The Geospatial Revolution in Copenhagen

The Geospatial Revolution

Peter BattyUbisense

KMSCopenhagen, March 25, 2010

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Overview

• Mainstream at last!

• A real-time, multimedia view of the world

• Data sharing

• Crowdsourcing

• Economics / business models

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GIS was a specialized backroom technology for many years

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Doug SeabornAM/FM conference, 1992

“1995: the year that GIS disappeared”

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Disruptive technology

Functionality /performance

Time

Established technology

Disruptive technology

MainstreamMarketrequirements

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Now much easier to include location data

Free or cheap map data

Geocoding Location tracking

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Finally, geospatial data is just another data type

flickr.com/photos/26664862@N04/2499573972/7

The neogeographersGoogle

MicrosoftOpen Source... and more

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Geo moving to the mainstream

1996 MapQuest

2005 Google Earth (Keyhole)

2005 Google Maps

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Fun and coolPerformance

Ease of useAPI

Continued innovation

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3D buildingsBirds eye view

PhotosynthSQL Server

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Strong in databaseStrong in web mapping

Weaker on desktopData improving fast

Spans both “GIS” and “neogeo” spaces

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“But these new systems are just simple web mapping, they’re not GIS”

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Cartography

Andy Allan, Cloudmade

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Data creation and maintenance

Upcoming Mapzen editorCloudmade

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Here’s a print of Chinatown, San Francisco.

Instead of gargoyles, we’re using more appropriate bits of icon and text to recognize the corners.

Here you can see that someone has walked around Green Street and noted address information and a few businesses.

This is not information that you’d be able to get from a satellite image.

It’s also information that don’t really need a GPS for: the roads are already in place, but they need extra eye-level information.

Data creation and maintenance

“Walking Papers” for OpenStreetMap Stamen Design17

Geospatial analysis

Stamen Design

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Geospatial analysisFortiusOne / GeoCommons

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http://flic.kr/p/78H5Z8!20

A real-time, multimedia view of the world

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October 19, 200922

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Microsoft Photosynth24

Google Streetview25

Microsoft Virtual Earth

Manhattan

maps

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C3 Technologies

Las Vegas

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prototypegame.org

Manhattan

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Live

VideoLive

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The Sensor Web

Need a spatial context to make sense of all this

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Location sensing

Cell towersWi-Fi

GPSRFID

UWB

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New TomTom traffic speed datasetderived from

600 billionspeed readings from users

flickr.com/photos/rutlo/3164449930/

real time data within

3 minutes

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location based servicesare real at last!

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Demand Response

Storage Renewable Energy

Intelligent devices and control systems

Smart Grid“The Internet brought to our electric system”

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Will have the ability to know where everything is - and what is happening - all the time

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Data Sharing

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Geodata standards

Lightweight Heavyweight

geoRSS

KML

geoJSON

GML

Shape

Mashups

Google Search

OGC*

Portals

WMS

WFS

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“So far the impact of SDIs on the integration of data as a ubiquitous component of the web seems low”

“There is not evidence that SDIs have increased the market volume of government data by significant amount”

Clemens Porteleat Geoweb 2009

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“Current OGC standards are only really accessible to geo experts, not easily from broader web community”

“OGC web services based largely on an architecture and approach to web services developed 10 years ago”

Clemens Porteleat Geoweb 2009

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3 rules for evolvable systems

Clay Shirky, 1996shirky.com/writings/evolve.html

Only solutions that produce partial results when partially implemented can succeed

What is, is wrong

Orgel's Rule: "Evolution is cleverer than you are".

Evolvable

Centrally designed

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“If a dataset available on the web is in a format that can't be indexed by Google, does it make a sound?”

Kevin WiebeSafe Software

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<Picture of Jason>

Jason BirchCity of Nanaimo

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“the cloud”

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Crowdsourcing

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Web

publishing participation

2.0Web1.0

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Wikipedia

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Hurricane KatrinaNew Orleans

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Community generated data

scipionus.com54

OpenStreetMap

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December 3, 2007

July 7, 2009

Google OpenStreetMap

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Cape RoyalGrand Canyon, AZ

USACropston

England

Denver, COUSA

Denver, COUSA

“Mousetrap” junction of I-25 and I-70

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momentum!!

users

OSM stats from May 2009

24mkm of highways

34mkm of ways

NAVTEQ had 18m km of highways in Dec 2007

crazy

flickr.com/photos/pimpmasterjazz/2601898276/

200,000+

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What about quality?

“OSM quality is beyond good enough, it is a product that can be used for a wide range of activities”

Dr Muki Haklay of UCL

Based on a detailed analysishttp://tinyurl.com/mukiosm

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LandgatePerth, Western Australia

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Google MapMaker“The future is user

created data”Michael Jones, Google

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2007 dataDatabase

69 countries11m miles (18m km) of roads18m points of interest

PeopleField force 700Central production 270Technology 500Total 3349

Financial Revenue $853m (~€604m) Data creation & distribution costs $396m (~€280m)

“Creating, maintaining and delivering a comprehensive, high quality map database is a

multi-step, labor-intensive process. We currently employ over 270 employees in our centralized production facility and a global

workforce of over 700 geographic analysts in 32 countries”

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Crowdsourcing is a paradigm shift for data creationflickr.com/photos/jamescridland/613445810/

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Economics of data creation and sharing

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“Information wants to be free”

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UK Government advised by Sir Tim Berners Lee

Ordnance Survey medium and small scale data to be free

(Details being worked out)

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“Our taxes fund the collection of public data - yet we have to pay again to access it. [Make] it

freely available to stimulate innovation”

The Guardian “Free Our Data” web site

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sadly it’s not that simple ...

Taxes only pay half of the costs (in UK)Costs are ongoing, not one off

Many competing priorities for tax moneyAll geodata is not equal

Commercial companies can profit

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Land of the

Free74

I think we should raise taxes or cut spending on schools to

do better mapping

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Missing Pepsi Center!(Built 10 years ago)!USGS Topo Map

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TIGER dataUS Census Bureau

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No large scale “national map”Utilities and local governments map themselves

Most cities are mapped many timesSignificant map inconsistencies

The US situation

flickr.com/photos/izik/3215303355/79

National Mapping Agencies!

Cost!

Product!

Good product but expensive!

Free or cheap but product lacking!

We want to be here ... !

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In summary ... a wild ride ahead!

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?peter@ebatty.com

geothought.blogspot.comtwitter.com/pmbatty

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