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January 11, 2008 By Chad Vander Veen
Any discussion about the present and future of the GIS industry is incomplete without perspective from the man some call the "Father of GIS," Jack Dangermond. He and his wife, Laura, founded industry heavyweight ESRI in 1969. Dangermond is regarded by many as a global authority on geographic information systems, and he has the educational credentials to back it up: stops at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; the University of Minnesota; Harvard University's Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis, and honorary doctoral degrees from Ferris State University and the University of Redlands.
As interest in GIS grows and its applications are more frequently marketed to the general public, ESRI and its professional GIS tools may be approaching a crossroad. Dangermond took a few moments to share with Government Technology his insight about where GIS technology is now, where it is headed, and what impact new tools like Google Earth are making on what used to be a field accessible to only the technically skilled.
Q: What impact have user-friendly geospatial visualization and mapping applications, such as Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth, made on the GIS marketplace?
A: Google and Microsoft have done an amazing job of publishing online the imagery basemaps with visualization technologies that are easy to use and are built on the Web 2.0 environment. The impact of these services on the GIS industry -- users and vendors -- has been positive. It has opened geospatial visualization to many new users.
ESRI is working on several technologies that integrate these technologies with our own platform. Specifically ArcGIS is being extended to support REST [Representational State Transfer] services that can be mashed up using JavaScript with these consumer visualization technologies and their related basemaps. And at [version] 9.3, we will provide improved KML support.
Q: What do new "mash-up" products mean to ESRI? Do they take customers away, or do they enhance interest in GIS?
A: A more important question is, "What do they mean to our users?"
Our users are the organizations that create and maintain geographic knowledge -- databases, maps and spatial analysis models. They also support geospatial applications for use within their mission areas: government, utilities, businesses and science. These Web environments provide new ways for our users to make their knowledge available to broader audiences. They do not replace GIS systems, but rather complement the way geographic knowledge is accessed by a non-GIS audience, sort of like publishing maps in a newspaper.
Q: Is the Web-based model the future for GIS apps?
A: There's no question that the Web, Web services, and service-oriented architecture (SOA) provide a new pattern for implementing GIS systems -- just like desktop and multi-user server patterns. The central focus of the Web environment is a GIS server, such as ArcGIS Server. Increasingly this platform will be used to serve data, analytic models and maps for others to use on the Web. The server will also be the platform for supporting integration of GIS knowledge into enterprise systems.
My forecast is that as society becomes familiar with looking at things through geospatial visualization, they will be increasingly interested in services that go beyond simple maps and images. GIS servers managed by public and private GIS organizations will be used to provide these kinds of complementing services.
While a great deal of GIS data will not be served in the open Internet (for security, cost, proprietary and privacy reasons), many subjects that are of interest to the public such as crime, natural hazards and environmental conditions, will be made available by the GIS community.
While some have suggested that the traditional GIS organizations hoard
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Isn't Tomlinson the "father of GIS"?
Tomlinson is the "Godfather of GIS"
What Tomlinson was for one generation, Jack is for an the new generation. For me Tomlinson is the grand old GIS man, and Jack is and will always be the father for me.
Jack just cannot miss pushing ArcGIS Explorer yet it pales in comparison to Google and Microsoft products. What he seems to miss is that the average consumer of GIS data (99% of the planet) want only to see simple maps and are not trained in the area of Cartography or spatial analysis. A good example would be something like "crimes by neighborhood" or maybe "schools by performance". These are very simple maps that DO NOT require the expensive GIS platform. It has been my experience that most government organizations invest millions in the development of a GIS system and most of what they get out of it are simplistic dot maps that show where items/features/assets are located. This could be pulled off with nothing more sophisticated than MS Map.
Jack is obviously an amazing mind. As a user and developer of Imagery content, the pixel is replacing the vector, and Jack, in my opinion, falls short on that vantage. Where Google Earth Virtual Earth, and ESRI fail is in geographic accuracy. As visualization becomes mission critical, engineering grade accuracy become adherently important. They are all missing the boat on this subject and that is because their revenue is not driven yet by accuracy. Once accuracy becomes an issue, GE-VE-ESRI will have to acquire that knowledge. The question of ESRI continued dominance will in my mind be a question of accuracy, at some point it is required for "real" solutions. Up until now it has been pretty pictures, at some point it needs real accuracy. That will be the defining driver forward. If ESRI can acquire and integrate high accuracy content and then conform to those standards, the world will be ESRI's for future generations. If not, open up the competition, market share only goes so far when better solutions start appearing....
I believe accuracy is also important, both in precision and truth. To bring these 2 things together requires the right tools and authoritative source. This fits public agencies and they typically use capable solutions like ESRI. I do not see citizens delivering the same, not because of the limitations of consumer solutions like Google Earth, but because they are more consumers than publishers. GIS is far more powerful than a simple pin map, that's why you're seeing such growth in all industries.