Few, if any, technology products reach a worldwide audience hotter than mobile devices. I’m talking about smartphones, tablets, handhelds, and even notebooks to some extent. When’s the last time you bought a desktop computer?
As I mentioned in my March 23 Geospatial Solutions column, at the GIS in Action conference I asked a Google presenter if he thought the mobile phone is going to be the primary mobile device people will carry. He said, “No, it’s going to be the tablet computer.”
The competition certainly seems to be between the smartphone and the tablet, or maybe a hybrid version of the two. From a geospatial user perspective, we’ve been showered these past few months with tablet device offerings.
1. Kindle Fire. The most significant tablet computer introduced since the iPad two years ago. Its low price has opened up the tablet market to a new level of adopters. Kindle Fire is the poster child for the many, many Android-based tablets on the market from Sony, Samsung, Motorola, LG, ASUS, etc.
Salient features: Wi-Fi, Android operating system, web browsing, less than US$200. It’s all about the low price.
Oops: Doesn’t run the latest Google Android operating system.
Adoption: 5+ million sold since its introduction last fall.
2. Apple iPad. This product started the new revolution in tablet computing. Apple’s proprietary style may hurt it as competition from Google Android devices heats up.
Salient Features: The defacto standard for tablet computing. Apps, apps, apps, and more apps. Shares the same operating system as the iPhone and iTouch.
Oops: One trick pony. There is only one iPad. Google will license Android to almost anyone. Closed Bluetooth so you can’t interface to external instruments (GPS, laser rangefinders, etc.).
Salient Features: Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. GIS software compatibility.
Oops: Battery life, expensive.
Geospatial apps: Take your pick. Virtually any GIS app designed for Windows XP/7 will run on these tablets.
Adoption: Weak. Although Microsoft has been promoting tablet computers for 10+ years, they are getting beat up in the tablet market, at least with the general public. The Windows operating system still has a lot of value with professional users due to software/workflow compatibility. Be on the lookout for Windows 8 and Microsoft Office apps (optimized for low power, etc.) as Microsoft tries to leverage the power of Windows and match the appeal of the Ipad.
Look for more coverage on smartphones and handhelds soon.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece titled, “The Struggles of a City GIS Manager.” With government budgets being cut 15+%, one of the activities that always seems to be included in the discussion is GIS. When the GIS is up and running, has the GIS manager worked his/her way out of a job? I thought I’d revisit the subject and mention a recent report released on the return on investment (ROI) of King County’s (Washington) GIS after 20 years in service.
At a recent municipal public meeting on transportation I attended, the issue of pavement management was being discussed in detail along with a report from a company hired to rate the condition of road system within the municipality. The Pavement Condition Index (PCI) was reported for each municipal road segment in tabular format. As you can imagine, with ~100 miles of road in the municipality, the tabular list was overwhelming…page after page after page of text. How does one interpret and make decisions based on data that’s difficult to interpret? Of course, I asked whether the data was available in a “GIS format” so that the citizens could more easily visualize the condition of each road segment. The answer was yes, but this was not included in the service contract. Then the conversation turned to using the in-house GIS department (one full-time + part-time) to integrate the tabular data into the municipality’s street data. Someone asked, “Can they do that?” The answer was yes, technically they can, but they are busy working on other projects.
I think one of the reasons that municipal GIS departments seem to always be in the budget-cut discussion is because elected officials, and probably municipal executive management, don’t understand how valuable it can be. The PCI study was a great example. When the city ordered the PCI assessment, it declined the $2,000-3,000 option to have the data delivered in GIS-ready format. However, once a city councilor scanned the gobs of PCI data in the report and understood how difficult it would to interpret the data for the city council, city staff, and the public, the councilor stated, “Our food budget is more than that.” In other words, a no brainer decision to spend the $3,000.
Municipal GIS managers, as much as they may not want to, need to be promoting their services within city government. How about a GIS Day event within city government where GIS departments can showcase their capabilities to the various city departments? Unfortunately, it can’t be a one-time event. This is a continuing education process. People who aren’t knee-deep into GIS have a lot of information being thrown at them every day. There’s no way to consume it all and we shouldn’t expect them to. Therefore, it’s all about consistent reinforcement of the concepts and capabilities of the GIS department so when the engineering or public works department is considering infrastructure work, GIS is somewhere in their train of thought.
On another note, King County (Seattle, WA) commissioned a consulting firm to analyze the benefits of the use of GIS in King County. According to the report, King County set up its GIS in 1992. The analysis was performed for the period 1992-2010.
Conclusions drawn from the analysis were quite impressive:
“Even by our most conservative estimate (in which we discount past cash flows at 3%, assume a diminished value for outputs in excess of 1992 levels, and interpolate past benefits using a B/C ratio that decreases by 10% per year), King County’s GIS program is estimated to have earned $776,361,408 in net benefits from 1992 to 2010.”
That’s $776 million, folks.
You can read the executive summary of the report here.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain a few weeks ago, a company called Loctronix introduced meter-level indoor positioning technology. “In 50 meters, turn left to find Macy’s Department store” is not very far in our future. This technology and others one step closer to making accurate indoor navigation possible so you can navigate from store-to-store inside a shopping mall or even navigate to particular items within a particular store.
It’s all about sensor fusion. CSR’s SiRFstar V/SiRFusion technology uses data from all available satellite navigation systems from the U.S., Europe, Russia, China and Japan, as well as WiFi, cellular systems, accelerometers, gyros, and compasses. Loctronix calls their technology Doppler Aided Inertial Navigation (DAIN) and Spectral Compression Positioning (SCP) which allows them to obtain one meter positioning outdoors, indoors, and even underground without relying on external servers with the following features:
Client-based, sensor fusion software platform producing real-time position, speed, direction of motion, and heading information.
Optional integrated GPS/GNSS signal and navigation processing – using Loctronix’ SCP hybrid technology.
Fully integrated map-matching functionality with support for third-party map data.
Optional WiFi RSSI location and access point profiling.
Third-party LBS API support.
Multiple implementation options supporting existing smartphones and next-generation wireless devices.
