The definition of GIS is rather stable in terms of its underlying components, however the application of the technology to different platforms and for different purposes has expanded the meaning to encompass new things over time. Allowing the evolution of the technology, without dictating the core meaning, is a difficult thing for early adopters who have helped create the definition that is being molded to mean something else.

The whole neo vs. paleo debate arises from this friction, but thankfully we’ve largely seen this ridiculous debate die down. We all have a stake in the underlying purpose and framework of the GIS vision, regardless of consumer or professional application, on the web or on other platforms. It all comes down to the representation of our world in a malleable fashion to gain greater insight and inform decisions.

Online Ambiguity
While the definition of GIS involves the combination of a database with visualization capability and spatial analysis, the large number of platforms has given rise to ambiguity. In the desktop and server days, it was easy to understand the combination of the technologies, because the functionality and deployment of the software was a tangible thing that you set up and maintained. In the days of technology deployed on the Internet, the existence of the three core technologies becomes a nebulous thing to understand.

The question often arises that if an application of the technology doesn’t include one of these three core elements, is it a GIS? In the web platforms of today there are many instances of map visualization without analysis or spatial data that is referenced to a location, but not stored in an accessible database. The fact that data is georeferenced and on the web means that it can be accessed and manipulated, fulfilling much of the purpose of GIS.

Sites that serve spatial data may have no spatial analysis function, but tools exist to add analysis functions simply by plugging in components to existing architectures or by writing some custom code. The ability to add functionality as the web evolves, means that while certain sites may not conform to the GIS vision, they may easily fulfill that vision with great ease as more capabilities come online.

Is the GeoWeb an Über GIS?
The question whether there’s one or more GeoWeb for different purposes comes up, but the concept parallels that of the Internet. There is only one framework that we call the Internet, so logically there is only one GeoWeb. The GeoWeb is the shared representation of our world, and while you may erect fences around your location, we all share the content of our planet and it all should be discoverable.

The GeoWeb provides the means for interconnecting individual GIS databases. Desktop GIS can access and ingest data that’s found on the GeoWeb as well as publish data to it. We can consume services that reside on the web, and can integrate different perspectives through the common network that is the web.

The GeoWeb framework provides the means of integrating our collective knowledge. While there are means of consuming and representing our data in globes and maps, the entirety of the GeoWeb is not yet a GIS. The barrier at present is largely data access and discovery, particularly when looking at the popular geographic exploration systems. There’s no access to data at the database level to unlock metadata and the multiple attributes that have been collected about our world. There’s also a lack of analysis functionality.

Analysis is Critical
Spatial analysis is a critical component of GIS that is only growing in importance with all the pressing questions that we need to answer about our world. Spatial analysis is a non-trivial task that requires a good understanding of process and trusted data at common scales. It’s very easy to draw the wrong conclusions through spatial analysis, so it’s rightfully remained an expert function.

The evolution of the technology will likely see a parallel evolution where the shared GeoWeb adds analysis functionality, while professional tools add much richer analysis capabilities. The offline analysis that the professional tools can bring to bear will be shared on the broader GeoWeb, but the complex steps to achieve the insights won’t likely reach broad access.

Much as we’ve seen an evolution of online media toward individual trusted source journalists, we’ll likely see trusted source geospatial analysts set up shop to help solve problems. Bloggers are fast becoming the source we turn to for in-depth investigative reporting, because the web provides them with access and compensation with very little overhead. The strong need for spatial analysis could easily evolve to a similar model, with individuals or small shops filling the void for greater insights.

It’s an exciting time in the geospatial industry. We’ve built the tools and interfaces for mass adoption, and growing numbers of users are excited about what they can do. We collectively need to carve more pathways to greater insights to avoid the fundamental frustrations of being unable to get the answers to questions we want to ask. At this point in time, data and analysis functions exist to answer most questions, but it still takes an expert to amass the right data and perform the right analysis function. That’s really not a huge issue as long as users that want answers can find the experts.

See what Jeff Thurston has to say on this topic here.

I was saddened to just learn that Randy Pausch, the virtual reality professor at Carnegie who inspired many with his Last Lecture, has passed away today. The lecture gained widespread exposure on the Internet, and was also turned into a popular book, which I enjoyed and gifted to many. If you haven’t read the book or seen the lecture, you should do so. It provides an excellent life perspective.

