Category: GIS

Tim Martin comments on the hype surrounding Google Earth, asking is google as much a hindrance as help to the GI industry? I think Tim is right to recognise some of the data quality issues apparent in both Google apps, but I think it is a mistake to see Google in any-ways trying to advance the traditional GIS industry.

That is not what they are trying to do, to be honest I don’t think they are very much bothered about the traditional GI industry, it is too small and too inward looking for them to care.

What they have done with great success is make “fit for purpose” geographic information available to the general public in a form that is easy to use and very accessible in the case of Google Earth, and with Google Maps, have made available a platform with which web developers can build their own map based applications complete with geodata – something ESRI has been trying to do for years.

Google are not likely to support spatial analysis in the near future because, it is too specialised and would be of little interest to the mass-market, rather than because it would expose issues with the available data. ESRI seem to have plans to address these more demanding applications across the web using their ArcWeb services project and will I assume understand and respond to the issue Martin identifies.

I thought it was about time I actually tried to use the Google Maps API rather than just talk about it, so I spent a couple of hours over the weekend building a simple google map application. The result Where’s ed? took just an hour or so to put together ( Can’ get it to work with Safari but the bug is a least recognised!), in contrast to build a similar application using Autodesk MapGuide, something I used to be very familiar with, would take a day or two and I would have to acquire the data from somewhere – something which could take weeks!

This is the one place where I think Google does justify the hype, in a few months Google Maps has done more to allow the individual to develop mapping based websites than the traditional GIS industry has done in 10 years. The democratisation of Geographic Information in this way is the result of two things, firstly a simple, slick API for developers and secondly and most importantly of all, the making available of a consistent source of commercial geographic information at no cost to the developer or user.

The advertising based business model of Google has not touched the Google Geography apps yet, if will in time .., but at which point, we the developers and consumers will already be hooked.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

As I metioned a week or so ago the BBC called as they were putting together a piece on Google Earth, well this morning Rory Cellan Jones produced this report (realplayer) for the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, the “must listen” breakfast show for the great and the good in the UK.

No great insights.. but Google is really bringing GI into the mainstream.

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

Inventor of podcasting Adam Curry has discovered the google maps api, in his latest Daily Source Code podcast he talks extensively on the subject and is clearly very excitied about the possibilites of using it along with GPS to produce “indie” mapping data and services.

There seems to be a mainstream hype developing around google maps/earth at the moment – I had a call from the BBC today looking into doing a piece on Radio 4 on google earth !

As I was in “the valley” today, on my way home from visiting Fujitsu in Sunnyvale I thought I would drop into the Apple campus in nearby Cupertino. I am please to confirm it still exisits despite Microsoft not having it on the imagery layer in MSN virtual earth. I have the t-shirt to prove it!

The imagery used by microsoft appears to come from the USGS, and if one wanted a concrete example of problems on “free” geodata this is it. The imagery although available at cost of duplication is over 15 years old! compare that to the commerical imagery used by Google and supplied by DigitalGlobe. – You pay your money (or not) and take the choice..

Written and submitted from the BA lounge, San Francisco Airport, using the t-mobile wifi network.

I have left San Diego, and flown up to San Jose to meet up with the people at Fujitsu Siemens the people who build the tablet PC’s the OS field staff use.

As always, enjoyed the ESRI conference, the whole web services message seems to be coming together now and it was good to see OGC standards prominent.

My initial opinion around the new arcexplorer is changing, although I’m sure the prototype demostrated on mainstage makes great use of ‘Smoke and Mirrors”, a thin client consuming Arc Web services makes a very useful tool.

Imagine a tool as easy to use as google earth with the capabilty to carry out complex geoprocessing if that is what you need..

Missed the blogger’s event, “Dicks” was so busy and I was late – so ending up going to the padres game. Next time guys

Written and submitted from the Plaza Suites Hotel, San Jose, using the hotels broadband network.

Had a couple of meetings today, then met up with some old Autodesk friends and wnet along to a few presentations yesterday.

I was taken aback by the amount of new stuff especially in ArcSDE and database support in 9.2. As i said yesterday I was surprised how little emphasis was given in the plenary to quite major changes in Geodatabases. The SQL interface and the use of an OGC simple features schema in Oracle is really big news, and today I saw demonstrated access to spatial data in a geodatabase from sql*plus.

More details also emerged of the file based geodatabase (which breaks the volume limit of the access based personal geodatabase allowing the storage of up to 2Tb. If that was not interesting enough the schema’s supported are the same as normal SDE including imagery..

So for me, beyond the eye-candy of the google earth like arcexploer, the hidden message of the conference this year is the rise of the geodatabase