Think about what would happen if indoor positioning is actually implemented per the above, able to deliver one meter accuracy. Less than ten years ago, the automobile Personal Navigation Device (PND) market was in its infancy. GPS positioning was clearly able to deliver the accuracy required for point-to-point street navigation. What makes the PND valuable is the outdoor map database. These are the highly detailed digital maps from Navteq/Nokia and TeleAtlas/TomTom that are inside 90% of the PNDs in the world. Drawing from this experience, it’s obvious that indoor mapping databases are going to be huge, not only the location of stores, but the location of items on the shelves within stores. A friend of mine works for a large national retail chain in the U.S. He said they’ve tried aisle-to-aisle navigation technology before, and it failed. It was too difficult for the shopper to use. What that tells me is that the demand is there, in a big way.
The PND market in the 1990s was messing around too, trying to arrive at a technology and price point for mass adoption. Indoor navigation is on the same path, only this time it won’t be Navteq/Nokia and TeleAtlas/TomTom leading the pack.
At the GIS In Action 2012 conference last week, I asked a Google presenter if he thought the mobile phone is going to be the primary mobile device people will carry. He said, “No, it’s going to be the tablet computer.”
Certainly the Apple iPad, since its introduction in April 2010, has sparked the tablet computer business. Google’s Android operating system has done its share of stimulating the tablet business, and just in the last few months, the fantastic success of the Kindle Fire (based on the Android operating system) has given Apple something to think about. I bought my wife a Kindle Fire for Christmas a few months ago. For the most part, it has replaced her notebook computer for the majority of her computing activities.
It’s not that the Kindle has amazing functionality and zippy computer power. The beauty of the Kindle Fire is that it’s inexpensive ($199), and has the basic features that make it very useful; web browsing, email, and ebook reading. The previous ebook readers by Kindle lacked web browsing and email functionality, so they were limited to being pure ebook readers. You can bet that the Kindle Fire has Apple thinking twice charging $600 for an iPad.
Continuing the subject of low-priced tablet computers, the I-slate, developed by the Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID), a joint venture of Houston’s Rice University and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, is being developed for the educational environment and has a targeted price of $45. Yes, $45 U.S. dollars.
Check out the following story:
India’s Mahabubnager District, Indian non-profit Villages for Development and Learning Foundation (ViDAL), Rice University and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore announced that the district plans to adopt 50,000 of the low-cost electronic I-slate tablet computer into middle and high school classrooms over the next three years.
According to the announcement, the I-slate, a low-cost learning tool designed for classrooms with no electricity and too few teachers, is under joint development by the I-slate Consortium, which includes hardware and software experts at Rice and NTU, social outreach partners from ViDAL, and a Los Angeles-based design team.
The district of Mahabubnagar in the Indian state Andhra Pradesh has about 500,000 students in government schools. Consortium leaders and Mahabubnagar officials said they hope to supply I-slates to at least 10 percent of the students over the next three years.
“The I-slate project is about empowering local communities with education and knowledge,” said Rajeswari Pingali, ViDAL founding chairwoman. “Based on two years of lab-to-school testing rounds, today we have a fully functional I-slate which will be adapted by the district education department for expanding the footprint of technology and bringing learning opportunities backed by the latest in modern communication technology for the benefit of rural communities.”
According to the announcement, about 30 fourth-generation I-slates were delivered this month to a class of 10- to 13-year-olds at the Mohamed Hussainpalli Village School, which is located in Mahabubnagar District, about 70 miles from Hyderabad. The new I-slates are the first to feature a new “sense-optimized” user interface designed to improve educational outcomes in rural India.
“Sense optimization is a systematic way of improving the user experience by taking advantage of our knowledge of how the human brain processes the information so we can invest the minimum amount of resources for the effectiveness level we’re trying to reach,” said I-slate creator Krishna Palem, a professor at both Rice and NTU. “The I-slate is not a tablet computer. It is a device designed for a single purpose — education in a low-resource environment.”
Mahabubnagar is primarily rural and has a population of around 4 million. District officials plan to use the I-slate in middle and high school classrooms. With sufficient volume, the unit cost for the I-slate will be around $45 (56 Singapore dollars), Palem said.
Palem, Rice’s Ken and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computing, initially conceived the I-slate in 2008. He thought power consumption would be the biggest hurdle, because many rural schools in India lack electricity, and a solar-powered I-slate would need to run on no more than three watts of power. However, as soon as students in Mohamed Hussainpalli Village began testing early prototypes, it became obvious that usability and effectiveness would also be a challenge.
The I-slate’s Los Angeles-based design team, which includes Marc Mertens, CEO of the Seso Media Group, and project leader Henrik Andersson, volunteered their time to work with ViDAL, NTU specialists in human-computer interaction and Rice student interns. The designers evaluated feedback from children at Mohamed Hussainpalli Village School and spent thousands of hours scrutinizing the placement and flow of features and the way children interacted with the I-slate both visually and by touch.
It was reported that the designers incorporated elements from video games and social networking to draw students in and hold their interest. For example, a colorful cartoon creature in the corner of the I-slate screen watches the student and changes expression based upon the child’s actions. The more the student studies and the better her grades, the happier the creature appears. (EDITOR’S NOTE: to see the user interface in action, watch the video linked at the end of this release.)
The I-slate is a joint project of the Rice-NTU Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID). Palem, who directs ISAID, is a Nanyang Visiting Professor at NTU.
“It is very exciting to see the early work on the I-slate expand to a larger user base,” said ISAID affiliate Vincent Mooney, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech, who worked on the I-slate as a visiting faculty member at NTU.
According to the announcement, the hardware and graphic content for the I-slate are being developed in tandem because they will ultimately use a revolutionary low-power computer chip — another of Palem’s inventions. The new chip, which could be ready for use in the I-slate by 2013, will cut power requirements in half and allow the device to run on solar power from small panels similar to those used on handheld calculators.
Even if you aren’t a basketball fan, you’ve likely heard the term “March Madness” over the years. It refers to a time when the best U.S. college basketball teams compete for the championship title. Demonstrating the diversity of GIS, a Harvard University professor has introduced an interesting method of analyzing basketball team and player performance using GIS spatial analysis techniques.
At the MIT (Massachussets Insitute of Technology) Sloan Sports Analytics Conference 2012 (March 2-3, 2012), Harvard Professor Dr. Kirk Goldsberry presented Court Vision, “a new esemble of analytical techniques designed to quantify, visualize, and communicate spatial aspects of NBA performance and unprecedented precision and clarity.”
