The Future of GIS

…if I really knew, would I still be here?

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Popular Mechanics, 1954???
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Lessons:
1. There are perils in predicting the future!
2. Never believe what you find on the Internet!
Picture submitted to an image modification competition in
2004, taken from an original photo found on U.S. Navy web
site of a submarine maneuvering room console mock-up at
the Smithsonian Institute in 2000
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Uses of GIS: no change
The primary three:
• manage data
• analyze data
• communicate information*
BUT
• relative importance shifting
• implementation technology changing
*information=data which serves a purpose
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Changing Emphases:

From Data to Analysis

Spatial Analysis
Spatial 5% Analysis

10-15% Attribute Tagging

Attribute Tagging

75% Data Conversion

Data Conversion:

Past Present/Future
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Changing Emphases
From Description to Simulation & Modeling
Visual simulation &
virtual reality:
Picture worth a
thousand words: real time display of
how is, and how might be
maps & diagrams of -forest fire
how is, or how was -freeway traffic flow

Web portals serve Web portals serve continuous

static data sets sensor-derived data

Past Future
Symbolic models: based on logical
Iconic models: scaled down
representations of the real thing relationships in mathematical or
statistical form
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 9:15 am 4:30 pm 10:15 pm
Population density (green is high) at different times during the
day tracked by cell phone data. Rome, Italy, July 10, 2006.
(note: cell phone location is constantly tracked by the network
to enable calls to be received.)
Applications: real time traffic information, transportation
planning, taxi-cab location, retail store location, etc., etc..
Source: The Economist, March 10-16, 2007 p. 20.

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Changing Emphases
from 2-D description to 4-D interaction
Past
• 2-D flat map displays
– User as observer
Future
• Effective 3-D visualization
– Via the merger of CAD and GIS?
– What is the data model?
• 4-D incorporation of time: “The time has come for time.”
– Via agent-based modeling / cellular automata? Or how?
• agents (e.g. vehicles, fires or people) interacting over time in a raster (cell)-based
environment according to established rules
• 5, 6 and 7-D incorporation of touch (pressure, texture, temperature), sound
and smell into modeling/simulation environment
– Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World “feelies” become reality?
• User as participant
– Users (researchers, professionals, the public) interact with the model
– Participatory GIS: the public as the planner

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Changing Emphases:
Out of this world

Past
– GIS applied to Planet Earth
Future
– GIS as a methodology for the analysis of spheres
• Other planets—Mars, Jupiter,
• The human brain
– One earth but many brains
– & visa-a-versa: does the brain use “maps” for organization?

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Technological Trends Underlying the Transition
Defense Conversion (and other) spin-offs
• Location via GPS
– millimeter accuracy
– available in every cellphone for E-
911
• super high capacity mass storage
– pettabyte and more systems
• high resolution (<1m) satellite remote
sensing
– High resolution: 60 cms now, 10cms
soon?
– Real time Google Earth?
• the communication revolution
– super high capacity networks
(Internet X), even to the home
• NSF’s 100x100 project:
100 Megabits to 100 million homes
– wireless (cellular) communication
with anything that moves anywhere
on earth
11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
Information Technology Evolution
• Interoperability: easier sharing of data between users,
and among vendor products
– Metadata
– Spatial Data Transfer Standards
– OpenGIS
– Mash-ups
• commercially enhanced data
– public data made dramatically more usable/useful
– Navtech maps replace TIGER
• spatial data tools in commercial DBMS* and
software dev. environments (e.g. VB**)
– ESRI SDE (spatial database engine)
– ESRI Map Objects & ArcObjects
• 3-tier computing, separating:
– user interface (client workstation)
– analysis (applications server)
– data (multiple distributed data servers)
*DBMS: data base management systems
**Visual Basic
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 Consequences

GIS gone by 2010?

(I used to say by year 2000)
Hopefully not!
…it will become mainstream
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Wither GIS?
some scenarios
• fundamental component of IS/IT
– value explode, name gone
• foundation for all data management?
– at best: geography becomes the basis for
data management
– at least: spatial data base management tools
come with all commercial DBMSs so
geography can enhance the enterprise data
base
• gis components embedded in everyday
objects
– cell phones, pagers, cars, truck cabs, aircraft
cockpits
• gis capabilities available as modules within
standard software application development
environments
– VB, C++, Java, Peoplesoft, Delphi
11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas
• gis/am/fm functionality purchased as
undifferentiated component of a business
application information system
– outage management for utilities
– city business package
– package tracking system (pizza or spare
parts)
• general public as GIS analyst
– Web-based community information systems
• neighborhood crime control : police or
citizen?
– poets that don’t know it
• Google Earth Sketch-up
– Bloggers as GIS analysts: they know the
local scene
• And Google is bringing free, simplified
mapping tools
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GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Consequences: for GI Services
• Services now the 4th “S” in GIS
• location based services
for organization . for individual
• Map facilities where I am
• Geocode customers where I want to go
• Route deliveries how I get there
• Analyze the market what is there
• Content tailored for current location, not the desktop
• Mobile
• Handheld
• Interactive
• Evolution involves
Past Future
– Few applications -> many and varied
– Few users -> many
– Standalone -> web
– Fixed -> mobile

