The Survey Summit agenda format is a bit different this year. First of all, it’s at the Hyatt Hotel next to the San Diego Convention Center. Second, it’s starting two days later, on Saturday, as opposed to starting earlier in the week on Thursday. The first day of the Summit is now a series of lightning talks and presentations followed by a keynote presentation to wrap up the day into the the expo and reception.
1:30 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.Technology PresentationSurveying the New Frontier, Mike Beavers, Frontier Surveying
2:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.Break
2:30 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.Keynote PresentationNOAA’s Geospatial Information Officer, Tony Lavoi , NOAA
3:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.Survey Summit EXPO and Reception
On Sunday, the technical presentations are in a traditional format (45-minute presentations) on subjects from surveying in the cloud to UAV mapping to handling lidar data. Of course, there’s also the annual discussion of surveying vs. GIS.
There’s no real discussion about GPS/GNSS (albeit a talk about GEOID12) at the Survey Summit, which is surprising given that GPS/GNSS such a prolific tool for surveyors and high-precision GIS users. But, you have to realize that at the end of the day, this is a vendor conference and not an industry conference. I see a real shift going back to state and regional conferences, as opposed to a national surveying conference. It just seems that attendees will get more localized and relevant information in that type of venue, and I also see the trend of state/local conferences bringing in nationally recognized speakers talking about national issues that complement the local speakers and presentations.
Esri International User Conference
Yes, it’s a vendor conference, so you get a lot of Esri Kool-Aid. But, that said, there’s no better place in the U.S. to network with your colleagues about geospatial technologies and issues like this venue. If nothing else, it’s due to the sheer volume of geospatial people that converge on San Diego…~13,000.
Nearly all, if not all of the geospatial technology trends I write about (mobile GIS, BIM, UAVs, GPS/GNSS, RFID, satellite imagery/lidar, etc.) are being discussed at this conference in some form or another. You may have to dig into the agenda a bit to find them, but they are there, and there are plenty of experts attending the conference who are presenting, manning exhibit booths, and otherwise walking around that can answer nearly any question you have. The challenge is finding the people you want to talk to among the 13,000 other people.
I’ll be there all week attending sessions and talking with exhibitors about their work, products, services, and vision. If you want to keep up with me during the week, make sure you follow me on twitter. Twitter is replacing blogging to a certain degree. I’ll be posting photos, links, and interesting comments via Twitter throughout the day, every day at the conferences. You’ll get the latest news in almost real-time.
On Wednesday, I’ll have a professional film crew following me around the User Conference as I talk with different exhibitors and attendees. We’ll produce some pretty neat videos of the conference that will be posted to a special Video Gallery section at 98.27.162.175/gpsworld.com. I’ll be asking exhibitors to talk about their newest GIS, surveying, and mapping products and services, their customers’ requirements and success stories, and any special features they may be unveiling at the show. The videos will be edited to 3- to 5-minute clips for posting to the Geospatial Solutions website. Relevant interviews may also be featured on GPS World’s website.
On Thursday at 10:15 a.m. in Room 31B, I’ll be giving a presentation on the latest developments in GPS and GNSS technology. It’s part of the “Using a Mobile GIS to Manage Assets in the Field” session in the Mobile GIS topic track. I’ll be touching on the newest developments in SBAS, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and maybe a little bit about LightSquared. As always, there’s a lot happening in the world of GPS/GNSS and some major changes that you should know about, so stop by and join me.
Esri Acquires ArcPad Developer Maptel
In late-breaking news today, Esri announced it has acquired Austrailian-based ArcPad developer Maptel. This adds an interesting twist to Esri’s mobile GIS development efforts. While it’s been clear that Esri has been pushing ArcGIS for Mobile as the mobile GIS path for the future, the acquisition may be signaling a change in that strategy. ArcPad is the most widely deployed mobile GIS software in the world with well over 500,000 copies deployed. Look for more on this subject from me next week while I’m in San Diego.
Trimble introduced today the Trimble Positions Mobile extension — a new streamlined choice for integrating Trimble’s GNSS professional field solutions and data verification into the Esri ArcGIS for Windows Mobile environment.
The Trimble Positions software was first introduced as a development kit to Trimble’s GIS developer community in late 2011. Today, the software suite has expanded to provide a streamlined option for users who wish to work directly with Esri’s ArcGIS for Windows Mobile technology.
“Now, common Trimble and Esri users have a streamlined workflow between their Trimble devices and the Esri mobile software environment,” said Daniel Wallace, general manager of Trimble’s GIS Data Collection Division. “Because all data is verified and validated before it reaches Esri’s Enterprise GIS, each update adds value, making the geodatabase more reliable and more useful.”
