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Note: The views expressed in the blogs and associated comments are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of POB.
Deral Paulk, Michael Binge and guest authors share their views on the latest trends in GIS technology and application.
Surveying & Engineering GIS Summit
A few observations
The ever ebullient Brent Jones kicked off the 2010 Summit at 8:30. I spoke with him at 7:30 and he had the look of an anxious prize-fighter in the dressing room. In the world of GIS as it relates to Surveying and Engineering, I can assure you this particular Mr. Jones does know what’s happening. He rattled off the latest industry stats on data, how much there is, where it is and how it is.
Then he got to the main theme of the 2010 Summit: "Computing on the Cloud”. The Cloud is a simple euphemism for the Internet. It had a previous life as “Web 2.0”, but The Cloud has much more emphasis on two-way traffic. In this case it means that surveyors can collaborate with other surveyors and engineers to introduce efficiencies and leverage profitability.
Now back in 2001 at the very first Survey GIS Summit that sort of talk started a boisterous “food fight”. We had GIS people accusing Surveyors of hoarding their data. We had Surveyors accusing GIS people of being irresponsible “rubber sheeters”. All elements of distrust have certainly not been removed. Claiming that would surely be venturing too far from the shores of sanity. But at least now we have a civil dialog and a potential “carrot”.
We got Jack Dangermond via webcam. He repeated once again how much he “truly loves surveyors” He also conceded he was “wrong about accuracy” in the early days of GIS. He speculated the next phase of GIS will be “getting into design”. That may sound a tad presumptuous, but remember we are talking about Jack Dangermond here. And if you don’t take that serious, to coin a phrase “You don’t know Jack”.
MLB
The ever ebullient Brent Jones kicked off the 2010 Summit at 8:30. I spoke with him at 7:30 and he had the look of an anxious prize-fighter in the dressing room. In the world of GIS as it relates to Surveying and Engineering, I can assure you this particular Mr. Jones does know what’s happening. He rattled off the latest industry stats on data, how much there is, where it is and how it is.
Then he got to the main theme of the 2010 Summit: "Computing on the Cloud”. The Cloud is a simple euphemism for the Internet. It had a previous life as “Web 2.0”, but The Cloud has much more emphasis on two-way traffic. In this case it means that surveyors can collaborate with other surveyors and engineers to introduce efficiencies and leverage profitability.
Now back in 2001 at the very first Survey GIS Summit that sort of talk started a boisterous “food fight”. We had GIS people accusing Surveyors of hoarding their data. We had Surveyors accusing GIS people of being irresponsible “rubber sheeters”. All elements of distrust have certainly not been removed. Claiming that would surely be venturing too far from the shores of sanity. But at least now we have a civil dialog and a potential “carrot”.
We got Jack Dangermond via webcam. He repeated once again how much he “truly loves surveyors” He also conceded he was “wrong about accuracy” in the early days of GIS. He speculated the next phase of GIS will be “getting into design”. That may sound a tad presumptuous, but remember we are talking about Jack Dangermond here. And if you don’t take that serious, to coin a phrase “You don’t know Jack”.
MLB
Comments
Date Posted: Jul 23, 2010 at 7:47 PM
Chris, a lot of infrastructure that gets sucked into a GIS is located by a variety of methods. The metadata should tell you about the provenance of the data, and give you some idea as to how much you can trust it. We have used As-builts, and have also used resource grade GPS to locate a lot of it in space. EBCI uses state plane grid coords (sorta - grid azimuth, and does not scale ground distances to the ellipsoid). Most of the trouble we have is with "fat finger" errors. The major problem is with the screen to seat interface, and there isn't much you can do except check the data before you use it. After awhile you reach a point where the data is reliable. It won't get better until man is pefected.
Date Posted: Jul 17, 2010 at 8:22 PM
The Cloud is not just about the web.
Yes, the web is central to it, but what it really is about is that your data and your computing platform are now the web.
Your desktop, your servers, your software, your data, your databases are all on the web.
And not just on the web, but on the web with backup, scalability, and all the horsepower and capacity anyone could ever want. And security too, if you need a private cloud. Or, as yet another option, that your desktop and the cloud become seamless, going back and forth as you connect and disconnect. Lots of different possibilities.
The idea is that the web becomes the world's next supercomputer, available to everyone.
Yes, the web is central to it, but what it really is about is that your data and your computing platform are now the web.
Your desktop, your servers, your software, your data, your databases are all on the web.
And not just on the web, but on the web with backup, scalability, and all the horsepower and capacity anyone could ever want. And security too, if you need a private cloud. Or, as yet another option, that your desktop and the cloud become seamless, going back and forth as you connect and disconnect. Lots of different possibilities.
The idea is that the web becomes the world's next supercomputer, available to everyone.
Date Posted: Jul 14, 2010 at 3:37 PM
Surveying = check & doublecheck - GIS ???
Our utilty companies that maintain the sewage systems have introduced GIS, the whole sewage systems are been surveyed by professionals. Now engineers are starting to use GIS, for our new infra porjects we consult their gis-system and we frequently run into problematic situations where bad data is offered, or data is misinterpreted.
We have bad inverts, it looks as if the data is not cheked. Our engineers have no idea how the positions of the manholes are obtained, some are digitized, some are measured with totalstation but they put everything on the design, later on we'll go and check in the field ... there's a long way to go, and some education must be done on both sides, the ones who do the datainput and the users.
Very important factors about the data : origin, accuracy, checked state and date of survey should be available for the one that consults the data.
I have no other experience with gis but wonder if this is common, surveying = checking and doublecheking in every step of the proces, how much checking is involved for the gis-work ... ?
Christof.
Our utilty companies that maintain the sewage systems have introduced GIS, the whole sewage systems are been surveyed by professionals. Now engineers are starting to use GIS, for our new infra porjects we consult their gis-system and we frequently run into problematic situations where bad data is offered, or data is misinterpreted.
We have bad inverts, it looks as if the data is not cheked. Our engineers have no idea how the positions of the manholes are obtained, some are digitized, some are measured with totalstation but they put everything on the design, later on we'll go and check in the field ... there's a long way to go, and some education must be done on both sides, the ones who do the datainput and the users.
Very important factors about the data : origin, accuracy, checked state and date of survey should be available for the one that consults the data.
I have no other experience with gis but wonder if this is common, surveying = checking and doublecheking in every step of the proces, how much checking is involved for the gis-work ... ?
Christof.