Wednesday, November 19. 2008

Policy Wonks For GIS and Emergency Management

I heard one of the best talks by a self-professed "policy wonk" every given...and it was about GIS too. Sandra Lucas of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency gave a cogent argument for getting only the right tools (not the most tools) into the hands of field emergency management workers. A beltway veteran of 23 years, Lucas provided some insights into being the liaison between politicians and first responders. Her remarks could be boiled down to a caution...watch out for "bright shiny objects, i.e. BSO's. Sometimes the tools with the most wiz-bang are not the best for the first responder who needs only the tool that gets them information that's fast and good. A big fan of GIS but not a technologist herself, Lucas was forceful in stating..."right tool, right job." 

BIM/GIS Integration

The focus in this session was the increasing need to integrate building information models and GIS. The first speaker, Don Murray of Safe Software, talked about the need to address 3D BIM data as a new data type. "From our standpoint, BIM to GIS is just another kind of spatial data transform – [our job is to get users] to be able to move it around to where they want it – we had vector and then raster, and now we have this 3D BIM stuff," he said.

Keith Cooke of ESRI and Steve Milroy of Microsoft gave the next presentation as a tag-team. The duo discussed how ESRI's products integrate with Microsoft Virtual Earth. Essentially, you can think of ArcGIS as doing the analytical "heavy lifting" on the back end, and Virtual Earth as a 2D- and 3D-based visualization tool to help make decisions. Milroy offered the example of a plume model in downtown San Francisco.

David Kingsbury of Autodesk made some bold statements about the 3D revolution. He said, "We are right now on the verge of a whole new paradigm of using spatial data. … In the next 5-7 years, we will think of everything in a 3D context, in an object context. … It's a requirement that CAD, BIM, GIS, visualization and collaboration come together now." He also addressed how the GIS industry is relating to this change: "There's a big of a firestorm among the vendors right now rushing to [prepared for] this switch to 3D."

Spatial Data Management session

Three interesting speakers gave presentations during this session on Wednesday at the Rocket City Geospatial Conference. Each addressed a different topic under the loose category of spatial data management.

Joel Lawhead of NVision talked about Oracle Spatial, Oracle Locator and ESRI. NVision is a company with 44 employees that does GIS-related projects. He said, "Oracle [usage] is steadily on the rise." When the company was founded in 2002, they did no Oracle work, but now about 40% of their projects involve Oracle, and the company has hired an Oracle specialist. He described a variety of projects the company has helped with – one for the Department of the Interior's Mineral Management Service, and one for the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD). The last application he mentioned was one that was built just for fun – a tracking application for the TV program, "Deadliest Catch." It shows boats going out to supply the fishing boats that are trying to land that deadliest catch.

Damon Dougherty of Bentley Systems talked about the "geospatial federated approach" to spatial data management. According to Dougherty, the federated approach combines the traditional spatial search of GIS with the unstructured text search style of a search engine like Google. The example he gave was highway projects in New Hampshire. The federated search allows you to look for the GIS data as well as the graphic data and business data. As Dougherty put it, it's all about "finding information in chaos."

Bruce Westcott of Intergraph is known in the industry as being the "metadata guy." He talked about the fact that we need to move past the "withered business case" for building metadata into databases. He described that business case as one built on good will and desire to do the right thing: "You should produce metadata because other people might want to use it." That business case, for the most part, has not been successful, especially in cases where an internal mandate or business case isn't present. Westcott suggested that reexamining the legal tradition in the US of accessing government-produced data for free would be appropriate. Government entities would be given an incentive to include metadata if there was the possibility of generating revenue by providing access to the data.

Dangermond Acknowledges GIS Professionals on GIS Day

It's always special to be with somebody on their birthday. Being with Jack Dangermond on the 10th anniversary of GIS Day (which falls during Geography Awareness Week) is in that same category. During his keynote presentation at the Rocket City Geospatial Conference in Huntsville, AL on Wednesday, Dangermond (president of ESRI) made special mention of the occasion. His central theme was honoring GIS professionals and what they do in the context of making the world a better, and more sustainable, place.

While cataloging numerous applications (planning, transportation, land information systems, public safety and law enforcement, managing natural disasters, natural resource management, social issues, and human health), Dangermond discussed mapping foreclosure patterns. He ran an animation that clearly showed the pattern of higher numbers of foreclosures two hours away from major metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. "It isn't the downtown areas, or even the near suburbs, but way out – the consistent pattern of increased gas prices caused the foreclosures. … Geography tells that story. … GIS is about telling stories."

Dangermond highlighted the following trends.

• Growth in the number and sophistication of "Fusion Centers" (centers built around the country to support emergency management)
• Increasing popularity of mashups, which will bring the notion of GIS to "virtually everyone"
• Increasing integration of imagery
• More support for mobile applications (LBS)
• Geobrowsers are becoming the norm
• Content (not just data) will become an integral part of GIS, and it will be delivered by services.

Dangermond delivered what can only be described as a pep talk for GIS professionals. "Climate and global warming - loss of biodiversity … there is no 'bailout' for this increasingly challenging situation. … [But] GIS is doing good - it's a counter-balance to some of the negative things that are happening in our society and our world," said Dangermond. "Our world needs a new approach … I don't think it will work out without deliberate and conscious thought about how to do things … to chart a better future. Right now we are certainly doomed. I travel a lot, I see it, and it's not a good future. On the other hand, what you guys are doing … all those things are making a difference. These [applications you develop] are all improving the world."

A Perfect Educational Story for GIS Day Ripped from the Headlines

Someone pulled post codes for all the members of UK British National Party and plotted them on a Google Map. Despite specific notes that the map was built not on addresses but on post codes, there was confusion about accuracy (though not necessarily privacy concern, from what I read). So, the map was redone as a heat map.

- Guardian

ESRI UK Survey for Geography Awareness Week/GIS Day: Same Old Same Old

ESRI-UK is retracing the well worn path of "people don't know geography" to stir up interest in Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day. The online survey of 2000 individuals (press release) reveals that most don't know where things are or what's the most widely spoken language in the world. There are also questions about travel and tourism (Have you been to a town new to you recently? A museum?)

The release quotes Dr Rita Gardner, Director of the Royal Geographical Society:

It is particularly encouraging to see that the sample survey recognises map-reading – at the core of all good geography whether in schools or in our daily lives – as an important geographical skill. If you can read a map you can work out where places are without needing to remember such factual detail. However, there are wider geographical issues of much greater importance to our futures. In the coming years climate change, food and water security will differ in their effects in different
places across the world, further exacerbating world tensions. Geography lies at the heart of understanding, predicting and helping to find solutions to those challenges, and to natural disasters such as hurricanes, many of which transcend national boundaries.

I completely agree with her; alas the survey didn't explore map reading/interpretation skills. A few of the questions posed could have been answered by interpreting the appropriate map including this one: "Rank a list of UK cities, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham and Luton, in the order they are located, from north to south."
I know that "we don't know geography" is the classic way to get press coverage of geography's importance. On GIS Day I want to challenge organizations like ESRI to find new ways to raise the issue. A simple suggestion? A quiz based on a map.