Jones: "Geopedia"; Dangermond: Keep GIS for professionals

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Monday, August 6. 2007

Jones: "Geopedia"; Dangermond: Keep GIS for professionals

Computerworld reviews the "debate" which it says "raged" during July's GeoWeb event.

With the arrival of online mapping services such as Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth, geographic information systems (GIS) are now at the fingertips of every Tom, Dick and Mary with an Internet connection. This strikes Vint Cerf as good news. The chief Internet evangelist at Google Inc., and one of the founding fathers of the Internet, says he’d like to see a geographic equivalent of Wikipedia — “Geopedia,” he dubs it — where anyone could add to the world’s geographic know-how. Jack Dangerman [sic] is skeptical. He’s the president of Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., a leading GIS software vendor in Redlands, Calif., known as ESRI. He worries that even the best-intentioned amateur could provide inaccurate data that could lead to a disaster. “Who wants to dig a hole and run into a pipe?” Dangerman asks.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, ESRI at 07:06 | Comments (11) | Trackbacks (0)

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Mark Hall, writing in Computerworld, wrote "With the arrival of online mapping services such as Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth, geographic information systems (GIS) are now at the fingertips of every Tom, Dick and Mary with an Internet connection."
I wish article writers would consult real geographic experts when wanting to wax eloquently about that which they know absolutely nothing for an easily misled public. He is so wrong, it's not funny.

Google maps is NOT a gis and never will be. It depends on GIS for its ability to show things. Google maps is NOT a GIS, I'd like to say again for the beneift of the ignorant writer of that article. Yes, at the moment the world is all riding agog on the hype that Google maps has started, but from a geographer's and planner's perspective the possibilities in Google maps is very, very limited. Google can provide nice views of land/man-made features of interest to the viewer; it can provide simple routing from one point to another in a limited way; and can allow push-pins to be inserted to later locate points of interest. It can do other things, like fly-throughs. But that's it.
And this is what the hype is based on - instant gratification, which is what the advertising world has been thrusting upon humanity since the advent of television. And you can always hear the sound of this instant gratification from people using Google Earth - "Oh wow! There's our swimming pool, Janet. Brilliant, eh?". That's all it can do.

GIS, on the other hand, allows the qualified and experienced geographer/cartographer/spatial analyst to do more than just mapping or looking at things ("Oh wow! There's our swimming pool, Janet. Brilliant, eh?").

GIS is way more than Google maps. GIS allows sophisticated spatial anlysis; it allows exploring "what if.." geographical questions; it allows extraordinary spatial modelling; and can develop intricate visualizations based on analysis between data layers; it can do an anlysis between various layers and come up with the best location for a potential new Bank Branch.

I fully support Jack Dangermond of ESRI. I myself think that putting GIS into the hands of unqualified, uneducated, and inexperienced non-GIS experts is just pandying to the current trend of dumbing down the content of professionalism, and will lead to some disastrous results. Let the non-GIS people use Google to their hearts content, but please leave all things GIS to the fully qualified professional. Jack had it right.

#1 GeorgeOfTheJungle on 2007-08-07 01:17 (Reply)

Oh, but what is the underlying part of a GIS?
Maps, Google Maps might not be all singing all dancing GIS.
But if you look out there, you will find 50,000+ mashups and releasing 'GI' to the masses.
Early days but it will evolve with functions of geographical analysis.

When Google Earth (v5), KML(2.2) and Google Maps (v3)
merge with a Web Browser Solution including 3D.
(the 2D version is available now)
Maybe the G-Browser?

and Yes I know what a GIS is, have for 15 years.
for the cost and running of them it is very expensive.
In the UK large costs are for the data (vector and raster).

#2 Mapperz (Link) on 2007-08-07 02:42 (Reply)

Mapperz wrote: "But if you look out there, you will find 50,000+ mashups and releasing 'GI' to the masses.
Early days but it will evolve with functions of geographical analysis."

Yes, I've seen mashups from various sources. Pretty, nice to look at, and sometimes informative, but still just snapshots that fill the public's need for instant gratification. Look, spend 10 seconds studying the information, and then leave. And forget. It's like eating a hamburger and fries at the local fast food. That's it. I think I have a new classification of Google and mashups.... instant fast food for the masses. Consume and forget.