Using Trimble GNSS receivers, field workers can collect reliable GNSS data for all feature geometries while leveraging the high performance features of Trimble handhelds such as Trimble Floodlight for better productivity in tough GNSS environments. Data can be automatically posted to the enterprise server from the field where Trimble Positions Desktop add-in is used to process and validate the data coming in from field crews. Office administrators can easily check for new sessions, differentially correct the data, and verify that the data meets accuracy requirements before updating the enterprise database at the touch of button, Trimble said.
This release adds real time and postprocessed corrections support for Trimble’s market-leading GNSS receivers, including the Trimble GeoExplorer, Juno, Nomad and Pro series receivers and is available to order now through authorized Trimble Mapping and GIS resellers. For more information, visit www.trimble.com/positions.
Thanks to those able to attend the June 21 webinar titled “Mobile GIS: What’s the New Normal? Windows, Android, iOS, Open Source?” If you weren’t able to attend and would like to listen to it, you can by registering here. It’s a fascinating discussion about the direction that mobile GIS devices are taking in the future. To top it off, two days after the webinar, Google announced its own tablet computer, the Nexus 7.
I conducted three live audience polls during the webinar. One audience member noted that by asking the poll questions after presenting slides on the subject that I may have skewed the results. I guess it’s possible, but I think most audience members already had some idea of which direction they were going even before attending the webinar. However, I do agree that by presenting information the audience may not have been aware of (such as Microsoft’s commitment to support Windows Mobile until at least 2019), that this may have caused audience members to reconsider or change their answers based on new knowledge, but isn’t that what the webinar is supposed to do? Provide timely and current information for more informed decision-making?
Followng are the poll results from the webinar.
Poll #1: For Mobile GIS work, which type of device do you prefer?
Gakstatter comment: The audience results don’t surprise me. Some might expect that smartphones would be higher, but as one audience member noted, “The screen is too small and who wants to risk using their phone?” Also, there are a very limited number of mobile GIS apps available for smartphones running Android or iOS. But, I think the fundamental issue is risk. Yes, for lightweight mobile GIS, a smartphone may be very useful, but if you’re tasked with an all-day intensive mapping project, would you really use a smartphone for this? It’s a valid question.
Poll #2: Which Mobile device operating system do you foresee using in the future for Mobile GIS?
Gakstatter comment: This is interesting, but not completely surprising. The dominance of Android makes sense because the vast number of Android-based devices being introduced, from smartphones to tablets. I expected the iOS number to be higher, but I think what’s hurting iOS is the lack of apps for mobile GIS and the inability of iPads/iPhones to interface (Bluetooth) with external sensors (such as GPS, lasers, cameras, etc.). Another interesting point is the high number of “Don’t Know yet” responses (27.4%). With the lack of powerful mobile GIS apps for Android and iOS and the user community’s uncertainty about Microsoft’s intentions with Windows Mobile, there’s a lot of “wait and see” going on. My gut tells me that Windows Handheld will garner the largest share of the “Don’t know yet” audience. It’s going to take quite some time before mobile GIS Android apps are developed, introduced, debugged, etc. Plus, there are so many versions and variations of Android that I think developers will have to target certain devices to support. It’s not a “one-size-fits-all” thing. An app developed for Android doesn’t mean it’s going to run properly on all Android devices.
Poll #3: In the future, do you think your organization will be using cloud-based mobile GIS apps or standalone mobile GIS apps?
Gakstatter comment: I have to say, this is the most confusing webinar question I’ve ever asked. During the webinar, I noted this and asked the audience to respond Yes for cloud-based apps and No for standalone apps. If you understood it that way and responded accordingly, the results seem reasonable. Either way, there’s no doubt about the huge interest in working with cloud-based apps. It’s going to be interesting to watch where the cloud-based apps go. It’s not like a small consulting company or local government agency can deploy cloud-based mobile GIS apps easily. They would need a whole level of back-end support (hardware and software) to do this. In that case, maybe there’s companies that will offer SaaS (Software as a Service) for these folks to use? That starts to make sense. But, where are they? Is ArcGIS for Android/iOS and Google for Android as good as it’s going to get? One segment where I have seen some traction is local governments offering mobile GIS SaaS from companies like Accela and CitySourced.
