Future trends in geospatial information management: the five to ten year vision
Revised draft based on feedback provided following the Second Session of the UN-GGIM Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management
January 2013
The use of geospatial information is increasing rapidly. There is a growing recognition amongst both governments and the private sector that an understanding of location and place is a vital component of effective decision-making. Citizens with no recognised expertise in geospatial information, and who are unlikely to even be familiar with the term, are also increasingly using and interacting with geospatial information; indeed in some cases, they are contributing to its collection – often in an involuntary way.
A number of important technology-driven trends are likely to have a major impact in the coming years, creating previously unimaginable amounts of location-referenced information and questioning our very understanding of what constitutes geospatial information. These developments offer significant opportunities but also present challenges, both in terms of policy and in terms of the law. Meeting these challenges and ensuring that the potential benefits can be realised by all countries will be important in ensuring that the full value of geospatial information can be maximised in the coming five to ten years.
It is recognised that different countries are at very different stages in terms of the development, sophistication and use of their geospatial information infrastructures. There is a risk, inevitably, that not all countries will be in a position to invest in and realise the full potential of geospatial information, for governments, businesses and citizens. International institutions such as the UN have an increasingly important role in helping to minimise this risk, communicating the value and importance of investing in and developing a solid geospatial information base and reducing the prospect of any ‘digital divide’ emerging.
Ensuring that the full value of geospatial information is realised in the coming years will also rely on having the necessary training mechanisms in place. New and changing skills will be required to manage the increasing amount of geospatial information that is likely to be created and to ensure that the maximum value is secured from it.
The number of actors involved in generating, managing and providing geospatial information has increased significantly in the last ten years, and this proliferation will continue and indeed will likely accelerate in the coming five to ten years. The private sector and the public will continue to play a significant role in providing the technologies and information required to maximise the opportunities available. They are likely to provide valuable, and in many cases unique, elements of geospatial information and the technologies and services required to maximise it, in addition to offering a growing understanding of the end-user base for geospatial information.
Governments will continue to have a key role in the provision of geospatial information and be substantial users of geospatial data; however, governments’ role in geospatial information management may well change in the coming five to ten years. Nevertheless, it will continue to be vital. Building bridges between organisations, collaborating with other areas of the geospatial information community and, most importantly, providing complete geospatial frameworks with trusted, authoritative and maintained geospatial information, will be crucial to ensuring that users have access to reliable and trusted geospatial information and have confidence when using it. This information is vital to inform decision-making, from long-term planning to emergency response, and to ensure that the potential benefits of a fully spatially-enabled society are realised
As with all technology-driven sectors, the future is difficult to predict. However, this paper takes the views of a recognised group of experts from a wide range of fields related to the geospatial world, together with valuable contributions from the National Mapping and Cadastral Authorities (NMCAs) and attempts to offer some vision of how this is likely to develop over the next five to ten years. Based on contributions received, trends have been broken down into broad themes covering major aspects of the geospatial world. They are as follows: technology trends, including the future direction of data creation, maintenance and management; legal and policy developments; skills requirements and training mechanisms; the role of the private and volunteered geographic information sectors; and the future role of governments in geospatial data provision and management.
Garis Panduan Penilaian Kualiti Data Geospatial
Oleh Jawatankuasa Teknikal Standard MyGDI (JTSM) 2010
Garis panduan ini disediakan bagi tujuan penilaian kualiti sesuatu data geospatial oleh pembekal data. Ia merupakan satu prosedur yang jelas dan konsisten bagi membolehkan pembekal data menyatakan sejauh mana produk mereka memenuhi kriteria spesifikasi produk yang ditetapkan. Ini membolehkan pengguna data menilai data tersebut sama ada memenuhi keperluan mereka atau sebaliknya.
Spesifikasi produk adalah kriteria yang penting dalam menjalankan penilaian kualiti data geospatial. Bagi maksud garis panduan ini, spesifikasi produk merupakan penerangan teknikal yang jelas dan tepat mengenai sifat-sifat sesuatu produk data geospatial serta boleh digunakan dalam pelbagai keadaan dan kegunaan oleh pihak-pihak yang berkenaan.
Walau bagaimanapun, bagi sesuatu produk data geospatial yang belum mempunyai spesifikasi produk, garis panduan ini masih boleh digunakan untuk menilai kualiti data geospatial tersebut. Sehubungan dengan ini, peraturan-peraturan berkaitan kualiti data sedia ada boleh digunakan untuk menyemak tahap pematuhan kualiti data tersebut.