Dr. Goldsberry argues that conventional performance metrics, such as shooting percentage, ignore spatial information. This is odd, Dr. Goldsberry explains, because basketball is a spatial sport. For example, the NBA players with the top shooting percentages are all forwards or centers, who typically shoot from shorter distances than players in the guard position. Without analyzing the spatial shooting tendencies, key scoring phenenom remain misunderstood and coaches and players are missing out on an opportunity to accurately analyze and refine their strategies.
Who’s the Best NBA Shooter?
“Data: Using game data sets for every NBA game played between 2006 and 2011, we compiled a spatial field goal database that included Cartesian coordinates (x,y) for every field goal attempted in this 5-year period. This data set includes player name, shot location, and shot outcome for over 700,000 field goal attempts. We mapped the shot data atop a base map of a NBA basketball court (Figure 1). Although a regulation NBA court is 4,700 ft2, (50ft x 94ft), almost all (>98%) field goal attempts occur within a 1,284 ft2 area in between the baseline and a relatively thin buffer around the 3-point arc; we call this area the “scoring area.” We divided the scoring area into a grid consisting of 1,284 unique “shooting cells,” each 1 ft2 (Figure 1). To quantify shooting range, we applied spatial analyses to evaluate shooting performance across the grid and within each shooting cell.”
NBA field goal attempts 2006-2011 (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry).NBA field goal attempts (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry)
“Our composite shot maps from 2006-2011 NBA game data. The first map summarizes the density of all field goal attempts during the study period. The second map reveals league-wide tendencies in both shot attempts and points per attempt. Larger squares indicate areas where many field goals were attempted; smaller squares indicate fewer attempts. The color of the squares is determined by a spectral color scheme and indicates the average points per attempt for each location. Orange areas indicate areas where more points result from an average attempt, and blue areas indicate fewer points per attempt.”
“We derived metrics that described spatial aspects of shooting performance throughout the scoring area. The most basic metric is called “Spread,” which is simply a count of the unique shooting cells in which a player has attempted at least one field goal. The raw result is a number between 0 and 1,284 and summarizes the spatial diversity of a player’s shooting attempts. By dividing this count by 1,284 and multiplying by 100, we generated Spread%, which indicates the percentage of the scoring area in which a player has attempted at least one field goal.”
“Spread describes the overall size of a player’s shooting territory. League leaders in FG% generally have a small Spread value since they tend to only shoot near the basket. For example, since centers generally thrive in limited areas near the hoop they tend to have lower Spread values than shooting guards. Kobe Bryant has the highest spread value in the NBA (table 1); Bryant’s value of 1,071 indicates he has attempted field goals in 1,071 of the 1,284 shooting cells or 83.4% of the scoring area. In contrast, Dwight Howard has attempted field goals in only 23.8% of the shooting cells. Although Spread% favors players who simply shoot frequently, it also reveals that some players like Dwight Howard who do shoot a lot, only do so in limited court spaces. For example, Al Jefferson attempted 400 more field goals than Ray Allen during the study period, yet his Spread value is only 595 (46.3%), while Ray Allen’s is 952 (74.1%). Visual depictions of the spread variable expose the stark differences in individual players’ spatial shooting behaviors. Via the graduated symbol cartographic technique, figure 2 reveals the spatial structure of Al Jefferson and Ray Allen’s field goal attempts during the study period. Jefferson is highly active in the central areas near the basket, and clearly favors posting up defenders on the right side of the court. Meanwhile, Ray Allen is highly active behind the 3-point arc; he attempts many 3-point field goals, but is relatively inactive from mid-range areas.”
Spread variable for Al Jefferson (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry)Spread variable for Ray Allen (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry)
“These Spread visualizations reveal a player’s basic shooting tendencies, but tell us nothing about potency. Shooting skill requires more than just attempts; the best shooters in the league are able to make baskets at effective rates from many court locations. To describe the spatial potency of players we created a metric called “Range,” which is a count of the number of unique shooting cells in which a player averages at least 1 point per attempt (PPA). PPA varies considerably around the court. As anyone who has ever shot a basketball knows, the probability of a shot attempt resulting in a made basket is spatially dependent; some shots are easier than others, and some players are unable to shot effectively from most court locations. Range accounts for spatial influences on shooting effectiveness. It is essentially a count of the number of shooting cells in which a player averages more than 1 PPA; we chose PPA over FG% because it inherently accounts for the differences between 2-point and 3-point field goal attempts.”
“By dividing this count by 1,284 and multiplying by 100, we generated Range%, which indicates the percentage of the scoring area in which a player averages more than 1 PPA. Steve Nash is ranked first. He has a Range value of 406, indicating that he averages over 1 PPA from 406 unique shooting cells, or 31.6% of the scoring area. Ray Allen was ranked second (30.1%), Kobe Bryant (29.8%) was third, and Dirk Nowitzki (29.0%) was fourth (table 2). Figure 3 visualizes the shooting range of these four players.”
“Steve Nash has the highest Range% in our case study, but does this mean he is the best shooter in the NBA? That obviously remains debatable; however it is certain that over the last few NBA seasons, Nash and Ray Allen are the most effective shooters from the most diverse court locations. The average shooter in the NBA has a Range% of 18.5, meaning they score efficiently from 18.5% of the scoring area. Nash and Allen are the only two players in the league whose Range% values exceed 30%; only a handful of players in the league average more than 1 PPA from at least 25% of the scoring zone (table 2), and unsurprisingly, despite being among the leaders in FG%, Dwight Howard (Range% = 6.5) and Nene Hilario (Range% = 3.7) are not on that list. Whether the Range% metric is the best way of quantifying shooting range or not, it seems to capture pure shooting ability better than FG% or eFG%.”
The following images depict the shooting ranges of Steve Nash, Ray Allen, Dirk Nowitzki, and Kobe Bryant. According to Dr. Goldsbery, “these four players had the highest range values, but these graphics reveal that they achieve them in much different ways. For example, when compared to the three others, Dirk Nowitzki shoots relatively few 3-point shots and performs much better in the mid-range areas on the left side of the court, while Ray Allen excels in the corners of the court where Steve Nash rarely shoots.”