If I haven’t said it enough, what’s hindering Android and iOS in mobile GIS is the lack of apps. Esri will never have ArcPad (arguably the world’s most popular mobile GIS software) rewritten to Android or iOS, that’s pretty clear. Esri’s successor for ArcPad is ArcGIS for Windows Mobile, in which they just released version 3.0. It’s a hybrid standalone/cloud app so you can use it when your not connected to the Internet, but it still doesn’t have some of the useful features that ArcPad (and others) have like supporting related tables and direct support for raster imagery, CAD, and shapefiles that don’t have to be “pre-processed” in ArcGIS. There’s really nothing similar for Android or iOS.
Due to the lack of apps for Android and iOS apps, I’m not so quick to write off Windows Mobile devices as many people have. As poorly as Microsoft has communicated its intentions, they have committed to supporting Windows Embedded Handheld (essentially, the same as Windows Mobile) until at least 2019. That’s plenty of time to let Android mature and settle (or even some other operating system to emerge), which it needs to do in order to not drive software developers insane. Android ships in many flavors today, from version 2.3 to the new Google Nexus 7 tablet running version 4.1. Since Android is an open operating system, you can have so many variations and nuances that it will be nearly impossible for app software to run flawlessly across so many different hardware devices and operating system versions.
On the flip side, Apple (iOS) has a highly-controlled app registration process, so other than varying screen sizes, apps will largely run across the iOS hardware platforms. The highly controlled environment seems to work well in ensuring smooth running apps. I’m told that Apple does this to ensure the “best user experience.” However, in some areas, notably Bluetooth connectivity, the proprietary nature of Apple rears its head in a not-so-flexible way. For example, for those of you waiting for the day you can use Bluetooth to connect your high-precision GPS, camera, or laser rangefinder to the iPad or iPhone, don’t hold your breath. If it wasn’t specifically made to Bluetooth to iOS, it’s not going to work. For example, following is a Bluetooth GPS receiver (XGPS150) that works with iPads/iPhones as well as other non-Apple Bluetooth hosts. Note the “Mode” toggle switch where the user must select between Apple and non-Apple products.
Dual XGPS150 (Source: Dual)
The Dual XGPS150 is your typical consumer-grade GPS receiver. It has value for pilots, auto nav, and other apps where the users need to place the GPS antenna in a different location than the iPad/iPhone. However, none of the professional-grade Bluetooth GPS receiver manufacturers have designed “Apple Bluetooth” into their systems, so there’s no way to connect your iPad/iPhone to a high-precision GPS/GNSS receiver via Bluetooth, unless you jailbreak the Apple Bluetooth stack.
With iOS devices “out” for the forseeable future, that leaves the battle between Android and Windows Mobile devices for the most flexible and powerful GIS data collection devices.
Google’s New Nexus 7 Tablet Computer
Just two days after Mobile GIS webinar, Google introduced its Nexus 7 tablet computer.
Google Nexus 7
Even though Google says it’s not meant to target the Apple iPad, it may be better suited for geospatial apps than the iPad. One of the apps it was built for is gaming, so it’s got a pretty strong processor, a 1.3GHz quad-core CPU backed by 1 GB of RAM. Given that, dealing with raster imagery efficiently may not be an issue, although storage might. The Nexus 7 comes in 8-GB and 16-GB versions, with no memory expansion slot. That’s a lot of storage, but we like our SD cards.
Of course, the “7” in the Nexus 7 name matches the display size, 7 inches, with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, which is higher-res than the first two iPads. The Nexus 7 weighs in at 12 ounces, which is ligher than a Kindle Fire and half the weight of an iPad (although the iPad has a larger 9.7″ display). It reportedly works fine in direct sunlight, which is a must for geospatial users.
It’s 4300-mAh Li-Ion battery will run it 9+ hours and I’d probably buy the $20 protective case for it since it’s not built for outdoor use any more than a notebook computer is. Ruggedness is always the rub with using consumer electronics devices outdoors, and the Nexus 7 is no different.
By the way, the Nexus 7 is actually an ASUS Transformer Prime tablet that Google has rebranded. This is a good thing because the hardware bugs have likely been flushed out. Gizmodo rated the ASUS unit its favorite Android-based tablet.
The Nexus 7 is one step closer to bringing consumer tablet computer technology to professional geospatial users. Although it has a built-in GPS receiver and 1.2-megapixel cameras, we need better geospatial tools. If various Bluetooth geospatial devices like high-precision GPS receivers, cameras, laser rangefinders, etc. can be interfaced to the Nexus 7, it’s a better match for geospatial apps than the iPad.
Running Android’s latest 4.1 operating system, it’s going to suffer from a lack of geospatial apps, for now. But maybe this is the sort of hardware that developers need to see to get them excited.
Did I mention the price?
$200 bucks. If you want to splurge, $250 for the 16-GB model.