So, Google, in your opinion will "evolve with functions of geographical analysis".

Let me give a small example which I hold will nullify the hopes you express. I was consulting for a city on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, some years ago. The GIS database that I had designed, acquired and built had many layers, most of which had line and/or polygon topology (remember that word TOPOLOGY). The planner came to me and asked me if I could locate, identify and map all the residentilally zoned properties that were within 20m of a body of fresh water (stream, river, or lake). The job was completed, with the resultant maps and relevant property ownership databases (in Excel format) delivered to her about half an hour after her request.

I ask you now, "Will you or anyone be able to do that sort of simple analysis on Google, now or ever?" I don't think so, not unless Google starts supplying data layers, besides the pretty imagery, that own full topology. Topology being the key word there, for it is topology - as Jack Dangermond fully understands - that sets a pretty land feature viewer apart from a fully functional GIS. Miles apart.

Thank you for looking at my 5p worth.

#3 GeorgeOfTheJungle on 2007-08-07 04:09 (Reply)

The Google Maps cartography has topology, allowing the calculation of shortest paths.

On the other hand, geoindexing, as an alternative to traditional databases, looks quite promising....so I would not discard GIS-like functionality in themedium term. Probably done differently, but the user should not need to know how anyway.

Careful not to put all your eggs in the professional GIS basket (unless you are near retirement age anyway). Years ago corporations had vice presidents of electricity, loads of professional drivers, and secretaries that typed their boss' handwritten notes. Time has shown these job categories redundant.

#3.1 william of Occam on 2007-08-08 04:37 (Reply)

Mapperz also wrote: 'Oh, but what is the underlying part of a GIS? Maps..."

No, sorry. Wrong. Of course, a GIS can produce maps of many different sorts, but that is not the primary function of a GIS – nor should it ever be. The primary function of a GIS is to provide the user with a sophisticated and flexible management and modelling tool. A GIS integrates “real-world” map data with descriptive data in a relational database. This allows for simple and complex spatial query, analysis and modelling, with the opportunity to uniquely visualize and present results.
These characteristics of a GIS distinguish it from other drawing or CAD programs, and also distinguishes it from Google earth and other similar web-based viewing applications, all of which which can produce pretty nice views and maps (in 2D and 3D, even), but cannot provide the query, analysis, modelling nor management capabilities of a GIS. See the previous comment.

Google Earth is based on spatial data - vector, but mostly raster. That data is supplied to Google Earth by a GIS. I notice that Google earth has boundary lines for countries and so on. I notice that Google Earth has points to show, for example, where Parks are. Good, if the data is accurate. But here's my question, can Google Earth provide the results for a simple point-in-polygon query, like how many State Parks are there in Illinois? No, definitely not, because there is no topology in Google Earth data.

I think what you may have wanted to say when you said that the underlying part of a GIS is maps, is that the underlying part of a GIS is the relational database with topology that allows all sorts of very sophisticated querying and analysis and modelling between and in layers.

I still say Jack had it right.

Thanks for looking at my 2p worth.

#4 GeorgeOfTheJungle on 2007-08-07 04:29 (Reply)

This is to miss the point a bit - GIS analysis is (or can be) difficult and depends on expensive tools and proper data management to make it accurate and understandable. But surely publishing data and allowing people to make their own use of it is half the purpose? Most people don't need to ask complex questions of maps and if they do then they will gravitate towards sites/tools/professionals who can supply the information.

People were quite capable of making ill-informed or partial judgements on the basis of paper and digital maps. The same caveat still applies. The exciting thing about the new mapping visualisation tools is how they can be be made to link up information quickly and across distributed data sources. If the data is wrong in a map people will go elsewhere as they always have.

#4.1 Paul Crisp on 2007-08-07 04:59 (Reply)

As I see it, the primary problem has always been two-fold: 1) discerning GIS versus Map Display and 2) casual users vs professional users. With the former, GIS has been confused by casual users with map making since its inception, and probably always will. The latter misconception is what allows a writer or non-GIS coworkers to label Google as GIS, or state that "it's just GIS, anyone can do it".