Steve Nash shooting range (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry)Ray Allen shooting range (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry)Dirk Nowitzky shooting range (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry)Kobe Bryant shooting range (Source: Dr. Kirk Goldsberry)
“Steve Nash has the highest Range% in our case study, but does this mean he is the best shooter in the NBA? That obviously remains debatable; however it is certain that over the last few NBA seasons, Nash and Ray Allen are the most effective shooters from the most diverse court locations. The average shooter in the NBA has a Range% of 18.5, meaning they score efficiently from 18.5% of the scoring area. Nash and Allen are the only two players in the league whose Range% values exceed 30%; only a handful of players in the league average more than 1 PPA from at least 25% of the scoring zone (table 2), and unsurprisingly, despite being among the leaders in FG%, Dwight Howard (Range% = 6.5) and Nene Hilario (Range% = 3.7) are not on that list. Whether the Range% metric is the best way of quantifying shooting range or not, it seems to capture pure shooting ability better than FG% or eFG%.”
To view Dr. Goldsberry’s complete paper, click here.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are making inroads as geospatial data collection devices (aerial photography). The laws governing the use of UAVs varies widely from country to country. In some countries, UAVs are being used, as we speak, for snapping aerial photographs for digital mapping (GIS). In the U.S., however, the commercial use of UAVs is prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
However, that is changing.
Current FAA UAV Policy
The FAA published a UAV Fact Sheet in July 2011. Summarized:
Recreational UAVs (model aircraft). Recreational use generally limits operations to below 400 feet above ground level and away from airports and air traffic.
Experimental UAVs. A Special Airworthiness Certificates in the Experimental Category (SAC-EC) is the only method available for civil users operate UAVs. While it allows for research and development, market surveys and crew training, it prohibits operating UAVs for profit-making entities.
Public UAVs. The Certificates of Waiver or Authorization (COA) process is available to public entities, including military, law enforcement, and other governmental agencies who want to fly a UAS in civil airspace. Applicants apply online and the FAA evaluates the request. The FAA issues a COA generally based on the following principles:
The COA authorizes an operator to use defined airspace and includes special provisions unique to the proposed operation. For instance, a COA may include a requirement to operate only under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and/or only during daylight hours. Most COAs are issued for a specified time period (up to one year, in most cases).
Most COAs require coordination with an appropriate air traffic control facility and may require the UAS to have a transponder to operate in certain types of airspace.
Due to the inability of UAS to comply with “see and avoid” rules as manned aircraft operations do, a visual observer or an accompanying “chase” aircraft must maintain visual contact with the UAS and serve as its “eyes” when operating outside of airspace that is restricted from other users.
To see how UAVs might be used for digital mapping, click on the following image to display a video (~ 5 minutes).
Fast forward to 2012. The FAA is revising the rules governing the usage of UAVs, including commercial usage. Read a USA Today article about it by clicking here.
Last month, President Obama signed into law a bill that orders the FAA to figure out how to integrate commercial UAV usage into the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS). This is exciting times for UAVs.
As a result, on March 7, 2012 the FAA issued a press release asking “for public input on the agency’s selection process for six unmanned aircraft system (UAS) test sites. Once the pilot program is established, the agency expects it will provide valuable data to help the FAA safely and efficiently integrate UAS into the same airspace with manned airplanes”.
The FAA also posted, on the Federal Register, a Request for Public Comment regarding the selection of the six test sites. You can read a detailed discussion presented by the FAA by clicking here. You can view a March 2012 FAQ on this discussion, published by the FAA, by clicking here.
UAV technology is going to move forward very fast. As it’s clear the FAA will open up commercial usage of UAVs in the U.S., you should see a lot of really cool UAV techology developments continuing to surface. I think it’s so significant that I’ve invited some UAV experts to speak at our Field Technology Conference this September in Portland, Oregon and have made it part of our keynote session. Look for more details on registering for the Field Technology Conference in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, following is a short Youtube video of last years conference.
Join GPS World’s Survey and GIS Editor Eric Gakstatter March 15 for the webinar, “Everything Else but GPS: How GLONASS, Galileo, and Compass Will Affect High-Precision Users.” The webinar will be held at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. ET/6 pm. GMT); registration is free.
“In a rapidly changing world — which is the world of GPS and GNSS — those who invest significant amounts of their operating capital in hardware must plan carefully for the future,” said Gakstatter, who serves as moderator of the webinar. “Will your survey receiver remain relevant and up to date long enough for you to recoup your investment? How could taking advantage of newly operational constellations improve your efficiency and competitiveness? GLONASS is operational now. Compass has put forward a very aggressive schedule for regional and then global operations. Galileo is moving steadily forward.”
Gakstatter closely follows all these systems, and can relate their capabilities — current and future — directly to surveyors’ needs. His guest speakers will add to the insight. This webinar is required listening for anyone planning to stay on survey’s leading edge.
The LightSquared machine continues to implode as CEO Sanjiv Ahuja and Executive Vice President Martin Harriman resigned last week in the wake of the NTIA recommendations against LightSquared rolling out their system. This week, Bloomberg reported that Sprint will end its infrastructure sharing deal with LightSquared. Meanwhile, the FCC is accepting public comments on the NTIA’s recommendations.
On February 28, 2012, LightSquared announced that CEO Sanjiv Ahuja and Executive VP Martin Harriman resigned. Forbes reported that Ahuja will remain as LightSquared board chairman. LightSquared announced that Harbinger Capital Partners CEO Phil Falcone was appointed to the LightSquared board of directors. Chief Network Officer Doug Smith and Chief Financial Officer Marc Montagner will serve as interim co-chief operating officers while the search for a new CEO is underway. Amid the announcement, Falcone remained steadfast that LightSquared is focused on finding a solution.
“We are, furthermore, committed to working with the appropriate entities to find a solution to the recent regulatory issues. We, of course, agree that it is critical to ensure that national security, aviation and the GPS communities are protected. I am confident that working together, we can solve this problem…,” said Falcone.
In the week prior, on February 20, Reuters reported that LightSquared missed a $56.25M payment due to satellite partner Inmarsat. While LightSquared stated that Imarsat hadn’t completed it’s obligations, Inmarsat said it was negotiating with LightSquared but didn’t know if or when a payment would be made. Inmarsat issued a notice of default, starting the 60-day clock in which LightSquared has to resolve the issue. Inmarsat is a vital partner as LightSquared needs rights to certain MSS spectrum that Inmarsat has rights to. LightSquared has paid Inmarsat a total of $420M under their agreement, of which $260M was paid in 2011.
