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DECEMBER 2008 VOL 12 ISSUE 12
AFRICA I AMERICAS I ASIA I AUSTRALIA I EUROPE www.GISdevelopment.net
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© 2008 Bentley Systems, Incorporated. Bentley, the B logo,Advancing GIS for Infrastructure, Bentley Water, Bentley Wastewater, WaterGEMS, WaterCAD, SewerGEMS, SewerCAD, StormCAD, HAMMER, CivilStorm, Bentley Geospatial Server, and Bentley GeoWeb Publisher are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
ADVANCING GIS FOR INFRASTRUCTURESM
KEY PRODUCTS
BENTLEYRECOGNIZED
AS NUMBER 2
DARA
TECH GEOSPATIAL 2008 STUDY
www.bentley.com
5
Chairman M P Narayanan Editor in Chief Ravi Gupta Honorary Managing Editor Prof. Arup DasguptaDirector Maneesh Prasad Publisher Sanjay Kumar
Editorial Team: Sr. Associate Editor (Honorary) Dr. Hrishikesh Samant Associate Editor Bhanu Rekha Sr. Assistant Editor Saurabh Mishra Sr. Assistant Editor Anamika Das Practice Managers Harsha Vardhan, Abhishek Kotangale
Sales and Marketing: Regional Managers Middle East, Europe & Africa Prashant Joshi North America Annu NegiAsia Pacific Niraj Senior Managers Sales North America Megha Datta South Asia Nikhil Malhotra Sales ManagersMiddle East & North Africa Sharmishtha Seth Asia Pacific Kavitha Seras Europe Yogesh Nager Dy. Managers - Business Development Gaurav Sharma, Sarah Hisham Dy. Manager - Marketing & Communications Vaishali Dixit
Design Team: Sr. Creative Designer Deepak Kumar Graphic Designer Manoj Kumar Singh
Circulation: Vijay Kumar Singh
Software Development Group: Head Information Technology Kumar Vikram Team Member Chandresh Singh, Atul Raj
Portal Team: Product Manager Shivani Lal Dy. Manager Anshu Garg Team Member Anjali Srivastava
Advisory BoardDato’ Dr. Abdul Kadir bin Taib
Deputy Director General of Survey and Mapping, Malaysia
Aki A. Yamaura Sr. Vice President, Asuka DBJ Partners, Japan
Amitabha Pande Secretary, Inter-State Council, Government of India
Bhupinder Singh Sr. Vice President, Bentley Systems Inc., USA
Bob Morris President, Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging,USA
BVR Mohan ReddyChairman and Managing Director, Infotech Enterprises Ltd., India
David Maguire Director, Products, Solutions and International, ESRI, USA
Frank Warmerdam President, OSGeo, USA
Prof. Ian Dowman President, ISPRS, UK
Prof. Josef Strobl Director, Centre for Geoinformatics, University of Salzburg, Austria
Kamal K SinghChairman and CEO, Rolta Group of Companies, India
Prof. Karl Harmsen Director, UNU-INRA
Marc Tremblay Vice President, Commercial Business Unit, DigitialGlobe, USA
Mark Reichardt President and Chief Operating Officer, OGC, USA
Prof. Martien Molenaar Rector, ITC, The Netherlands
Matthew O’Connell CEO, GeoEye, USA
Prof. Michael Blakemore Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of Durham, UK
Dr. Milan Konecny President, International Cartographic Association,Czech Republic
Er. Mohammed Abdulla Al-Zaffin Director, GIS Centre, Dubai Municipality, UAE
Dr. Prithvish Nag Director, NATMO, India
Rajesh C. Mathur President, ESRI India
Robert M Samborski Excutive Director, Gita, USA
Prof. Stig EnemarkPresident, FIG, Denmark
Prof. V. S RamamurthyChairman, IIT, Delhi, India
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T | D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 Vo l . 1 2 I s s u e 1 2
In this issue...
OFFICESINDIA: GIS Development Pvt. Ltd.A - 145, Sector - 63, Noida, IndiaTel + 91 - 120 - 4612500 Fax + 91 - 120 - 4612555 - 666
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MALAYSIA: GIS Deevelopment Sdn. Bhd.Suite - 22.6, Level - 22, Menara Genesis, 33, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur - 50250, Malaysia Tel: +603 2144 7635 Fax: +603 2144 7636Email [email protected]
COLUMNS
Editorial 07
News 08
Events 66
ARTICLES
36 Democracy is here andnowTo be ubiquitous is to be all pervading, ever-present, common. How can mapping
become ubiquitous? The term derives...
Prof. Arup Dasgupta
42 Of converging technologies and ubiquitousGI servicesFrom scientific visionaries to tomorrow's
products...
Prof. Dr. Alexander Zipf
49 ArcGIS Server, foundation for Web GISAs Web GIS emerges as a platform for bothsocial and business-driven interactions...
Jim Baumann
50 Engaging Web for betteradministrationIndia has been witnessing tremendousgrowth, the like of which has not beenobserved since Independence...
Dr S Narendra Prasad, Santosh Gaikwad, Dr KS Rajan
54 Integration supportsstable power supply As a consulting company specialising in civil engineering, architecture...
56 Imagination is the limitWeb GIS can and should go far beyond the primarily business to consumer....
Joseph M. Joy
58 IBIN unites biodiversityTechnology advances and ease in policyhave facilitated the access...
Bhanu Rekha
INTERVIEWS
40 Mapping is onlythe beginningDr William B. Gail
48 Internet facilitates neo-geoapproachProf. Dr. Franz Leberl
62 This is a greattime to build valueback into GISMartin Sendyk
GIS Development is intended for those interested and involved in GIS related activities. It is hoped that it will serve to foster a growing network by keeping the community up-to-date onmany activities in this wide and varied field. Your involvement inproviding relevant information is essential to the success of thisendeavour.
GIS Development does not necessarily subscribe to the viewsexpressed in the publication. All views expressed in this issue are those of the contributors. It is not responsible for any loss toanyone due to the information provided.
GIS Development Pvt. Ltd. Printed and Published by Sanjay Kumar.Press M. P. Printers B-220, Phase-II, Noida, GautambudhNagar (UP) INDIA Publication Address P-82, Sector-11, Gautambudh Nagar, Noida, India Editor Ravi Gupta
The Web started as a method of keeping trackof a huge volume of documents generatedby scientists att the European laboratory
CERN. Tim Berners-Lee developed the hypertext transfer pro-tocol, married it to the Internet and so founded the WorldWide Web. The geographic domain is one of those that couldpotentially benefit from the connectivity provided by theWWW. It is therefore not surprising that Web GIS has grownover the years at a tremendous pace. Initially GIS softwareprovided a plug-in which enabled the rendering of maps inhtml. It was a matter of time before the Web servers becamemap savvy and the plug-ins were no longer necessary. Allthat was needed was a map server attachment to the Inter-net server. However, there still remained the matter of com-patibility, interoperability and interactivity.
The World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, set up by Berners-Lee promotes open standards for the Web and, in its questfor interoperability, the OGC zeroed in on the Web andadapted XML to serve as a universal encoding standard forgeographic data. Thus was born the GML and the OGC Webservices. Web 2.0 has brought in active participationthrough user interaction. The Web is now moving towardsproviding ubiquitous services in which the services will besystem and device independent. This should also be the goalof Web GIS. The openness, interactivity and the neutrality ofthe Web are the cornerstones of ubiquitous Web services. It
enables data transfer seamlessly to and from any device thatfollows these standards. The proof is in the explosion of 3Gcell phones equipped with GPS that enables geospatial serv-ices on the go.
As the initial novelty of Web GIS wears off, I expect newapplications to appear which will impact the way we usegeospatial information. One such is 'crowd-sourcing'. Simplyput, anybody can add a feature to a map on the Web. Otherscan correct it and pretty soon you have a verified feature. Itis community participation; it works; I know. I am using it toadd features to the online map of my neighbourhood. Thiskind of interactivity and connectivity also brings with it vul-nerability and this is an aspect that must be addressed bythe Web GIS community.
Do we always need maps? In fact, in navigation, the mapas we know it may disappear and be replaced by a set ofinstructions to guide the user to a destination. The 'user' maybe a machine that is guided to perform a set of spatial func-tions like stacking books in library shelves or obtaining datafrom a hazardous location.
The marriage of geography and the Web poses severalchallenges. To look at geography in different perspectives; todiscover new ways of assimilating, analysing and visualis-ing data; to make communities more location aware andgeospatial applications more community sensitive. Berners-Lee calls it The Social Graph and defines it as, "The way I amconnected, not the way my Web pages are connected".
7G I S D E V E L O P M E N T | D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 Vo l . 1 2 I s s u e 1 2
“”
Prof. Arup DasguptaHonorary Managing Editor [email protected]
From Editor’s Desk
"The Net links computers, the Web linksdocuments."
- Tim Berners-Lee
Ubiquitous Webservices is the goal
News
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T8 D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
KENYA
Forest bodyreceives grants toestablish GIS lab As part of its efforts tostrengthen the Kenya For-est Service (KFS), FinnishGovernment is funding set-ting up of modern comput-er laboratories to use GISand forest information sys-tem (FIS) technologies andanalyse forest data. Thesupport is part of Sh220million grant from Finlandfor institutional reforms,poverty eradication initia-tives through participatoryforest management andstrengthening forest infor-mation systems in Kenya.
SERVIR-AfricalaunchedSERVIR, a regional visuali-sation and monitoring sys-tem that integrates satelliteand other geospatial datafor improved scientificknowledge, was launchedfor Africa. SERVIR addressesthe nine societal benefitareas of the Global EarthObservation System of Sys-tems (GEOSS); disasters,ecosystems, biodiversity,weather, water, climate,oceans, health, agricultureand energy.
The effort utilises andintegrates NASA satelliteobservations and predictive
models, along with othergeographic information(satellite, sensor, and field-based) to monitor and fore-cast ecological changeswhile responding to natu-ral disasters. The objectivesof the project is to imple-ment access to and sharingof environmental data;Strengthen regional infra-structure to facilitateSERVIR national implemen-tation and to build a com-munity of data custodiansand users around SERVIRData Portal.
RWANDA
Regionalmapping centreextendsmembershipRwanda has been invited tojoin the Regional Centre forMapping of Resources forDevelopment (RCMRD), aninternational organisationthat provides surveying,mapping, remote sensingand GIS services to its mem-ber states. By joining theorganisation, Rwanda isexpected to receive geo -information and allied ICTproducts and services inenvironmental andresource management tofacilitate sustainable devel-opment in the country.
According to HusseinFarah, Director RCMRD, thecentre would provide serv-ices that include, drawingdetailed maps of disaster
prone areas to assist gov-ernments to quickly andeffectively respond to natu-ral disasters. The RCMRDmeeting also highlightedthe need to strengthen andharmonise the fragmentedregional and African datausing accurate geodetic GPStechniques and researchinto the field and data pro-cessing methodologies.
CHINA
CIST wins $2.9mn RS contractin GuangdongChina Information SecurityTechnology (CIST), Inc. hasbeen awarded a $2.9 mil-lion remote sensing con-tract to conduct aerial pho-
togrammetrical surveysand digital maps in westGuangdong province forChina's Ministry of Landand Resources, in accor-dance with the Ministry'sSecond National Land Survey.
The contract will requirethe production of DigitalElevation Models (DEMs)and Digital OrthophotoQuadrangles (DOQs), whichare often used in GIS. CISTwill survey 28,700 squarekilometer section of westGuangdong province. Afteracquiring digital images ofthis area, CIST will create a1:10000 DEM and DOQwhich will provide basicworking maps for continu-ous land surveying andacreage calculations. Thecompany expects to com-plete the aero-photograph-ic work by the end of March2009.
With the development of the Compass Navigation Satellite System, the total output of China'ssatellite application industry will be300 billion Yuan by 2015, demon-strating the massive potential ofthe market, according to CaoChong, Director of Compass Civil Application Market and Industrialisation Expert Commission.
The Compass System is a satellite navigation system independently developed by China. It boasts of navigation, positioning and timing functions. The Compass System, US's GPS, Russia's GLONASS and the EU's GALILEO are regarded as the four major global navigation satellite systems.
Navigation industry Navigation industry to grto grow 3ow 3 00 billion yuan00 billion yuan
INDIA
CGWB implementsGEMS in nine statesGround Water Estimationand Management System(GEMS), a comprehensivesolution for groundwatermanagement, developedunder the Hydrology Pro-ject for the Central Ground
Water Board (CGWB) in theMinistry of WaterResources is now imple-mented in 9 states, cateringto 475 users at 191 sites allover India. GEMS is a WorldBank funded project thatprovides tools to effectivelycompile, visualise, andanalyse hydrogeologic andallied attributes of ground-water resources. Its integra-tion with business softwareof multiple domains makesit a thorough solution forexploration, planning,development and manage-ment of groundwaterresources. GEMS is builtusing MapInfo Professional(GIS), MapInfo VerticalMapper (spatial interpola-tion and contouring), SPSS(statistical analysis) andR2V (raster vector data con-version).
GEMS covers geophysicalinvestigations, water quali-ty studies, borehole/welllogs, time series analysis ofwater level, rainfall andother meteorological data,as well as spatial analysisin targeting and estimatinggroundwater resources.Available GIS based spatialanalysis tools, provided byMapInfo in GEMS such asinterpolation; contouring,predictive modelling andforecasting can be effec-tively used to analyse dataof the above domains.
Orissa launches pilot project fordisaster managementOrissa governmentlaunched a pilot project onmobile-based technologyfor generation of geospatialdata system as part of itspreparedness to meet thechallenges of flood, cycloneand heatwaves. Launchingthe service, Chief MinisterNaveen Patnaik said theinstrument used in the gen-eration of geospatial datasystem designed by ISROwas a combination of amedium resolution camera,a GPS, a palmtop computerand a mobile phone set.
Using these instruments,information from the fieldwith photographs and geo-graphic coordinates can becollected and sent to thecentral server through theavaibalble mobile phonenetwork which could beused for an online decision
support system, Patnaiksaid. The pilot project waslaunched in Puri district forcreating a data base ofrelief shelters, hospitalsand supply godowns. Thesystem developed in collab-oration with NationalRemote Sensing Centre,Hyderabad. To add to thestate's preparedness, Pat-naik said Doppler radarswould also be placed short-
ly at Paradip, Gopalpur andSambalpur.
'Bhuvan'- India'sanswer to GoogleEarthIndian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO) willlaunch an IRS image portalcalled "Bhuvan" and a landinformation portal called"Bhu Sampada" by March2009. The "Bhuvan" portal
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 9
Satguide Logger launchedThe SatGuide Logger launched by SatNav Technologies, is beingmarketed as an integrated solution for all fleet management com-panies and for individuals who hire drivers in India. The device canrecord the movement of vehicles up to 13 hours. SatGuide Loggercan enable any USB port to be GPS enabled and is aimed atincreasing the efficiency and profitability of the fleet management.
SatGuide Logger captures all the location data required, inmicroseconds. Light from the beginning of the journey, the devicetracks all the movements of the vehicle and stores it as data in itsmemory. On finishing the journey and returning to its final destina-tion, the logger can be plugged into any USB port and the manage-ment can retrieve and view the routes and pit-stops made by thevehicle during the course. A massive number of data points (lati-tude, and longitude values) can be recorded by the device at a giv-en time. The device also re-traces all the routes covered by thevehicles during the trip which ensures that the vehicle is not mis-used by the operator. On logging onto the data, all users can viewdetails like distance covered by the vehicle, average speed of thevehicle, duration of each pit stop etc. Unique details like over speed-ing, major detours etc are also captured by the device and can bemonitored by the management.
SatGuide now available for symbian OS phonesSatNav Technologies is now providing GPS turn-by-turn navigationsoftware for all Symbian OS mobile devices across the country.
Users who purchase the software can install the navigation soft-ware on any of the Symbian OS phones. Customers who wish toarm their Symbian operating system mobile phones with navigationcapabilities can install the SatGuide software on to their currentmobile devices and instantly start navigating using the device tofind correct routes, ATMs, hospitals, medicine shops, cinema hallsand other locations on their screen across the country.
Those who do not have a GPS enabled phone, have the option ofpurchasing the GPS receiver separately. The software is a one-timeinstall and the users are to pay for the map up-gradation, which isprovided once every quarter.
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
Sub-surface visualisationobtained by RockWorks s/w
is expected to take on thepopular 'Google Earth.' "It isequivalent to the GoogleEarth, but will be muchmore precise," said Madha-van Nair, ISRO chief, at therecently held 28th INCAInternational Congress. "Itwill provide the latest infor-mation on our naturalresources. We will provide
very accurate maps of theregion with the latest pic-ture." he said. "The softwareand infrastructure neces-sary for the service is beingestablished," he said."Though most of the infor-mation will be online, pre-cision data will be given toselected users only," Nairsaid.