Here’s a lengthy L.A. Times obituary.

Bill Gail a director at Microsoft Virtual Earth gave the morning keynote today at GeoWeb. The focus of the talk was on the transition of the GeoWeb, showing the current status and features of Virtual Earth and presenting three evolving scenarios for the evolution of the GeoWeb.

Gail detailed the content and functionality of Virtual Earth today, with its inclusion of vector maps, satellite/aerial imagery, bird’s eye views, vector overlays on bird’s eye (dotted road behind buildings), and 3D city models for hundreds of cities. The challenge and commitment is for complete, current and accurate data in 2D and 3D.

The functionality of Virtual Earth includes proximity points of interest to find items of interest within given areas, driving and walking directions, directions in 15 languages, geocoding and reverse geocoding and georss.

Ease of use is one of the key benefits of the GeoWeb, taking geospatial information that has been siloed among specialists and making it available to everyone. Microsoft offers simple integration with BI and ERP software, cross-browser support, and standard APIs for easy integration.

Microsoft has a commitment to GeoWeb applications, with ongoing innovation. And has years of experience dating back to 1995, with the first consumer MapPoint program. Acquisitions of GeoTango, Vexcel, Multimap and Caligari have enhanced their expertise.

Following are the three evolving GeoWeb Scenarios that Gail presented:

Connecting with Customers on the Web, with FedEx as an example. They built in the locations of all their stores in Virtual Earth within three weeks. Where this could evolve, is with richly discoverable locations, where you might be able to go inside the store, find parking before going there, and finding nearby points of interest to get more value from the trip.

Engaging Customers on Location, with Marriott hotels as an example. Marriott has integrated Virtual Earth in the lobbies of hotels with their GoBoard technology. The tool allows visitors to understand their local environment, with discovery of restaurants, transportation and other tourist options. Microsoft’s Surface Table might be utilized in the future, with the scenario of guests placing their camera on the surface, downloading phone images onto the table, manipulating images on the surface, georeferencing those images and annotating the images to share their experience with future travelers.

Visualizing Business Information, with the City of Miami as an example. The City teamed with Microsoft partner IS Consulting to extend GIS data to the Virtual Earth environment. With six months of development, the city posted a zoning application with property and parcel data. The tool is being used by public safety personnel and also for tourism for people to explore the area before they arrive. The future for business information is to move to cross-platforms and mobile devices to improve efficiencies of all workforces (including mobile), to share intelligence on the fly, and integrate with other models, including BIM.

Gail discussed the fact that local search is a huge market and is moving online, changing the information paradigm. Today’s reality of search is to bring information to me, but tomorrow involves taking me to the information. Perhaps you have a sense of what or where you’re searching for, but traveling to the location can greatly enhance that. If planning a trip you might go to a virtual world first and interact with local avatars to discover things that are interesting.

Gail shared a quote from John Battelle, author of “The Search” that indicates that the problem of search and discovery is at best 5% solved. With 95% of problem to be solved, there’s a lot that we can do to improve this.

Gail brought up the speech that Bill Gates gave in London on his 50th birthday, with the vision that we’ll replicate the real world in virtual reality. In order to achieve that vision, it means building out the 3D world accurately with more than 630 large urban areas, thousands more mid-range cities with the typical city having 100,000 buildings and 300,000 trees. It means a representation of a billion or more buildings.

Microsoft has tackled the problem through automation, with the right data, right algorithms, right processing technology. The first revolution of Microsoft’s 3D cities included 100 cities with10,000 buildings produced in 2 years. The next generation of cities include100,000 buildings and 300,00 trees per city that are geometrically accurate to 1M with multiple levels of detail and consistent color balancing. The automation process includes model-based object detection and placement with trees detected and analyzed for type and replaced with models. There’s also work underway to take the data down to the human level, done with photogrammetry from handheld images. Gail contends that Internet digital globes will include nearly every physical object on Earth, from global to human scales.