Trimble released the Trimble Outdoors MyTopo Maps app for the Kindle Fire and other Android-powered tablets. Outdoor enthusiasts can now view detailed topo and aerial maps and plot their next outdoor adventure on large tablet screens.
MyTopo Maps provides access to over 68,000 detailed topo maps in the U.S. and Canada, in addition to aerial photos, street maps, terrain maps and hybrid maps.
MyTopo Map on Kindle Fire
"Our ecosystem of apps continues to grow and now Android tablet users can plan outdoor trips at home using MyTopo Maps," said Rich Rudow, general manager for Trimble Outdoors. "We provide best-in-class topographic and aerial maps, and tools to answer the specific demands of hikers, off-roaders and other outdoor enthusiasts."
The app was originally released as a beta app in the Amazon AppStore last December. It immediately generated buzz among outdoor and map enthusiasts, and over the past four months features were added and tweaked based on community feedback up to the official launch this week.
Trimble Outdoors released the iPad version of this app in November 2011. All apps are available in a Free and Pro versions on the Apple App Store, Google Play and Amazon AppStore. To download and for more details, go to: http://www.trimbleoutdoors.com/Products/TrimbleOutdoorsMyTopoMaps.
Big changes. Apple finally ended its long time dependence on Google Maps. As part of its latest operating system upgrade to iOS 6, Apple is launching its own, home-grown mapping service. It is an impressive offering. In a very different move, Microsoft is replacing its own Bing maps in all Windows Phone devices. Nokia maps, previously Navteq, will replace Microsoft’s home-grown Bing Maps. Micello has a new indoor location trial that isn’t just indoor mapping. This month the FCC has something to say on the topic of privacy in LBS apps. ABI Research has high expectations for indoor location.
Google maps will be demoted to just another app on iPhones and iPads, a blow to Google’s bottom line. iOS device owners account for 28 percent of Google Map users in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Spain, reports Analysis Mason. This parting will create additional friction in the contentious relationship between Google and Apple. Many partners are helping Apple produce the offering, but TomTom is the only one acknowledged in the announcement. Apple reports TomTom is “powering Apple maps.” No explanation has been given.
The new Apple in-house maps built for iOS 6 include 100 million business listings and Yelp recommendations, integrated with real-time, crowd-sourced traffic, navigation, and suggested travel routes. It all works with Siri, Apple’s voice-activated search software. Siri has its critics, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who has been quoted with derisive, even crude, comments on Siri’s usability.
Will Location Move Stock Price? Facebook says it’s working on a location-based mobile-advertising product that will allow advertisers to target users based on their real-time whereabouts. Facebook’s shares have dropped by almost 20 percent since the company’s initial public offering, fueled partly by concern that ad-revenue growth isn’t keeping up with a shift by users to mobile phones.
LBS Is Being Monitored. Ever concerned with privacy, the FCC released a report on location-based services. The agency declined to adopt privacy regulations or best practices, but indicated it would monitor the industry for the following: ensuring privacy considerations are integral to product development, security of data from unauthorized access, timing and frequency of location privacy notices to consumers, and minimization of data collected and time period for which it is retained. The FCC warns it will take additional steps if not satisfied with privacy implementation for LBS.
Indoor Fortunes. Indoor location is positioned to save retail brick and mortar, says ABI Research. I wouldn’t go that far, but it will certainly have a positive impact. Major U.S. retail brands will launch indoor location technologies in 2012 and 2013, says ABI. “Revenue will come from multiple sources, including advertising, infrastructure deployment/service fees, and application management,” says Patrick Connolly. The technology will enable advances in customer analytics, proximity advertising, store optimization, couponing, and CRM. Retailers will likely want to control store data, which will be an important consideration in picking partners.
I Am Here. Micello, indoor mapping creator, has a trial for its new FindMe location application. Users can share their whereabouts in Singapore with anyone in their address book. The app allows users to send a text that includes a detailed map that shows the user’s indoor location. The company is expanding the app to Las Vegas and some college campuses.
Grapevine. Rumors persist that Amazon is in talks to acquire Jumptap, one of the mobile advertising network leaders. Amazon plans to enlarge its Special Offers advertising platform to the Kindle Fire Tablet, a competitor to Apple’s pricier iPad, reports Ad Age. A Jumptap purchase would make sense. Amazon has a treasure trove of purchase information on individual users on hand that can be used to develop personalized and contextual mobile advertising.
Timing Is Everything. In Apple’s forthcoming operating system update, all applications will require explicit user permission before accessing personal information, such as location information. Apple made the announcement just after developer Arun Thampi reported iOS social application Path was uploading users’ address books to its servers. A backlash from consumers and legislators followed. Path later acknowledged storing user data and updated its app to enable users to opt out of its contacts database.