SoI, Tele Atlas Kalyanienter agreement formaps distributionThe Government hasapproved the strategicagreement between Surveyof India (SoI) and Tele AtlasKalyani India Ltd., - a jointventure between theKalyani Group and TeleAtlas. The agreementallows Tele Atlas KalyaniIndia to release the first SoI-approved digital maps andcustom map content withinthe public domain for com-mercial use in a range ofnavigation and location-based solutions in themobile, Internet, automo-tive, personal navigation
system and enterprise mar-kets. The current release ofnavigable maps created byTele Atlas Kalyani are com-pliant with the regulationsof the Government of Indiaand the provisions of theNational Mapping Policy.
RISAT can imagethrough cloudsIndian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO) hasdeveloped a new RadarImaging Satellite (RISAT)that could take imagesthrough the clouds,enabling space-based appli-cation in such scenarios tomanage cyclones, floodsand agriculture relatedactivities. India's currentearth-observation satellitesare working in visible andinfrared bands, whichmeans they can take pic-tures only when it is cloud-free. "Once our satellite(RISAT) is put into orbit, wewill be able to use this forall purposes. And that willalso help us in assessing theagriculture during mon-soon season," said Madha-van Nair, ISRO chief.Terming its launch as the"most important one" in thenext one year, he said,"before the middle of nextyear, we want to make aflight."
ISRO to launchindigenous GISsoftwareISRO is about to launch thecountry's first comprehen-
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 10 D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
SUBSCRIBEGIS Development
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Microsoft launches Live Search Maps
News
Microsoft India has launched Live SearchMaps for India that offers users access todetailed listings and street maps of 9cities, business listings across 29 citiesand access to highway networks of20,000 cities and towns. Live Search Mapsfor India is on Microsoft's Live Search Ser-
vice, thereby allowingusers to search for geo-graphical information,places of general interestand business listings bothon the PC and Mobile athttp://maps.live.co.in andhttp://m.live.co.in. This isthe first version of its localmapping service for Indiawith the key featuresdeveloped by theMicrosoft India Develop-
ment Centre (MSIDC) based in Hyderabad. Key features of Live Search Maps for
India include Street Maps, LocationSearch, Business Listing Search, Routingor Directions for Navigation and optionsfor users to print, share collectionsthrough email, blogs on Windows Live.
sive indigenous softwarefor geomatics - 'IndigenousGIS and IP Software' or IGIS.Developed by ISRO's SpaceApplications Centre (SAC)Ahmedabad centre, newsoftware will be more com-patible with Indian satel-
lites. IGIS will be installedin all ISRO remote sensingcentres resulting in hugecost savings.
The IGIS software hasbeen developed by SAC,along with its J-V geomat-ics technology partner
Scanpoint Geomatics Limit-ed (SGL), an Ahmedabad-based public limited com-pany.
It is a seamless geomaticsapplication, which includesGIS, image processing withintegration with real timeinformation using GPS. R RNavalgund, Director, SACsaid, IGIS will benefitIndia's research and aca-demic institutions as thepricing of the software willbe highly competitive. Chi-rag Soni, Technical Director,SGL, said: "ISRO providedthe domain expertise whilewe provided the develop-ment expertise to come upwith IGIS.
Along with the addedadvantage of having both GIS processing andimage processing applica-tions, IGIS will be morecompatible with Indiansatellites."
OGC's DTRIPkicks offThe first ever interoperabil-ity pilot of OGC out sideNorth America and Europewas kicked-off in New Del-hi, India. Around 25 dele-gates from the GeospatialIndustry along with thegovernment and researchinstitutes joined hands tocome together on one plat-form, in achieving the mainaim of the project which isto develop an interoperablemulti-modal transit sce-nario along with otheradded benefits.
The participation in thisproject is expected toinvolve the following sce-narios and related results:
• Participants in this projectwill collaborate in develop-ing of scenarios to guidetesting, demonstrations andoperations of the identifiedinteroperable services.
• Participants will provideservices relevant to trans-
portation and routing activi-ties for the governmentpartners involved in thispilot; where those servicesare deployed consistent withthe OGC architecture.
• Participates will thus alsocontribute to the refinementof the architecture and inter-operability arrangements
News
Soon, property tax details just a click away in NagpurOver five lakh property owners in the city could soon get all propertyrecords, including tax details, at the click of mouse. The Nagpur Munic-ipal Corporation (NMC) is set to become the first civic body in thestate to make available online records of all its five lakh properties.Apart from this, the corporation has recently conducted GIS mappingof all properties in city. Municipal commissioner Aseem Guptainformed that the website could include details such as property own-ership, tax payment, arrears and corporation action against the owner.
Bangalore preparing database of propertiesTo counter criticism of not being able to bring all the properties underthe tax net, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) hasstarted preparing a database of all of them in its jurisdiction using GIS.The Karnataka State Electronic Development Corporation (Keonics), aState Government undertaking, which has been entrusted with theresponsibility of preparing the multi-purpose GIS-based database, isexpected to complete the task by January-February 2009. Already, ateam of experts, data collectors and field surveyors have compiled pre-liminary data of properties in about 200 sq. km. in the northern part ofthe city (Yelahanka), and other areas falling under the Byatarayanapu-ra zone, during last one month. Initially, the experts will generate vectormaps of different areas using a high resolution satellite digital map ofthe entire BBMP area and then mark individual properties on suchmaps. Later, field surveyors will visit the particular locality and cross-verify the details in the map and the actual status of the properties.
Digital maps of Bihar cities releasedBihar Remote Sensing Application Centre (BIRSAC) has released dig-ital maps of 20 districts of Bihar that give fine details of boundaries ofdistricts alongwith block and village borders. The digitised maps of theremaining 18 districts, too, would be ready by the end of this year. "Theproject was given to us by the rural development department. With themaps available, we made digitised versions so that the details could beloaded in a computer, said BIRSAC scientist Deepa Sinha.
GIT adoptions in Indian cities
12 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
JAPAN
Optech appoints newJapan representative Optech Incorporated ofCanada announced that ithas appointed OPT Tech-nologies, Tokyo, to repre-sent its ALTM (airbornelaser terrain mapper) line ofproducts in Japan. For thepast year, Optech has beenrepresented by OPT Tech-nologies for the ILRIS-3Dline of terrestrial scanners.As a result of OPT's ongoinginitiative and success, thisrepresentation has beenexpanded to include ALTMairborne products.
KOREA
Daum plans eye-catching map serviceKorean portal Daum hasdecided to plug the real
world into the Web, but itremains to be seen whetherthe ambitious project willallow the company tomount a meaningful chal-lenge to NHN, the KoreanInternet industry's undis-puted kingpin.
Daum, the operator of No.2 Internet portal, Daum(www.daum.net), is aboutto release a new servicebuilt around a detailed pho-tographic map of Korea,offering crystal-sharpviews of the mountains andseashores, buildings androads, and the sushi restau-rant you reserved for dinner.
Daum is believed to bespending over 20 billionwon to develop the newservice, collaborating withSamAh Aerial Survey forthe aerial photos and PixKorea for the street-levelimages.
Japanese rocketto carry Arirang 3South Korea's multipurposesatellite Arirang 3, nowunder development, is like-ly be launched on a Japan-ese rocket in 2011, accordingto the Korea AerospaceResearch Institute (KARI).
The institute said it hasselected Mitsubishi HeavyIndustries as the preferrednegotiator for the launch ofthe satellite followinginternational bidding. Ari-rang 3 will carry a camerawith a resolution of 0.7meter.
NEPAL
Kathmandu to startdigital mappingKathmandu MetropolitanCity (KMC) will soon re-
start the digital valley map-ping project that wasstalled six years back.According to KMC officials,the project will kick off inthis fiscal year after theapproval of its budget.
The project was with-drawn by the EuropeanUnion in 2002/03.
PHILIPPINES
Mines bureauseeks Aussie helpfor mappingThe Mines and GeosciencesBureau (MGB) is seekingAUD1.9-million fundingfrom the Australian Agencyfor International Develop-ment to make electronicversions of mining maps."The electronic versions ofmaps and the networking[of data] are to reduce thetime in processing ofpapers," informed MGBDirector Horacio C. Ramos.The Mines bureau present-ed the proposal during thePhilippines-Australia min-isters meeting recently. Thedigitised maps will showmining areas that can beapplied for permits by min-ing companies and possiblemineral reserves, Ramossaid.
Itogon to implementGIS-based geo-hazardassessmentThe municipality of Itogonhas recently endorsed theconduct of a hazard assess-
Tigers, anywhere in the country, will now be monitored for every move thatthey make - in the dense of the forests or on the fringes. The conservationistswill study the source populations of the wild cats with the help of 'science' and'technology'. All the 28 tiger reserves will be set in a loop through GIS-basedsoftware and camera trap techniques. This tech-based conservation will help indesigning a proper mechanism for saving the tigers inside and outside reserveareas. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory bodyunder the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), has decided to out-source the job of designing software for intensively monitoring source popula-tions of tigers in the areas that have substantial number of wild cats.
The source populations are the set of tigers present in the core areas of the for-est. These populations will be thoroughly observed for their behaviours,threats/ challenges and ecology. "This will help in knowing the tigers better andwhat is affecting them because this population reflects the health of forestarea," said a member in NTCA.
GIS for tiger conservation
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 13D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
ment project, using GIS andremote-sensing technolo-gies. Itogon is one of themunicipalities chosen as apilot area for the project,which would be undertak-en by the University ofPhilippines-Los Banos. Theproject aims to come upwith environmental hazardassessment and develop aWeb-enabled geo-informa-tion database for hazardmanagement. The pro-gramme seeks to preventthe loss of up to P1 billionand destruction of around180,000 hectares of moun-tains due to absence of firehazard mapping.
PAKISTAN
PakistanTelecom, LMKRink deedPakistan Telecommunica-tions Company Limited(PTCL) and LMK Resources(LMKR) Pakistan havesigned an agreement forthe deployment of a state-of-the-art turnkey GIS solu-tion. The solution willenable PTCL to better man-age access and transmis-sion networks and insideplant (OSP and ISP) infra-structure including its cop-per and optical fibre net-work. The project, whichwould provide the networkmapping of PTCL on thelines of GoogleEarth, wouldnot only facilitate the PTCLto trace any fault in its fibre
optic network, but alsoassist PTCL consumers byearly repair of any fault inPTCL network.
Through the project,LMKR Pakistan wouldlaunch network mappingof Islamabad in its firstphase. The system willeventually be implementedacross Pakistan.
SINGAPORE
ComputaMaps opensAsia Pacific officeComputaMaps, headquar-tered in South Africa,announced that it is furtherexpanding its internationalpresence with the openingof an Asia Pacific office inSingapore, as a strategicstep to support the compa-ny's global expansion. Com-putaMaps Asia-Pacific willpromote ComputaMaps'geodata solutions, productsand services to its fastgrowing base of commer-cial and government cus-tomers in the Asia Pacificregion.
The Singapore office willbe headed by BarbaraBasquin, ComputaMaps'newly appointed Managerfor Asia & Pacific.
LandNet bagstwo i’nationalawardsThe Singapore LandAuthority's (SLA) LandInformation Network(LandNet) system has won
two international GISawards. In October thisyear, SLA was named theUrban and Regional Infor-mation Systems Associa-tion's (URISA) ExemplarySystems in Governments(ESIG) - Distinguished Sys-tems Award 2008 winner,which recognised Land-Net's achievements in theapplication of informationtechnology to improve thedelivery and quality of gov-ernment services.
The second, the Govern-ment Technology Awards2008 (GTA) in GIS organisedby FutureGov, acknowl-edged LandNet's innova-tion, functionality and pro-ductivity. LandNet waslaunched on 1 June 2007,after a successful proof-of-concept experimentationwith several public agen-cies and leading industrypartners to find the bestway of sharing spatial dataonline among public agen-cies.
The system is claimed tobe the first in Asia Pacific toharness enterprise GRIDtechnology to facilitateonline and up-to-date datasharing using high-speedgovernment network.
UKRAINE
Ukraine, Indonesiasign spacecooperation dealUkraine and Indonesiahave signed an intergov-
ernmental space coopera-tion agreement, accordingto Unian news agency, cit-ing Ukraine's NationalSpace Agency. Areas ofcooperation will includespace research, rocket tech-nology, satellite launches,earth remote sensing, andother uses of space forpeaceful purposes.
CANADA
MDA bags CSA’sradar satellitecluster contractCanadian Space Agency(CSA) announced the $40million design contractwith MacDonald Dettwilerand Associates Ltd. (MDA)for RADARSAT Constella-tion Mission (RCM) com-prising three small satel-lites equipped with C-bandradar instruments.
The RADARSAT Constella-tion is the evolution of theRADARSAT programme andwill ensure the continueduse by government scien-tific and commercial clientsof data produced by Cana-da’s advanced C-band radarinstrument.
At present there are two operational Canadian satel-lites RADARSAT-1 andRADARSAT-2 equippedwith C-band radar instru-ments.
14
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G I S D E V E L O P M E N T D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
USA
Portableimaging systemto help disastermgntResearchers at the GeorgiaTech Research Institute(GTRI) have developed alow-cost, high-resolutionimaging system that can beattached to a helicopter tocreate a complete anddetailed picture of an areadevastated by a hurricaneor other natural disaster.The imaging system iscalled the "Mini ModPOD,"which stands for "Minia-ture Modular PhotographicObservation Device." It con-sists of a digital camera, aGPS receiver, a small circuitboard that uploads missionparameters, and an inertialmeasurement unit thatmeasures the aircraft's rateof acceleration and changesin rotational attributes,including pitch, roll andyaw. The images collectedfrom the system can bestitched together to create acomplete picture of theaffected area.
Harris Corp introducesGeoDARTHarris Corporation hasintroduced the GeospatialData Access RetrievalTranslator (GeoDART), anew web-based searchengine that enablesgeospatial informationusers to perform multiplesearches, in parallel and
across multiple datasources, using any service-oriented architecture (SOA)platform. The commercialoff-the-shelf (COTS) productis designed for a wide rangeof government and com-mercial applications,including intelligence, oiland gas, agriculture, civilengineering, environmen-tal protection and disasterresponse. GeoDART allowsusers to customise theirqueries or orders by sizeand format, and supportsautomatic ordering of dis-covered products uponcompletion of a query.
IMAGINE RadarMapping Suite9.3 releasedERDAS has launchedadvanced radar mappingtechnology in the latestrelease of the IMAGINERadar Mapping Suite 9.3.With intelligent defaultsand optimised processing,the Suite is fully integratedinto ERDAS IMAGINE, thesolution for manipulating,processing and understand-ing imagery and vectordata. The Suite is also cur-rently being enhanced incollaboration with the Ger-man Aerospace Centre(DLR).
Included in the Suite areIMAGINE OrthoRadar,IMAGINE Radar Interpreter,IMAGINE StereoSAR DEM,IMAGINE InSAR and thenewest module, IMAGINECoherence Change Detec-
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN), School ofMedicine, have set out to learn whether things adolescents do andplaces they go are associated with whether they will be the victimof violence. The School has partnered with Avencia Incorporated, aPhiladelphia-based geospatial softwaredesign company, to create an activitytracking software tool (STARS TravelPath) that will help health care pro-fessionals guide adolescents injuredin an assault through the process ofreconstructing the series of eventsand encounters in the 24-hour timeperiod preceding the assault.
The project, the Space-TimeAdolescent Risk Study(STARS) led by DouglasWiebe and CharlesBranas of the Center forClinical Epidemiologyand Biostatistics andTherese Richmondfrom the UPENNSchool of Nursing.
Using laptop comput-ers on which the STARSapplication has beeninstalled, trained interview-ers work with each victim torecord the victim's verbalaccount of his or her activitiesby placing digital markersindicating the location of eachsignificant activity, on a streetmap or high-resolutionsatellite photo.
The interviewer is able toaccurately assign times tothe markers on a victim'smap - including the assaultevent - based on factorssuch as the victim's mode oftransportation to or fromeach event, speed of move-ment, interruptions, andother environmental fac-tors. The interviewer alsoinputs key data on whetherthe victim possessed a gunor consumed drugs and/oralcohol at any time in the24 hours prior to theassault. Typically, 80-100points of activity arerecorded on each victim'smap. Visually mapping a ver-bal account of activities pro-vides researchers with a pow-erful tool that aids in accuratelyrecording complex space/time data.
Avencia software to trackstudents’ behavioural factors
Gunshot injury is the leadingcause of death in 10-19 yearold African American males
and the second leading causeof adolescent death overall.