Geoinformatics Education and Training at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
By Mohamad Nor Said Mohamad and Ghazali Hashim, Department of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (2013)
Human resource development is a part of the major components that constitute a successful implementation of Geographical Information System (GIS). Technical knowledge and skill is always required in ensuring a GIS is applied effectively, no matter for what purpose. Hence, a properly designed curriculum at various levels of teaching and learning of the subjects related to the discipline is very important. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has taken a lead in this very demanding field by offering a bachelor degree program in Geoinformatics since 1994. The curriculum was initially designed by referring to various academic development and GIS applications and implementation throughout the world. It is further improved from time to time to suit and fit the local requirements both by the industries and the government authorities such as Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA). Having a current number of about 500 graduates, the GIS industries seem to grow significantly and thus help the government speeding up various development projects with the use of GIS. At a higher level, UTM also offers postgraduate programmes mainly to carry out researches related to various issues related to GIS implementation and developments. With the establishment of Malaysian Centre for Geospatial Data Infrastructure (MaCGDI), UTM plays greater roles in collaborating with this agency in providing professional training as well as contributing expertise towards helping the development of Malaysian Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). This paper reports on various academic and research activities as well as professional training conducted by UTM.
Location-Based Service (LBS)
A Location-Based Service (LBS) is usually a service running on a mobile device that provides facts or recreational information. It employs geolocation to make the facts or entertainment more personal to the user of the application. An example of a typical LBS is one that identifies the location of a device and then discovers the location of restaurants in the immediate vicinity of that location. As LBS become more common, their commercial value will become more readily evident to corporations, who can use them to personalize users’ experiences with location-aware weather, coupons, and advertising. This is already becoming more common, and will only continue to grow in the future.
An LBS begins by gathering a location for the device using one of its available methods, which could be through GPS, the GSM/CDMA Cell ID, or its IP Address, for example. Once it has a location in latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, it can then retrieve whatever additional information it is programmed to receive. This information is then presented to the user, most likely to be interacted with in some fashion.
Some popular examples of LBS are:
- Turn-by-turn navigation to an inputted address
- Notifications regarding traffic congestion or accidents
- Location of nearby businesses, restaurants, or other services
- Social interaction with other people nearby
- Safety applications for tracking members of a family
This list could go on and on, as there are countless things to be done with LBS today. LBS is a large part of geolocation today, but they are not the only services that use geolocation for their functionality.
Source: Holdener (2011). HTML5 Geolocation. O’Reilly Media, Inc.
API (Application Programming Interface)
“What’s an API?” When a new programmer asks this question, they typically get the answer, “an application programming interface.”
But APIs are so much more than their name suggests—and to understand and unleash their value, we must focus on the keyword interface.
An API is the interface that a software program presents to other programs, to humans, and, in the case of web APIs, to the world via the internet. An API’s design belies much about the program behind it—business model, product features, the occasional bug. Although APIs are designed to work with other programs, they’re mostly intended to be understood and used by humans writing those other programs.
APIs are the building blocks that allow interoperability for major business platforms on the web. APIs are how identity is created and maintained across cloud software accounts, from your corporate email address to your collaborative design software to the web applications that help you order pizza delivery. APIs are how weather forecast data is shared from a reputable source like the National Weather Service to hundreds of software apps that specialize in its presentation. APIs process your credit cards and enable companies to seamlessly collect your money without worrying about the minutiae of financial technology and its corresponding laws and regulations.
Source: Jin, Sahni and Shevat (2018). Designing Web APIs. O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Definition of GIS
GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, but the “S” is increasingly being used to stand for science and studies as well. Geographic Information Science, and Geographic Information Studies are used increasingly. No universally agreed-upon definition has been put forth. Surprisingly, a number of GIS texts do not even attempt to define the term.
Traditionally, GIS is a computer-based system for collecting, managing, analyzing, modeling, and presenting geographic data for a wide range of applications.
Geographic Information Science, then, is the discipline that studies and uses a GIS as a tool. GIS is not simply creating maps with a computer. The technology is a very powerful tool for analyzing spatial data; while maps can be and are produced with GIS, their main power is analytical.
GI scientists do not consider themselves primarily as mapmakers. Although they may produce maps as an end product, their primary emphasis is on analysis of the data. In fact, it is comparatively recently that GI systems people have given much thought to presentation of data.
Edited from: Tyner, J. (2010). Principles of Map Design. The Guilford Press.
Bengkel Laman Web
29 Oktober 2019. Bengkel Laman Web di Makmal Pengajaran 1, Bangunan N28A, Sekolah Perkomputeran, Fakulti Kejuruteraan, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Dikelolakan oleh Sdr. Mohd Sharul Hafiz bin Razak dari Unit Webmaster UTM.
Mobile Application Development
Mobile computing has changed the way we learn, interact with online services, and manage information. The popularity of handheld devices among people of all ages and cultures has increased the demand for highly interactive and user-friendly mobile apps. The multitude of sensors available on mobile devices such as GPS, ambient light sensing, and accelerometers have broadened the use of mobile apps in various application domains. Mobile apps vary widely, from weather forecasting and managing a patient’s health to providing online education, among many others.