Sad News. Sorry to hear Nokia plans to cut 10,000 jobs by the end of 2013. Remember when Navteq had the mapping world in the palm of its hand? What a fall. Last year Nokia cut 14,000 jobs.
Esri Press announced they have published The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data that provides GIS users with detailed information about the sources and quality of spatial data available in the public domain and the policies that govern its use.
According to the announcement, this guide covers practical issues such as copyrights, cloud computing, online data portals, volunteered geographic information, and international data. It provides GIS practitioners and instructors with the essential skills to find, acquire, format, and analyze public domain spatial data. Supplementary exercises are available online to help put the concepts into practice.
“This book fills a very big gap in the literature of GIS and brings together for the first time discussions of issues users of public domain data are likely to confront,” says Michael F. Goodchild, professor of geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and director of UCSB’s Center for Spatial Studies. “It will prove useful to GIS practitioners in any area of GIS application, including students anxious to learn the skills needed to become GIS practitioners and data producers who want their data to be as useful as possible.”
Written by Joseph J. Kerski and Jill Clark, the guide provides a critical evaluation of the various public domain data portals available and the merits of their data.
The GIS Guide to Public Domain Data (ISBN: 978-1-58948-244-9, 388 pages, US$49.95) is available at online retailers worldwide, at esri.com/esripress, or by calling 1-800-447-9778. Outside the United States, visit esri.com/esripressorders for complete ordering options, or visit esri.com/distributors to contact your local Esri distributor. Interested retailers can contact Esri Press book distributor Ingram Publisher Services.
DataAppeal announced an update to its web-based GIS data visualization software. The new functionality allows users the option of layering multiple maps to compare them and also a new color gradient feature to quickly see common data points.
Areas of Economic Activity in London, England (Source: DataAppeal)
Free vs. Fee-base Wifi Hotspots in New York City (Source: DataAppeal)
Vehicle Collisions in Toronto, Canada (Source: DataAppeal)
According to the announcement, DataAppeal provides an alternative to complex and boring data visualization and mapping tools through an easy to use, web-based GIS application, offering research-based, visually appealing, three dimensional and animated maps and graphics. The display of data is manipulated through art and design concepts, to increase interest in user-created products, creating greater knowledge transfer between users, quicker decision support, and most importantly a decentralized model of data analytics. DataAppeal originated from research work on artistic and creative ways to visualize the “invisibles” of a city through data, art and creativity mapping.
Apple signed TomTom for mapping services, and is apparently jettisoning Google Maps, to set up a potential collision between the two industry giants. The deal between the media giant and TomTom came after Apple rolled out mapping options for its new operating system at a conference in San Francisco.
The deal can’t come soon enough for TomTom, which provides maps for Google. However, that deal is ending soon, according to published reports.
“Apple’s choice of TomTom is a marriage of necessity on both sides. From Apple’s perspective, they needed a worldwide, navigation-quality digital map that was not built by a competitor,” said Marc Prioleau, principal Prioleau Advisors and author of industry blog, prioleauadv.com. “That leaves only TomTom. From Tom Tom’s perspective, they needed a toehold in the mobile mapping business which was otherwise going to Google and Nokia. The partnership was needed by both parties.”
Prioleau said it be interesting to see if the relationship involves deeper cooperation between the two companies than is typical. “That will likely determine if this is a long term arrangement,” he said. “Google obviously has a new, well-resourced competitor in Apple. I doubt they cared whether Apple chose TomTom or someone else. They are reducing Tom Tom’s role on Google Maps anyway.”
What will be more interesting to Google will be whether Apple will share traffic and user data with TomTom to improve and maintain the maps, Prioleau said.
Until perhaps now, Google has dominated all phases of the location and navigation industry. Google Maps software not only runs on the Android operating system, but also on Apple’s iOS platform.
Both Apple and TomTom have been tight-lipped about the new licensing agreement. Industry observers believe that the deal will be a windfall for TomTom, though how much of one remains to be seen. TomTom, along with other navigation companies, has seen a huge drop in the sale of portable navigation devices
Trimble has introduced the next-generation of its Trimble GPS Pathfinder family — the Trimble Pro 6H and Pro 6T receivers for GIS and mobile mapping. The Trimble Pro series with advanced features allows mobile workers to configure a solution for a wide range of applications, delivering flexibility in professional GIS data collection, Trimble said. The series offers a new streamlined form-factor and dramatic productivity improvements in difficult GNSS environments with Trimble Floodlight technology.