Assaultive injuries appear asthe end result of a causativeweb of factors that includealcohol, firearms, and dan-
gerous urban environments.aims to identify key behav-ioural and environmental
factors that put young peopleages 10-19 at risk for being
assaulted, thereby spearhead-ing an innovative applicationof epidemiological space-time
modelling.
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 15
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tion. In the IMAGINE RadarMapping Suite, analystscan save their radar data inany raster format, createcolor images to emphasizethe magnitude of change,derive binary images todetect the most dramaticchanges, create shapefilesfor GIS applications andmore.
Baseline review ofGPS III completedThe Lockheed Martin team
developing the next-gener-ation GPS spacecraft,known as GPS III, has suc-cessfully completed on-schedule an IntegratedBaseline Review (IBR) withthe U.S. Air Force, one of theprogrammes that precedesthe Preliminary DesignReview. GPS III willimprove position, naviga-tion, and timing services forthe warfighter and civilusers worldwide and pro-vide advanced anti-jamcapabilities yielding superi-or system security, accura-cy and reliability. The suc-cessful IBR consisted of acomprehensive review ofthe entire programme andestablished a reliable base-line in relation to the pro-
gramme's cost, scheduleand technical require-ments.
NGA purchasesCitySphere 2.0from DigitalGlobeDigitalGlobe announcedthat the National Geospa-tial-Intelligence Agency(NGA) has purchased theentire CitySphere 2.0 prod-uct, the recently launched,enhanced version of Digi-talGlobe's extensive libraryof on-demand digital satel-lite and aerial imagery ofthe most populated globalcities. CitySphere 2.0, withthe addition of views ofcities such as Dubai, Seouland Jakarta, will enable theNGA to provide timely andrelevant geospatial intelli-gence of new areas in sup-port of worldwide mappingrequirements to clientssuch as the U.S. StateDepartment and otherintelligence communityagencies.
Wilson & Companyacquires Western AirMapsWilson & Company, Inc.,Engineers & Architectsannounced that it had com-pleted its acquisition ofWestern Air Maps, Inc. ofOverland Park, Kansas.Western Air Maps is a suc-cessful photogrammetricand geospatial mappingfirm, and has been in busi-ness since 1960. The acqui-sition expands the services
of Wilson & Company's sur-vey, geospatial, and remotesensing division with threenew office locations and 50additional staff members.
EPA, NGS, WRIteam up to mapecosystemservicesThe U.S. Environmental Pro-tection Agency (EPA) is col-laborating with the Nation-al Geographic Society (NGS)and the World ResourcesInstitute (WRI) to developtools that will help to fullyaccount for the value ofecosystem services. EPA'sEcological Research Pro-gramme in the Office ofResearch and Developmentwill collaborate with theNGS to develop better waysto map ecosystem servicesand communicate thesemaps to the public.Researchers will createmaps displaying those serv-ices to help decision makersin communities, states,regions, and tribes under-stand the total costs andbenefits of proposed landuses.
GeoEye signscontract withTelespazioGeoEye, Inc. has signed amulti-year agreement withRome-based TelespazioS.p.A. appointingTelespazio as GeoEye's newCommercial Regional Affili-ate for the region of Europeand North Africa.
Telespazio, a Finmeccani-ca/Thales company, willproduce, market and sellEarth imagery and relatedproducts and services fromGeoEye's newest high-reso-lution satellite, GeoEye-1, tocustomers in Europe andNorth Africa. GeoEye-1 waslaunched from VandenbergAir Force Base, California onSeptember 6 and is expect-
NewsNews
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 818 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
DigitalGlobe, NAVTEQto supportdevelopersDigitalGlobe and NAVTEQ haveentered a new relationship thataims to provide better supportto software developers usingNAVTEQ map data and want toinclude high-resolution satelliteand aerial imagery from Digital-Globe in their applications. Aspart of the agreement, Digital-Globe becomes the latestmember of the Partner Zoneprogramme on the NAVTEQNetwork for Developers(NN4D) and will provide devel-opers access to sampleimagery free of charge for alimited term during the softwaredevelopment process.
DigitalGlobe, deCartadeliver world imageryfor LBS marketDigitalGlobe has signed anagreement with deCarta, underwhich DigitalGlobe will providedeCarta's geospatial platformcustomers access to its premi-um, high-resolution satellite andaerial imagery. Under the termsof the agreement, deCarta andits customers will have accessto DigitalGlobe's ImageBuilderimagery service which providesdeveloper access to current,online library of high-resolutionimagery, with new images beingcollected and uploaded to theservice each and every day.
ed to be fully operationalthis fall. Telespazio's Geo-Eye-1 exclusive imagerysales rights begin as soon asGeoEye-1 becomes opera-tional. Beginning in 2009,Telespazio will also haveaccess to the IKONOS satel-lite and collect, produce,market and sell Earthimagery and related prod-ucts to customers in Europeand North Africa.
Incheon, Korea, isAutodesk’s 2nd Digital city Autodesk announced that itis working with theIncheon Free EconomicZone (IFEZ) and the IncheonUrban Development Corpo-ration (IUDC) to cooperatein the creation of Asia's firstDigital City for Incheon,Korea -- the 'Tomorrow City'in Song-do City. Autodeskhas designated Incheon asthe second pilot city of itsDigital City initiative, afterannouncing Salzburg, Aus-tria in July.
Autodesk, IFEZ, and IUDCwill work together to devel-op a Digital City -- a collabo-rative environment createdaround a detailed 3D citymodel that allows usersfrom the public, city gov-ernment, construction andbusiness communities toleverage technology solu-tions so they can visualise,analyse and simulate real-world city scenarios toimprove decision makingand provide a common
environment for sharinginformation.
Trimble, AT&Tannounce AllSportavailabilityIn time to work off thestress and creeping poundsthat often come with theholidays, Trimble andAT&T Inc. announced theavailability of the AllSport
GPS application that letsusers track their exerciseactivity on select GPS-enabled AT&T wirelessphones. From the handset,the application monitorstime, speed, calories burnedand distance travelled dur-ing outdoor workouts suchas running, walking, bikingand snowboarding. Userscan store workouts to mon-itor progress, view weeklyactivity logs, map theirfavorite routes and shareactivities with friends.
Bentley releases V8ifor infrastructureworksBentley Systems, Inc.announced V8i, the com-prehensive software portfo-lio for infrastructure assem-bled in a single release.Encompassing products for
all of the solution commu-nities served by Bentley,the V8i portfolio leveragesand extends core capabili-ties of its new interoper-ability platform needed forfully integrated projectdelivery. V8i's interoper-ability platform enablesBentley applications to per-sist, share, and visualiseinfrastructure asset data ina common way, promotingcollaborative workflows.Among the new core capa-bilities of V8i are intuitivedesign modelling, interac-tive dynamic views, intrin-sic geo-coordination, andincredible project perform-ance.
OGC announcesupdated OGC RefModelThe Open Geospatial Con-
sortium (OGC) announcedthe completion and avail-ability of Version 2.0 of theOGC Reference Model(ORM).
The ORM provides aframework for the ongoingwork of the OGC and aguide for those who seek toimplement interoperablesolutions and applicationsfor geospatial services anddata. The ORM focuses onrelationships between thedocuments in the OGCStandards Baseline (SB),which consists of theapproved OpenGIS Abstractand Implementation Stan-dards (Interface, Encoding,Profile, Application
Schema) and OGC Best Prac-tice documents.
Topcon’s FC-2500 forrugged useTopcon Positioning Sys-tems (TPS) has come upwith advanced field con-troller technology with itsnew FC-2500. The FC-2500is designed to give users thepowerful field controller, ina rugged, waterproofdesign. With increasedspeed, storage and memo-ry, and a 624MHz XScaleprocessor, the FC-2500 isdesigned to speed up datacollection with 256MB RAMand 2GB flash storagememory. The FC-2500 alsoprovides an advanced fieldcontroller feature, a 5.17megapixel camera.
New marinecharts fromGarminGarmin International hasannounced the next gener-ation of its BlueChart g2and BlueChart g2 Visiontechnology - giving boatersmore dimension and infor-mation to the existingcapabilities in marine car-tography. Beginning Janu-ary 2009, Garmin's tradi-tional BlueChart data willbe replaced with a rede-fined version of BlueChartg2 that will provide basiccharts, tidal stations, cur-rents, perspective view andfishing charts, while pro-viding a smooth user expe-
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 19D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
rience and familiar feel.Similarly, g2 Vision hasbeen improved to provideincreased quality anddetail.
ArcGIS supportsSQL Server 2008ArcGIS users now haveaccess to SQL Server 2008.SQL Server 2008, combinedwith ESRI's geodata man-agement capabilities, willprovide users with the toolsthey need to seamlesslyconsume, use, and extendlocation-based analysis forenterprise-scale computingand Web collaboration. Thesupport is the result of amulti-year working rela-tionship between ESRI andMicrosoft Corp. towards thedevelopment of the spatial
extensions to SQL Server2008. In SQL Server 2008,Microsoft introduces twonew spatial types-Geogra-phy and Geometry-both ofwhich are supported byESRI.
German, Spanish and Québécois OSGeochapters approvedThe OSGeo board has for-mally approved three newlocal chapters. OSGeo localchapters provide a venue tosupport local users anddevelopers, as well as amechanism to furtherOSGeo's mission and goalsin a linguistic, or geograph-ic area. FOSSGIS e.V. hasbeen approved as a localchapter for the Germanspeaking countries of Ger-
many, Austria and Switzer-land with Dr. Georg Lösel asrepresentative.
The OSGeo Spanish localchapter, for Spanish speak-ing users has Pedro-JuanFerrer Matoses as represen-tative.
The Comité de directiondu Chapitre québécois del'OSGeo has been approvedfor the region of Québec(Canada) with DanielMorissette as representa-tive.
StreetMappermaps AmericaNorth American cities havebeen documented at speedusing StreetMapper, lasermobile mapping system.StreetMapper, which usesvehicle mounted laser scan-
ners to capture detailed andaccurate measurements atspeed, was developed andsupplied to Terrametrix,LLC, located in Omaha,Nebraska by UK based 3DLaser Mapping.
Using StreetMapper, Ter-rametrix completed a 3,690mile, 6 city tour in justeight days, capturing high-ly accurate 3D models ofurban highways, interstate,trolley routes and an inter-national sporting venueand even taking part in anational competition to col-lect highway asset informa-tion.
George MasonUniv receivesIntergrapheducation grantGeorge Mason University(GMU) has been awardedan Intergraph Global Edu-cation Grant in support ofUnited States GeospatialIntelligence Foundation’s(USGIF) prestigious GEOINTaccreditation.
Intergraph’s Global Edu-cation Grant programmeadvances collaborationbetween academic andcommercial communitiesto promote the role ofgeospatial technology intoday's society.
As a result of this grant,students enrolled in GMU’sGeospatial IntelligenceGraduate Certificate pro-gram will utilise Inter-graph’s geospatial produc-tion and exploitation soft-
20
News
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Google Maps has received a significantmakeover aimed at making the navigationeasier to use and make the interface withGoogle Street View work more seamless-ly.Key to the change is the new fullscreen/half screen Google Street interfacewhich allows a larger screen area to be
devoted to the panorama than was pre-viously available with the pop-up style.
Also making his debut with this newcontrol system is “Pegman”, the newicon you can use to zoom betweenlocations: Pegman has been referred toas Google Maps’ “plucky mascot” andalready there is a selection of eastereggs available including what appearsto be a St Patricks pegman, a Yankeedoodle Pegman and a Halloween Peg-man.
The system still has the old road arrows toallow the same road ‘journeys’ howeverbigger jumps will be easier with the newsystem and the the bigger panorama areashould give users a better view of the vari-ous locations.
Google Maps updated
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
ware as part of their corecurriculum.
GMU is one of three uni-versities thus far recog-nized by the USGIF that ful-fill the organization’s strictGEOINT learning objectivesin support of promoting thegeointelligence tradecraft.In addition to the compa-ny’s Geospatial Productionand Exploitation SoftwareGrant, which is exclusivelyavailable to universitiesthat have obtained USGIFGEOINT accreditation,Intergraph offers a com-plete range of geospatialand enterprise engineeringeducation grants.
FRANCE
IGN to receive DTMsfrom IntermapIntermap Technologiesannounced a $1 million con-tract with the NationalMapping Agency of France,Institut GeographiqueNational (IGN). The compa-ny will supply IGN withdigital terrain models forthe French Alps to begin theupgrade of the nationalgeospatial database forFrance. Intermap recently
finished collecting 3D digi-tal elevation models for allof France, along with 17 oth-er Western European coun-tries, as part of their multi-country NEXTMap Europemapping programme.Under the terms of the con-tract, delivery of the geoda-ta will take place in earlyDecember 2008.
GERMANY
Infoterra developsStanfords-GISInfoterra has partneredwith Stanfords BusinessMapping, retail supplier of
paper mapping and mapdata for businesses, todevelop a cost-effectivenew geographical assetmanagement system -Stanfords GIS - for organisa-tions managing propertyportfolios. This new systemincorporates mapping andaerial photography in asecure, web-based manage-ment interface to providean integrated geographicalproperty database. Stan-fords GIS is ideal for hous-ing associations and localauthorities, enabling man-agement of their propertystock in a geographical con-text. Within a browser-
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 21
The government has saved £700,000 by using geographicinformation software on mobile computers to produce themost detailed Countryside Survey to date.The fifth surveysince 1978 was commissioned by environmental affairsdepartment (Defra) and the Natural EnvironmentResearch Council (NERC). Alan Thorpe, chief executive ofNERC, said the survey provides vital scientific evidence forpolicymakers and stakeholders in sustainable land man-agement. The savings were achieved by halving the timetaken to capture the data for the latest Countryside Surveyreport for England, Scotland and Wales published in Lon-don recently. Surveyors from the Centre for Ecology &Hydrology (CEH) used GPS equipment in the field to cap-ture location data and entered it directly into the GIS fromESRI (UK). In past surveys, the CEH used paper maps andrecording sheets to capture landscape features and theirattributes. A team of ten digitisers then took two years toprepare the data for analysis.
GIS softwaresaves £700,000
GIS:
Your
Pigg
yBa
nk
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
based application, Stan-fords GIS integrates geospa-tial data with property spe-cific information. Under asingle annual Stanfords GIS
licence, organisations canupload addresses that arethen matched against Ord-nance Survey Address Layer2 to determine location.
IRELAND
Trimbleannouncesreal-timecorrectionsserviceTrimble announced theavailability of high-accura-cy, in-the-field mappingwith its new Trimble VRSNow H-Star service in Ire-land and Northern Ireland.A subscription to the Trim-ble VRS Now H-Star service
gives users working in utili-ties, local government, nat-ural resources, and landmanagement the ability toobtain real-time, decimeterlevel accurate positionsconsistently and directly atthe job site.
With instant access to H-Star corrections on demand,field workers can be moreefficient and high-accuracymapping projects can be upand running in minutes toincrease productivity.
Ancient Rome comes alive with Google EarthAncient Rome comes alive with Google Earth
News
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 22 D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
ITALY: Google Earth has launched a 3D reconstructionof ancient Rome as it may have been in 320 AD. Thevirtual traveller can now see every building as itstood in Rome at that time. In reality, just 300 build-ings of classical Rome have survived, in most cases inruins. The 3D model is visible on the website as a lay-er. The layer floats a few metres above the satelliteimage of present-day Rome so that users can have asense of locating where the ancient structures oncestood. According to the Google Earth blog, the 3Dmodels are actually based on a physical model of thecity called the Plastico di Roma Antica - created byarchaeologists and model-makers from 1933 to 1974and housed in a special gallery in the Museum ofRoman Civilisation in Rome. An extra feature in the3D city is that 11 buildings have viewable interiors.
ITALY
CARIS surveyprocessing S/wThe Italian HydrographicInstitute has selected CARISHIPS and SIPS software forits hydrographic surveyprocessing. The ItalianHydrographic Institute(IIM) located in Genova, hasbeen the official nauticalcharting agency of the Ital-ian Navy since beingfounded in 1872.
Its tasks include the pro-duction of nautical chartsand documents aimed atthe safety of navigation,and extend to the process-ing of all the data - scientif-ic, technological and envi-ronmental - connected withthe sea. Furthermore, it per-forms research within thenautical domain.
NORWAY
Blom, Tele Atlassign agreement Geographic informationprovider Blom ASA and dig-ital maps and dynamic con-tent provider Tele Atlashave announced a five yearagreement focussed onspeeding up the develop-ment of 3D city maps andelevation models and oncreating imagery productsfor personal and in car nav-igation, Internet andmobile solutions users.
Under the agreement,Blom and Tele Atlas willwork together on the devel-opment and delivery of 3D city maps and other features using Blom'simagery and 3D map components.