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Consequences: for GI Specialists
(the fifth “S” for GIS?)
geospatial information scientists, specialists (or students)
– appreciative of the broad ranging, integrative role geospatial data can play
• location is the most common common denominator for all data
– highly knowledgeable with respect to the unique challenges of geospatial
data
• The challenges posed by a spherical earth (datums, projections,etc.)
• The complexity of spatial data representation in 2-D and 3-D
• The challenges of spatial statistics and modeling
– fully conversant with mainstream information technology
• and how to store and program spatial objects
– sufficient expertise in an application area (geology, local government,
marketing, etc.) to make a contribution.

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Consequences for GIS
Data is still at the heart
• Dominant IT (Information technology) issues:
– Hardware in the 1970s and 1980s
– Software in the 1980s and 1990s
– Data in the 2000s
• Not an issues of acquiring data, but of managing it
• Will we be short of it, or drowning in it?
• Will its availability be
– Plentiful and cheap
– in infinite detail, if you can afford it
– Severely curtailed by legal controls
to ensure personal privacy

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Consequences for GIS:
is a Tragedy of the Commons in the making?
• Invasions of privacy through detailed data collection and its
pervasive distribution produces a backlash of demand for privacy
– No call, no spam, no appraisal photos, no red light cameras (now
reversed): are they the beginning?
– Could geotagging with RFID devices become reality
• From pets to people
• for sex offenders, service personnel, employees, evacuees, everybody?
• The expense of data production, but the ease of re-production and
distribution, reduces the value of data to zero and chokes off its
availability
– Is public domain data the information age equivalent of the agricultural
commons?

What are the appropriate public policy responses?

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Or is this the future?
A Self Generating System
Better data

More investment in More GIS use

Data/GIS

Better decisions

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Or this?

Microdrone $21,367
Base Station $19,424
Video Transmitter $1,545
Video Receiver $1,000
Daylight Video $1,545
Lowlight Video $3,100
GPS Hold $1,934

Complete Package $59,681

August 2007

Source: http://www.microdrones.com/
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Conclusion
• Our only model for the future is the past
• think back as many years as you are looking
forward
– change has been both revolutionary.. and glacial
• don’t forget that the pace of change is accelerating
– maybe just gearing-up for the information age, not
reaching its climax
• but remember,we have to get there from here
– can you envision a path?
• if we knew the future, we wouldn’t be here!

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 GIS Futures
Some Detail on earlier concepts
• What GIS Technology Could Deliver
– Efficiency and Effectiveness
– Targeted Communication
– data as an institutional asset
• Operating Environments in which Delivered
– business and governments
– computing technology
– information architectures
– interoperability
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 What GIS Technology Could Deliver:
Efficiency and Effectiveness

• Cost efficient, quality service to customers: the key to

future business success
• mapping to manage potentially transforms organizations
• geography is the key to cost efficiency for pizza delivery or cellular
radio towers
• communications with citizens: the key to future public
sector success
• map based information is the key to intuitive information delivery
– travel directions (www.mapquest.com)
– natural or social environmental degradation (http://www.epa.gov/tri/)
– land ownership (www.dallascad.org)
– General public data (www.accu-source.com, www.publicdata.com,
www.openrecords.org)
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 What GIS Technology Could Deliver:
Targeted Communication
Displaying data differently for today’s target constituency:
• governor *CC: Chamber of Commerce
• recalcitrant group of legislators DRT: Daughters of the Republic of Texas
• DAR: Daughters of the American Revolution
activist (pissed-off) citizen posse
VFW: Veterans of Foreign Wars
• CC, DRT, DAR, VFW, CCNA Tuesday luncheon*
CCNA: Canyon Creek Neighborhood Association
• general public
• 6th grade class
Do-It-Yourself extraction from Societal Databases
• large, networked databases accessible to public at low/no cost
• free browser software (e.g ArcExplorer)
Content tailored for current location
• The mobile, handheld, interactive GI services revolution

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 What GIS Technology Could Deliver:
Data as an Institutional Asset
Data holdings, managed by GIS, as an asset on
private and public corporation balance sheets.
• no company does this today, yet
• billions spent on data acquisition and development
In the information age, information is an asset no
different from buildings, unsold inventory, and
machinery.
In 2000s, companies delivering information content
become dominant over hardware (1980s) and
software (1990s) companies.