Gail highlighted Microsoft’s PhotoSynth technology that they’re just starting to bring online. With this tool, you can connect images created by cameras by cross-comparing images. Once you have the 3D model with photos, there’s the potential to take a picture of something on mobile phone, to pattern match that image with an image on the web, and return information about the place that puts the place in context. This could be helpful for buildings or landmarks that you’re trying to identify, or for street signs or other physical placemarks to help you navigate the environment. There’s also the potential for augmented reality, such as your car driving down street and letting you know of congestion down the road.

Gail is particularly intrigued by the merging of textual and spatial query with analytics. The thought is that when you’re visiting a location you may have a rather complex query that the concierge can answer readily, but can’t be answered by a computer. The scenario is an interest to visit a restaurant within walkable distance, with no big hills, within 10 minutes walk, with nice views, serving a particular menu at a certain price point. These detailed queries aren’t possible with a computer, but people answer these complex queries all the time. Current analysis functions such as line of sight, weather forecasts, image classification and route finding make this type of query possible, it’s just a non-trivial matter of connecting all of these. The power of Virtual Worlds is the context.

Gail stated that all is not well in the GeoWeb Paradise. We have a great vision and wonderful goals, but there’s a flawed reality to the GeoWeb. We pull together information to represent reality, but the fact is that our data is from many different timeframes with dated data altering the reality. There’s also the issue of taking 2D data to make 3D projections, with flawed reality from distorted images much like Escher drawings. There’s also the issue of orthophotos with buildings leaning in different directions.

Gail said that flawed reality can be put to good use, such as a NOAA simulation in SecondLife that allows you to see a tsunami through a simulation, to experience what you can’t or don’t want to experience in real lime. The flawed reality also lets you manipulate multiple timeframes, progressing at different rates to speed or slow down time. Combining reality and fantasy provides different versions of reality.

Would the virtual world include trash and garbage? If not, it’s not a real representation. Would it include virtual emotions in real people when avatars interact? The physiological response is something that we need to work out.

Gail sees the future of virtual worlds as reality and fantasy intertwined in interesting and elaborate ways, creating parallel connections that go two ways. Sensor and networks monitor the real world and decisions are made in virtual worlds regarding actions in the real world. Decisions in virtual world affect the real world, but there is both reality flux and fantasy flux. The question becomes where is there equilibrium between fantasy and reality, and what happens to both? The future of the GeoWeb involves the integration of fantasy and reality as we move forward.

The morning keynote today was given by Michael Jones, chief technology advocate at Google, with responsibility for Google Maps and Google Earth. Jones started his talk by stating that in his past two keynotes at this event, he’s covered all the technical details and so the topic of his talk would be on the promise of the technology, with the title The Power of the GeoWeb.

Jones stated that the vision for the technology is working, the idea of marrying the web and geographic information has worked. The power has been brought to bear and now the focus is on how to harness the technology into the future.

Jones started by discussing the power of scale and that some things inherently need to be big. He stated that in the last 10 years, 1 Billion people are regularly online. With 6.5 billion in the world, that’s one in six that are doing things that they didn’t do just ten years ago. Following are some metrics that Jones posted on screen.
- About a Billion searches are done on Google daily
- Every day is a day that each user searches (before it might have just been librarians and geospatial folks)
- 400 Million Google Earth users
- 250 Million involved in social networking (Facebook, MySpace, etc.)
- 80 Billion e-mails and IM sent daily
- 10 Billion YouTube videos streamed monthly in USA

The way the world talks isn’t yet through geospatial browsers. The growth of the GeoWeb is five or so years behind mass exception. In another five years, it will be another factor of 10 larger than it is now.

Jones shared a video with interviews of broadcasters at KBPS in San Diego that placed a map online for fire tracking, and the use just took off. A quote from one of the fellows involved really struck home for most, when he said, “It’s pretty simple, it doesn’t take super geeks to create a map.”

The map became a central method to manage the fire. It was a citizen-managed disaster response, but not the first time that it has been done. A similar thing happened in New Orleans, and Jones revisited that disaster, saying that he spoke with Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu who asked him to, “Please put New Orleans in Street View. Help us tell our story to America. So that maybe Americans will feel like fellow Americans.”