The modular Trimble Pro series receiver gives users the flexibility to choose their setup configurations:
Optimized for use with Trimble data collection devices such as the Trimble Juno or Nomad G series handhelds, or Yuma tablet computer, the Trimble Pro series can also be used with other tablets and handhelds with NMEA output.
Real-time or postprocessed GIS workflows.
The receiver can be deployed in a backpack, on a pole or mounted on a vehicle.
Two models are available: the Trimble Pro 6H delivers decimeter accuracy, while the Pro 6T is the submeter model for standard GIS applications.
“With the availability of the new Pro series receivers, data collection professionals now have access to the productivity-enhancements of Floodlight technology in both integrated and modular configurations,” said Daniel Wallace, general manager of Trimble’s GIS Data Collection Division. “While some prefer the convenience of an integrated, all-in-one handheld, others will appreciate the Pro series’ flexibility to choose from a range of data collection devices such as a high-resolution tablet or lightweight Trimble Juno.”
Trimble Floodlight technology allows users to collect decimeter accuracy data in tough GNSS environments, Trimble said. Buildings and trees can cause satellite shadow and limit the environments where high-accuracy GNSS data collection can be performed. Trimble Floodlight technology combines a range of techniques to increase the availability of positions and boost accuracy in areas affected by satellite shadow. Using Floodlight technology, the Pro series can keep teams productive without compromising on accuracy. Users can work with fewer disruptions and ensure better data, faster data collection and higher field efficiency.
Trimble Pro series receivers are rugged and built to withstand the rigors of long hours in tough outdoor conditions, yet optimized for high-accuracy GIS data collection workflows, Trimble said. For applications such as utilities inspections and timber stand valuations, Trimble Pro receivers provide long battery life and tough construction for dependable service over the course of rigorous data-collection projects.
With its IP65 rating, the receivers offer reliable operation, even after prolonged exposure to water and dust, Trimble said. An integrated antenna reduces the complexity of the system for fast setup and swift data collection campaigns. Field workers can be up and running with minimal training, saving time and money. Combined with a Trimble handheld solution and Trimble TerraSync software, the complete system provides dedicated field workflows to simplify data collection and improve integration with the GIS for total workflow improvements.
The new Trimble Pro 6H and 6T receivers are available from Trimble’s worldwide Mapping & GIS authorized distribution channel.
GeoEye, Inc. announced that it has successfully passed a major milestone for the development of the GeoEye-2 satellite under the EnhancedView program. GeoEye’s completion of this milestone triggers the $111 million cost-share payment from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
GeoEye reports that this critical milestone demonstrates the company’s capabilities to meet all of the U.S. government’s EnhancedView program requirements, on time and under this firm-fixed-price contract.
Matt O’Connell, GeoEye’s CEO and president, said, “This is a terrific achievement by our team and a great confirmation of our strong partnership with the NGA, especially during these uncertain economic times. We look forward to providing the NGA with the highest resolution color imagery from GeoEye-2, which will be an important long-term security asset to the DoD and the intelligence agencies of the United States.”
“GeoEye-2, designed and built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, includes market-leading technology features, such as robust tasking capabilities, faster imagery collection rates and a new state-of-the-art, ITT Exelis Geospatial Systems camera,” said Carl Alleyne, GeoEye’s vice president of Engineering.
I received a bit of email from my article last week on open source GIS. There are two letters from readers I’d like to share with you because I think they clearly represent two different perspectives of the open source GIS discussion.
I’d love to hear from more folks about their open source GIS apps. Please send me a quick email.
The first letter points out an important fact about open source GIS that I didn’t touch on last week. His point is that with open source GIS, anyone can modify the software source code to add or change features of the software.
Dear Eric,
I’ve been following your writings for a few years now, and I’m delighted to see you bring up open source geospatial software in your column!
Last year, I finished an online MGIS degree from Penn State, using open source GIS and web mapping tools with local township staff for my “capstone project.” Here in Michigan, townships are the local units of government that are below counties in the hierarchy of governments. There are over 1200 of them in the state.
Open source tools, I think, represent an “enabling” technology and movement, especially for impoverished township governments like those I worked with in northern Michigan. There, some of the staff may actually be trained in using commercial GIS tools (from previous employment or from schools), but their small, rural townships may not be able to afford licenses for them. In other townships, staff have enthusiasm for, but not training in, GIS tools, and are willing to spend the time to learn and use them if their townships can provide them with such tools. (Here again, up here in rural northwest lower Michigan, townships typically can’t.) The townships up here typically have populations in the low thousands.