THE NETHERLANDS
Tele Atlas, SKEnergy agree onS Korea mapsTele Atlas, has enterenedinto a partnership with
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
South Korea-based SK Ener-gy (SKE) to license the SKEdigital maps and enhancedcontent of South Korea fordistribution to the globalTele Atlas customer base.The move expands TeleAtlas map coverage in theAPAC region to 13 countriesand territories. Under theterms of the agreement,Tele Atlas will gain accessto SKE's existing databaseof more than 186,000 kilo-
meters of navigable roadsin South Korea, coveringnearly 100 % of the country,3,800 municipalities and 50million inhabitants.
UK
NHS organisations toreceive "best-value"mappingMore than 100 healthcareorganisations across Eng-
land have signed up toreceive digital mappingservices under a ground-breaking NHSagreement.They includeprimary care trusts, strate-gic health authorities, NHStrusts, cancer registries andall 11 English ambulancetrusts. The agreement,between the NHS Informa-tion Centre for Health andSocial Care and the map-ping technologists Dotted
Eyes, is intended to supportthe strategic planning,delivery and analysis ofhealth services over thenext four years.
It was launched after anEuropen Union procure-ment process that wasdesigned to offer the NHSbest value on a pre-ten-dered choice of productsand data formats with min-imum paperwork for users.
The NHS Digital Mapping
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8G I S D E V E L O P M E N T24
Keith Patterson named Sr Project Manager of DewberryUSA: Dewberry, firm providing services in architecture,surveying, GIS and the environmental sciences, has namedKeith Patterson, PSM, senior project manager in the firm'sTampa, Florida, office. In his new role, Patterson will beresponsible for managing remote sensing projects requir-ing aerial imagery acquisition, aerial triangulation, fieldverification, photogrammetric processing, photo interpre-tation, automated feature extraction, and GeographicInformation Services (GIS).
Karen Diener and John Allan added to DigitalGlobe'sdefence teamUSA: DigitalGlobe announced the addition of Karen Dienerand John Allan to the DigitalGlobe defence team. KarenDiener joins DigitalGlobe as the vice president of businessdevelopment for the Defense and Intelligence BusinessUnit. Prior to joining the company, Diener spent 12 yearsworking for BAE Systems. John Allan joins the DigitalGlobeLondon office as the new director of European sales for theDefense and Intelligence Business Unit. John earlier hasspent five years working for BAE Systems selling Socet Setand other software solutions.
Richard McDonald is Executive VP of GIS OperationsUSA: Geospatial Holdings, Inc. announced the hiring ofRichard (Dick) McDonald as Executive Vice President of GISOperations. Prior to joining Geospatial, Richard wasemployed with Michael Baker Jr., Inc. where he served as
an Assistant Vice President in charge of their survey, map-ping and GIS services.
David Arctur joins OGC as Director - InteroperabilityProgrammesUSA: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) announcedthat Dr. David Arctur has been appointed as a Director,Interoperability Programmes for the Consortium. In hisnew position, Dr. Arctur plans and manages OGC Interop-erability Initiatives which include testbeds, pilots andexperiments.
Lawrie Jordan heads ESRI's imagery enterprise teamLawrie Jordan is now ESRI's director of imagery enterprisesolutions. He has served on several Defense Science Boardadvisory panels to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, providednumerous testimonies to the U.S. Senate and House of Rep-resentatives, and served as an adviser to the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Evan Hineman presented 2008 USGIF LifetimeAchievement AwardThe United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation(USGIF) announced Evan Hineman as the recipient of the USGIF Lifetime Achievement Award. Hineman, a private consultant focussing on matters of the intelligencecommunity, was recognised during the GEOINT Sympo-sium's 5-Year Anniversary Closing Celebration for his life-long dedication to the geospatial intelligence tradecraft.
People in News...
Data Agreement coversproducts from severalproviders including postaland geographic addressdata, street level and roadnetwork maps, and bound-ary datasets. Users can tai-lor the portfolio to theirown geographies so thatthey can analyse and pres-ent information by ward,parish, PCT, service bound-ary or other statistical area.
New ESA centrein UKA step towards the creationof a new European SpaceAgency (ESA) research cen-tre in the United Kingdomwas taken recently with anagreement made atthe ESA MinisterialCouncil in The Hague.ESA Director GeneralJean-Jacques Dordainand the UK Scienceand Innovation Min-ister, Lord Drayson,signed an agreementin principle to pursuethe establishment of an ESAresearch centre, to be basedat the Harwell Science andInnovation Campus inOxfordshire.Several areasof possible activity havealready been identified,including climate changemodelling using space data,integrated applications andthe development of newtechnologies for the nextera of planetary explo-ration, including roboticsand innovative powersources.UK science and
industry have played astrong part in the success of ESA missions and thismove will allow for astronger role in future ESAactivities.
4 cm aerialimages ofcentral LondonBlom Aerofilms, pan-Euro-pean provider of geograph-ic information, announcedthe capture of new highresolution aerial images ofcentral London.
The newly createdorthorectified dataset areclaimed to provide power-ful visualisation and mod-elling resource. The new
4cm imagery dataset com-plements the existing BlomAerofilms aerial imagerysolution which comprisesoblique and orthographicimages of over 120 townsand cities across GreatBritain and 1000 citiesacross Europe.
Whilst capturing the 4cmimagery Blom Aerofilmshas also acquired high reso-lution 50cm LiDAR data forthe same area in London,which is also available fromBlom.
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
RELEASES
Google Taiwanto transformmobile to PNDGoogle Taiwan launched itsenhanced mapping system,which it said could turncellphones into personalnavigation systems (PND).Google Taiwan's propri-etary software allowsmobile phone users todownload and use Googlemaps on their handsets aswell as identify their loca-tions, the company said.The technology uses satel-lite towers, radio wave sig-nals and a set of mathemat-ical calculations to pinpointa user's location.
For the enhanced version,Google Taiwan partneredwith iPeen, Digwow, Web2.0, food, entertainmentand shopping user recom-
mendation and feedbacksites, Taiwanese weatherprovider TenkiMaps andTomTom NV, maker ofportable navigationdevices. Fewer than 10countries in the world offertotal comprehensivenesson their nation's GoogleMaps enhanced version,including the US, Japan,Australia, China and someEuropean countries, theInternet search giant said.
SkyTraq introducesVenus634LPx GPSreceiver
SkyTraq has introducedthe Venus634LPx GPSreceiver, a higher-perform-ance lower-power succes-sor of its Venus634LP all-in-one GPS receiver. The newVenus634LPx featuresimproved cold start sensi-tivity of -148dBm, better
tracking sensitivity of -161dBm, lower full-powertracking current of 23mA,and smaller LGA44 packageof 10mm x 10mm x 1.1mm.Featuring 29 second coldstart TTFF, -161dBm trackingsensitivity, and 23mA cur-rent consumption, an inte-grated ROM-basedVenus634LPx GPS receiver
enables lowest cost ofembedding location aware-ness into portable applica-tions without compromis-ing size, performance, andbattery life. It is compatiblewith both active and pas-sive antenna. Dedicatedsignal parameter searchengine within Venus634LPx is capable of performing8 million time-frequencyhypothesis testing per sec-ond, offering ultra-fast TTFFperformance. Advancedtrack engine allows contin-uous navigation in harshenvironments such asurban canyon and underdeep foliage.
Fujitsu unveilsmini-tablet PCwith GPSFujitsu introduced a mini-tablet PC with built-in per-sonal navigation, and a
desktop-replacement note-book that includes a smalltouch-screen display forkeeping more informationvisible without clutteringthe main desktop.
The LifeBook U820includes Garmin Mobile PCnavigation software, aglobal positioning systemthat provides turn-by-turn,voice-prompted streetdirections.
The system offers mobileprofessionals, particularlyin sales and in field servic-es, an alternative to carry-ing a separate GPS device.
MAP PROVIDERS
Tele Atlasannounces SpeedProfiles ProductTele Atlas announced theavailability of Tele Atlas®Speed Profiles claimed toprovide highly accuratespeed data to allow endusers of consumer, enter-prise and business fleetnavigation systems to findthe most optimal route totheir destination and far
28 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Location
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ABI Research: Mobile location-based social networking isexpected to become a key driver for the upttake of location-based services as it provides a unifying framework for a largeset of applications such as friend finders, local search and geo-tagging. Mobile location-based social networking subsccription isexpected to be 82 million by 2013.
ABI Research: The commercial telematics market took a signifi-cant upswing in 2007, and, despite the global economic down-turn it will continue along this path with communication costsgoing down, coverage becoming more widespread, and techno-logical advancements making the hardware more affordable.Total worldwide subscribers are forecast to grow from 6.6 millionin 2007 to 36.9 million by 2013 and real-time dispatch is anarea that will make a major contribution to that growth.
CCID Consulting: China's PND market is expected to growsteadily with fall in the production prices and the gradual matu-rity of the whole GPS industry chain. CCID forecasts that thesales volume of China's PND market in 2008 will reach 1.57million sets.
REPORTS
more accurately estimatetheir travel time. With therelease of Speed Profiles,Tele Atlas now is the globaldigital map provider toenable route calculationsbased on highly compre-hensive historical traveltime and measured speedinformation. Speed Profilestransform the navigationuser experience becauseroutes can be calculatedusing actual measure-ments. As a result, drivershave unique insight intoreal world traffic patterns,helping them intuitivelymake the best route choicesthat normally only well-informed locals wouldselect.
BUSINESS
Skyhook Wirelesssigns agreementwith QualcommSkyhook Wireless, a Boston-based provider of Wi-Fipositioning technologieshas signed an agreementwith Qualcomm whichnow has a license to distrib-ute Skyhook's Wi-Fi Posi-tioning System (WPS) andincorporate the technologyinto its Assisted GPS plat-form. Skyhook's WPS is asoftware system that pro-duces location informationby detecting Wi-Fi accesspoints and comparing themagainst a known databaseof geo-located points. With
this technology Qualcommwill enable future mobiledevice manufacturers,mobile operators, third-par-ty service providers andapplication developers toutilise a single, integratedhybrid positioning solution.
Blaupunkt chooses u-blox as supplier ofpositioning systemsu-blox announced thatBlaupunkt has chosen u-blox as a supplier of GPSand GALILEO receiver tech-nology. u-blox andBlaupunkt have signed aframe agreement, includ-ing a comprehensive quali-ty assurance contract.Under the arrangement, u-
blox will deliver its GPS andGALILEO receiver chips andmodules to Blaupunkt.
NAVTEQ announcesagreement to acquireT-Systems Traffic NAVTEQ has agreed toacquire T-Systems TrafficGmbH (T-Traffic), aprovider of traffic servicesin Germany. The acquisi-tion marks another impor-tant step in NAVTEQ'seffort to expand its trafficinformation into Europe.
T-Traffic's traffic servicesinclude data from privatetraffic sources. T-Traffic hasbeen a provider of trafficinformation in Germanyincluding major PND and
30 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
automotive customers. T-Traffic capabilities are anatural extension ofNAVTEQ's traffic capabili-ties and will complementits other technologies," saidWerner Biet, managingdirector, T-Systems Traffic."Germany is a key area forNAVTEQ Traffic and we willremain focused on theextraction of cellular net-work data for use as trafficinformation." The acquisi-tion is subject to customaryclosing conditions and isexpected to be completed in2009.
SatNav inks newdeals withIndian vendors SatNav Technologies, a dig-ital map and navigationcompany, has announcedan array of new partner-ships. The company hastied up with GoGo Indiaand Voxtel. Voxtel hadannounced last year itsintention to enter the Indi-an market with PNDs andvoice over IP phones. Underthese partnerships, themaps and software, soldunder the brand SatGuideare to be incorporated into the PNDs of both com-panies.
The company has alsopartnered with Bharat Navand ProGin - two up-com-ing manufacturers of PNDdevices in India, for theavailability of SatGuidemaps on their devices. Twoother PND brands, Kallatra
and Spin Telematics havelicensed the digital mapsfrom SatNav Technologies.
SatNav Technologies hasbeen using Destinator navi-gation software for sometimes and has recentlyextended this partnershipin introducing a navigationoffering for Symbian smartphones.
The Indian company hasalso invested in retail distri-bution, including a store-in-store concept to educateconsumers about GPS navi-gation.
APPLICATION
Control room setup to monitorGPS-enabledpatrol vehiclesThe state government hasset up a modern controlroom at the state trafficplanning cell (STPC) officein Chennai to monitor the122 GPS-enabled policepatrol vehicles deployedalong the national high-ways across the state. “Thenew system will help thepolice patrol vehicles toreach the accident spotwithin two minutes of theincident. The movement ofpatrol vehicles will be mon-itored round the clock fromthe STPC office. Our mainaim is to reduce the deathsdue to road accidents,” statetransport minister KNNehru.
“We have introduced a
new system called MARS(monitoring and responsesystem), which will workthrough a GPS-GIS systemfitted on the highwaypolice patrol vehicles. Inci-dents of robbery and roadaccidents can be monitoredthrough the central moni-toring unit and immediate-ly send the patrol cars forhelp.STPC can be contactedat 2844 4444.
MARS will also study theaccident prone areas in thestate and take necessarysteps to reduce road acci-dents,” KN Nehru said.
MISC
New GLONASSSatellites OnlineThe three GLONASS satel-lites launched into orbit inSeptember have apparentlysettled into their finalorbits and are online andbroadcasting navigationsignals. The InternationalGNSS Service (IGS) reportsthat it is tracking all threeof the new satellites.
With these three satellitesonline, the GLONASS con-stellation now comprises 16fully functioning satellites -17 if one includes 722,although it is broadcastingan L1 signal only.
Discounting GLONASS722, the IGS is tracking 48satellites for its CODE GNSSorbit products, 32 GPS satel-lites and 16 GLONASS satel-lites.
Spirent's GSS800adds QZSS signalsupportSpirent CommunicationsPlc., provider of navigationand positioning test solu-tions, announced theworld’s first RF constella-tion simulator that sup-ports the Japanese QuasiZenith Satellite System(QZSS). Spirent GSS8000now supports QZSS systemin addition to GPS, Galileo,GLONASS and SBAS.
Spirent will initially pro-vide support for L1 C/A codeand L1 SAIF QZSS signalsand add other QZSS signalsas the market develops. Forthe first time, developers ofQZSS systems basedreceivers, systems andapplications have a solu-tion that provides con-trolled, repeatable test sig-nals, essential for accuratetesting. Only laboratorysimulation can ensure con-trolled repeatable testingthat explores both nominaland off-design conditions.By following a structuredtest approach, our cus-tomers can test multi-GNSSreceivers, systems andapplications resulting inshorter development timesand improved perform-ance. The Spirent GSS8000simulation system designallows for a wide variety ofconfigurations from GPS L1right up to comprehensivemulti-RF output and/ormulti-constellation testsystems.
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
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To be ubiquitous is to be all pervad-ing, ever-present, common. Howcan mapping become ubiquitous?
The term derives from ubiquitous com-puting where the computer is subsumedinto the common objects of everyday life.Mark Weiser, Technologist at Xerox PaloAlto Research Center (PARC), first articu-lated the term in 1988.
He said, "in the near future greatnumber of computers will beomnipresent in everyday life, whichwill be interconnected in a ubiquitousnetwork. Ubiquitous computing isinvisible, everywhere computing thatdoes not live on a personal device ofany sort, but is in the woodwork every-
where. Maps are highly stylised modelsof spatial reality. Since a map is a 2Dscale model of the 3D reality, identifica-tion of reference features on the map inthe real world and vice versa is a diffi-cult task for a casual user.
Ubiquitous mapping overcomesthese problems by providing an envi-ronment in which a user can use map-ping or, if the need arises, create a map-ping task to meet a specific need at aspecific time. Another requirement ofubiquitous mapping is real scale map-ping. Here, reference points in realspace are used to locate synthetic rep-resentations of real objects in the map-ping environment.
ROLE OF IMAGERYIf we look back into the history of aerialphotography and remote sensing fromspace, we can discern the first stepstowards ubiquitous mapping. Duringthe World War, aerial photography pro-vided the information on groundtroops and targets and on the results ofbombing raids. If we deconstruct theseevents, we see that two of the require-ments are satisfied. Firstly, aerial pho-tographs provide a real world perspec-tive, albeit from the top, and they pro-vide repeated time slices - as near as itcould get to real time information. Sim-ilar features are provided by low reso-lution weather satellite imagery fornavigation. However, it is the high res-olution imagery that provided thedrive to ubiquity as illustrated byGoogle Earth and its imitators and val-ue adders.