For 15 years now, I've seen the easy GIS come along for casual users to unleash the power and put GIS specialists out of business! (Much the way IT experts have all but vanished from our society.) Not gonna happen - the typical course of these events is excitment, overconfidence, bad geographical decisions, followed by a return to the specialists. I suspect this is the case with any 'easy!' in-field innovation. Jack Dangermond is correct - a couple shovel/pipe matings will send casual users back to the specialists. BUT, hopefully all this will raise MORE interest in GIS, and send MORE people to the specialists.

And for GIS analysis in Google? Great, put it in there. I'd like to see usage statistics on my neighbors running a kriging analysis of their lawns' soil samples. Yes, if it's in there, they COULD do it. Would the research scientists at my lab do it? 1 or 2 would sure; I would too. The other 8 researchers would ask me, at which time I might offer alterative analyses to them. So in the end, how much use would advanced features of a "Geopedia" get, and thus how much reason would there be to continue developing those advanced analysis features? i.e. how many people would be looking at those ads for Viagra shoehorned around the margins? Would there be any more of a business model to support the effort than there was for 90% of the end-all-be-all web tools of the late 90s?

And yes, many typists have moved on to other jobs now. It's hard to argue about hiring someone to type your scribbles when you can now do it yourself with simple office tools. And that is the point - pre-word processor, you paid an assistant to type your notes as opposed to wasting your time, typing and retyping your mistakes on actual paper. Word processors mitigate that error factor and eliminate the need for a good, fast, accurate typist. Nowadays, we all type (sort of). I don't see a future where we all do advanced spatial analysis (even sort of). There are/were no graduate programs in word processing analysis of which I know. Comparing typing 101 with a science, even a 'soft' science like Geography is easy, but silly.

#5 MRB on 2007-08-08 09:18 (Reply)

Having worked as GIS analyst in the utility sector for 14-years and now owning a small cartographic/GIS company I would support Geopedia, but understand Dangermond's and other GIS professionals' concerns.

Geographic data, similar to the uses of GIS (display, analysis, modeling) are not an all-or-nothing dilemma - there are many levels of accuracy and uses. I've come across many GIS datasets that do not have any accuracy standards/specs described in their metadata or worked with "GIS Analyst" that have used the data without ever understanding or verifying the accuracy.

A Geopedia clearing house with the proper validation/verification process sounds very appealing. If I remember correctly don't Navteq and TeleAtlas have partnership programs that allow update/input to their data? If the same data vetting process were in place within Geopedia for datasets than need high-level accuracy (spatial and attribute)- how different would that be from the data monopoly that currently exists? I know I can't afford to buy datasets for certain projects and clients based on the current market prices.

#6 JDS (Link) on 2007-08-08 12:37 (Reply)

I say "Chill Out Guys". Google Maps will only bring us more work. It's a different kind of GIS that allows people to see and share their world geographically. More awareness of geography is good for everyone. To us KML is just one more thing to learn, another tool. We can learn it and leverage what we already know and use it to make more powerful and accessible presentations. All geographic information is ultimately local. Mistakes on Google will bring people to our doors. Just the desire for global positions is already bringing them to mine.

#7 Joseph Barreca (Link) on 2007-08-08 12:53 (Reply)

Personally, both sides are, in my opinion, correct. I use Google Earth and ESRI's software in conjunction with each other. Both serve different needs. If ESRI's StreetMap were a bit more accurate, I probably wouldn't have to make sure a location is correct by double checking it with Google.

Heck, who knows...with all the $$$ Google has aquired, could a buyout of ESRI be in the not too distant future? Google has done many an inovative thing with some of their previous purchases, so perhaps a better all around GIS is not too far off for all of us -- professional and novice alike.

#8 Timothy (Link) on 2007-08-10 21:21 (Reply)

In a small, distant country, known as Slovenia, Geopedia project started on 15th of May 2007. It is a GIS application, where users can edit most of the layers. It is not based on Google Maps (although it may seem like it).

There are some information about a project available here:
http://www.cosylab.com/solutions/GIS/Geopedia/
(a Quick Tutorial may be useful since the project is currently only in Slovene language)

A project itself is available here:
http://www.geopedia.si

What we noticed in a first few months of real users trying it is: if you set up the layers right (a GIS person should do it), users do create quite good results.

Best regards
Grega Milcinski

#9 Grega Milcinski (Link) on 2007-08-23 16:03 (Reply)

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