For this segment of potential users, open source desktop GIS tools such as QGIS and uDig turned out to be just what was needed. For a couple of townships, I just had to show them how to download and install these tools, and then they were off on their own! After they created paper maps and such for their use (planning commission work, recreational planning, and so on), I made online interactive versions for their websites using open source tools. Such open source web mapping tools included Open Layers, Geoserver, and even Google Maps API, even though Google Maps API is not, strictly speaking, open source. In other townships, I initially had to sit down and coach them in the use of QGIS and uDig, but they soon caught on and started producing their own mapping products. Granted, the maps were fairly simple maps, but perfectly adequate to communicate to their constituents whatever needed to be communicated. Without open source GIS products, none of this would have been possible, especially in today’s economic climate.
If you take a close look at QGIS, for example, you’ll see that the current release version (1.7.4) and the development version (1.9.x) contain highly sophisticated tools that rival those from commercial packages. In fact, for the vast majority of potential users (such as those I worked with), what are in the current versions are more than enough for their needs. Through the efforts of the worldwide communities of enthusiastic, part-time developers who program in their own time, these open source geospatial products of great sophistication are made available to those who need them most!
Again, thank you for hi-lighting open source geospatial products in your column!
Howard Yamaguchi
P.S. Eric, in your column you dwelled on the “free as in free beer” aspect of open source, where anybody can download the software and use it, gratis. The other aspect of open source that you could have mentioned is the part where, in addition to downloading the product, we can also download the source code and tinker with it. We are then free to use the tinkered code for our own use, even to profit from it by deploying and using such modified versions for our clients. Open source licenses typically require us to eventually upload the modified source code to the developer community so that they can, if they so choose, incorporate it into the release versions of the product. That’s the “free as in free speech” part, the part that really distinguishes open source software from the world of commercial software. (But you probably knew all this!) Cheers!
Following is a letter from a gentleman who says the cost-savings potential with open source GIS isn’t worth it for the organization he works in.
Eric—
Thanks for your always insightful columns. You asked for feedback from users who are using open source GIS apps, but might I offer the following counterpoint? The electric utility company I work for doesn’t use open source GIS and has no plans to use it, regardless of how reliable or low-priced it becomes. “Why?” you ask. “Is it because we’re herd-bound and lacking vision? Are we so tied to our big-box traditions that we can’t see the coming GIS software wave?”
No, the reason is simply that the cost of neither software nor hardware is significant in comparison to the value of GIS data integration. When our system operators remotely close a switch, the distribution SCADA system’s electrical-connectivity data (which it receives from our GIS) darn well better correctly identify the facilities it just energized. So a GIS that’s highly integrated into our distribution-SCADA, accounting, work-management, outage-management and meter-data-management systems is a bargain at any price; but a stand-alone GIS app (even one with really great data-collection capabilities) is effectively worthless to us, regardless of how cheap it is.
This system integration is not something our management cares to do in-house (though I’m always making the argument that we can and should do more in-house), nor is it something we can entrust to volunteer hackers (regardless of how altruistic they are). There will always be a market for high-dollar GIS platforms that frictionlessly exchange real-time data with mission-critical systems.
It seems (to me anyway) that the only role open source apps might play is in areas that don’t involve interfaces with other mission-critical systems — e.g., in presenting our GIS data alongside other datasets, or perhaps in data collection/validation.
Thanks again, for your always interesting insights,
If you recall, one of the trends identified by the experts that the United Nations polled was that “There is unlikely to be a market for datasets like those currently sold to power navigation and location-based services solutions in five years, as they will have been superseded by crowdsourced datasets from OpenStreetMaps or other comparable initiatives.”
Do you think that Bob’s rationale also applies to open source data? I’m sure that’s what Navteq/Nokia and Teletlas/TomTom would argue.
Personally, I think that the U.N. prediction of five years is pretty aggressive. Navteq and TeleAtlas have put a tremendous amount of time and effort into collecting and validating their datasets. They get paid to be accountable for the quality of their product. The challenge for OpenStreetMap to take over the GPS Personal Navigation and other LBS markets is that the quality bar has already been set. If OpenStreetMap data quality doesn’t match or come close, the user experience will be disappointing and OpenStreetMap’s reputation will take a hit.
Don’t take this wrong, though. Open source GIS data sources like OpenStreetMap, OpenSeaMap, etc. have a bright future. As I’ve written before, and as the U.N. correctly identifies, the proliferation of high-precision GNSS receivers, along with other sensors, will make high-precision data collection inexpensive and commonplace. Super-detailed, feature-rich, open source data is in our future.
Some years ago, I predicted that the price of GIS data-collection hardware would eventually decline to the point that software would be the most expensive part of a GIS data-collection system. Well, I’m beginning to rethink that statement. Here’s why.