The issue in New Orleans is that rebuilding isn’t happening quickly enough. Money has been approved, but the way it was approved makes rebuilding very slow. The power of maps, and particularly street views, is critical to telling this story.
Jones discussed the company’s 3D modeling strategy, saying that the vision is user-generated content, and that recently that effort is gaining critical mass. There are now twenty to thirty cities that have really engaged on creating their 3D city within Google Earth. Washington, D.C. has added all of their buildings and others are getting involved.

The effort is imminently scalable, because it isn’t Google needing to create or buy the data. Jones said that the world wants to describe itself spatially, for the benefit of all the world to see. Publishing full details makes sense for a lot of cities, but businesses are a year ahead.

Walt Disney World had artists take pictures of every possible thing to model their environment. Every pole, every item is completely modeled. Jones said that he would describe the level of detail as ridiculous if he didn’t work for Google Earth. But the beauty is that people can live the experience ahead of time and after the fact and tell stories in a way that are emotionally real. This level of modeling will make sense for a lot of areas, particularly for public places that you are proud of.

As an aggregate the commercial outfits that are serving the commercial GeoWeb are serving a lot of people, and it’s a momentum thing that will continue to grow. The beauty is that it’s not someone selling, pushing or visionaries telling people to create maps, it’s real people saying that if it worked for my friend it will work for me.

Jones said that Google doesn’t have the money to buy all the data. There are places that from a practical standpoint are undermapped. Maybe data exists, but it’s too expensive. To answer the problem, Google created Mapmaker (google.com/mapmaker). The service has been online for just a few months and it’s starting to populate. Jones has personally taken on the responsibility for mapping Nassau, Bahamas and locals are starting to fill in the details. Jones stressed that local people are the experts, and what they post should be considered 100% reliable.

He indicated that there’s still value in commercially-provided data, but it doesn’t cover the world. With maps that have been posted by companies and cities, he said you should look at the copyright. Google attributes data to those who created it, and suggested that if anyone builds data they’ll be happy to render it.

Jones got a bit philosophical at this point, suggesting that the power of scale won’t work unless everyone is doing it and quoting a stanza of T.S. Eliot (Gidding, No. 4 of Four Quarters)

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Jones interprets this stanza as a need to keep redefining our confidence in our realities as we age and know a little bit more. We gain wisdom through lessons learned from experience. The web will at some point give us a chance to explore things and learn things about the world without experiencing them.

Jones got a bit emotional when speaking about meeting with Condoleeza Rice, secretary of state, and showing her Google Earth details about the mass destruction in Darfur. He showed her the villages that have been destroyed and the children’s stories about seeing family killed or about girls being raped. Rice then responded, “Wow, I had no idea”, secretary of state Condoleeza Rice “We can use this.”

Jones was quick to point that he’s certain that Rice was aware of the issues with all the national agencies to help her stay on top of things, but that seeing the details in context sunk in. It’s one thing to see the details in a spreadsheet, and another to be flown to someone’s house that has been raped or killed.

Jones said that we tend to perceive things at two scales. One is the long-term, judgmental way for large problems and then there’s the reaction to problems directly in front of you. When a problem occurs right in front of you, you just act quickly, with no analysis or professorial pipe smoking. At the big scale we are very deliberative and not reactionary. Geovisualization is the tool that allows us to see everything in context and at different scales. It’s a very important tool to create action.

Jones also discussed meeting with Henry Kissinger alongside Sergey Brin. Kissinger uses Google, but has a gripe that searching is not knowing. He wants to know if Google can empower knowing, where what we find is not the anwer, but all the answers. Not ‘what’, but ‘what next?’ Not just information, but information in context. Not only now, but past, present and future, and helping people know what’s right.

The geospatial Web is the best answer. The Geospatial Web and its browsers, such as Maps and Earth, have the power of scale in terms of data and allow users to contextually organize the world’s information using the power of place to touch hearts and minds.

Jones closed by saying the opportunity to leverage the information in a geospatial browser allows us to build things in a better way to make wholesale change of human’s behavior. We’re alive in the fulcrum moment where we can change things and the huge reward for mankind is just over the hill.

