STRONG SHOWING AT THE SURVEY SUMMIT

GLIS, AAGS contribute in a big way to this year’s Survey Summit

By Ilse Genovese

Presenting not one, not two, but several technical papers at the just concluded Survey

Summit, surveyors associated with the Geographic and Land Information Society (GLIS)

and the American Association for Geodetic Surveying (AAGS) demonstrated that efforts to

improve the spatial quality of GIS features are on pace and, indeed, part of the GIS

revolution.

And revolution it has been, echoed in the purpose and history of the Survey Summit itself.

“Ten years ago, at the first Summit, it was all about parcels on desktops and working with

measurements in databases,” said Esri’s Summit Coordinator Brent Jones in his opening

remarks. But converting survey data to GIS features proved cumbersome, and issues with

accuracy have dominated every conversation ever since. The technological answer in

2004-5 to improving accuracy in GIS and data management in surveying was to build

software tools for an integrated survey information system. “In 2006-2007, “we were still

wrestling with the question “when it’s a survey, and when it’s ‘just’ positioning,” but in

2008-9, technology found a way “to tie them together in a “parcel fabric,” said Jones.

ArcGIS for AutoCAD and other desktop applications were developed to deliver new

services. Then, when positioning switched from mechanical to digital instruments, industry

standard models were the flavor of the day. And just in time. Mobile positioning in real time

contributed huge amounts of spatial data, not all authoritative, waiting to be analyzed and

shared. And, with so much being done “on the go”, the old notions about the lifecycle of the

spatial infrastructure went out of the window.

“Suddenly, it dawned on everybody,” Jones continued, “that data in the surveying office are

an asset”—and that there is need to build data processing workflows which increase

productivity and return on investment.

In the wake of this realization there has been a noticeable technology push to make spatial

information useful, not just interesting, and easily shareable. The geospatial community

embraced web 2.0, social media, and connectivity, and knowledge workers enriched their

toolbox with a variety of customizable viewers and apps. “Technology is becoming a

system—an infrastructure of desktops, servers, wireless collectors, and the cloud,” said

Jones.

It’s a brave new world out there, one where data from iPhones and iPads stream into

resource centers on servers in the cloud and come back as information mapped by web

mapping services. Jack Dangermond, Esri’s founder, calls this configuration of high-tech

tools, information systems, and data in the cloud, “Cloud GIS.”

Cloud services will become an inescapable reality in our lifetime. Indeed, many surveyors

in public and private business are already using computing technology residing in the

cloud, not on their computers. Some even believe, like Jones, that the “cloud has changed

the footprint of surveying and GIS more than any other technology.”

Not long ago, we were licensing data, said Jones. Then came industry-standard data models,

followed by map viewers and apps in resource centers, and now we have a foundational

web map in the cloud to which we can add our own and publish and share them with just

about anybody. It’s information that’s “alive”, changing with each new batch of data

coming via iOS interphases into the cloud.

Dangermond shares this excitement. During a brownbag lunch with the press, he

emphasized the new path that Esri is taking. It’s one where “geography becomes the

platform for understanding the world around us.” A world of geospatial services where

location analytics improve performance and make government and businesses more

efficient. -- genoveseilse@gmail.com