Inmarsat isn’t the only vital partner not happy with LightSquared. Yesterday (March 6), Bloomberg reported that Sprint will opt out of its infrastructure sharing agreement with LightSquared. LightSquared had planned to use 31,000 Sprint towers, in addition to contributing 3,400 of its own towers, to roll out their system. Building its own towers from scratch would be prohibitively expensive and would not allow LightSquared to meet the roll out schedule detailed in the January 26, 2011, FCC order.
The LightSquared-Sprint agreement is contingent on LightSquared gaining FCC approval. The original agreement expired December 31, 2011. Sprint agreed to grant a 30-day extension, some speculating for ~$20M. At the end of January, Sprint granted another extension, this time for 45 days, to March 15. Rumors are circulating that Sprint is done granting extensions. To date, LightSquared has paid Sprint $310M in prepayment for work. Sprint’s SEC filing last month stated that if LightSquared doesn’t achieve FCC approval by the agreed date (now March 15), Sprint is allowed to keep all but $74M of LightSquared’s deposit. MSS industry expert Tim Farrar called the $236M “the most expensive press release in the world” stating that Sprint had done “basically nothing in terms of deployment apart from some initial network planning.”
If Sprint pulls out, LightSquared is in a really tough spot. Although LightSquared owns its satellites for satellite-to-earth communications services, they are relying heavily on Sprint’s infrastructure for its terrestrial service.
Investor Lawsuit
Obviously, LightSquared investors aren’t happy about how their money was squandered. On February 17, 2012, a LightSquared investor filed a lawsuit against Harbinger Capital Partners and Phil Falcone. Investor Lili Schad, daughter of the inventor of the snowmobile and noted film director, says she invested $4M in Harbinger and that they “implemented a very different investment strategy, which bore little or no resemblance to the investment strategy described in the Offering Materials.”
Furthmore, the lawsuit states “By going all in on LightSquared, Defendents materially deviated from the Offering Material’s representations that the Fund would seek to achieve attractive returns by investing in distressing debt, special situation equities, and private loans and notes. The risks, rewards and time horizon implicit in the LightSquared investment were not those attendant upon an investment in a hedge fund with the objectives and investment strategy described in Harbinger’s Offering Materials.”
FCC Seeking Comments on NTIA Recommendations
The more than year-long battle between wireless start-up LightSquared and the GPS industry peaked on February 14, 2012 when the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), tasked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to study the potential interference problem between LightSquared’s mobile wireless proposal and GPS receivers, issued a statement and report with the following conclusion:
“The federal agencies and LightSquared have invested significant time and resources to identify and analyze proposed solutions to address the impact of LightSquared’s planned network implementations. Based on the testing and analyses conducted to date, as well as numerous discussions with LightSquared, it is clear that LightSquared’s proposed implementation plans, including operations in the lower 10MHz would impact both general/personal navigation and certified aviation GPS receivers. We conclude at this time that there are no mitigation strategies that both solve the interference issues and provide LightSquared with an adequate commercial network deployment.”
The FCC subsequently issued a statement including the following paragraph:
“NTIA, the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time. Consequently, the Commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared. The International Bureau of the Commission is proposing to (1) vacate the Conditional Waiver Order, and (2) suspend indefinitely LightSquared’s Ancillary Terrestrial Component authority to an extent consistent with the NTIA letter. A Public Notice seeking comment on NTIA’s conclusions and on these proposals will be released tomorrow.”
As promised, the FCC subsequently opened a Public Notice seeking comments based on NTIA’s report and conclusions. View the Public Notice here. Public comments close on March 16, 2012. If you have invested in GPS technology, you should enter your comments to protect your investment.
Submitting your comments to the FCC only takes five minutes. You don’t need to write an essay. Just state that you support the NTIA’s conclusion.
You can compose your comments in a text editor like Notepad, then save the file and attach it. Once you go to the FCC comment submission website, it will make sense. If you have any problems, email me.
Go to the FCC comment submission website by clicking here.
Type in the following information:
Proceeding Number: 11-109
Name of Filer: Enter your name
Address Line 1: Enter your address
City: Enter your city
State: Enter your state
Zip: Enter your zipe code
Attach your comments
That’s it. Five minutes and you’re done.
You might have heard about another Public Notice that the FCC issued regarding LightSquared. It is in response to LightSquared’s petition to rule that GPS receivers are not entitled to interference protection. I wrote about it last week. You can read my article here. At that time, I was planning to submit my comments, but that was before the NTIA released its report and conclusions this week. I wouldn’t suggest you not enter a comment to the earlier Public Notice, but certainly I’d focus on entering comments on the latest Public Notice in support of NTIA’s report and recommendations.
March 15 Webinar: “Everything Else but GPS: How GLONASS, Galileo, and Compass Will Affect High-Precision Users”
In a rapidly changing world — which is the world of GPS and GNSS — those who invest significant amounts of their operating capital in hardware must plan carefully for the future,” said Gakstatter, who serves as moderator of the webinar. “Will your survey receiver remain relevant and up to date long enough for you to recoup your investment? How could taking advantage of newly operational constellations improve your efficiency and competitiveness? GLONASS is operational now. Compass has put forward a very aggressive schedule for regional and then global operations. Galileo is moving steadily forward.
The webinar will be held at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. ET/6 p.m. GMT); registration is free.
In my 20-plus years of involvement in the GPS/GNSS industry, nothing has come close to the LightSquared debate for technical and political complexity, nor for potential effects on nearly every high-precision GPS/GNSS user in the United States. The industry’s destiny is somewhat controlled by a federal agency that is not very knowledgeable about how, when, and where GPS is used — although I’m sure they’ve learned a lot in the last 14 months.
While receiver manufacturers have a firm grip on the technical complications of what LightSquared proposed, they have jockeyed for market position, as information released to the public is filtered through their marketing heads. Finally, media coverage is all over the place, from “LightSquared is doomed” to “this will happen.”