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Operating Environments:
Business & Governments
• customers and citizens take charge
– requirements for service defined by customer/citizen not the provider
– demand more in shorter time at lower cost than you ever intended to deliver
– lower taxes/prices and more service
– Henry’s “any color you want as long as its black” no longer cuts it
• competition is relentless
– more people wanting to do what you do
– private sector assumes (or re-assumes) many gov. tasks.
• change is constant
– Government evolves from driver to consumer of technology
– Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software rather than custom designed
• decentralization to the individual
– Much new technology is not new: its been around for a while, so what’s new?
• Computers, video recorders, fax, wireless
– Dramatic price drops make it as available to individuals as to organizations

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Operating Environments:
Computing Technology: Predictions from Spring 96

• 2,000AD desktop machine

– 1,000 MIPS/MHertz
– 8 Gigabyte RAM (permits data in memory)
– 100+ mb/sec comm. line (to the home?)
• Windows95/NT merge challenges UNIX
• Java /Netscape challenges Microsoft

(prediction as of Spring 96)

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Operating Environments:
Computing Technology: Predictions from Fall 99
• Desktop loses its dominance
– Variety of computing appliances: palmtops on up
• Computers act rather than just process
– Old model: human enters data, computer processes it, human receives and acts
– New model: data from sensors & transducers, computer processes, computer
acts to get job done
• Data and computation become real time
– Old model: processing archived data to guide future action
– New Model: processing current data to control current action
• Information and its processing at any and every place
– Mobile and wireless dominate over fixed and wired
– Info access no matter where I am, where data resides, what its format is

Concepts derived from Tennenhouse, Director, DARPA, May 1998

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Operating Environments: Information Architecture
(more 1999 predictions which have come to pass)
• server and client clearly separated
– GIS vendors specialize in client and/or applications server
– mainstream database vendors provide data server(s)
(traditionally, GIS vendors used proprietary, not mainstream, databases)
• client systems primarily comprise browsers which receive data combined with
software as “applets” or objects from the applications server
– e.g. receive data and zoom/view software
– potentially simplifies software management
– big software systems are decomposed into components (“objects”), which are then re-
assembled by user (or developer) as desired.
• mainstream data base vendors meet GIS/AM/FM needs for:
– long transaction processing
• current DBMS systems assume immediate transaction processing, but
• a drawing or map takes time to be modified
– replication of data files
• considered a no-no in current DBMS, but
• two people need to work on the same map area

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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
 Operating Environments:
Interoperability
• Spatial Data Interchange Formats
– VPF (Vector Product Format): US Military for
map products; directly useable by applications
– DXF (Data Exchange Format): originated by
AutoCAD
– SDTS (Spatial Data Transfer Standard):
currently required for Federal Agencies
Except for VPF, involve translation (from internal
private to external public format), therefore
inefficient.
• Between Standard Data Base Systems
– SQL (Structured Query Language)
• standardized (supposedly) user-oriented
(supposedly) data request
– ODBC (Open Database Connectivity)
• standardized (by Microsoft) programming
(‘call’) level interface to databases
11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals
• Between GIS Systems and other applications
– COM/OLE (Common Object Model/Object Linking and
Embedding): originated by Microsoft
– CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture)
Two competing standards for object-based technology.
• Between GIS Systems Themselves (for data)
– SQL3 --SQL extended to support spatial (and other
multimedia) data queries
– ISO TC211--International Standards Organization Tech.
Committee on spatial data
– ANSI X3L1 (American National Standards Institute,
GIS Committee)--US view for ISO
– OGC (Open GIS Consortium)--Open Geodata
Interoperability Specification (OGIS)
• Metadata--data describing data
– datum and projection, accuracy and lineage, etc.
– FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee) Metadata
standard
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 Next Generation Satellites
• NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) signed NextView contracts for
development of next generation of commercial satellites, with DOD being given
priority access in times of need
• Digitalglobe contract in fall 2003, focused on
– Higher resolution
– Delivery time to customer
• 3 hours now (Iraq war)
• Future: 90 minutes standard, 20 minutes “rush jobs”
– WorldView-1 launched September 2007
• .5 m panchromatic
• 1.7 days revisit
– WorldView-2 launch 2008
• .5 panchromatic and 1.8 multispectral (4)
• 1 day revisit
– Supplier for Google Earth
• Orbimage contract in fall 2004
– OrbView 5 satellite to launch early 2007 (now early 2008)
– 0.41 m panchromatic, 1.64 m multispectral (4 bands)
– 3 m. position accuracy
– 3 day revisit
– Downlink imagery real time to ground station
Note: the award of this contract to Orbimage resulted in their acquisition of Space Imaging
(which failed to get the contract) in January 2006 and renaming of the combined entities as
GeoEye. OrbView 5 now called GeoEye-1
http://www.geoeye.com/corporate/constellation.htm
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11/19/2007 Ron Briggs, UTDallas GISC 6381 GIS Fundamentals