Four technologies have been used forGoogle Earth: broadband Internet, highresolution imagery, distributed geo-graphical information systems andWeb 2.0 technology. Google Earthallows users to locate features, overlayconventional maps, derive drivingdirections and compute distances frompoint to point. Feature location can beby latitude and longitude or by placenames or, in some cases by using thepostal address. An underlying digitalelevation model allows 3D views of theterrain but not objects. This is over-come by using 3D city models overlaidon the 3D terrain. This still stops shortof the real world and this lacuna isovercome by using street view, a 360
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T36
Ubiquitous Mapping
Democracy is here a
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
degree photographic panorama atground level which is linked to the maplocation. This gives a real world viewand is very useful in identifying fea-tures and facilities. For example, a mapmay show the location of a Metro sta-tion but it does not show on which sideof the road it is located, how to access it,what is the signage. Only a street viewcan show as it appears to a person atground level.
However, where Google really scoredis in 'mashups'. As the term suggests,users can mash up their personal geo-referenced data with Google Earth andcreate new information which can beshared with others. Third parties likeWikimapia used Google Maps and Web2.0 to create a spatial canvas on whichusers could point out places of interestand add tags and descriptions. Manyused it just to say 'here is my house'.Google Earth went a step further andallowed place marks, user comments,direction from and to and photographsand thus enhanced the utility of the oldpush-pin it first started with.
NAVIGATIONGoogle Earth is limited by the need tohave a fixed location with broadbandInternet and a desktop computer. Theavailability of 2G and 3G mobile com-munication services brought in thenext revolution, that of mobility.Google Maps can be accessed on a GPRSenabled mobile phone and if the phonehas a built-in or attached GPS receiver,then Google Maps automaticallylocates the user to the correct place.
However, there is another clever inno-vation for place location even when aGPS is not available. Google uses infor-mation about the location of the near-est mobile phone tower to locate theuser within a circle of 800 metre diam-eter. To do this the software queries thetower for its ID and matches it to itsspatial database. This is one of the bestexamples of real scale mapping wherethe tower locations are used as refer-ence points to transfer the real worldlocation of the user to the map.
In situations where communicationlinks are not available, mobile servicescan still be provided by using a Person-al Digital Assistant equipped with adigital map and a GPS. Car navigationsystems use this concept and reinforceit with voice commands. Thus, after thedesired destination is set by the driverof the car there is no need to look at theon-screen. The voice instructions indi-cate exits and turns and distances tospecific way-points. Here the mappingis represented by the voice instructionsas well as an onscreen map. Both are
real time and ephemeral in the sensethat one cannot store it, copy it or passit on to a second user.
AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION Ubiquitous mapping is generallyapplied to a human context. However,there is an area which is in the realm ofthe military but which depends on allthe aspects of ubiquitous mapping. Thefirst example is that of the navigation
Where Google reallyscored is in'mashups'. As theterm suggests, userscan mash up theirpersonal georefer-enced data withGoogle Earth and create new informa-tion which can beshared with others.
“
”
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 37
nd now
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Fig. 1: A conceptual model of ubiquitous mapping (from T Morita, UPIMap2004, Tokyo)
38
of cruise missiles which use storedinformation about its intended courseand matches this in real time withradar information collected as it flies; italso matches a stored real world viewof the target with its own acquiredimagery to be able to detect the actualtarget. This is one of the best examplesof ubiquitous mapping.
With a view to create machineswhich can operate autonomously in abattlefield, the Defense AdvancedResearch Projects Agency, USA, has for-mulated the Urban Challenge. The chal-lenge is described as follows (DARPAGrand Challenge: Urban ChallengeRules 2007):
"The Urban Challenge course tests the
vehicle's ability to operate safely andeffectively with other vehicles in andaround an urban environment. Thecourse will be nominally 60 miles intotal distance, with a time objective ofsix hours. The road surface will range inquality from new pavement to pot-holes and broken pavement. The vehi-cle may negotiate sharp curbs, downedbranches, traffic barrels, drains, rocks,construction equipment, power linepoles, and other stationary items likelyto be found in an urban environment.Traffic on the route may be provided bymanned vehicles, tele-operated vehi-cles, and other autonomous vehicles.Along some road segments, there maybe significant distances between way-points, requiring vehicles to use theirsensors to stay in the travel lane. Tocomplete the Urban Challenge, a vehi-cle must negotiate all hazards, re-planfor alternate routes, and avoid staticand dynamic obstacles while complet-ing a complex, multi-part mission atspeeds of up to 30 mph, resulting in anaverage speed of at least 10 mph."
It is interesting to note that this chal-lenge has been met and conquered byno less than six teams in November2007. While the stated objective is mili-
tary, it can be easily extended to situa-tions like disasters where such vehiclescan be sent on reconnaissance and res-cue missions. Thus ubiquitous map-ping is not only applicable to individu-als but also to machines. Further thefield of applications can stretch fromconsumer applications to civil defense.
SOCIAL NETWORKINGWeb 2.0 has seen the emergence ofsocial networks where people withcommon interests group to chat andshare their interests. Applications likePlazes and Dodgeball add a spatialdimension by showing the member'scurrent geographic location and alert-ing friends through instant messagingor SMS to the possibility that some ofthem may be nearby.
This could be a new twist to the oldtechnique of paging a person wherethe pager and paged can reveal theirgeographic positions. Such a facilityhas many applications in an emer-gency scenario. For example a doctorcould be located by his patient and viceversa. Some photographic cameras arenow equipped with GPS so that theimage can be annotated with date,time and place. The phrase 'wish you
Web 2.0 has seen the emergence of social networkswhere people withcommon interestsgroup to chat and share their interests.
“
”D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Category URL Purpose
Health www.whoissick.org/sickness Use zip code to find areas having same contagion
Emotional health www.wefeelfine.org Data mined sentiments from blogs organised geographically
Maps www.mapaboutmaps.comInterviews about new directions in mapping with geographers, artists and programmers
Environment www.greenmap.org Community mapping of natural and green living landmarks
Environment www.90degreessouth.org Weather, climate and sounds from the poles
Street maps www.openstreetmap.org Volunteer generated maps using GPS
Table1: Some of the social networking sites with a spatial context
were here' takes on an entirely newmeaning with such devices. An inter-esting example of social application isthe use of PDA with GPS for reverse mapping.
This was illustrated by a project called'Neighbourhood Mapping' whereschool children used PDAs equippedwith a GPS to create maps of theirneighbourhood and annotated it withtheir points of interest.
TECHNOLOGYIn all these applications, the technolo-gies are common. It is the configurationand usage that is innovative. Ubiqui-tous mapping is about interaction ofmaps with humans. It is about mapcommunications. Thus remote sensing,GIS and GPS are important spatial tech-nologies. 2G and 3G communications,WiFi and WiMax are important com-munication technologies. Internet, dis-tributed computing and GRID comput-ing are important networking para-digms. Putting them together to solve ahuman problem by humans withoutbothering them with arcane techno-babble is the challenge. This is illustrat-ed in Figure 1.
WHERE DO WE GO FROMHERE?Ubiquitous mapping is a great democ-ratisation process. The easy availabilityof high resolution imagery, multipur-pose mobile phone, Internet and Web2.0 put the power of maps in the handsof the common man. The concept of amap has been inverted. Instead of a per-son using a map, the person becomes apart of the map - a data point if youwill. For many, this poses uncomfort-able questions. Google Earth raised thehackles of governments as high resolu-tion imagery was freely accessible.Street View raised privacy issues so
much so that Microsoft is developingsoftware to remove humans and identi-fiable transient objects like cars fromthe imagery. Do people really want tobe tracked all the time as in Dodgeball?May be that is why Plazes and othersuch sites have not really taken off.Similarly, mapping endemic crimeareas or disease sites could adverselyaffect the residents.
Be that as it may, ubiquitous mappingpresents a challenge to cartographers. Itis less about convention and moreabout invention. New interactionsbetween data and its users have to beevolved. In fact, new ways of interac-tion are also needed. Can we think ofubiquitous mapping for the visuallyimpaired? There is a need for a new lookat data analysis, discovery and designto be able to present data as meaning-ful information tailored to meet anindividual's need at a given time.Democratisation also involves commu-nity participation in issues affectingtheir lives. Location of facilities, align-ment of roads and siting of plantsincreasingly require communityapproval. Ubiquitous mapping shouldenable such participation. Ubiquitousmapping should free us from the tyran-
ny of maps and a multiplicity of sys-tems and interfaces. A map mayreplace a thousand words but what ifthe need is for only ten?
SP Chatterjee Memorial Lecture, Presentedat INCA 2008, Gandhinagar, India
SUGGESTED READING• Kazy Varnelis and Leah Meisterlin,"The invisible city: Design in the age ofintelligent maps", http://www.adobe.com/designcentre/thinktank/tt_var-nelis.html
• Jessica Clark, "The new cartogra-phers", http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3524/the_new_cartogra-phers/
• Takashi Morita, "Theory and develop-ment of research in ubiquitous map-ping", Lecture Notes in Geoinformationand Cartography Location Based Ser-vices and TeleCartography, ed. GeorgGartner, William Cartwright and MichaelP. Peterson, Springer Berlin Heidelberg,2007
• ICA Commission on Ubiquitous Map-ping, http://www.ubimap.net
• The DARPA Grand Urban Challengehttp://www.darpa.mil/GRANDCHAL-LENGE.
39D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Prof. Arup DasguptaDistinguished Professor, Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics, [email protected]
Web mapping andthe advent of APIs
like Virtual Earth havebrought in a sudden spurtin users' awareness abouteverything 'geospatial'.How is the geospatialcommunity capitalisingon this awareness? The geospatial communityviews this as an opportunity toextend its expertise from thelimited domain of GIS depart-ments to the larger user baseassociated with people whoare not geospatial experts.Many small companies havestarted up to take advantageof the platform capability nowavailable through Virtual Earth.
How do you see these Web services
evolving? Web delivery of geospatialservices will continue to growand expand. Mapping is onlythe beginning. Mobile servic-es, augmented reality andmany things we can todayhardly even imagine will beenabled by geospatial Webservices.
What is the businessmodel of MS that
enables it to gain returnon investment in terms ofhuge money spent ondata?We operate an advertising-
funded consumer site(Live.com) that uses our Virtual Earth services. We alsoprovide Virtual Earth as a platform for enterprises toincorporate into their ownwebsites, paid for on a transaction basis. Finally, welicense Virtual Earth for internal enterprise use on aper-seat basis.
How has VE takencare of interoperabil-
ity issues for developersand users who want tointegrate local data?
We have a number of meansfor ingesting external data,including Collections (groupsof user- annotated pushpinsand polygons), Mapcruncher(map and image overlays),KML layers, geoRSS, and3dvia (3D object authoringtool).
Building 3D citymodels has become
a strong forte of VE. How has VE achieved this and what more isexpected on these lines?
Our 3D city models are builtusing the proprietary 3D photogrammetric processing
algorithms we have developedfor large-scale 3D production.We will continue to advanceour technology in this area.
How does Microsofthandle privacy
and national securityissues?We have thought extensivelyabout these issues and haveboth operating proceduresand technological processesthat address them. Internetmapping is a cutting edgetechnology that will continueto raise new and challengingissues in these areas. We willrespond aggressively as newissues arise.
Geospatial scientistsdo not take efforts
like Virtual Earth serious-ly. They feel that accuracyis compromised. Comment. On the contrary, we find thatgeospatial scientists under-stand the value of VirtualEarth as a strong complementto the hard-to-learn engineer-ing tools they use for technical work. Virtual Earthdoes not replace these tools,
but rather provides a meansto do simple geospatial taskswith simple tools.
Interview
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Mapping is only the beginning
40
Q. Q.
Q.
Q.
Q.
Q.
Q.
Dr William B. GailDirector of Strategic Development,
Public Sector Product Group, Microsoft Corp
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
From scientific visionaries totomorrow's products - howspeedily evolving technology
and the unforeseen success of prosumer-oriented GeoWeb2.0 opens new horizonsfor innovative projects and services wedidn't dare to dream of earlier.
The introduction is certainly a bitthought provoking - and it is meant tobe. It is certainly not the time yet todraw final conclusions about the suc-cess and failure of both new technolo-gy trends in the GI sector on the onehand side and the GeoWeb2.0 (whatev-er that is) type of projects or initiativeson the other hand. But certainly anopen minded person can see that inter-esting developments are happening inboth the arenas at present. In somesense they are moving towards eachother and I argue that their combina-tion leads to innovative services andproducts that open new opportunitiesfor the GI sector.
When I talk about technology, I meanthe rapid development in mobile hard-ware on the one hand. Only a few yearsago most people wouldn't havebelieved, that they would once own amini-computer with multi-touch dis-play, GPS, Web, high-res video-camera,and something like Google StreetViewetc. all in a device the size of a candy
bar - such features will be standardalready in the next generation ofmobile phones. On the other side, wesee since long the trend in the softwarebusiness to move features to the Web(or nowadays the 'Cloud', just to men-tion the latest buzz-word). Web-basedGI services are becoming the major par-adigm for realising modern GI applica-tions. While for the past few years, theGI community focussed on the man-agement and visualisation of spatialdata in 2D on the Web - resulting in thewell-known OpenGIS Web Servicesstandards such as WMS, WFS, WCS, CS-W, recently also the processing andanalysis of geographic informationthrough OGC Web Services became anissue. A first step into that directionwas the specification of a Web Process-ing Service (WPS) by OGC. But then wealso need to think about moving 3D GISfrom the desktop into such a service-oriented environment - and maybeeven to the mobile client of the future.
Combining these - and adding evenmore - such as the OpenGIS LocationServices (OpenLS) - a set of standardsdefined for developing location-basedservices (LBS) or the ideas from the Sen-sor Web Enablement initiative (Sensor-Web) - allows one to realise much moresophisticated applications. These are
based on future SDIs using open stan-dards.
In the following paragraphs, I willgive some examples of these develop-ments to show what is possible alreadynow and then refresh some old visionsfrom computer science (Weiser's idea of"Ubiquitous Computing") and try to putthose in the context of recent develop-ments in the GI domain.
GI SERVICES EVERYWHEREAn example of the current trend tobuild complex applications combininga lot of different types of GI services isthe project "Geo-Spatial Data Infra-structure 3D" http://www.gdi-3d.de. Itshows that a wealth of different OGCstandards is already available thatallows to realise more than the interac-tive maps of the first generation ofapplications based on SDI. Within GDI-3D, a 3D-SDI was set up based on arange of relevant OGC services (WFS, WMS, CS-W, WCS, WPS, SOS)using Open Source tools. These weresupplemented by our own implemen-tations of:
• OGC Web3D Service (W3DS) - serv-ing 3D scences, accompanied with a3D-Viewer as W3DS-client.
• OGC OpenLS Route Service (RS)
• OGC OpenLS Utility Service(Geocoder/Reverse Geocoder)
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T42
New Horizons
Of converging technologies and ubiquitous GI services
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
• OGC OpenLS Directory Service
Based on these fundamental services,it was possible to realise further appli-cation services that in turn use theseOWS. Some of those services are alsoused in the current OGC OWS Testbed 6initiative as well as the OGC DTRIP (Del-hi Transport Routing Testbed). Theinterplay of those services that can beaccessed from an integrated client isreported in the literature. Before high-lighting a few details, I want to remindof one of the - in my opinion - mostnoteworthy developments within theGI sector of the last years:
VOLUNTEERED GEOGRAPH-IC INFORMATION (VGI)Goodchild coined the term "VGI" forprojects that concentrate on the collec-tion of geographic information volun-teers. User generated content informa-tion available, for instance, inWikipedia or the photo-sharing plat-form flickr are currently being extend-ed with geographic information or geo-tags. The collection of information bymasses of volunteering individualsenabled by Web technology resulted inparticular in the OpenStreetMap (OSM)project. It aims at creating free vectorgeodata covering the whole planet.Ordinary citizens vested with GPS-
devices loggingcoordinates, out-of-copyrightmaps and aerialimagery provid-ed by OSM-friendly compa-nies (like Yahoo!Inc.) create geo-data at animpressive rate.At the time of writing, OSM counts~60000 registered users. Due to itssuccess, the prosumer-model has beencopied by commercial companies thatlet their customers chance their data-base. But OSM has the advantage thatall the collected data is free and can beused by anybody in contrast to beowned by one company. The coverageof OSM is very good in urban areas inCentral Europe, but in less dense popu-lated areas or in other parts of theworld, it still needs quite some work. Sothe question is what can we do withthat data today and is its future poten-tial? I need to stick to experiences fromEurope and OSM certainly still needs apush in developing countries, but atleast one can try to imagine the poten-tial if the goal of global coverage wasmet there too. The current situation ofOSM in Germany, UK or Netherlandsmay provide an outlook of what couldbe possible in general.
LOCATION BASED SERVICES BASED ONOPENSTREETMAP ANDOPEN STANDARDSThe set of OpenLS services alreadymentioned have been used at Open-RouteService.org based on the Open-StreetMap data mentioned. OSMalready offers substantial data on pathsand ways for paedestrians and bicyclescompared to the commercial providers.