On January 13, as we all know, the U.S. deputy secretaries for defense and transportation wrote, on letterhead of the Space-Based Positioning Navigation & Timing National Executive Committee (PNT EXCOM), to the head of the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA), declaring that “there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering with GPS.”
On February 14, the NTIA director wrote to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman in a similar vein with nearly the same language. That same day, the FCC stated its intent to “not lift the prohibition on LightSquared,” and to “vacate the Conditional Waiver Order, and suspend indefinitely LighSquared’s Ancillary Terrestrial Component authority.”
It just so happens that LightSquared cannot accomodate military GPS users nor aviation GPS users. Those of you who use high-precision GPS can thank your lucky stars that the military and aviation folks are standing in your corner. Otherwise, as I warned back in May of last year, high-precision users would have been thrown under the onrushing bus of national broadband.
In testimony to a House of Respresentatives subcommittee meeting on GPS and aviation in early February, the Transportation deputy secretary revealed that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spent more than $2 million of taxpayer dollars with two different independent labs to conclude that LightSquared proposals were not compatible with several GPS-dependent air safety-of-flight systems.
Don’t expect the Department of Defense (DoD) ever to provide similar testimony. The Pentagon played its veto card off-air and out of the public eye.
LightSquared has continued to complain about GPS receivers “looking into our spectrum” as the reason for the interference GPS receivers are suffering. If you missed Richard Keegan’s December 2011 article in GPS World, you should take a look. He succinctly addresses this issue, as I did in my November 2011 Survey Scene column.
As LightSquared has clearly lost the engineering argument, it has taken a very creative approach in an attempt to convince the FCC that this isn’t an engineering problem, but rather all about the FCC rules. LightSquared petitioned the FCC to confirm that “GPS devices are not entitled to protection from interference.”
Crazy statement? If you think so, see if you recall reading this statement on equipment such as GPS receivers. It is on almost every electronic device that relies on radio signals.
“This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:
“(1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.”
What if LightSquared can convince the FCC that GPS receivers do, indeed, fall within the confines of Part 15 of the FCC rules and aren’t entitled to interference protection? That’s what the company is trying to do, and that’s why this fight ain’t quite done.
Don’t underestimate the power of the White House pushing the National Broadband Plan, or of commercial interests — of which there are myriad — seeking to turn a buck on the hunger, whether real or only perceived, for limitless broadband. Even the transportation depsec allowed in his testimony as how “in the Obama administration, we believe deeply in what LightSquared is attempting to do, which is to make the Internet more accessible to more people all across the country. This is an urgent national priority.”
Communications for My RTK
Some people in the GPS industry who believe that the LightSquared service will do wonders for RTK operations, somehow replacing the communications methods we currently use (UHF/VHF, 900MHz, GSM/GPRS, CDMA, Wifi/Mifi, etc.). I disagree.
LightSquared was relying on Sprint’s infrastructure (~31,000 towers) for its terrestrial operations, supplementing them with ~3,400 LightSquared towers at some point. I’ve used Sprint’s mobile phone service for about 12 years and I used Sprint’s data card service for several years (not any longer). I pretty much know that Sprint is good for metro areas and poor for rural areas. Like other wireless providers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.), Sprint is strong in some geographic areas, and weak in others. Since LightSquared is focused on serving people (densely populated areas) rather than geographic areas (e.g., farmlands), their terrestrial service is not going to be even close to being nationwide. LightSquared’s solution for areas not covered by their terrestrial service is to use satellite communications for Internet connectivity.
If you think you would enjoy ubiquitous coverage with satellite communications for your RTK operations, consider OmniSTAR’s service, which is in the same spectrum as what LightSquared proposed. OmniSTAR works great when there’s a clear view of the sky to one of OmniSTAR’s satellites (ironically, operated by LightSquared) such as in the agriculture industry. But I’ve used it a bit and — just like GPS — it doesn’t work in buildings, in vehicles, under trees, or in other obstructed-sky locations.
Can you imagine using a LightSquared mobile phone that doesn’t work in buildings, in cars, or under trees? You wouldn’t. Anyone who’s ever used RTK knows that spotty base/rover communications is the quickest way to spoil an RTK party. With GPS/GLONASS receivers allowing us to use RTK in places where we’ve rarely ventured before, the limitation wouldn’t be the number of navigation satellites in view, but rather if the LightSquared satellite was in view.
For those of you who heard that LightSquared might have been a good idea in order to make wireless mobile Internet access more affordable, I seriously doubt that statement as well. Documents in a huge Freedom of Information Act release by the FCC reveal what LightSquared was planning to charge its wholesale customers (not retail) when they were out of range of the terrestrial system and forced to use LightSquared’s satellite for wireless broadband. The wholesale cost of their satellite broadband service was to be $10 per megabyte (not gigabyte), an astonishingly high price for a company that’s been touting affordable, nationwide wireless broadband Internet service.
Upgrade Costs
A cool $2.4 billion was the official estimate given for aviation industry upgrades, should LightSquared have gone forward. I think that’s conservative because I doubt it covers the infrastructure upgrade cost (WAAS, GBAS, and so on) or the cost of NextGen program delays.
How about something closer to home? I queried the administrator of a statewide RTK network of 103 GNSS reference stations, and used his estimates to extrapolate national costs in that regard: 7,000 CORS receivers across the United States. They look like this: optimistic scenario, $64 million; likely,$92 million; worst-case scenario, $120 million.
Keep in mind that this is only the high-precision GPS/GNSS infrastructure in the United States. There are still hundreds of thousands of high-precision GPS/GNSS receivers owned by users across the country that would have to be upgraded. For many GPS receivers (think handheld), there will be no upgrade solution, so the manufacturer might offer trade-in credit for a new GPS receiver.
After spending time to understand the actual costs of accomodating LightSquared, one state legislator who initially voiced his support for LightSquared said “we can’t afford it.”
New Beginnings
Included in the NTIA report was a recommendation that, with time, GPS receivers could be redesigned in order to accomodate LightSquared’s 10L signal.
NTIA also reported that during the January 13 EXCOM meeting, it was agreed that “federal agencies will move forward this year to develop and establish new GPS spectrum interference standards that will help inform future proposals for non-space commercial uses in the bands adjacent to the GPS signals and ensure that any such proposals are implemented without affecting existing and evolving uses of space-based PNT services vital to economic, public safety, scientific, and national security needs.”