Alex Miller, president and founder of ESRI Canada, gave the opening keynote today at the GeoWeb Conference, stating that in his 30 plus years of geospatial work, he’s never been more excited about the prospects for the industry and what we can accomplish. His take on the GeoWeb is that it needs to provide a synergistic merger of the web and geo, with the web helping to build geographic infrastructure, and geo unlocking web-based information from local to global.

Miller contends that the Web is the biggest change since the printing press, with huge impact in a short time. While geography is a millennium old science that hit a plateau before the Internet, it’s now reviving because it provides a framework for organizing our world, and has an impact on how we behave as a people.

Geography has provided us with an understanding of the implications of climate change, and will help us understand how to address the problems that we face. GIS provides a means to integrate and work together, for a holistic view of our holdings.

Miller went on to address trends and areas where it’s most critical for action.

• While urban spaces tend to happen organically, planning desperately needs a more holistic view of the world.
• Building modeling is becoming increasingly important, particularly for navigation inside buildings.
• Property value analysis is increasingly important, particularly in terms of mortgage collapse. Legislation is being considered for lenders to valuate land prices on a quarterly basis.
• Electric utilities are facing a tremendous change, with the International Energy Agency Report indicating the need for a $62 trillion investment in new energy and distribution, much of it in remewables.
• Public safety and emergency response has made great use of GIS, but struggle with how to keep data current.
• Insurance will drive a major change in where we’ll allow people to live, based on environmental risks.
• Forest fire management is becoming increasingly critical with rising heat adding to greater risks.
• Environmental management is of increasing importance.
• Climate change is a complex problem that requires collaborative insight.
• Agriculture, particular it’s impacts and demand for water, must be understood.
• Much of the geospatial capabilities will reach us where we work, with huge opportunities with the 529 million mobile workers in the world.

While GIS in now applied around the world as individual systems, the GeoWeb is going to connect these data sources together. Miller also sees the Web as a platform evolving to far more sophisticated Web mapping tools, with Web mapping easily equal to the desktop in the future.

Miller then spent a good amount of time regarding the methods and needs for geographic information sharing, outlining three options with some details regarding the benefits of each.

Distributed web server is the predominant standard effort where everyone has a service, registers their service in a catalog. Miller contends that this approach requires a great deal of organization, and standardized data models, and may not be possible in all areas. The problems revolve around the requirement for very reliable services – keeping data sharing up and running has multiple points of failure and there’s a requirement for multilateral agreements with protection of intellectual property. He stated that this approach works well for base maps, but isn’t as good for dynamic data.

Another viable approach is the through distributed replication services, where we replicate all or part of a database with updates only to changes. This eliminates the need for real-time access, and updates over the web can occur when needed by pushing data that is periodically synchronized. This approach works well for national data (Statistics Canada, National Post, Natural Resources), where data can beplicated on regional/provincial basis and propagated nationally with federated GIS servers.

The final approach of centrally integrated databases isn’t much of an option, because it’s anti-Web, so Miller didn’t spend any time exploring this option.

Miller praised the importance of the GeoWeb conference for its work on simplifying access to data, which will help to lower the data update cost.

The University of Washington named a dean for their recently announced College of the Environment, but there’s still a great deal to be worked out in order to realize the vision of collaboration between disciplines. The good news is that there’s an increasing interest from students. UW’s Environmental Sciences and Resources Management curriculum has seen a 30 percent increase in the past year.

In a similar move, Colorado State University has announced th creation of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability as an umbrella organization to encompass all environmental education and research at the university. Well respected environmental researcher Diana Wall will serve as founding director of the school, with immediate plans to explore curriculum creation with first classes by 2010.

Colorado State’s clearinghouse approach would combine such disciplines as atmospheric science, environmental politics, wind engineering, agricultural economics, green building, wildlife biology, ecotourism, forestry, ecology, sustainable entrepreneurship and public policy. While there’s great opportunity to combine curriculum among these disciplines, there’s also a commitment that every department across the campus will offer some type of environmental course.

There’s a sea change in academia that’s going to build momentum. Multidisciplinary research and education will provide insight into climate and land use, biodiversity loss, human, plant and animal disease, crops and global food economies, and water conservation.

Autodesk announced the release of two new product updates today, Autodesk Utility Design 2009 and Autodesk Topobase 2009. Both products place the emphasis on more efficient network design and enhanced data quality for more sustainable utilities.