Both students and lecturers of software engineering with a particular focus on mobile app development struggle to find a self-contained guide on how to follow the development life cycle of a mobile app project. In the great majority of these projects, the process generally follows a traditional software development life cycle—namely, setting up a set of requirements and then following an incremental development of the mobile app up to the achievement of acceptable functionality and design.
A mobile app is, however, very different from a desktop application. For instance, mobile apps are expected to run on multiple mobile operating systems, various screen sizes, and diverse technologies. Testing of mobile apps is therefore different from that of desktop applications. Additionally, mobile apps differ in their context of use and may need to take a number of factors into consideration including internet connection availability and speed, computational complexity, memory requirements, battery status, and accessibility features. These factors affect the software life cycle of a mobile app project and therefore more suitable architectures, design patterns, and testing approaches are needed. In practice, students as well as developers use their experience in desktop application development and customize the methodologies and tools to fit the particularities of a mobile app.
Source: Ghita Kouadri Mostefaoui Faisal Tariq (2019). Apps Engineering Design, Development, Security, and Testing. CRC Press.
GIS-Based Success Factors
Besides conducting a comprehensive needs assessment that helps adequately define the user needs and identify the available resources within the NSO and in the country, particularly the funding requirements, we need to consider critical factors to succeed in a full digital GIS-based census program. Chief among these factors are:
- ensuring senior management commitment to developing a long-term digital program;
- building the technical and human capacities required for sustaining the GIS-based systems and databases and setting up an independent unit for cartography and GIS activities within the NSO;
- using technical standards;
- forming a partnership to work together with the NMA and other groups that do things with geospatial information; and
- choosing the appropriate methodology of integration of the new geospatial technologies with the census mapping operations (compatibility).
These factors are revealed by survey-based study findings and lessons learned from country experiences during the last round of censuses in 2010.
See details in Australia Programme Review and the related background paper on Developing a Statistical Geospatial Framework in National Statistical Systems: Survey of Linking Geospatial Information to Statistics—Analysis of Questionnaire Responses (2013), available at https://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/44th-session/documents, and the UNSD report on the Results of a Survey on Census Methods Used by Countries in the 2010 Census Round, available at https://unstats.un.org/unsd/censuskb20/KnowledgebaseArticle10696.aspx.
Top five trends in GIS technology
According to Dangermond, the top five trends in GIS technology today are as follows:
- Location as a service
- Advanced analytics
- Big data analytics
- Real-time GIS
- Mobility
Dangermond continues: “The last leap in computing was the shift from the server to the cloud. Software as a service (SaaS) opened a world of opportunities for GIS, as shared map services like the World Imagery basemap are no longer separate from the unique services offered to users. GIS users can share data, collaborate, make mashup maps in the server, and then connect to the cloud.
The next leap in GIS technology and computing is connecting to the vast network of devices providing data in real time. This technology is a revolutionary change and brings great opportunity. The more accessible data is, the more important it will be to understand it. And maps are the visual language for understanding the context of data.”
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Esri Geodatabase
“The Esri geodatabase is object-relational and illustrates the object-oriented concepts extension brought to relational-based databases. The subsequent examples will rely on the use of this geodatabase.”
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Database Modeling
Using abstraction from concepts by humans to their implementation in the machine, database modeling relies generally on a three-tier model:
- A conceptual model involving the identification of the geographic features to be included in the database as entities/objects, the definition of their attributes, and how they relate to one another. An abstraction and objective representation of the real world independent from the DBMS software to be used.
- A logical model, a resulting outcome from the transformation of the conceptual model using the DBMS data model techniques (e.g., relational, object, or object-relational).
- A physical model, a resulting outcome from the transformation of the logical model, dealing with storage devices, file structure, and access methods that sort data records. A physical model deals with the storing and encoding of data—the lower-level data structure of the database.”
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Geocoding
Geocoding (geographically enabling unit records) is defined as the process of finding associated geographic coordinates (expressed in latitude and longitude) from other geographic data for the statistical units, such as street addresses or postal codes. (Geocoding is a way to ensure that the data “knows” where it is.)
In other words, geocoding involves taking location information for these statistical units (such as address) and linking this information to a location coordinate (i.e., x,y,z coordinates) and/or a small geographic area. The geocodes (the location coordinates and geographic areas codes) obtained from this process can be stored directly on the statistical unit record or linked in some way to the record. There is a common misunderstanding between geocoding and georeferencing, so it is important to emphasize that while they are related, they are quite different. Georeferencing is often done, for example, with raster images. Georeferencing is the process of referencing data against a known geospatial coordinate system by matching to known points of reference in the coordinate system so that the data can be analyzed, viewed, and queried with other geographic data.