In summary, GPS/GNSS receiver designs will change in the coming years and move towards more efficient use of spectrum. To me, a critical statement in the NTIA letter to the FCC is “without affecting existing and evolving” — meaning that not only should GPS be considered, but also GPS-like systems from other countries such as Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo, and other developing satellite navigation systems and applications.
ERIC GAKSTATTER is contributing editor for survey of GPS World, and editor of Geospatial Solutions.
Information is power. Geographic information is information, turbocharged. While privacy is certainly a major issue we need to deal with as geographic information becomes mainstream, geographic information is a fantastic tool for fighting crime.
Just this week, another crime-fighting GIS website was announced. Witness Confident, a charitable organization based in London, introduced streetviolence.org, a website for reporting crimes in your neighborhood. While the initial service is focused on London, Witness Confident is interested in hearing from other geographic regions.
According to the witnessconfident.org website, streetviolence.org buy enabling:
victims of street robberies and attacks to contact the police online, post witness appeals and alert their community,
witnesses who can help, to contact the investigating officers at the click of a button,
people to better see whether any incident poses a real threat to them or the family,
the police to update posts with links to CCTV and photo-fits and with news of arrests and convictions, and
the public to have fresh meaningful information about street violence (whether reported to the police or not).
An interactive map displays the reported incidents.
Some other crime-related GIS websites and technology:
The more than year-long battle between wireless start-up LightSquared and the GPS industry peaked earlier this week when the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), tasked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to study the potential interference problem between LightSquared’s mobile wireless proposal and GPS receivers, issued a statement and report with the following conclusion:
“The federal agencies and LightSquared have invested significant time and resources to identify and analyze proposed solutions to address the impact of LightSquared’s planned network implementations. Based on the testing and analyses conducted to date, as well as numerous discussions with LightSquared, it is clear that LightSquared’s proposed implementation plans, including operations in the lower 10MHz would impact both general/personal navigation and certified aviation GPS receivers. We conclude at this time that there are no mitigation strategies that both solve the interference issues and provide LightSquared with an adequate commercial network deployment.”
The FCC subsequently issued a statement including the following paragraph:
“NTIA, the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time. Consequently, the Commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared. The International Bureau of the Commission is proposing to (1) vacate the Conditional Waiver Order, and (2) suspend indefinitely LightSquared’s Ancillary Terrestrial Component authority to an extent consistent with the NTIA letter. A Public Notice seeking comment on NTIA’s conclusions and on these proposals will be released tomorrow.”
As promised, the FCC subsequently opened a Public Notice seeking comments based on NTIA’s report and conclusions. View the Public Notice here. Public comments close on March 1, 2012. If you have invested in GPS technology, you should enter your comments to protect your investment.
Submitting your comments to the FCC only takes five minutes. You don’t need to write an essay. Just state that you support the NTIA’s conclusion.
You can compose your comments in a text editor like Notepad, then save the file and attach it. Once you go to the FCC comment submission website, it will make sense. If you have any problems, email me.
Go to the FCC comment submission website by clicking here.
Type in the following information:
Proceeding Number: 11-109
Name of Filer: Enter your name
Address Line 1: Enter your address
City: Enter your city
State: Enter your state
Zip: Enter your zipe code
Attach your comments
That’s it. Five minutes and you’re done.
You might have heard about another Public Notice that the FCC issued regarding LightSquared. It is in response to LightSquared’s petition to rule that GPS receivers are not entitled to interference protection. I wrote about it last week. You can read my article here. At that time, I was planning to submit my comments, but that was before the NTIA released its report and conclusions this week. I wouldn’t suggest you not enter a comment to the earlier Public Notice, but certainly I’d focus on entering comments on the latest Public Notice in support of NTIA’s report and recommendations.
For those of you who heard that LightSquared might have been a good idea in order to make wireless mobile Internet access more affordable, I have serious doubts about that statement. Here’s why…
Borrowing from my article last week, LightSquared is relying on Sprint’s infrastructure (~31,000 towers) for its terrestrial operations, and supplementing them with ~3,400 LightSquared towers at some point. I’ve used Sprint’s mobile phone service for about 12 years, and I used Sprint’s data card service for several years (not any longer). I pretty much know that Sprint is good for metro areas and poor for rural areas. Like other wireless providers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.), Sprint is strong in some geographic areas, and weak in others. Since LightSquared is focused on serving people (densely populated areas) rather than geographic areas (e.g., farmlands), their terrestrial service is not going to be even close to being nationwide. LightSquared’s solution for areas not covered by their terrestrial service is to use satellite communications for internet connectivity. If you want to know more about this, read Tim Farrar’s blog on the subject, which includes a map of LightSquared’s terrestrial coverage. I’ve asked LightSquared for the most current deployment map, but received no response. I’ve been unable to find it even in their FCC filings (maybe you can), but I have to believe that if it was something to be proud of, they would be showing it to everyone.
Furthermore, in a huge FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) document release last week by the FCC, documents reveal what LightSquared was planning to charge their wholesale customers (not retail) when customers were out of range of their terrestrial system and forced to use LightSquared’s satellite for wireless broadband. The wholesale cost of their satellite broadband service was to be $10 per megabyte (not gigabyte), an astonishingly high price for a company that’s been touting affordable, nationwide wireless broadband Internet service. If you want to read for yourself, click here. You can read about LightSquared’s objections to the FOIA document release here.
LightSquared bankruptcy looming?
Of course, after the NTIA issued its report and conclusions this week, there were many rumors that LightSquared would soon declare bankruptcy. In response, LightSquared financier Phil Falcone told Reuters “It is clearly not on our table” and that “There are other ways around this.”
Other rumors include a proposed spectrum swap that GPS World reported two weeks ago. Although it’s tough to rule out anything, this would be quite a stretch, especially for the spectrum mentioned in the GPSWorld article (1515-1525 MHz) since it’s still close enough to LightSquared’s 10L signal (1526-1536 MHz) that failed to pass the NTIA’s interference testing that it would likely require another round of GPS interference testing. Furthermore, one of the NTIA’s sticking points was the potential interference from LightSquared’s mobile devices, which operate (uplink) in the 1626.5-1660.5 Mhz range, so that would need to be addressed as well.
