Perspectives

Spatial quality is about strategies, policies, design and effective creation and use of spaces. It applies to buildings, landscapes and infrastructure. While spatial data quality is also important, it is not spatial quality, but can be considered an important aspect of good spatial quality. Effective design will have higher spatial quality as functioning increases, use rises and a variety of needs for people and organisations are met.

Read more: What Is Spatial Quality and Why Is It Important To The Design Process

This may be a perennial question, as certainly the rise and promise of universal 3D geovisualization keeps coming in waves that are similar to the promise of location-based services. With each wave, we all ride the crest, and perhaps a few move toward the ongoing capture and visualization of our geographies beyond just a project scope. It's an evolution that is plagued by fits and starts, with declarations of breakout years continuing to fall a bit short of reality.

Read more: What will promote model-based digital realities from nice-to-have to need-to-have?

This week the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos, Switzerland. While much of the discussion is focused upon economic policy development, the technological and conceptual linkages that contribute to economic growth and wealth are not always clear. Geospatial and geomatics technologies not only create and contribute to the underlying infrastructure and processes that build, operate and manage the world, they are revolutionary elements, and capable to generating innovation that possibly establishes toward new forms of capitalism and business opportunities. What Could the Davos World Economic Forum Gain From Geospatial Understanding?

Read more: What Could the Davos World Economic Forum Gain From Geospatial Understanding?

One of the more interesting aspects of the ongoing LightSquared drama has been the eye-opening awareness of the Global Positioning System's fragility. The potential repercussions of degraded or blocked signals has been prominent in the news, and has fostered a backlash. Hard to say if this chapter is completely over yet, but the defense of the accuracy and autonomy of the network has given great prominence to its economic and safety importance.

Read more: How fragile are the networks that we depend upon for today's GIS?