Open Source, GIS and Data Visualization?

Mubarmij asks: "A lot of people, including the ex-Vice President, think that Terrain Visualization and the Georeferencing of all kinds of data is the next big thing. Given the broad applications (sims, education, games, GIS, virtual tourism, etc) that can be derived from such technology, I would tend to agree that if this is not actually the NBG(tm), then at least it is very close. Like the internet, this technology has taken its time in obtaining it's current level of sophistication. However, there is huge potential here that has yet to be tapped, despite the fact that it currently fills a huge niche market. I had once read that NASA spends more than 70% of its resources on space imaging and visualization-related activities (unfortunately I link to the article that mentions this, but one should remember that the major goal of all space satellites is to take multihued pictures of Earth and other planets, and you will see that this is not an exaggeration), which is quite a lot of money." Open Source has provided several frameworks for GIS from which a "killer app" may spring from. Read more on the various Open Source projects on GIS, and feel free to share your thoughts on where this technology may head in the future.

"There are quite a few web sites, commercial and non commercial that tend to this technology. However, it seems like the early nineties, where people are just starting to get aware of the internet, but are still awaiting for the killer app to make this thing fly.

There are two open source projects I am aware of that deal with this area. The first, VTP, is a real open source project attempting to create a real terrain visualizer. The second, OpenSkies, is not really open source yet (despite its claim)... but it is interesting in that it allows networked people to fly or drive through virtual worlds that are reality based.

Here are a few other questions:

• Do you think that this technology will remain a niche market (albeit a big one)? If so, is this likely to occur?
• Are you aware of any open source projects other than the two mentioned above that deal with this area?"

Interested readers will also want to check out Drawmap and the longstanding Open Source GIS, GRASS.

Comments

Arrrggghhh ... Visualisation is *NOT* pictures

[LL]

This is one of my pet peeves so bear with me for a while. Non-experts routinely consider satellite drapped imagery etc as visualisations. Strictly speaking, data visualisation is *INSIGHT* not graphics. It comes down to how efficient is the enscapsulation of high level knowledge. Take for example, the difference between a sat-photo of a hurricane and a meteorological map. The first is visually rich (color-enchanged, digitally sharpened etc) but the 2nd is more useful as it codifies the fronts, pressure zones, wind direction etc. The processed information is specifically designed to remove clutter and enable an expert to quickly determine key features and artifacts. The same principle applies to GIS. People are not interested in pretty pickies, they are interested in teh rate of containmanation flow, the distribution of traffic density, the classification of vegetation regrowth, etc. GIS is an enabling technology and yes it does require lots of graphics processing but the real work is in preparing the data, not in the visualisation. Working with one Natural Resource Management group, they said that 80% of the work is in cleaning up the data. Visualisation is just a tool to help them accelerate the process of finding bad data.

As for the field of displaying quantitative information, the recommended books are Tufte . It is actually quite hard to create intuitively understood data visualisations because our eye-brain can only measure simple things like intensity, distance, etc. That's why things like pie charts where the angle is directly proportional to the propoertion works. All the other data visualisation techniques (parallel coordinates, tensors, etc) require a fair amount of training and patterning before you can pick up the meaning. A geologist (or related discpline) would be able to look at a contour map and be able to "see" in eir mind's eye the slope and elevation. Lesser mortals would probably require a pan of a 3D VRML model and even then have difficulty in recalling specific features. Adding extra layers or texture maps might be aesthetically pleasing (cough*QUAKE*cough) but doesn't really add any extra information.

LL

There's also Openmap

[Xthlc]

It's mainly for the folks who need a 2D, Java-based solution. It's pretty darn useful; lots of great projection math utilities, a nicely structured architecture, support for a wide variety of GIS products out there, and has transparent support for delivering imagery over a network. Plus the platform of choice for primary developers (BBN) is Linux. :) http://openmap.bbn.com

Help me ask ESRI to port GIS products for Linux

[Greg151]

I have tried for four years to get the GIS industry leader Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) to port its products to Linux. They have expressed interest, but so far, have ported zero product. The problem is that they have not only leadership, but actual dominance in the industry You can send email to jdangermond@esri.com. Jack Dangermond is the president of the company, and a reasonable man. He has stated in the past that product ports are driven by user demand. Please be polite, ask for the specific product, and refer him to this slashdot site. I think that if he sees that the userbase is considering jumping to Open source, it might help his decision. Thanks Greg

Take GIS hype with a pinch of Salt

[Tappah]

Over the past several years, I can't count the number of times I've seen people gush on and on about GIS and all the wonderful things it can do. I've watched dozens of Companies and Cities sink millions into attempts to develop functional GIS systems. In fact, most failed miserably. Although in some limited cases GIS can be a workable system, in many cases, GIS is simply a scam touted by consultants, and the computer-ignorant. The most frequent victims of this scam, have been City and County governments.

The reason, is simple.

Most beginning projects focus on the purchase of GIS software, like ESRI's ArcInfo, the purchase of sexy machines to run it, and perhaps some initial staffing to set it up. They almost uniformly massively underestimate the amount of time and money required to actually get a functional landbase into the system, attach data to it, and ensure the necessary level of accuracy of the basemaps.

"It'll be easy, we have DB2 running on an as/400 and lots of maps" - should qualify as one of the most expensive single instances of "famous last words" in computer history.

In reality, very few maps are accurately digitized. Most GIS systems get sold on the premise of scanning and vectorizing dead-tree bluelines, or other formats - from paper. the problem is, that geographic maps are finicky about scale, and the maps you *thought* were accurate inevitably need to be rectified to whatever coordinate system you chose for the system. Its a tedious and enormously time-consuming process that simply doesn't lend itself to any sort of automatic processing. Then, there's the problem that most maps simply aren't accurate to begin with, and you see the beginnings of a problem. "I just bought half a million dollars of GIS software and equipment, and now I discover it's going to cost me three or four million to get my maps in shape to actually be useful".

Picture your average City government. Municipalities are where government really is. About 90% of the civil services provided to you by the sum of all government influence on you, comes from the local level. Cities have huge quantities of maps for things like building plats, subdivision maps, building blueprints, deed records, thoroughfare maps, land-use plans, etc etc etc. And that, coincidentally is where GIS appears to be the most useful. managing all that data is hard for cities - and GIS certainly looks easy in the presentations companies and consultants present - just point and click! What could be easier?

But the numbers of abandoned systems started by cities who bought into these sales pitches are huge - on the order of billions of dollars worth.

GIS companies and consultants know this - yet never warn purchasers, that in most cases, the cost of the software and systems amounts to only a tiny fraction of the actual costs of developing a working GIS.

So when you hear all the gushing success stories, and gee-whiz ideas presented as though GIS was a wonder cure for all sorts of problems, try to bear in mind - GIS works best with single-source maps, and data which can easily be applied to pre-existing points. If you hear the words "scan" or "address-range" - you'll know a bullshit artist is at work. Because for every working system involving simple maps with pre-rectified sources, there are probably 15 that were simply abandoned because of enormous unexpected costs and (salesman provoked) unrealistic expectations. A lot of money has been pissed away on GIS over the years. Real computer professionals know the golden rule - flashy graphics doesn't equal useful purpose.