This allowed realising the first nation-wide paedestrian and bicycle routingplatform - even before companies likeGoogle did. Currently, 10 countries inCentral Europe from Denmark to Spainare supported through the routingservice. The service (paedestrian, bicy-cle, car) handles already more than 7Mio street segments and hundredthousands of POIs. The latter is note-worthy, as it makes clear that OSM isnot only about streets, but about nearlyany kind of vector-based geoinforma-tion. Therefore, it was possible toextract this information into our owndatabase and offer it through furtherOGC services.
So both, the first European-wide loca-tion-based "OpenLS Directory Service"(yellow pages / POI-search) and alsoEuropean-wide OpenLS Utility Service(GeoCoder & Reverse Geocoder) basedon open, collaboratively collected geo-data from OpenStreetMap are availableat www.OpenRouteService.org (ORS).
This means that through the OpenLSDirectory Service, you can search forPoints of Interests (POIs) of differenttypes. The user can specify a locationand a search distance and the cate-gories of POIs to be found. Through thedirectory service of OpenRouteService,more than 50 categories of objects areavailable at present. These are based onselected relevant tags of Open-StreetMap.
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 43D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
Fig. 1: Service Architecture OpenRoute-Service
Fig. 2: OpenLS Directory Search based on OSM data providedthrough OpenRouteService.org
Also the OpenLS Utility Service(Geocoder / ReverseGeocoder) is nowavailable for the whole of Europethrough OpenRouteService. This meansit is possible to get the coordinates for agiven address (city & street name). Viceversa, it is possible to return addressesfor a given set of coordinates (WhereA-mI functionality). Currently, only a fewhouse numbers are available in Open-StreetMap though, but street namescan be resolved for many areas, in par-ticular in more densely populatedareas. Further, the ORS Web Map Ser-vice (OGC WMS) now covers the wholeof Europe (also a TileCache version). Allthese three services work in all Euro-pean countries; also those which arenot yet supported by the routing func-tionality of OpenRouteService.
Additionally, a specific "AccessibilityAnalysis Service" (AAS) for calculatingaccessibility to given locations has
been realised. While Open-
RouteService.org(ORS) offers agraphical Webuser interface,the idea is toaccess the OGCservices behindORS througharbitrary appli-cations in any
application domain. In particular,mobile clients are typical candidates forLBS. OpenRouteService is, for example,being used by the first mobile naviga-tion application for the Android plat-form - called AndNav(www.andnav.org).
Those LBS applications are only oneexample of possible uses of OSM datain combination with OGC standards -others we are starting to work withinclude disaster management, logisticsor even planning.
EXTENDING OPENSTREETMAP TO 3DSoon we became interested in the ques-tion - how to use OSM in 3D. This result-ed in two (and a half) use cases:
"3D LBS"First, it is possible to use the OpenLSservices fed with OSM also in 3D. Inorder to do so, the OpenLS services needto be extended to support 3D coordi-nates for all results. Then the 3D clientqueries the services as in the 2D case,and then just needs to visualise theresults in the 3D scene delivered fromthe Web 3D service (W3DS). This hasbeen realised for the OpenLS Route Ser-vice, the OpenLS Geocoder Utility Ser-vice and also for the OpenLS DirectoryService (all fed with OSM data). Thisalso allows enhancing 3D SDIs based on
conventional data from official sourceswith such features. Figure 3 shows anexample.
The OpenLS Directory Service allowsperforming spatial queries for Points ofInterest (POIs) and displaying them in3D within the W3DS-Client XNavigator.The POIs contain a variety of importantand interesting locations like shops,ATMs, cafes, pharmacies, bus stops,hotels, night clubs and many more. Thepossible categories are unlimited.
OSM-DEM (3D-OSM)The second idea is to visualise the OSMdata itself (landuse, streets etc.) on adigital elevation model. This can bedone either simply by draping a rastermap generated from OSM data as tex-ture on the DEM. But for reaching ahigh quality, this is very resource inten-sive. A second approach already used inGDi-3D for other data is to integrate theOSM data with the open source ShuttleRadar Topography Mission (SRTM) datato construct a digital elevation modelas integrated TIN including all vectorinformation (Schilling et al. 2007,2008). This can be used for 3D visualisa-tions through Web Services such as theOGC Web 3D Service draft specificationas realised in Schilling et al. (2007). Thisapproach requires intensive prepro-cessing, as the integration of the vectordata with the DEM demands high com-puting resources. But as this can be pre-calculated, the resulting visualisationoffers higher performance and offersvector-quality in contrast to raster pix-els. Currently, the DEM for the whole ofGermany is being processed whichrequires a computing cluster (GRID-computing) to perform the task. Theservice will be available online atwww.gdi-3d.de. Figure 4 gives a firstexample on what can be reached withsuch an approach with SRTM data. Of
Only a few years ago most people wouldn't havebelieved that once they wouldown a mini-computer withmulti-touch display, GPS,Web, high-res video-camera,and something like GoogleStreetView etc. all in a devicethe size of a candy bar
“
”
Fig. 3: Using the OpenLS Directory Service based on OSM datatogether with official city data - the case of www.heidelberg-3d.de
44 D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
course also higher resolution DEMs canbe used if available. Figure 5 shows anexample of combining a 5 meter resolu-tion DEM with OSM data.
Primary and secondary roads havebeen flattened more than cycle waysand little forest tracks. Thus a more nat-ural appearance is achieved.
OSM based 3D City ModelsOSM data sometimes also includesbuilding footprints. These can beextracted and extruded into 3D andplaced on the OSM-DEM as describedabove. In most cases, no informationabout the building height is currentlyavailable. Therefore, default valuesneed to be used. But first results showthat even adding this information leadsto a more realistic impression and bet-ter 3D scene. In most cases only impor-tant buildings are mapped through theOSM community currently, but ofcourse also selections based on seman-tic attributes (simple tags in the case ofOSM) are possible.
WHAT'S NEXT?These examples provide some hints onhow standardised services, LBS andWeb2.0 based user generated contentcan interact and generate new interest-
ing services andapplications. Inparticular thecase of 3D stillrequires quitestrong comput-ers in order toachieve appeal-ing performance.But if youremember theintroductionabout hardware progress, one canimagine that one day this will also bepossible on handhelds. This leads to thevisions of Marc Weiser (1991) regarding"Ubiquitous Computing" (UbiComp,UC). The term describes the pervasiveuse of computer services as a ubiquityfrom a wireless network of millions ofcomputing devices. But beyond that,UbiComp also includes the idea thatthere will be new man-machine inter-faces and interaction paradigms (theApple iPhone multi-touch display maybe one example) and also the idea thatthe application and service need toautomatically adapt to context and sit-uation, in particular localisation.
In the light of UbiComp, the relation-ship between spatial data infrastruc-tures (SDI) and LBS can be interpretedas follows: both concepts support theaccess to GI services at any time at anyplace using heterogeneous clientsbased on an infrastructure providingopen interfaces. Personalisation andadaptation extend the anywhere, any-time, to anyone approach of LocationBased Services (LBS) to the paradigm:the right thing at the right time theright way to the right person(s).
One can expect GI services to be avail-able ubiquitously in the future. For thisidea, the term Ubiquitous GeographicInformation Services = Ubiquitous GIS= UbiGIS has been suggested (Zipf
2004, Reuter & Zipf 2008, see alsohttp://www.ubigis.org ). This term canbe defined as: pervasive services basedon UbiComp technology and devices,supporting context-dependent (i.e.adaptive) interaction, realised by infor-mation and functions of geographicinformation services based on interop-erable SDI.
LBS are usually parameterised bycoordinates. In the UbiComp-approach,however, the goal is more general: thecontext of the overall situation shall betaken into account. Dey and Abowd(2000) characterise context as "anyinformation that can be used to charac-terise the situation of an entity." Theself-adaptability of GI services to thisbroader definition of context can beseen as one of the next steps for GI Sci-ence research in order to achieve moreintuitive GI applications. First researchresults have been achieved in the context of mobile maps and tour planning. Maybe now it is the time tocombine this with standard-basedservices, user-generated content(GeoWeb2.0) and extend it from 2D tothe third dimension.
LITERATURE: References can be found athttp://www.geographie.uni-bonn.de/karto
Prof. Dr. Alexander ZipfChair of CartographyDepartment of Geography, University ofBonn, [email protected]
Fig. 4: examples of OSM road and landuse data that has been combined with aSRTM 3 arc-seconds (ca. 90m) terrainmodel.
Fig. 5: High resolution DEM (5 meter) combined with OSM data.
45D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Cert
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Do you think the 3Dviewing of data, its
public accessibility and itsutility is going to be areality in the near future?
The concept of neogeographybelieves that data is not theresponsibility of the expert butof the user. The local userbecomes the expert. TheInternet makes it possible toimplement the neo-geoapproach. The infrastructureneeded to do that has tocome about, as in Google'scase we have Sketch up,where user has the facility toadd data. In Microsoft's case,this concept is also to come
where you edit and contributeto the basic infrastructure andPhotosynth is going to play arole there. Immediately I don'tsee Photosynth to be tightlyintegrated with Virtual Earthbut in the long run, we mayhave this. For now, it is toenable creating a photoalbum of a site in a 3D kind ofenvironment. The technologyused in Photosynth is onethat is in UltraMap AD. Thesource of it is the develop-ment that Microsoft has pur-chased from a group ofPrinceton University and thesystem is called C Dragon. CDragon to Dragonfly, is asmooth transition from resolu-
tion to resolution levels withvery large set of data. A largedataset of around 1.5 terrabytes can be put. We canbring them all on one monitorand can zoom in to any fea-ture.
Where do you see theapplication heading?
I mentioned the way data iscoming. Making money out ofit begins with search. It is thismajor phenomenon thatGoogle adopted and so haveother companies. Money isthere in advertising. Apartfrom that if you are a realestate company, then you arenot only doing advertising; youhave a database of informa-tion available for customers
The second is navigation - bycell phone, mobile telephony,etc. So you navigate while youmove or prepare for a trip.This market is understood andthis is going to be in 3D andreal-time. The third area isgames. This market is grow-ing and has become a dynam-ic industry; games that depictthe real through fictitiousworld.
Then you have a whole con-cept of "Internet of Things".There is now RFID chips fit-ted to all kinds of objects likefurniture, glasses and wallets.We want to know where theyare and in order to knowwhere they are, we need tohave models in our humanenvironment so that we knowthat the glasses are on thetable in the dining room. Sowe need to model your diningroom or your house. Thereyou have Photosynth coming
to use. You may embed to thisthe coordinate system. Soyour house is to be there in acity and your city is to bethere in the country. This iswhat the Internet of things is
all about.
How do you see thegrowth of technology withVirtual Earth approach?How will the privacyissues be taken care of?
In the Virtual Earth approach,where I enumerated multipleareas of applications, none ofthem is government owner-ship oriented. I am assumingthat there is an authority thatworries on correctness ofwhat is available online. But atthe same time, I think that theconcepts on how the contri-butions by the public will beintegrated are not very welldeveloped yet.
As far as issues of privacy areconcerned, though I am notan authority on this, the wayto respond to this is that youhave to remove out the peo-ple you photograph in the carwith licence plate. Even thecars too can be removed. Soobviously when you do a citymodel, you just put indicativeimages/model people andremove the originals. Thesame can be done when veg-etation is questioned becauseof its changing nature. The VEapproach unlocks or provokesthe computational thinking ofan individual. People havestarted recognising the fourth'R' (other than three viz.,Reading, Writing and Arith-metic), which is 'Computation-al Thinking', and technologiesare exploiting that.
Interview
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Internet facilitates neo-geo approach
48 D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
Q.
Q. Q.
Prof. Dr. Franz LeberlHead, Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision,
Graz University of Technology, Austria
As Web GIS emerges as a plat-form for both social and busi-ness-driven interactions,
organisations are finding they canleverage that architecture to mash upauthoritative content with user-gener-ated content to deliver location-basedinformation and applications to amuch broader audience.
For example, Web maps could be createdto determine the potential impact that awildfire, earthquake, or flood might haveon homes and property, which would pro-
vide the opportunity to take preventiveaction or help to effect policy change.Emergency response officials can usethat same Web GIS application and addtheir own data on top of it to analyse andplan how to respond to worst-case sce-narios, including optimised routing of per-sonnel and equipment and devising alter-native evacuation routes for populations atrisk. Local governments can now efficient-ly provide a way for their constituents tobrowse property information or parcelrecords online or inform residents aboutupcoming street maintenance projectsthat will impact neighbourhood traffic.Common to all these examples is theneed for ready-to-use, current, and accu-
rate basemap data that sometimes has tobe available on short notice and ontowhich proprietary data can be easily over-laid, or mashed up, in order to provideinformation in a useful and meaningfulcontext.
Until recently, mashups have beenthought of primarily as Web applicationsthat aggregate data feeds from multipleWeb services into a simple and oftensocial or consumer-oriented Web applica-tion. Now, many organisations realise thatmashups can be useful for conductingbusiness and providing critical informationand functionality to their users and busi-ness partners, either over the Web orthrough internal distribution.
For the GIS indus-try, Web GISallows extensivesharing of mapsand data andopens up accessto GIS applica-tions to everyone.This, together withthe growing avail-ability of georefer-enced contentand the ability toeasily search, dis-cover, and mashup these services,will drive thedevelopment ofnew patterns for
GIS deployment. These patterns willemphasise open and interoperable servic-es and a standards-based Web-orientedarchitecture that can be used to support abroad array of geographically relatedapplications.
ESRI's ArcGIS Server 9.3 improves anorganisation's ability to publish a variety ofservices for maps, data, imagery, spatialanalytics, and mobile projects. ArcGISusers can now publish their own GIS con-tent, which can be consumed in nearly anycustom viewer or popular consumer map-ping application. This allows the mashupof information from rich GIS databases orcommon consumer basemaps with power-
ful GIS analysis tools. In addition, everyArcGIS Server includes a services directo-ry that can be indexed and crawled byWeb search engines, allowing another wayto discover and present spatial dataopportunities. In this way, ArcGIS Serverbecomes the foundation for Web GIS. Forexample, open Microsoft MetadirectoryServices can be scraped off server sites,served up in the KML OpenService, andintegrated into consumer/Web mappingenvironments. Supported Open GeospatialConsortium, Inc. (OGC), standards includ-ing Web Coverage Service (WCS) andTransactional Web Feature Service (WFS-T) provide open and flexible solutions foropen source mapping application develop-ment. Also, ArcGIS Server JavaScript andFlex APIs allow rapid mashup develop-ment of Web content with other GIS serv-ices.
Developing these Web GIS environmentsgreatly expands the use of location-baseddata and allows GIS professionals to dis-tribute their own data and applications toa much wider audience, while those usingconsumer mapping applications are pro-vided with the opportunity to incorporatespatial datasets and GIS capabilities with-out having to become GIS experts. Inaddition, this wider access to new datasources helps to ensure that the datarequested is the most up-to-date andaccurate information available. BecauseArcGIS Server technology provides organ-isations with the ability to manage anddeploy Web services for mapping, datamanagement, and geospatial analytics,organisations can more easily leveragetheir internal GIS resources, as well asservices hosted on other GIS servers, andput them to work in a new pattern ofmashup-the enterprise mashup.
Enterprise mashups combine internal andexternal data sources in order to solvevery specific problems and closely matchthe types of relationships, workflows, andproject administration that need to besupported on a daily basis.
Jim BaumannInternational Marketing Writer/Editor, ESRI [email protected]
Tools
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 49
ArcGIS Server, foundation for Web GIS
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India has been witnessing tremen-dous growth, the like of which hasnot been observed since Indepen-
dence. The rapid pace of development hasimpacted practically every aspect of envi-ronment and the common man.
It has, therefore, become imperativeto put in place effective governancesystems with major emphasis on effi-ciency, accessibility and transparencyand at the same time being able tounderstand the problems and issuesfaced by the society. Whether it is deliv-ery of proper health care to the citizens,access to safe drinking water, socialinfrastructure like schools and otherquality of life (QoL) concerns of the resi-dents, the knowledge and understand-ing of geography or 'location' plays animportant role in making the rightdecisions by the respective agencies ordepartments of the governmentmachinery.
The governance systems, therefore,would require accurate and timelyinformation and data, which is locationspecific in nature.
A WEB GIS FOR RAJAHMUNDRYGIS is an indispensable tool to provide aspatial data infrastructure (SDI) forimplementing e-governance. A GIS hasbeen developed for the RajahmundryParliamentary Constituency, EastGodavari district, Andhra Pradesh,
which focuses on both the urban andrural regions, integrates data from mul-tiple sources - remote sensing imagery,GPS surveys and field studies - andbrings everything together on to anOpen Source GIS platform for the devel-opment of a Spatial Decision SupportSystem for civil and public administra-tion from a desktop to Web enabledGIS. A Web GIS has been created both inEnglish as well as in the local language,Telugu.