In the GIS industry, geocoding is synonymous with address matching, which is the process of assigning map coordinate locations to addresses in a database.30 A GIS is capable of doing this by comparing the elements of an address or a table of addresses with the address attributes of a reference dataset—the GIS data layer used as the geographic reference layer (e.g., a city’s street centerlines layer)—to find a match (i.e., to determine whether particular address falls within an address range associated with a feature in the reference).
But the concept of geocoding goes beyond address matching. It covers a continuum of spatial scales: from individual housing units to EA levels, up to higher administrative or national levels. The use of GPS, directly capturing precise data at the level of point locations (latitude and longitude coordinates), allows the coding of centroids, building corners, or building point-of-entry coordinates for a unit such as a block of land, building, or dwelling.
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Open
“Many other considerations pertain to “open”: open data, open specifications, open APIs, open source, and, most importantly, open systems that are standards-compliant and interoperable for an open community.”
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Finding the best locations and paths
“A very common type of spatial analysis, and probably the one you are most familiar with, is optimization and finding the best of something. You might be looking for the best route to travel, the best path to ride a bicycle, the best corridor to build a pipeline, or the best location to site a new store.
Using multiple input variables or a set of decision criteria for finding the best locations and paths can help you make more informed decisions using your spatial data.
Types
• Finding the best locations that satisfy a set of criteria
• Finding the best allocation of resources to geographic areas
• Finding the best route, path, or flow along a network
• Finding the best route, path, or corridor across open terrain
• Finding the best supply locations given known demand and a travel network”
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Understanding Where
“If you don’t know where you are, you are lost. Understanding where is about putting the world in context. Where are you? What is around you? Very similar to when you were two years old, your journey of spatial analysis requires an understanding of how you fit into your geography.
Understanding where includes geocoding your data, putting it on a map, and symbolizing it in ways that can help you visualize and understand your data. Within the taxonomy of spatial analysis, the first category of understanding where contains three types of questions.
Types:
• Understanding where things are (location maps)
• Understanding where the variations and patterns in values are (comparative maps)
• Understanding where and when things change”
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Geoblockchain
“A blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. It is a ledger that records transactions in a verifiable, permanent way.”
“Geography is critically important to capture in a blockchain record, which is why we are now calling this a geoblockchain.”
“Adding location to the blockchain would provide enhanced security and validation because the same transaction cannot happen in two places at the same time. Use cases for blockchain being explored today include land title, supply chain, and data exchanges. The amount of data that will become available with systems like these is worth consideration and needs research.”
Excerpt From: Amor Laaribi. “GIS and the 2020 Census.” iBooks.
Development of Web-Based Application for Shapefile Coordinate System Conversion for Malaysia
By Elysonia Alim and Shahabuddin Amerudin
It is difficult to process GIS vector data when they are not aligned with one another. The need for different coordinate systems rose from the fact that some coordinate systems are better fitted to describe the geographical phenomenon occurring in a specific area. However, even commercial software had been proven to have questionable accuracy in coordinate system conversions. The purpose of this study is to develop a web application capable of converting the coordinate system of a GIS data format such as a shapefile for Peninsular Malaysia. The web application named Coordinate Conversion Application (CCA v1.1) was developed using Django 2.0 with Python 3.6 and is capable of five-coordinate transformations namely WGS84 to GDM2000 (forward and backward), WGS84 to MRSO (old) (forward only), MRSO (old) to Cassini (old) (forward and backward). Results obtained were compared with existing software such as GDTS v4.01 and ArcGIS 10.3, and analysis shows that CCA v1.1 has achieved satisfactory accuracy.
Published in Proceedings Asian Conference on Remote Sensing ACRS 2018 pg. 449
Development of Web-Based Application for Shapefile Coordinate System Conversion for Malaysia
Elysonia Alim and Shahabuddin Amerudin
Department of Geoinformation, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
Email: elysoniaalim@gmail.com; shahabuddin@utm.my
KEYWORDS: coordinate system, conversion, shapefile
ABSTRACT: It is difficult to process GIS vector data when they are not aligned with one another. The need for different coordinate systems rose from the fact that some coordinate systems are better fitted to describe the geographical phenomenon occurring in a specific area. However, even commercial software had been proven to have questionable accuracy in coordinate system conversions. The purpose of this study is to develop a web application capable of converting the coordinate system of a GIS data format such as a shapefile for Peninsular Malaysia. The web application named Coordinate Conversion Application (CCA v1.1) was developed using Django 2.0 with Python 3.6 and is capable of five-coordinate transformations namely WGS84 to GDM2000 (forward and backward), WGS84 to MRSO (old) (forward only), MRSO (old) to Cassini (old) (forward and backward). Results obtained were compared with existing software such as GDTS v4.01 and ArcGIS 10.3, and analysis shows that CCA v1.1 has achieved satisfactory accuracy.
Topic: Web GIS Applications