting to look into future perspectives, we first need
to review recent trends as an indicator of where substantial
change is currently occuring. Of course any such listing is
highly subjective, but most experts will likely agree on the
majority of items mentioned here:
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More or less isolated desktop systems have become part of
distributed architectures. Recent and upcoming releases of
GI software clearly demonstrate that they work best against
a backdrop of services feeding into the workflow of the
locally-based analyst.
- Developments initiated through the Open Geospatial
Consortium (OGC) have crystallized the interoperability
concept and contributed to a unified web of services
evolving into our GI infrastructures.
-
The past 'data bottleneck' where projects were stifled by
the enormous efforts needed to supply data has by
and large given way to a 'flood of data'. Data mining and
'intelligent' extraction of relevant information are critical to
effective operations.
-
Part of this 'flood' is provided by a multitude of sensors
above and at the earth's surface. These sensors supply
georeferenced streams of measurements, effectively tieing
the virtual world of geographic models into the real world
around our lives.
-
Largely due to these sensors and ubiquitous connectivity,
capabilities for near real-time monitoring have evolved. For
a large part of GIS' past, we were essentially processing
historical data, only recently we are moving towards
'current affairs'.
-
This development has been made feasible by the now
pervasive presence of positioning devices. Our societies
are increasingly mobile in every respect: individual,
environmental and business 'objects' change position
frequently, without tracking our model of the real world
would not be current.
FRAMEWORK AND INTENTIONS FOR GIS
All too often we are focussing on 'what can be done with tech-nology'
and 'how we can leverage progress in GIScience'.
Preferably we should look into 'use cases' and analyze what
needs in society are being and need to be supported by progress
in the GI fields from technology to science.
GIS is still burdened (like many ICT fields) by the 'automa-tion
trap' of computers being fast and good at clearly defined
repetitive tasks. Therefore long established jobs are more effec-tively
done, which led to file cabinets moving to databases, typ-ing
to word processing, drafting to CAD and of course map-ping
to GIS. The quest for the 'map looking like the one we've
always had' is still on in many people's minds.
For real progress, GIS clearly needs to focus not on doing a
better job at established tasks, but rather to see how tasks can
best be organised to reach our societal, environmental and busi-ness
objectives. Analyzing how to reach these objectives, break-ing
down workflows into tasks and then researching any miss-ing
concepts or methods through GIScience will lead to newly
defined 'jobs' for GIS instead!
So, what are GIS good at now? Documentation through
static representations, change detection and visualisation proba-bly
rank among the most frequent applications. Spatial analysis
helps create new insights by generating information from data
through advanced methods. Dynamic process models and sce-nario
techniques support spatial decision support applications.
All of these will be needed and provided in the future, but is
there more to come?
Certainly, we will be moving from analyzing and presenting
manifest data sets towards working with streams of mostly geo-referenced
data. Without the 'where?' any data on 'how much?'
/ 'what?' / 'how?' / 'when?' are missing much of their value,
hence sensors deliver a fixed or moving location integrated into
their reports. Through data networks, these reports are deliv-ered
right away. This means that instead of analyzing past pat-terns,
we are looking at the 'current picture'. Insight into the
past gives way to real time applications. Instead of learning
from what did not work well to do it better the next time
around, we can react right away.
GIS therefore is moving towards real time control.
Cartography develops into a human-computer interface disci-pline
for spatial views supporting interaction with current
processes or for deep, recursive analysis of spatial data. In
essence, the long feedback loop is shortened substantially: what
used to be an elaborate cycle of data acquisition, analysis, visu-alisation
and decision making is for many applications being
compressed into real time monitoring and control
THE 5 / 5 S&T TRENDS
Observing the above outlined current trends and changes to
business logics involving geospatial information, we now might
want to assess where we expect to stand several years from now.
Distinguishing technology developments from GI science
quests will be helpful while acknowledging that both areas
are of course tightly linked in a symmetric stimulus - response
relationship.
First, looking at expected technological progress, the main
drivers clearly are broad, multiple use developments demon-strating
that GIS is increasingly becoming an integral part of
mainstream ICT:
-
Sensors, based on the SensorWeb framework are penetrat-ing
our world widely. This means that the state of our
environment, business assets and society's infrastructure
is thoroughly monitored and available for diagnostic and
controlling action.
-
Positioning technologies are being integrated into sensor
frameworks, and positioning / navigation applications will
become independent from specific technologies like GPS,
GSM, Wifi or others. Transparently roaming across position-ing
technologies across a ubiquitous positioning infrastruc-ture
is a key enabler for novel applications.
-
Due to pervasive networking and 'the network being the
system' (a) local (geo-) processing capabilities are much
less critical for GIS applications than access to the
network.
-
Interaction with digital information is becoming much less
abstract. Working directly with spatial views (Google and
Microsoft Virtual Earth currently leading the way) ties the
'online domain' directly into daily individual experience and
perception. This likely will turn out to be a major driver
towards the development of spatial data infrastructure
services.
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Finally, access and interface devices will be defined by
workflows, not by GIS. We need a big desktop screen to
look at a map? Well, do we actually need to look at a map
or can we relate the required information otherwise? A
majority of geospatial applications will not be tied to
map-like user interfaces, but rather provide 'location
intelligence' in the background.
Interacting with technology trends like these, GI science will
set priorities continuing from current research as well as explore
new areas. Again, there are of course many legitimate perspec-tives
-
First and foremost, although this might come as a surprise
to many, privacy and preservation of civil rights clearly top
the list. Location is such a powerful key for integrating and
accessing data collections that this issue has a
huge potential for a backlash against leveraging spatial
information to benefit society and our lives. How to protect
individuals' locations and tracks, how to design applica-tions
without generating a 'big brother' effect will have to
be high on our research agenda.
-
As a related theme, geospatial enabling will be accepted as
a means towards more public participation, supporting the
empowerment of citizens. Citizens watch (instead of being
watched!) and participate in planning and decisions affect-ing
their lives and interests. Geospatial applications as a
local communication platform require a high level of spatial
literacy, this has to be confronted as an educational task.
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With increasing flow of data, methodology research is being
focused on approaches to spatial pattern recognition in a
wide sense. Filtering data streams to extract meaningful
information is needed to environmental monitoring, security,
infrastructure operations and transportation applications.
-
Visual interaction (and other human sensory interfacing)
ties the real world into our virtual models. Designing spa-tially
enabled human-computer interaction (HCI) is a key
theme supporting penetration of geospatial applications
throughout personal and professional applications, provid-ing
assistance for mundane tasks as well as 'performance
support'.
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Research towards 'intelligent' infrastructures integrates
many currently leading topics in GI science. Infrastructures
serve a purpose, they should do so efficiently and effec-tively
and without causing undue harm. Research in seman-tic
web, including cognitive aspects, emphasizing sustain-ability
and minimum impact all come together in this meta-topic
with a long overlooked strong GI science dimension.