The work is unique in that multiplestakeholders were involved at variousstages of development of the GIS. First,Member of Parliament V Aruna Kumarreadily saw the possibilities and poten-tial of developing such a system for thebenefit of common man and fundedthe project through the MPLADSscheme.
The collector of East Godavari district,in turn, appreciated the merits ofimplementing such a project and facili-tated its administration and imple-mentation. TheOSGeo India chap-ter endorsed theproject and the Sal-im Ali Centre forOrnithology andNatural Historyexecuted the proj-ect. M.Sc studentsof Adi Kavi Nan-naya University,Rajahmundry,
were trained to carry out theproject work in part fulfillmentof their course requirements.
A PIGGYBACK RIDEON GOOGLE MAPSAPISGoogle Maps provides a highlyresponsive, intuitive mappinginterface with embedded,detailed street and aerialimagery data. Google Mapsprovides not only the map, satelliteimage or a hybrid of both but also arange of operations on the map includ-ing zooming, panning, informationpop-ups and overlays. Google Maps APIprovides an interface into these opera-tions through JavaScript objects. TheGIS application for Rajahmundry par-liamentary constituency has been developed using Google Maps API. A spatial data-base was developed for it in Post-greSQL/PostGIS database. The advan-
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Engaging Web forbetter administration
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Data flow using Google Maps API
tage of creating spatial database forRajahmundry was having all the datain a central database including welldefined privileges which makes it pos-sible to extend the more standard SQLqueries with spatial queries.
DATASETS USED FORRAJAHMUNDRY PARLIA-MENTARY CONSTITUENCYThe following shape files were usedwhile developing the spatial databasefor Rajahmundry Parliamentary Con-stituency.
Point dataBank and ATM centres, cemeteries, busstations, police stations, places of wor-ship, cinema halls, clubs, commercialcomplexes, community centres, cus-tomer care centres, e-Seva centres, edu-cational centres , electric sub-stations.
Polygon dataRajahmundry parliamentary con-
stituency boundary, slums in Rajah-mundry parliamentary constituency.
Steps involved in developing theWeb-GIS applicationThe following are prerequisites thatensured the development of Web-GISapplication for Rajahmundry parlia-mentary constituency.
• An Apache Web server running PHPand PostgreSQL/PostGIS
• Spatial data in PostGIS database forRajahmundry.
• Populating the spatial data into Post-GIS database
• Outputting XML with PHP
• Generating HTML page for map visu-alisation
The URL for Rajahmundry parliamen-tary constituency Web-GIS applicationis http://www.osgeo.in/google/sam-ple.htm. The interface which wasdeveloped for Rajahmundry Parliamen-tary Constituency Web-GIS applicationallows users to query against spatial
data available in the PostgreSQL/Post-GIS database.
FEATURES
• Intuitive user interface for querying the spatial dataGeneral public is familiar with GoogleMaps interface and its basic navigation.In this, we added a simple query tool. InFigure 1, the results have been showedby the query slums having fair price(FP) shops within the radius of 100meters. A user can click on the FP shopsmarker icons which will pop up an infowindow to show the information aboutthe particular FP shop. User can even
• Free (except for developer time)• Quick development time - depending
on complexity of application• End product is light weight applica-
tion, client side scripting• Intuitive user interface - general public
already familiar with Google Mapsinterface and basic navigation
• Fast, good response time• Google provides solid background
services (satellite data, roads, trafficdata, street view, geocoding)
• Effective for displaying selected GISdata - not every mapping applicationrequires multiple, complex map layers
• Great on-line resources for learning,multitude of samples and tutorials
• Best for focussed applications• Best for small municipalities, compa-
nies (not huge datasets)
• Limited functionality compared tosome commercial products
• Difficult to overlay more complex GISdata
• Difficult to overlay multiple GIS layers• Cannot read directly from GIS data-
base, must convert to other formats(XML, KML) (but parts of process canbe automated with scripting)
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
Limitations
Figure 1
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 51
Advantages
52
get the information about slums byclicking on slums polygon. The inter-face allows the user to query slums nothaving FP shops within the radius of100 meters to know which slums don'thave the FP shops nearby. Figure 2shows the result for the query slumsnot having FP shops within the radiusof 100 meters.
• Light weight Web-GIS applicationThis application gets loaded faster onthe browser and even the queryingtime is less. Results too get displayedfaster.
• Google provides background datasuch as satellite data, roads etc.
• This application is useful for common
public, policymakers, deci-sion makers, governmentofficials etc.A simple Web-GIS applicationshowing pointof interests inthe Rajah-mundry parlia-mentary con-stituency wasdeveloped to get
the information about point of inter-ests such as parks and gardens, Banksand ATM centres, Police stations etc(Figure 3). Following the URL for ithttp:// www.osgeo.in/google. over-lay.htm. In this application, point ofinterests can be overlaid by checkingthe respective point of interest checkboxes.
The Rajahmundry parliamentary con-stituency Web-GIS is also available inthe regional language Telugu (Figure4). Following the URL for Telugu ver-sion of Rajahmundry parliamentaryconstituency Web-GIS applicationhttp:// www.osgeo.in/google/sample_te.htm http://www.osgeo.in/ google/overlay_te.htm.
The Indic IME for Telugu softwarefrom www.bhashaindia. com was usedto type the data in Telugu. The Post-
greSQL database was encoded to UTF-8and then the data was loaded into Post-greSQL database.
THE WAY FORWARDWe increasingly see the use of OpenSource tools by a large number ofstakeholders in virtually all thematicareas of concern. Combined with thepower of the use of Indic languages as apreferred medium, the Web GIS willemerge as one of the most potent toolsfor societal benefit.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is a pleasure to thank Vundavalli ArunaKumar, MP for making this small scaleexperiment a success, the Open Sourcegeospatial and particularly Dr PS Roy, V RaviKumar, Dr Hanumantha Rao, Ramamurthy,Sinha, Aneel Kumar, Dr Sahu for their activeinvolvement and help.
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Dr KS RajanAssociate Professor, International Institute of Information Technology,Hyderabad and Treasurer, [email protected]
Santosh GaikwadIT Officer , Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Deccan Regional Station , [email protected]
Dr S Narendra PrasadSenior Principal Scientist, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Deccan Regional Station,Hyderabad and Secretary, [email protected]
Figure 2
Figure 4
Figure 3
By using the data obtained from this system, the company is providing powerful support for electric poweroperations, such as creating and providing electric power grid schemat-ics and transmission line route maps.
CREATING A VISUAL ELECTRIC POWER SYSTEMThe supply of electric power is a greatforce that moves the society. Maintain-ing stable generation, transmission,substation and distribution facilities
and preparing them for future needsare the most fundamental infrastruc-ture projects affecting the power indus-try. Tokyo Electric Power Services Co.developed the Tokyo Electric PowerCompany's facility planning operationssupport system. The system displaysthe electric power grid's supply anddemand trends as well as facility condi-tions and forecast models on a map.Utility managers expect the system tobecome a powerful tool to back up thefacility planning needed to achieve astable electric power supply. The utili-ty's project manager Yoichiro Masukoexplains:
"This system enables us to efficientlyevaluate facility planning operationsby displaying regional electric powersystems and facilities, operating condi-tions and facility conditions as well aspast performance on a single map.With this system, staff have access todata necessary for facility planning aswell as instructions on how to struc-ture and implement future electricpower system configurations. Users seean instant representation of the entirenetwork and know where and how tobegin an implementation. Althoughthe evaluation results are no more thanrough plans, I believe this system issomething that can provide extensivesupport for the planning operations."
All electric power facilities in theentire Tokyo Electric Power Companysupply area are displayed on the map,including the transmission line towers,which can be viewed when users zoomin. Symbols represent stations and sub-stations on the map. Clicking on thesymbols displays photographs anddetailed data of that facility. And,transmission lines are colour-coded todistinguish voltage classes between 20kV and 500kV.
The system is divided into three func-
Utility Management
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8G I S D E V E L O P M E N T54
As a consulting company specialising in civil engineering, architec-ture, electricity and communications, Tokyo Electric Power ServicesCo. developed a system that supports facility planning operations for
the Tokyo Electric Power Company using AutoCAD Map 3D, Autodesk MapGuideand AutoCAD Raster Design.
Integration supports stable power supply
tional areas: (1) support for planningoperations
(2) supplementary data for planning operations
(3) a data library
(1) takes numerical data required forfacility planning operations andprocesses it into a visual data on anelectric power network map; (2) dis-plays detailed data, such as photo-graphs and facility data, from substa-tions and transmission line towers; and(3) makes it possible to referencearchived documents relating to eachfacility.
Using the system, users can easilyview the facilities' conditions and theirmost recent forecast models. Imple-mentation rates are displayed in acolour-coded map with a single click.
Maps are simple and easy to under-stand and the amount of informationcan be adjusted to match the map scale.The user-friendly system enables usersto select display layers and turn on oroff other interfaces. Moreover, it offersinnovative data-sharing settings, suchas case-by-case access authority settingcapabilities, registration of frequently-used maps for each user and more.
CAPITALISING ON USER-FRIENDLY IDEASWhile management considered devel-oping this facility planning operationssupport system for two to three years,
staff report that the base system devel-opment took only six months.
Nobuyuki Takahara, System Engineerwith Tokyo Electric Power Services Co.,explains, "We chose AutodeskMapGuide because of its compatibilitywith other Autodesk products, such asAutoCAD and AutoCAD Map 3D, whichhave been used in our company. And,we had great confidence in MapGuide'smapping capabilities. The team accept-ed the idea to create a facility planningsystem by using data employed in elec-tric power facility management sys-tems. In cooperation with the TokyoElectric Power Company, we devotedourselves to developing it.
"We created this system by exchang-ing ideas (with Tokyo Electric PowerCompany) on concepts of making ituser friendly. We paid special attentionto interface-related innovations toimprove operability," says project man-ager Nobuyuki Takahara.
The system covered one-third of theTokyo Electric Power Company's man-aged area when it was introduced, andit plans to cover the entire area over thenext three years.
CREATING MAPS FOR THE FIELDTokyo Electric Power Services also start-ed a service that prints a required num-ber of transmission line route mapsthat are created by processing map
data from the facility planning opera-tions system.
Transmission line route maps aremaps that show the routes of electricaltransmission lines. These maps are cre-ated so that Facility Planning Divisionand Electrical Transmission Divisionfrom each of the power company'soffices can bring them to their worksites. However, each office simply couldnot afford to spend a lot of time on cre-ating and revising the drawings. Andthere were concerns about sharingitems that contained client informationand related facilities to external print-ers. Consequently, a division of TokyoElectric Power Company decided totake charge of the process.
The group manages everything fromthe creation and printing of drawingsto responding to on-demand small lotorders that external printers were notable to handle.
The process involves importing thenecessary map images into AutoCADRaster Design and performing positionalignments.
Once that is done, electric power facil-ity information is compiled using Auto-CAD Map 3D and is laid out on theuser's desired sheet size. GIS editing isflexible with AutoCAD Map 3D, whichcombines CAD and GIS.
The last phase is outputting theresults on paper and delivering thisalong with DWF data.
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T 55D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
All electric power facilities in the entire TokyoElectric Power Company supply area aredisplayed on the map, including thetransmission line towers, which can be viewedwhen users zoom in. Symbols represent stationsand substations on the map. Clicking on thesymbols displays photographs and detailed dataof that facility.
Web GIS can and should go farbeyond the primarily busi-ness to consumer and con-
sumer to consumer services made possi-ble by popular online map serviceproviders. Here are a few key enablers forachieving the full potential of Web GIS.
VIBRANT COMPETITIONHealthy competition is a must to ensurecontinued innovation and quality ofofferings. In the online map space, thefruits of competition are clear, with rapidinnovation and coverage of services pro-vided by online services like Google Maps,Microsoft Virtual Earth and Yahoo Maps.On the map data space, there is good com-petition, though it varies widely fromregion to region. It will be interesting tosee how acquisitions of key map providerplayers Navteq by Nokia, and TeleAtlas byTomTom, will play out in the long run.
COVERAGE AND CURRENCYIn large part, coverage and currency (howfrequently data are updated) are drivenby competition and business opportuni-ties. However, there is another big driverin this space - the community. As theWikipedia has soundly demonstrated, theworldwide Internet community is quitecapable of generating valuable contentand keeping it up-to-date. The communi-ty can be tapped in unexpected wayseven to perform vital government func-tions. Consider the Los Angeles FireDepartment (LAPD) use of Twitter. LAPDuses twitter.com to exchange latest devel-opments on fire reports and fire fighting
status with the community (seehttp://twitter.com/LAFD). Another inter-esting case of the use of community-gen-erated data is the exploration of influenza(flu) trends by mining search queries (seehttp:// www.google.org/flutrends). Ibelieve that there is enormous (and stilllargely untapped) scope to leverage thecommunity to contribute and maintainstructured GIS data for commercial andadministrative purposes.
SUPPORT FROM THE GOVERNMENTThe government can play a very key rolein enabling Web GIS scenarios. I believethe government should give special focusto scenarios that arenot met by business toconsumer scenarios(which are often wellhandled by businessesin an environment ofhealthy competition).Scenarios that dealwith national securityand safety, and theefficient use ofresources are of primeimportance.
For example, government could play adriving role in ensuring that comprehen-sive environmental data are collected andmade available on the Web in a timelybasis, as well in commissioning map datafor those areas that are not well served bycommercial map providers.
STANDARDSStandards will play a key role in enablingthe mixing and matching data sources,
Web-based data analytics and Web-basedvisualisation. Ongoing efforts by OGC arein the right direction. However, there is adanger of getting tied up with complexstandards that will look dated in a fewyears.
How far can Web GIS go? I believe weare only scratching the surface. Once wehave broad availability of rich and currentdata, and reasonably good standards inplace, the limits are only our imagination.I am inspired by the work done by HansRosling, founder of the Gapminder organ-isation (www.gapminder.org). As youwatch his wonderful animations thatshed light on the evolution of the distri-bution of wellness and wealth over the
world, you get the sense of the limitlesspossibilities of integrating complexdynamic content from diverse sourceswith powerful analytics, visualised usingthe graphics rendering capabilities of the latest generation of Web browsertechnologies.
Imagination is the limit
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 856 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Joseph M. JoySoftware ArchitectMicrosoft Research, [email protected]
Web GIS
Screenshot of www.gapminder.org
Technology advances and ease inpolicy have facilitated theaccess and thereby increasing
the reach of spatial data. Adding to this,the Web has facilitated easy dissemina-tion and sharing of information.
The Indian Bioresources InformationNetwork (IBIN) is one such distributeddatabase infrastructure that is offeringinformation on diverse aspects of bio-resources of India.
The Department of Biotechnology(DBT) has for long been supporting pro-grammes towards achieving the majorgoals of characterisation, documenta-tion and sustainable utilisation of therich bioresources of the country. In thisregard, a major effort was madetowards generating valuable data -
spatial and non-spatial, both at pri-mary level and secondary level, con-centrating on the bio-rich regions ofthe country. An important feature ofthis exercise was developing digitisedinventories and successful integrationof all data sets on a common Webenable platform.
A major policy initiative taken by theDepartment after National level con-sultation was to place all data generat-ed on the bioresources in terms of theirdiversity, location, status, economicpotential, spatial maps of vegetationand landscape features and also distri-bution of national resources on a com-patible and accessible format and tofacilitate this, the Indian BioresourceInformation Network (IBIN) is estab-lished to network the otherwise inde-
pendent databases into a single win-dow delivery system that is availablefor any rational query. "This is first-of-its-kind in the country and would helpin integrating not just the data setsgenerated under DBT programmes, butalso the data generated by other
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T58
Single Window
IBIN unites biodiversity
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
IBIN logo
www.supergeotek.com
www.getac.com
Mail:[email protected] Tel:+886-2-2546-7700
Mobile GISExpertMobile GISExpertPS535E Rugged GPS PND + SuperPad
PS535E -Rugged GPS PNDMIL-STD-810F and IP54 compliance
Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 Premium
Transflective 3.5" TFT LCD
Sunlight readable LCD (easy reading in daylight)
Embedded 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth
Long battery life provides all-day power
SuperPad -Mobile GIS SoftwareWork and Navigate with GPS
Survey with a Digital Camera
Route Planning on PDA
Abundant Symbols and Patterns
Powerful Editing Tools
Capture and Rectify Images
Highly flexible customization capability
60
researchers and groups working onsimilar lines elsewhere in the country,"says a DBT source. The portal(www.ibin.co.in), a collaborative effortbetween the Department of Biotech-nology and the Department of Space,was executed by the National RemoteSensing Centre (NRSC) and the Univer-sity of Agricultural Sciences (UAS).
