Data Interoperability
Spatial data are stored in many formats including raster and vector, GIS or CAD, flat files or data warehouses. These categories can include subcategories like DWG, SHP, DGN, SDF, and more. The user community will demand and expect systems that offer direct support for all these formats with little or no data translation in addition to direct support for data warehouses like Oracle8i Spatial or the Autodesk Design Server.
Access and Ease of Use
First, the client interface of your chosen solution will require little or no training. Second, your users will have easy access to their GIS even if they are in the field. Just as today’s cash machines deliver your money or “liquid assets” immediately to your fingertips, mobile GIS will deliver your spatial assets immediately to your mobile, tablet computer.
Network Architecture
The standard will be an efficient architecture that distributes computing across your infrastructure to intelligent clients and packs intelligence about a given application into a single metafile. Changes to the metafile will be made easily and without service disruption.
Standard and Advanced GIS Applications and Flexibility through Customization
Thankfully, pure “Web GIS toolboxes” for developers are becoming a thing of the past. Professionals who suffered by writing custom code to zoom or color a map will have standard GIS functionality and authoring tools. This will be enhanced with richer APIs that support customization in non-proprietary languages.
Administrative and Deployment Tools
Internet GIS, like the Internet in general, will require a rich set of administrative tools that foster the rapid deployment and aid the long-term management of your applications. Expect close integration with standard Web development tools like Microsoft’s Active Server Pages and network architectures like Microsoft’s .NET.
The Future Is Bright
The future of mobile and virtual GIS is bright and brimming with opportunities. Those communications companies looking to drape their new broadband networks are doing so at an unprecedented rate. Two years ago, the rate of broadband cable installation worldwide was over fifteen million miles per year. That rate is projected to grow to over twenty-two million miles this year. This growth is the fuel for distributed computing. But what about the growth in raw computing power?
Moore’s Law is the observation that “the amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon has roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented.” The observation is attributed to Intel founder Gordon Moore, in 1964, and is still widely referenced today. Recently, Intel released a Pentium IV at 2GHz with a 400MHz System Bus (less than $500 for the CPU today). But Gordon Moore miscalculated. The truth is that the speed of power is growing faster each year. And what Mr. Moore’s observation does not account for is the more revolutionary increase in network bandwidth and the quickly growing selection of form factors, especially mobile or tablet-based devices. These three factors: increased processing speed, increased bandwidth, and increasingly mobile devices are opening new opportunities for mobile mapping, and indeed all of computing. Actually, they are forcing new opportunities, not just opening them. These are dramatic times as companies like Telstra provide access for every employee to the organization’s digital knowledge-base and business processes, even if they work out of a truck, hundreds of miles from the office in a remote town.
But companies like Telstra must ensure that a few criteria are met for real success.
- Engineering Accuracy - First, the information these companies provide their employees must maintain engineering accuracy in order to be truly useful. It doesn’t matter how far you can extend an inaccurate database to the field. If the information is incorrect, profitability will be impacted.
- Real Applications - In addition, the data must be tied to real office applications like a work order management system or customer service application; a precise geographic database can be useful as a general reference tool, but the power of the information grows tenfold when integrated with existing applications.
- Open Systems - Also, the information must arrive in an open data format like GML, open XML, or Land XML, for example. Proprietary data formats and software systems will jeopardize a company’s increased profitability by tying them to a single vendor.
- Right Data, Right Device - And, finally, the information must be the right data on the right device. It must be actionable data; in other words, something that helps you make the right decision immediately and it must be on the right device. The past decade saw many failed attempts at mobilization and the associated litter of expensive laptop computers.
There will be opportunities to reduce operating expenses by, among other things, accessing and paying for GIS functionality on an as needed basis through a cable and not having to invest in the overhead of buying and installing boxed desktop products. We will find opportunities to increase productivity not only by placing friendly GIS interfaces at the disposal of novice users, but by placing it in their tablet computers, as well. Smart companies with fast deployment tools will extend GIS-based services to their staff who will use these applications to retain and serve customers more predictably and offer them new products.
All these opportunities are now appearing with the adoption of distributed, intelligent architectures combined with effective tools for development. And when offered with client interfaces that make GIS easy to use for everyone, the result is a vivid reminder of the power of GIS. GIS has been a powerful tool for sophisticated and trained professionals, but for decades you have heard GIS people like myself promise that GIS will be a breakaway technology, adopted by everyone, “Societal GIS”. Now that we are seeing services on the web, on mobile computers, this is actually becoming a reality. Furthermore, Autodesk’s own experience putting GIS in onboard automotive computers in Italy and delivering location services via a mobile phone speaks volumes about GIS technology finally reaching the mainstream consumer. GIS is making a much greater impact today. The power of geographic analysis is matched today with distributed computing’s power to increase the return on your huge investments in spatial data. These two technologies are joined and put information in the hands of millions. Thanks to the pioneering spirit of people like you, GIS is no longer confined to our offices. It is exploding into the hands of everyone.