There’s a solid push towards the open source concept in GIS. Since 2006, there’s been an annual conference called FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) hosted by OSGeo, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. According to the OSGeo website,
The Open Source Geospatial Foundation, or OSGeo, is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software, and promote its widespread use. The foundation provides financial, organizational and legal support to the broader open source geospatial community. It also serves as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding and other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit. OSGeo also serves as an outreach and advocacy organization for the open source geospatial community, and provides a common forum and shared infrastructure for improving cross-project collaboration.
The foundation’s projects are all freely available and useable under an OSI-certified open source license.
The OSGeo Mission Statement:
To support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software, and promote its widespread use.
OSGeo Goals:
The following more detailed goals support the overall mission:
To provide resources for foundation projects — e.g., infrastructure, funding, legal.
To promote freely available geodata — free software is useless without data.
To promote the use of open source software in the geospatial industry (not just foundation software) — e.g., PR, training, outreach.
To encourage the implementation of open standards and standards-based interoperability in foundation projects.
To ensure a high degree of quality in foundation projects in order to build and preserve the foundation “brand”.
To make foundation and related software more accessible to end users — e.g., binary “stack” builds, cross package documentation.
To provide support for the use of OSGeo software in education via curriculum development, outreach, and support.
To encourage communication and cooperation between OSGeo communities on different language (eg. Java/C/Python) and operating system (eg. Win32, Unix, MacOS) platforms.
To support use and contribution to foundation projects from the worldwide community through internationalization of software and community outreach.
To operate an annual OSGeo Conference, possibly in cooperation with related efforts (e.g., EOGEO).
To award the Sol Katz award for service to the OSGeo community.
Clearly, from the mission statement and goals, this effort is all about the geospatial user community, and you should stay tuned into this effort.
Some of the current OSGeo projects include desktop GIS applications like gvSIG, Quantum GIS, and GRASS GIS.
gvSIG Desktop App.
There is also a gvSIG Mobile app I mentioned in last week’s Geospatial Solutions Weekly column. It was developed using Java and runs on the Windows Mobile platform. With both gvSIG desktop and mobile, you can have an entire GIS data collection and desktop software suite free of charge. Of course, free comes with a price. There’s no accountability, no priority tech support, no one to call when you can’t figure out why things aren’t working, etc. You’re on your own, sort of. There’s an online community of users who interact and support each other. Also, like open source operating system LINUX, there are companies that will provide commercial support for open source GIS apps.
gvSIG originated in Spain, and although it is available in more than 20 languages, it hasn’t gained much momentum in the U.S. yet. I think it’s an important enough subject that I’ve added it as a session topic to the Field Technology Conference this September. We will have at least one technical presentation on the subject and I will address open source GIS in my keynote presentation. If we’re lucky, we’ll also have a hands-on open source GIS area so conference attendees can see open source GIS apps being used in action.
Free and open source software will continue to grow as viable alternatives both in terms of software, and potentially in analysis and processing.
Free and open access to data will become the norm and geospatial information will increasingly be seen as an essential public good.
Within five years the level of detail on transport systems within OpenStreetMap will exceed virtually all other data sources and will be respected and used by major organisations and governments across the globe.
National Mapping Agencies are likely to find it difficult to justify the costs of traditional data maintenance mechanisms as their products are used in increasingly niche areas.
Crowdsourced content will decrease cost, improve accuracy and increase availability of rich geospatial information.
There will be increased combining of imagery with crowdsourced data to create datasets that could not have been created affordably on their own.
Crowdsourced data will push National Mapping Agencies towards niche markets.
Progress will be made on bridging the gap between authoritative data and crowdsourced data, moving towards true collaboration.
Crowdsourced sensoring will emerge.
There is unlikely to be a market for datasets like those currently sold to power navigation and location-based services solutions in 5 years, as they will have been superseded by crowdsourced datasets from OpenStreetMaps or other comparable initiatives.
It’s going to be very interesting to watch how quickly open source GIS apps and data (e.g., OpenStreetMap) are adopted. Part of the challenge is market awareness of open source GIS apps and data. Being open source (free), there aren’t big (or any) marketing budgets to promote the open source GIS concepts and products. Another challenge is if one chooses to implement open source GIS apps, there’s limited amount of technical support available to implement and maintain the apps unless there’s a reasonable level of commercial technical support available. However, as the adoption of open source GIS increases, it’s reasonable to assume the quality and quantity of user community technical support will grow.
If any of my readers use open source GIS apps and would like to share, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Click here to send me a quick email.