The beginning of a new era of GPS/GNSS technology.
Included in the NTIA report was a recommendation that, with time, GPS receivers could be redesigned in order to accomodate LightSquared’s 10L signal.
NTIA also reported that during the January 13 Excom (Position, Navigation, Timing Executive Committee) meeting, it was agreed that “federal agencies will move forward this year to develop and establish new GPS spectrum interference standards that will help inform future proposals for non-space commercial uses in the bands adjacent to the GPS signals and ensure that any such proposals are implemented without affecting existing and evolving uses of space-based PNT services vital to economic, public safety, scientific, and national security needs.”
In summary, GPS/GNSS receiver designs will change in the coming years and move towards more efficient use of spectrum. To me, a critical statement in the NTIA letter to the FCC is “without affecting existing and evolving,” meaning that not only should GPS be considered but also GPS-like systems from other countries such as Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s Galileo, and other evolving satellite navigation systems and applications.
For the latest news, join me next Monday on the ACSM Radio Hour (Monday, February 20)
The LightSquared situation is still very fluid. There seems to be a new twist almost daily.
This past Monday, I was a guest on ACSM’s (American Congress on Surveying and Mapping) Radio Hour with Gavin Schrock and Laurence Socci, hosted by ACSM’s Curt Sumner. You can listen to a recording of the show here.
Due to the significant events that occured this week, I’m returning as a guest either next Monday or the following along with Gavin Schrock to discuss the latest developments. You can join us here at 8 a.m. Pacific/11 a.m. Eastern U.S. time on either day, or the show will be recorded and available for you to listen to at a later date.
There’s no doubt that geospatial data collected today is more accurate than it was five years ago and will be more accurate five years from now than it is today. A couple of items had me thinking (once again) about the challenge that higher accuracy geospatial is posing and is going to pose in the future.
The first was an interview I did with Dale Lutz this week. Dale is the vice president of software development and co-founder of Safe Software. Dale is a great person to talk to about trends in geospatial data because Safe Software produces geospatial data conversion software tools. Essentially, the company’s software allows users to seamlessly merge geospatial data sets from different sources. For example, a user may have a requirement to merge data sets from AutoCAD, Esri, and Smallworld along with lidar data. Doing so manually can be a terribly laborious task. Not only does the user have to deal with different data formats, but also data of varying accuracy and unknown sources.
“One thing that is an ongoing issue, we see a lot of files that frankly don’t have the right coordinate systems in them or it’s missing, so then that relies on users to know,” said Lutz. “That kind of lack of metadata is going to pose a challenge for people as time goes on because folks aren’t going to remember and the file is going to get passed around. They are not going to know which datum it was collected with and they may not get exactly the correct answer.”
Dale succinctly summarizes the problem. After 20+ years in the geospatial industry, working in many places in the world, and teaching numerous workshops, matching spatial data is the #1 problem people ask me about. It’s fascinating to watch how diligent people are in acquiring the best data collection devices and collecting the most accurate data in the field, only to see it be diluted as it is integrated into a GIS or passed around without the metadata being communicated.
I’m guilty of it as much as anyone. On many mapping projects, I integrate data from several different data sources. Many times the data is a free download from the web with no metadata provided and no technical support. If I’m able to reach someone to ask a detailed question about the data, 90% of the time they will make their best guess as to the datum used and when the data was collected. Was it in the original NAD83 horizontal datum? HARN? NSRS 2007? And even, ugh, NAD27? The difference can be more than a meter or much greater. It doesn’t take much of an error to negate the value of the expensive high-precision GPS receiver you spent thousands of dollars to acquire.
Dale knows all too well. “When we used to deal with a MicroStation file that was accurate to a meter, we didn’t lose too much sleep, but now it’s more of an issue.”
Not only are horizontal datums an issue, vertical accuracy is a challenge of a different kind.
“It’s really doing a good job with the Z (elevation) that is the challenge we are working on. That’s been a big focus for us,” said Lutz.
Another item about geospatial data accuracy I ran into this week was a thread on an Autodesk discussion forum. It was an entertaining thread about parcel maps and how they don’t reconcile nicely.
The original poster summarizes the problem:
“I am trying to draw a parcel map in AutoCAD, using the distance and bearing info that was added by to the original hand-made drawing by the surveyor. The parcels don’t quite close perfectly… Does anyone know what the acceptable tolerances are for parcels of say 1 acre and under, 1-5 acres, and 5-20 acre sites? Will it ever close EXACTLY, or am I a dreamer?? WOuld you send the surveyor back out to take new measurements if, lets say, he was off by .3″? Or a foot? Or 4 feet on a huge parcel? I am new @ this and just getting started. Thanks!”
An obviously well-informed poster responded:
“That is one major open-ended question…
There are all kinds of things that come into play. Some of it is the age of the original plat. There are many places around our country where we have plats created in the 1700’s, using the proverbial “one-eyed goat and a rope”. Those surveys could have major errors, when compared to what we can achieve with today’s technology. But there’s a whole string of law that decides how all of that gets resolved, and it favors the “original survey” whenever possible. But above that, it favors any monuments that are found and recovered. Those typically hold precedence, even if they disagree with the legal record.
There are also standards that you may need to live to now, in our current age, especially if you’re doing something like an ALTA (Land Title) Survey. You have to make sure to perform within the standards set by the law. With today’s technology, this is often relatively easy, but you still may run into issues when dealing with older neighborhoods, laid out in past times when measurements were not as exact, and especially when original monumentation can’t be found… It can get worse; sometimes you find inconsistent monumentation, and have to try to sort through different surveys, figuring out which monuments were set when… It can become quite a puzzle.
Learning all of this stuff is what becoming a professional land surveyor is about. And it takes years to do that. So there’s no real way to explain it all in a forum post.”
Finally, in one sentence the same poster summarizes the colliding worlds of digital cartography, one of the newest digital technologies, and land surveying, one of the oldest professions.
“A jig-saw puzzle made by blind men with dull saws. As I sometimes describe it.”
Join GPS World’s Survey and GIS Editor Eric Gakstatter March 15 for the webinar, “Everything Else but GPS: How GLONASS, Galileo, and Compass Will Affect High-Precision Users.” The webinar will be held at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. ET/6 pm. GMT); 