ELEMENTS OF IBIN IBIN is a network of two core nodes -Jeeva Sampada and Jeev Manchitra
that were visualised as the nucleiaround which the rest of the linkagesand datasets have been built.
Jeeva Sampada is a compilation ofnonspatial data sets on diverse groupsof bio-resources such as plants, ani-mals, marine and microbial resourcescompiled by over 400 experts fromabout 100 institutes across the country.Jeeva Sampada is maintained andcurated at the Web-node maintained atUAS Bangalore. Besides being thelargest database on wide range of bio-resources, it also offers maps of dis-tribution of these resources in thecountry.
The IBIN spatial node, Jeev Manchitra,has four geospatial layers - vegetationtype, fragmentation, disturbance indexand biological richness of study area. Italso includes widely distributed phy-tosocilogical inventoried plots in thestudy area. In the data disseminationprocess for IBIN spatial node, the spa-tial datasets are converted into uni-form grids (3.75' x 3.75' minutes), withWGS84 datum considering the datasharing and map policy of the Govern-
ment of India. In the data dissemina-tion process of IBIN spatial node, thelatest web GIS techniques like AJAX(Asynchronous Java script and XML)and open source solutions like UMNmap server, PHP, Apache web server isextensively used to serve the data inInternet domain. At present, theNational Remote Sensing Centre(NRSC), Hyderabad and the IndianInstitute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) ,Dehradun, are responsible for thedevelopment and maintenance of spa-tial node - Jeev Manchitra.
Jeeva Naksha provides a wide rangeof remotely sensed GIS processed dataand also non spatial data in severalmodules. It hosts perhaps the largest RSand GIS database related to biodiversi-ty in the country.
SCALE, SOFTWARE ANDSTANDARDSThe IBIN spatial node provides adynamic Internet GIS base map viewerwith basic GIS tools like dynamic leg-end display, zooming, panning, naviga-tion, zoom to scale, identify, querying,searching, Map output generation (inPDF, JPG, PNG and GeoTIFF format),
Data interoperability is achieved using Webservice concept of distributed computingenvironment. The data is served as XMLdocument in case ofattribute data and asOGC compliant WMSin case of geospatialdata.
“
”D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Structure of IBIN
EconomicPlants
Sub Server
EndUsers
EndUsers
EconomicPlants
Sub Server
BIS Repository
BIOSPATIALPHYTOSIS
BIOCONSSDSSFRIS
BIOSPECwww.hisindia.org
MedicalPlants
Sub Server
MarineResourcesSub Server
AnimalResourcesSub Server
MicroResourcesSub Server
WebPortal
JEEVASamapada
SpeciesData
Server
JEEVAManchitra
SpatialData
Server
• A Web-based network and service system on bioresources of thecountry.
• Network of independently function-ing distributed databases
• Integrates spatial and non-spatialdatabases on biological resource.
• Promotes co-evolutionary growthamong databases
• Aims at an open-ended growth ofthe network
• Adds value to independently devel-oped bioresource databases.
Key Features
sending outputs through email. Thespatial data downloading utility isavailable in GeoTIFF format. The nodealso provides a detailed document and-help file to download and use map out-puts., Giving information on the scalesof the data, principal investigator atNRSC and deputy director (RS & GISAA), Dr PS Roy says, "The originalgeospatial data on biodiversity charac-terisation at landscape level is availablein 1:50,000 scale which has been organ-ised as Web enabled biodiversity infor-mation system. However, for enhancedoutreach and wider public distribution,the geospatial data is made availablethrough IBIN in 1:1M scale. The geospa-tial data is accessible and download-able at client end in GIS data format."
While the formulation of data stan-dards is in final stage, IBIN presentlyfollows the ISRO NNRMS standards forgeospatial data. Data interoperability isachieved using Web service concept ofdistributed computing environment.Data is served as XML document in caseof attribute data and as OGC compliantWMS in case of geospatial data. Theattribute data is searchable throughunique key identifications at both thenode ends.
DATA DISSEMINATION AND SUBMISSIONIBIN provides a common platform toaccess data and information related toIndian bioresources. The data can beaccessed as Web service and also inoriginal data format as per the policyand guidelines. Any user with properownership policy can also publishhis/her data and information throughIBIN Web portal under commonsharable platform. The submitted data will be publishedalong with additional data available inIBIN data server which will enhance theuse and value of data and information."The data download for spatial data ispossible based on user defined extantor viewing extant of map window.Once the user downloads the data itcan be opened in any GIS/ image pro-cessing software and the further GIS/RSoperations are possible," explain DBTsources.
ROADMAP After an initial round of success, IBIN is
now being developed into a nationalportal to host diverse datasets relatedto bioresources and biodiversity.
This is aimed to achieve by involvingnew partners working in related areas,expanding the data ranges and themes,offering datasets in multilingual for-mats and enlarging the scope of activi-ty by including important areas thathave been unexplored so far.
"The vision of NRSC, UAS and DBT is toexpand IBIN and take it to larger part-nership wherein in the initial stages alarge number of initiations with corestrength on bioresources will con-tribute to the IBIN, and subsequently it will have provision to attract infor-mation and knowledge from individu-als.
The bioresource related key institu-tions in India have already given their consent to join IBIN and thedetailed plan is in final stage," concludes Dr Roy.
Bhanu RekhaAssociate Editor, GIS [email protected]
61D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
Diversity of purposes for which IBIN has been used
• Educational Institutes : To helpteachers teaching bioresources and tocreate awareness of bioresourcesamong students
• Research Organisations: To providedata for prospecting of bioresources
• Conservation Managers: To help themin identifying sites for conservation
• Bio-prospecting Units: For identify-ing the niches of specific species andnew sources of Pharmachemicals.
• Policy Makers: To help decision makers in making decisions related toconservation of sites etc.
Target Users of IBIN
Most of yourproducts and
services focus onacquisition of datathrough ground andaerial surveying. Doyou think these tech-nologies will overtakesatellite remote sens-ing?
There are different typesof spatial information. Cer-tainly there is satellite, cer-
tainly there is remote sens-ing that takes differentways varying from laser toacoustic to seismic and cer-tainly there are differentformats. It is important toidentify these as differentelements of one singleindustry and bring the dif-ferent formats together, justlike the telecommunica-tions industry looks at voiceand fax and data as differ-ent types of information.
The GIS industry must bringall types of informationtogether. This is what wedo. We are certainly in thebusiness of collecting infor-mation with very large datasets and we have softwarethat can handle such largelaser datasets. Our expertiseenables us to bring differenttypes of three and fourdimensional data - some-times even two dimension-al data. This data fusion isthe key to extract competi-tive information that facili-tates the best analysis outof the spatial data.
How do you dealwith interoper-
ability issues?
Talking about softwareinteroperability, all oursoftware use modular C++code. We have a reusablecode library. It is .net based.We have data APIs, plug-inAPIs. We are working withAutodesk and our softwarewill help Autodesk dealwith large 3D data. We havedeveloped software thatcan handle different typesof data, that can handle thegeographic reference into acommon format and thebest part is we have no lim-it on the file size. Many soft-ware run out of steamworking around a few mil-
lion points. We have beenable to deal with billions ofpoints. That's our specialty.
Do you see yoursoftware getting
integrated with opensource software avail-able online?
One has to be careful withopen source software. Wecertainly welcome opensoftware initiative and wesupport it. There are manygood things about opensource software but there isa difference between opensource and open architec-ture. We certainly are openarchitecture where weallow other software towork with us. But, becauseour software is special, wepatent algorithms and pro-duce immense value, wedon't have a business modelthat opens this software upto everyone in a way wherethey can simply reuse it. Welicense our software andthat is our business.
Your products are meant for
enterprise-scaleimplementation. Howcost effective are theyfor scaled-downimplementations?
We often promote ourproducts at enterprise scale.However, it doesn't meanthey cannot be scaleddown to smaller implemen-tations. In fact, a typicalsale cycle begins with asmaller implementation.Many of our clients deriveadvantage by using oursoftware and by allowing
Interview
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
This is a great time to build value back into GIS
62
Q.
Q.
Q.
Q.
Martin SendykPresident & CEO, Ambercore Software, Canada
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
64 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
different departments tocommunicate and look atthe same information. Youmight think that manylarge companies are alreadydoing this but the truth isthere are many more whoare not doing it and this is agreat market opportunity.
You mean to saycustomers are
only the big depart-ments, not the generalpublic?
We typically sell to com-panies - public and privateenterprises. We also sell togovernments. We do nothave for example, a Webbased model, where indi-viduals can use the soft-ware. Our software is ofengineering scale. Typically,
a large engineering compa-ny, department of trans-portation, energy or miningcompany may be interestedin our software. We haveoffices in Canada, US,Europe, Eastern Europe andSouth Africa. We are nowlooking to move to India.India is witnessing so muchactivity in terms of infra-structure, transportationetc. The economy is grow-ing so rapidly that webelieve our software will bequite useful in places likeIndia.
Do you have plansto enter into
Software as a Service(SAAS) model?
SAAS is an interesting andexciting trend. We are cer-
tainly looking at this,because this model cannotonly span the gamut of gen-eral public but also interand intra company. So youcan deploy, for example,SAAS, in a large company,the same way you deploy itfor individuals. This isexactly the kind of modelwe are looking at and this isexactly the type of function-ality our enterprise solutionis moving towards. This is astrong trend and you willsee it evolving further.
Could you enu-merate a few
trends that the GISsoftware developmentindustry is witness-ing?
There are lots of excitingthings happening rightnow. First, the world of spa-tial information and GIS,which has been fragmentedfor many years, startedembracing many IT con-cepts, looking seriously atelements that would unifythe industry. Spatial infor-mation is a special type ofinformation. It has certainattributes. In some ways itis structured, and in someways it is unstructureddata. Being able to work
Q.
Q. Q.
Aerial LiDAR (Terrapoint) fused with mobile LiDAR (TITAN)
Screen shot of Ambercore’ssoftware combining surface
and subsurface data
D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 8
with both of these is astrong trend emerging inthe industry right now.Another strong trend is theuse of spatial data as a dis-tinct type of data that needsto be analysed in specificways, stored in specificways, moved and managedin specific ways.
These are exciting timesfor GIS and for a 4D compa-ny like ours because infor-mation is maturing andpeople are recognising thatit's not just a simple map. Itis information that needs tobe taken care of. For us, theidea that GIS is maturing toa point where informationis being treated intelligent-ly in a more unified, stan-dardised way than before isexciting. On top of this, soft-ware itself is maturing overtime. It ranges from opensource, to SaaS, to variousASP models, to the analysisof unstructured data. Theexciting thing is many ofthese concepts apply to spa-tial three and four dimen-sional information, so it is agreat time to take advan-tage of this. It is a great
time to build value backinto GIS.
Do you see moreacquisitions
similar to the one ofTerrapoint's? Anyplans to acquire anLBS company?
The answer is two-fold.First, the acquisition of Ter-rapoint has been an impor-tant step for us. The reasonbehind the acquisition ofTerrapoint is that we want-ed to be a company that cantouch each part of the spa-tial chain. We wanted to bea company that buildsequipment, like our Titanproduct that can collect spa-tial data and also use theproduct as a service to col-lect it, deliver to the clientand also integrate it wher-ever the client has investedin. Once you've done this,then you can do the tradi-tional business of Amber-core - modelling, simulationand extracting intelligenceout of spatial data. So, themain thinking behind theacquisition of Terrapoint is
to create a company thatgoes from one end to theother.
We are strong in LiDAR aswell. As you know, LiDAR isa laser based technologythat allows you to collectdetailed 3D data both fromair and from ground andnow even from a mobilemoving platform such asTitan. LiDAR is becomingthe de-facto standard forsurvey work and we want-ed to be a piece of thisfuture.
But then, we didn't wantto just deliver the LiDARdata but wanted to be ableto deliver it in a way thatclients can make use of it.This was the main reasonbehind the acquisition.
And about future acquisi-
tion, I think all things arepossible. We are aggressive-ly expanding into new mar-kets although right now weare not actively involved inanother acquisition. How-ever, we would for example,be interested in expandingwith companies that collectLiDAR information andcompanies that have strongintellectual property.
Finally, we always look atthe application space. Theusers have to ultimately dosomething in order to getthe information and put itinto a context that they canunderstand, they can dotheir engineering or what-ever they have to do. Wealready have software inmining and energy and we are looking at otherapplication areas. Butacquisition is not the onlyway that we can worktogether with other companies.
We will partner with bothat the application level,where other software canmake use of our engine butwe will also partner at thedata layer where other com-panies that have collectionbusinesses, may come to usfor data processing. So, part-nership is another way wegrow and we are active inthat.
65
G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
The world of spatial information and GIS, which has been fragmented for many years,started embracing many IT concepts, lookingseriously at elements that would unify theindustry
“”
Q.
A point cloud obtained from TITAN coloured to show elevation
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Planner
December 20089 - 12 DecemberThe 15th Session of the Asia-Pacific RegionalSpace Agency Forum (APRSAF-15) - Space forSustainablee Development Hanoi and Ha Long Bay , Hanoi , Vietnam
www.aprsaf.org/text/ap15_info.html
18 - 20 DecemberSymposium on Advances in Remote SensingTechnology and Applications with SpecialEmphasis on Microwaave Remote Sensingand Annual Convention of Indian Society ofRemote Sensing (ISRS) Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India
www.isrsindia.org
January 200919 - 22 JanuaryDGI Europe 2009 QEII Conference Centre, London
www.wbresearch.com/dgieurope
19 - 22 JanuaryCartography and Geoinformatics for EarlyWarning and Emergency Management:Towards Better Solutions Hotel Diplomat, Kotlarska 2, 611 37 BRNO,Czech Republic, Europe
http://c4c.geogr.muni.cz/index.html
26 - 28 January International Lidar Mapping Forum (ILMF) 2009 Astor Crowne Plaza, Gloucestershire, UK
www.lidarmap.org
February 20099 - 13 February 2009VI International Congress "GEOMATICA 2009"Havana, Cuba
www.informaticahabana.com
18 - 20 February ESRI Federal User Conference Walter E. Convention Center, Redlands, CA,USA
www.esri.com/feduc
23 - 25 February ESRI Petroleum User Group Conference Houston Marriott Westchase, Houston , TX, USA
www.esri.com/pug
23 - 25 FebruaryTrimble Dimensions 2009-Positioning forSuccess Today. And TomorrowLas Vegas, U.S.A.
www.trimbleevents.com
March 20093 - 5 MarchGlobalGEOBarcelona, Spain
www.globalgeobcn.com
10 - 13 MarchGeoform+ 2009Moscow, Russia
www.geoexpo.ru/2008/eng/about/2294.stm
11 - 12 MarchPROGIS - International Conference 2009Villach, Austria
www.progis.com/events/progis09/index.htm
15 - 18 March12th Annual AAAE GIS Conference & Exhibition Hotel Allegro, Chicago , Illinois, USA
www.AirportGISconference.com
20-21 MarchiGEOMAP 2009JN TataAuditorium, IISc, Bangalore
www.igeomap.org
22 - 27 MarchAssociation of American Geographers 2009Annual MeetingThe Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas , Nevada
www.aag.org/annualmeetings/2009/index.htm
28 March - 1 April Petro GIS Bahrain
31 March - 1 April Offshore Survey 09National Oceanography Centre, Southampton ,UK
www.offshoresurvey.co.uk
April 20091 - 2 AprilGEO-9 The complete GEO EventRicoh Arena, Coventry, UK
www.pvpubs.com
1 - 3 AprilThe 17th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK) Durham, UK
www.ceg.ncl.ac.uk/gisruk2009
15 - 17 AprilIII International conference “Remote Sensing – the Synergy of High TechnologiesMoscow, Russia
www.sovzond.ru/en
27 - 29 April 2009ESRI Southeast Regional User Group ConferenceHyatt Regency Riverfront, Redlands, CA, USA
www.esri.com/serug
May 20093 - 8 MayFIG Working Week 2009Eilat, Israel,
www.fig.net/fig2009
4 - 6 MayESRI Business GIS SummitDenver, CO, U.S.A
www.esri.com/bizsummit
8 - 11 MayRemote Sensing ArabiaRiyadh, Saudi Arabia
www.remotesensingarabia.com
11 - 14 MayBE Conference 2009Charlotte, NC, U.S.A.
www.bentley.com
GIS DEVELOPMENT EVENTS
66 G I S D E V E L O P M E N T
10 - 13 February, 2009Map World ForumHyderabad, India
www.mapworldforum.org
14 - 16 April, 2009Map Middle EastDubai, UAE
www.mapmiddleeast.org
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