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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | Re: [gislist] What is happening to GIS? |
| Date: |
10/02/2005 07:55:01 AM |
| From: |
GIS |
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Dear friends,
I have gone thru the intersting views on the subject.
We started GIS India the first journal form India in 1992 with the main
objective of making GIS operational. We try to focus on what we are losing
by not using GIS in most area-related projects.
Coinciding with GIS Day celebrations, we are organising an Exhibition for
the public and professionals on 18 & 19 November05 in Hyderabad, India. In
this exhibtion we are arranging demo of GIS applications, particularly
those useful for the society.
We will use the views of this List for the panel discussions. Thanks for
the List members for their contributions
Maj Shiva Kiran
GIS India
www.gisindia.org.in
The Reeds wrote:
>
>Perhaps the impact of NASA's World Wind project, Google Earth, MSN Virtual
Earth and Yahoo Maps and all the really neat and useful applications being
deployed using these technologies shows us part of the next evolution in
our industry: Really intuitive, easy to use, rapidly developed location
based applications that can be used by non-geo people.
>
>However, remember that content - good, quality content - needs to come
from somewhere. There are costs and considerable expertise associated with
collecting and maintaining this content. Further, there is strong
technology and science behind each of these technologies, like using
spherical coordinate systems, sophisticated indexing, and 3d visualization.
The key is in the packaging - how the user interacts with the system. Each
of the technologies mentioned above presents a user experience that is fun,
easy to learn and use, and does not require any knowledge of GIS - or any
other geospatial technology for that matter. But don't forget that each of
these applications was designed and built by individuals with strong
database, computer science, geo, and visualization backgrounds. Someone has
to build these things. As a matter of fact, simple, easy to use, intuitive
applications - such as E-Government applications - have been designed and
deployed using "traditional" GIS techno
> logy. End user runs application, not knowing or caring that there is a
sophisticated GIS engine, some form of spatial database, and content
supporting that application.
>
>Anyway, if you can combine the fun/intuitive aspects of GE and VE with
relevant content from other domains collected and managed using traditional
GIS, such as forestry or wildlife biology, what a great combination.
Pipedream? Nope. Check out Global Coordinate (www.global.coordinate.com) or
Open Earth (http://www.openearth.com.au/home.html) and go to the demo
slides. In both these examples, integration was enabled by using standards -
in these cases the OGC WMS and WFS interface specifications. These are two
of numerous applications in which GE is combined with "traditional" GIS to
create a powerful end user experience - and scientific tool.
>
>Cheers
>
>Carl
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Fiona Gregory" <fgregory@sasktel.net>
>To: <gislist@lists.geocomm.com>
>Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 8:53 PM
>Subject: [gislist] What is happening to GIS?
>
>
>> Internet map servers...
>>
>> ..spatial database engines..
>>
>> ..object oriented programming..
>>
>> and all most end users really want to do is map our data. And maybe do a
little spatial analysis. Like we learned that GIS was supposed to be for,
way back in our first Intro to GIS class, except we never did get to
analysis part, because we spend the whole course trying to figure out why
the program kept hanging. Then when we got menus instead of command lines,
we thought the age of "GIS for everyone" was dawning. And now...
>>
>> Am I crazy, or is the GIS world getting way too complex? Deeper and
deeper into the rarefied domain of the information technologist, and
further from the grasp of the forester, wildlife biologist, land use
planner, who are the ones who should be - and want to be- in command of the
powers of spatial analysis and mapping in support of better environmental
management strategies.
>>
>> Are the huge expenditures of time, money, and professional expertise
on "enterprise GIS" these days really reaching and helping these people, or
more importantly, are they really the best use of the scarce resources in
the strained budgets of government agencies, non-profit groups, natural
resource companies?
>>
>> I believe in the value of GIS, but I'm not sure I believe in most
instances of how I see GIS being used, and where the GIS resources are
going, in organizations that I have observed in my 10 years in the
GIS/natural resources field.
>>
>> Have I struck a chord with anyone? Do you agree, or am I wrong, and can
you explain why?
>> ______________________________
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