The Autodesk Utility Design tool contains purpose-built tools for designing, engineering, cost estimation and materials ordering for distribution networks. The solution contains built-in analysis tools to handle voltage drop and cable pull analysis. These tools, along with automated workflows, are nicely positioned for a greening utility workforce. With many engineers being replaced due to retirement, the domain expertise built into the software helps a utility transition with assurances that design standards are being met.

Autodesk Topobase software is build on AutoCAD Map 3D and Autodesk MapGuide Enterprise, with workflows for infrastructure design and management for water, wastewater, gas and electric utilities. The integrated tools for designers, engineers, GIS personnel and field operations teams makes this product ideal for enterprise integration.

There are 50 new utility features in this update of Topobase, including wastewater inspection workflows, schematic diagrams and visualization tools for seeing inside transformer stations. The new version runs on many levels of the Oracle database, including the standard Oracle Locator.

Both tools follow Autodesk’s strategy to democratize software, making it simpler to use and administer. The Topobase product is sold for one price with full functionality, eliminating the need to carefully manage licensing in a distributed environment.

Autodesk has their eye on intelligent grid technologies, with tools to optimize network reliability and accommodate distributed power generation (such as solar or wind inputs from customers).

A new National Research Council report indicates that the management of forests for sustainable clean water supply may be more important than any other environmental service that forests provide. The report states that forests provide natural filtration and storage systems that process nearly two-thirds of the water supply in the United States.

There’s much to be learned regarding how forest management affects water quantity and quality, particularly in light of changing climate. Increasing temperatures are leading to more wildfires and insect outbreaks. It’s also necessary to closely monitor the impact of timber harvest, roads, and urban sprawl to see how these stresses influence our water supplies from forests.

The authors of the report note that this is the first major study on forests and water since a U.S. Forest Service project in 1976. Since that time climate change has produced quantifiable changes in forest structure, species and water supply, and this new assessment of current conditions is aimed at outlining future forest management needs.

The Brookings Institution just released a report on the emerging economic “megapolitan” regions of the American west that are experiencing fast population growth and economic prosperity. The report is titled, “Mountain Megas: America’s Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper,” and is part of the institution’s Blueprint for American Prosperity initiative.

The report identifies several megaregions, that encompass many cities, and some that cross state boundaries. The areas include the combined Phoenix and Tucson region as well as extended urban development around Denver, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Albuquerque.

The report focuses on mega region planning requirements as well as the need for federal support for ongoing vitality. These areas require a balanced outlook for growth and effective regional governance, and are need of support to develop infrastructure, world-class innovation hubs, and to achieve “quality-of-place.”

As a resident in one of these megaregions, I’m encouraged by the largely urban nature of the development. The report findings indicate that these regions hold 80 percent of the population in each of the five states where they occur, and that the urban densities of Denver and Salt Lake City are greater than the density found in urban Chicago and Boston.

The dense growth in these emerging areas combines with quality urban environments that are inviting and set to absorb America’s next growth spurt. The report indicates that America will likely add its next 100 million residents by 2040, and that these regions are set to grow disproportionately. A projection of 12.7 million new residents and 8 million jobs, will mean that each of these regions could double by 2040 from 2005 levels.

The sustainability challenge of the intermountain west is considerable, particularly in light of water issues that are likely to become more difficult due to climate change. This report provides a good overview of the issues faced in the region, and outlines the ways that the federal government can assist in their long-term prosperity.

There’s a feature in Science magazine this week that suggests the use of “assisted migration” to place species threatened by climate change into areas more suitable for their survival. As the planet warms, these scientists warn, certain species will be unable to migrate due to manmade or natural barriers and will cease to exist.

The fear is that fragile ecosystems such as coral reefs and cloud forests will simply go extinct if left to the pressures of global warming. A real trick in this bio engineering effort would be determining any detrimental effects on the locations where plants and animals may be moved.

There’s a fine balance to nature, and while this effort means well, I fear that it’s too tricky of an exercise to pull off. Assuming incremental temperature increases over a long time, I wonder how many times we may have to move some species that thrive best under very exacting conditions.