Thinking Geo

A majority of my business is geographic information systems.  I've used the technology to build real time traffic sites, transit information sites, urban planning systems, urban lands management systems and homeland security applications.  When GoogleMaps came on the scene, with its open API and aerial photography, suddenly the world started thinking geospatially.  Everyone wanted to map everything.

Techcrunch compared the various mapping sites and came up with some nice metrics to judge who is currently leading the pack.  What's missing, though, is the analysis piece, but more on that in a second.

People in the GIS world have had mixed opinions about on-line services.  My take is that these services are causing a sea change in people's relationship to spatial information.  Data's hidden spatial elements are coming to the forefront.  This was noted today by Bubba in Scobelizer when he said:

Being candid - I had never thought much about maps until the last 6 months, but now I'm blown away by what is out there and eager to see what is to come.  I'm really glad there are so many passionate cartographer out there!  FWIW, my favorite map related thing is going by birds eye tourism to see shamu and the like.

For years people in GIS have had to explain in detail why spatial analysis and data representation is so powerful.  You can fit a great deal of information into a map and have it expressed in an intuitive and rapidly comprehensible form.  Each year ESRI publishes a book of maps created using ESRI software by its worldwide network of users.  They are often visually stunning and graphically elegant.

From a User Interface perspective, the map is a gold mine.  You an quickly and intuitively locate objects that require action or oversight.  You can quickly change data displayed within the same UI.  You can easily and seamlessly interact with non-map elements.  The low hanging fruit here is asset management, but the same technology is used to manage the power grid, roadway traffic, and the supply chain for large retailers or manufacturers.

Which brings me to the missing element in the mapping technologies reviewed on Techcrunch.  They are visualization tools only.  Go to the ESRI site and start looking through the functionality provided through their systems.  They've been doing this for over 20 years and have a robust and mature set of features for spatial analysis.

Yes, Zillow can use Windows Live Local for their presentation layer - but underneath is some heavy processing not done by the mapping engine.

This is important because real geoprocessing requires careful forethought of database construction.  A well designed geodatabase includes topological information necessary to facilitiate elegant analysis.  This depth of thought is not necessary for a mashup, where the only link needs to be between the mapped object and it's latitutde and longitude.

For people playing with the APIs, the love affair with merely being able to locate something on a map will be short lived.  They will begin to demand more geoprocessing power in the API.  As that happens, some very interesting products should start to come out of Microsoft, Google, and the rest.

Photo: Gracey

Technorati Tags: ESRI, GIS, googlemaps, windows, windows live, windows local,

Comments

[bubba]

Out of curiosity, have you played with the mappoint apis and system? I haven't, but I wonder if it might offer some of the "geoprocessing power" you talk about?

[Jim Benson]

I have used the mappoint application a few years ago. At the time it was only fairly developed.

Mappoint is morphing into a system that allows some analysis tools for a web based environment.

But Mappoint isn't a free service that you can mashup with. ESRI has their ArcGIS Server which offers amazing distributed geoprocessing tech - but it's extremely expensive.

The beauty of the systems Techcrunch was looking at is that they are free to experiment with. These systems have shown that innovation requires the encouragement of experimentation. It's a lot easier to experiment with free stuff.