Technological and Non- Technological Trends in the ...sadl.kuleuven.be/...inn1...Geospatial_Trends_part2.pdf · 7. Based on open access, and participation across multiple technological

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Technological and Non-

Technological Trends in

the Geospatial Sector

Danny Vandenbroucke

SADL/KU Leuven

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Outline

• Towards Digital Earth • The art of visualisation

• GI and the issue of time

• Data Integration from Different Sources • From EO to in situ measurements

• Integrating geographic and non-geographic data

• From Geographic Data to GI

• Volunteerd Geographic Information • Volunteerd Geographic Updates

• About the Web 2.0, mash-ups and more

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Outline








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Digital Earth

• Traditionally GI & GIS works with 2D data – Geographic features represent real world objects

• Polygons – zoning, water bodies, ...

• Lines – roads, hydrography, ...

• Points – climate station, towers, ...

• Combinations of these

– Relationships between features give intelligence to GI

– Hight (or any other dimension) is captured through a z-value

• DTM, ...

Development towards 3D and 4D

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Digital Earth

• 3D visualisation

– Urban applications

– Terrain Models

– Utilities companies: gas & oil, water, ...

• 4D

– Environmental dynamics: wheather, forest fires, ...

– Tracking changes and moving objects (e.g. Luciad Map air traffic control, truck monitoring)

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Digital Earth

• Definition • Is the name given to a visionary concept by former

US vice president Al Gore in 1998, describing a virtual representation of the Earth that is spatially referenced and interconnected with the world’s digital knowledge archives

• A virtual globe connected to a vast amount of information over the web

• Virtual geo-browsers • Google Earth

• Microsoft Bing Maps

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Digital Earth

• Google Earth

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Digital Earth

• Bing Maps

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Digital Earth

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Next Generation Digital Earth

1. Not one Digital Earth, but multiple connected globes/infrastructures addressing the needs of different audiences: citizens, communities, policymakers, scientists, educationalists.

2. Problem oriented: e.g. environment, health, societal benefit areas, and transparent on the impacts of technologies on the environment

3. Allowing search through time and space to find similar/analogue situations with real time data from both sensors and humans (different from what existing GIS can do, and different from adding analytical functions to a virtual globe)

4. Asking questions about change, identification of anomalies in space in both human and environmental domains (flag things that are not consistent with their surroundings in real time)

5. Enabling access to data, information, services, and models as well as scenarios and forecasts: from simple queries to complex analyses across the environmental and social domains.

6. Supporting the visualization of abstract concepts and data types (e.g. low income, poor health, and semantics)

7. Based on open access, and participation across multiple technological platforms, and media (e.g. text, voice and multi-media)

8. Engaging, interactive, exploratory, and a laboratory for learning and for multidisciplinary education and science.

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Digital Earth

• Changes over time: e.g. decreased polar ice (see NASA)

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Outline








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Data integration

• From the traditional way of working to new era of data collection

– Mapping process

– Even digitizing maps

– Field measurements

– Earth observation and aerial photography

– GPS

– Sensors for in situ measurements

– Participative concepts

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Traditional mapping

16/5 Earth Observation

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Data integration

GPS

Galileo (Europe)

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Data integration

• In situ data and the sensor web • An amorphous network of spatially distributed

sensor platforms (pods) that wirelessly communicate with each other

• This amorphous architecture is unique since it is both synchronous and router-free, making it distinct from the more typical TCP/IP-like network schemes

• Pods can communicate with each other

• Can be orbital or terrestrial, fixed or mobile and might even have real time accessibility via the Internet

• Mostly used in environmental applications, but more and more in other fields too (see example session 1)

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Data integration

• The Ozon web (EEA, Copenhagen)

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Outline








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From geo-data to GI

• Geographic data are key basic data – But they are not necessarily information on

their own • E.g. a soil map has key information for a soil

scientist (soil codes) but are meaningless for most of the users

• Therefore, the soils classes have to be ‘translated’ into specific information, e.g. Suitability maps

– ‘Translation’ of data to information is done using • Modelling tools

• Algoritms

• Knowledge rules

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From geo-data to GI

INSPIRE In situ STATS Other:

e.g. EO 1 21 34 …

Processing, aggregation, …

…

Indicators

Reports

Da

ta

Info

rma

tion

Content

EU

States See example quality bathing water

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Outline








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Volunteerd Geographic Information

or

VGI

28/5 A long history of research interests in building the CGDI

Federal

Provincial

Federal-Provincial Digital Data Sharing in Canada

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Nanaimo Mashups

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Increasing Convergence of Three Phenomena:

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3 Ideas Underpinning Web 2.0

1. Content creation is triggered by events.

2. User generated content is increasingly being consumed by the community.

3. The community could take on some of the functions of the editor.

from Mobile Web 2.0 [Jaokar and Fish, 2008]

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Produsage

(1) Community-Based

(2) Fluid Roles

(3) Unfinished Artefacts

(4) Combination of Common Property with Individual Merit.

from [Bruns, 2008]

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OpenStreetMap.org

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"Crowdsourcing" Maps

India

Kenya

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TomTom

36/5 Conflicting Views on Crowdsourcing and NeoGeography

• Enthusiasts like Don Tapscott (Wikinomics), Tim O'Reilly (Web 2.0) and Andrew Turner (NeoGeography);

• Critics like Jaron Lanai (Digital Maoism), Robert McHenry (The Faith-Based Encyclopedia), and Andrew Keen (Cult of the Amateur)

• Threatening and confusing to established data suppliers in both government and industry.

