Tuesday, April 3. 2007

Will the Google/Katrina Affair Finally Push Metadata on GM/GE?

Google has resolved the concerns about pre-Katrina imagery appearing on its mapping properties by posting higher resolution post-Katrina on Sunday night. (Full story on the Official Google Blog)

We pondered this on our podcast and Joe Francica pointed out that perhaps the real issue here is better metadata or what the media might call "more transparency." Now, I'm sure many a GIS tech geeks would think the same thing. I was suprised however to find that non-GIS tech geeks, including Stevie Smith at Monsters and Critics noticed the value of metadata even if they didn't call it by name:

It’s also worth noting that although Google’s updated 2006 satellite photography does clearly show elements of the damage wrought by Katrina, there are still significant discrepancies in its chronological accuracy. For example, while New Orleans appears much closer to how it is in 2007, certain small Mississippi Gulf Coast towns that were absolutely devastated by Katrina (literally wiped off the world map) remain eerily untouched.

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This has been a sore point from GE "power users" ever since early Keyhole days. It would be a relatively easy solution to add an imagery extents layer like the Digital Globe layer that shows for each major image its source, date of imagery, etc. As for the vector Layers data, just add a new Metadata command on the pulldown menu that links to a web page documenting sources for that layer.

#1 Google Earth Pro user on 2007-04-03 08:43 (Reply)

This seems to be a specific instance of the general problem of all data users: "If I only knew XXXXX about this data/image, I'd be able to better judge or use what I'm seeing." The larger problem is that "XXXXX" is "metadata," but different users want different metadata elements to answer their questions in different circumstances. The GIS community has developed the concept of "standardized geospatial metadata" to define the universe of the most common such metadata elements, and to render them interoperable. I hope GE will move in a direction that leverages the work of the metadata community, and that GE users will understand some of the complexity of standardized metadata, and how it can be useful.

#2 Bruce Westcott on 2007-04-03 10:48 (Reply)

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