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How can we reliably improve our data?

Location

Time-Sensitive Changes

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The Vision…

• Can we use "the experience of the crowds"…

.... our customers, our users, our employees, our colleagues or our soldiers…

… to voluntarily update authoritative mapped information?

>> Greater user involvement

>> Faster updating cycles

39/5 How Does This Fit into SDI and eGovernment Programs?

• Moving forward beyond map downloads and property browsing… Where does this type of information fit?

• How does Government 'turn the terminal' when it comes to this type of information?

• What new services can be provided?

• How do we turn members of the public into partners?

• What are the longer-term implications of doing so?

40/5 Who are the "Volunteers" in VGI

• Can we characterize them?

Why do they freely contribute information?

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VGI Spectrum of Contributors

Neophyte Expert

Amateur Expert

Authority

Interested Amateur

Expert Professional

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Distinguish by Competence

Neophyte Expert

Amateur Expert

Authority

Interested Amateur

Expert Professional

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Distinguish by Accountability

Neophyte Expert

Amateur Expert

Authority

Interested Amateur

Expert Professional

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How do you characterize Contributors?

• 3 overlapping approaches:

– Frequency, Type and Degree of a contributor’s edit operations

– Assessing the individual’s Reputation for Reliability in terms of the quality & veracity past contributions and edits

– Is the Contributor human or a "bot" routine?

Lessons from Wikipedia and Open Source Software Communities

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Characterizing the Contributions

Constructive Contributions

• Legitimate New Content;

• Constructive amendments;

• Correction of damaging contributions;

• Minor Edits & Format Changes

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Characterizing the Contributions

• Mass deletes

• Nonsense

• Spam

• Partial deletes

• Deliberate Misinformation

Harder to

Track

Damaging Contributions

47/5 What Motivates People to make Constructive Contributions?

Examples:

1. Altruism

2. Part of existing job, mandate or personal project

3. Offer practical solution to a shared problem

4. Protect or enhance a personal investment

5. Enhanced Personal Reputation

6. Social Reward by being part of a larger network or virtual community

7. Pride of Place

48/5 What is Special about Contributors of Spatial Information?

• More direct link between location (or locus) of contributor and contribution.

• Mostly point- and line-oriented.

• Potentially greater attention paid to attributes rather than positional & graphics portion of the information contributed.

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Victoria Department of Sustainability & Energy

http://www.land.vic.gov.au/Spatial --> Notification and Editing Service

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51/5 Mapshare

• 20 million drivers using TomTom – the world’s largest satellite navigation community.

• TomTom owns TeleAtlas – TeleAtlas' customers reporting over 15,000 map "errors" per month BUT can take 6-12 months to verify and fix.

• MapShare service introduced in mid-2007 to: (1) streamline the notification process; and (2) enable customers to use their own updates immediately.

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56/5 By December 2008:

Within 12 Months of Launching Mapshare Service…

• According to TomTom: "Number of Map Share community

members increased from 500k to 5 million";

• 5 million map improvements uploaded;

• 80% decrease in questions from customers regarding maps at TomTom's Customer Support Department

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Fundamental Questions

• Should a Public Sector Mapping Organisation do this?

– Rationale? What problem(s) are we trying to address by doing something here?

– What's our Vision?

– Benefits?

– Risks?

– Culture changes required?

– Institutional or organizational impediments?

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More Questions…

• Where do we start and how far do we take this?

– Keep it within our own organization or allow "real outsiders" to contribute?

– Who holds the pencil? Full-edits, or just a tool for Update Notification and Prioritization?

– Who makes the final decisions?

– How do we sustain interest?

– Do we risk alienating certain users or supporters?

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Summary

• Digital Earth has changed the way we look to our globe using 3D visualisation techniques

• The time aspect, or 4th dimension (4D) is becoming increasingly important

• Data integration from different sources, including real time information from sensors, is key to ‘translate’ geo-data in GI

• VGI is a new paradigm already applied in an operational way by many data providers

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Questions or remarks ?

Thank you …

61/5 Summary

1. Technology – Big Data & Social Media, Crowd-sourced Data, Linked Data

& the Internet of Things, Cloud computing, Enhanced capacity of mobile

devices, Open Source, Volunteered Geographic Data, 3/4D data,

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, High resolution imagery, In/outdoor

Positioning

2. Legal and Policy development - Open Data, Funding, Licensing, Pricing,

Ownership, Privacy, Liability, Disparities between legal and policy

frameworks

3. Skills requirements and training mechanisms – Extracting the value from

a world of data, The importance of visualisation skills, Education,

Investing R&D

4. The role of the private sector and non-governmental sectors – Move

towards greater collaboration between private, public and VGI community

5. The future role of governments - Bridging the gap: Coordination and

collaboration. Maintaining an accurate, detailed, and trusted geospatial

info base

Documents

Technological and Non- Technological Trends in the ...sadl.kuleuven.be/...inn1...Geospatial_Trends_part2.pdf · 7. Based on open access, and participation across multiple technological