January 11

Contents

Editor's Introduction

This week I report on two developments in the world of remote sensing, profile an aquatic and fisheries biologist who spends most of her time using GIS, and bring you a first, small batch of answers to my annual industry survey; plus two small corrections.

— Matteo

Microsoft Signs Deal with GlobeXplorer, then DigitalGlobe Buys It

This week, there were two major announcements in the world of remote sensing:

• Microsoft announced that it will begin to update its Virtual Earth online mapping platform with more than 400,000 square miles of new aerial imagery of the United States under an agreement with GlobeXplorer, a provider of aerial and satellite images. The imagery is supplied by AirPhotoUSA and distributed by GlobeXplorer under a long-standing agreement between the two companies. Virtual Earth powers Microsoft's Live Search Maps service. Microsoft and GlobeXplorer plan to integrate the new imagery into Virtual Earth over the next several months.
• DigitalGlobe announced its acquisition of GlobeXplorer from Stewart REI Group, Inc., a subsidiary of Stewart Information Services Corp., thereby combining the digital libraries of DigitalGlobe, GlobeXplorer, and AirPhotoUSA. It also provides an integrated Web-based platform that allows customers to search for and download imagery. Prior to the acquisition, GlobeXplorer served as one of several resellers of DigitalGlobe's satellite imagery.

One interesting aspect of these two announcements is that DigitalGlobe supplies satellite imagery and aerial photography to Virtual Earth's rival, Google Earth—while DigitalGlobe's rival, GeoEye, provides satellite imagery to Virtual Earth! To help keep these relationships straight, see the table below.

I asked both Microsoft and DigitalGlobe whether the former's agreement with GlobeXplorer will somehow give it access to DigitalGlobe's satellite imagery. Both companies told me that it would not. A PR rep for Microsoft sent me this statement: "The Digital Globe acquisition of GlobeXplorer has no impact on the deal with Microsoft; Virtual Earth consumers and enterprise customers will continue to benefit from the refreshed imagery and expanded reach this deal provides. For additional questions around the acquisition, we recommend following up with Digital Globe/GlobeXplorer."

Chuck Herring, director of marketing communications for DigitalGlobe, told me: "That deal was closed previously to our acquisition. That's really around AirPhoto content. Going forward, we have a contract with Google and we are working to provide QuickBird content for Google. Those are truly independent contracts. You really can't couple the two or say that now, all of a sudden, you are going to see a whole bunch of QuickBird imagery show up in Microsoft products."

I discussed DigitalGlobe's strategy further with Herring.

1. What is the background to this acquisition?

   "We're transforming our company to be less focused on features around a satellite having the highest resolution or the best accuracies. When we came online our whole focus was around traditional satellite imagery [and the] the features of the satellite. Moving forward, there will be that aspect to it, because we'll always be dealing with traditional users, but, in expanding the company, especially in the commercial realm, there is an effort to transform ourselves into a content-based company. The two pillars of a content-based company would be coverage and accessibility. This acquisition allows us to accelerate both of those drastically, [for two reasons]: one, from a content standpoint, because the combination of the two databases of GlobeXplorer and AirPhotoUSA substantially increases our world-wide coverage; two, because it allows us easier accessibility and distribution, especially via the Web and Web-based services. More and more we are finding customers that don't really want to deal with our traditional business model, which is what we would call a discrete transaction: if you want an image, you call us and we look in the library and see if we have it covered; if it is not covered or it is not up-to-date enough for your project needs, we task a satellite and get updated coverage. Once we get that project completed, we put it on a physical media and send it to you. You have to deal with integrating that data into your workflow—so you have to host it, you have to put it into your application. Especially in the commercial realm, people don't necessarily always want to host the data. They want easy access. Instead of always working with a per-square-kilometer-type of business model, they'd like to have more of an Internet metered or subscription model. GlobeXplorer is one of the leaders in that space, so [the acquisition] made sense. Our companies are very complementary. We have a world-wide database of content. They also have content and then they have the technology that allows easier access and distribution of that content."

2. What impact will the acquisition have on the market for remotely sensed imagery?

   "[The combined database] is obviously a more complete [one], because we have more completeness of coverage, easier access. You [should] also couple this with last week's announcement that we are under contract with Ball Aerospace to build WorldView 2. We essentially completed the sensor, with ITT, and now we've closed the contract for WorldView 2, which is independent of U.S. government contract financing, essentially. Again, that goes to the capacity and completeness of coverage. Right now, really, with just three high-resolution U.S. satellites in orbit—QuickBird, IKONOS, and OrbView—there is really a scarcity of capacity, especially in certain regions—the United States, Europe, Asia—where it takes a great deal of time to complete projects. We have now an immediate ability to, essentially, accent our capacity with QuickBird, with the AirPhoto coverage, as well as them acquiring new data as we move along. Then you couple that with WorldView 1 and 2 and it creates a capacity where we are able to update [imagery quickly]. With the Internet mapping revolution that has gone on in the last year, people are demanding more completeness of coverage. If you follow users of all the Internet mapping applications, there's a common theme and that is that there is not enough coverage or it is not up-to-date enough. When we first started working, many people would be fine with a one- or a two-year-old image."

3. Now you face rising expectations…

   "Yes, absolutely. People want not only coverage but they want it up to date. Generally even a year might not do it. People want it pretty much within a couple of months and, as we move forward and capacity increases, it becomes much closer to, ten years from now, maybe a real-time updating of imagery. So, our capacity and completeness must reflect that, as well as access to that information."

4. Is WorldView 1 still on schedule for a mid-year launch?

   "Yep, absolutely."

Using GIS to Guide Habitat Restoration

Land management is an area of public policy for which GIS is particularly useful, as a decision support system. In addition to giving researchers a convenient way to store data and powerful tools to analyze it, GIS also allows them to generate colorful maps that convey their findings to decision-makers and the public much better than narrative reports and tables. Often, the biggest challenges that researchers face when using GIS this way are gaps in the existing data and insufficient money for data collection. When acting as advisors in a public policy process, researchers also have to be mindful of the goals and priorities of the political body that is funding their work.

I recently discussed this use of GIS with Darlene Siegel, an aquatic and fisheries biologist on the staff of Tetra Tech, Inc., a consulting firm in Portland, Oregon.

Siegel has a master's degree in environmental science from the University of Maine, where she studied aquatics and fisheries. "In college and graduate school I avoided learning GIS," she says, "because I feared being stuck behind a desk. I wanted to be in the field. However, as I progressed in my career, I realized that I was going to be stuck behind a desk no matter what, so I might as well be making maps, because they are colorful and creative and pretty." Now she enjoys using GIS and thinks it is fun.

Siegel is mostly self-taught in GIS, which she has been using for about seven years. She began to learn it while working in the bio-monitoring section of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. She then used GIS for site selection and to map data during a stint at the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, in Maine, where she studied buffer widths along streams. Her next job was with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, where she began to work on habitat restoration and stream surveys. She used county tax lot data layers and put buffers around streams to identify who her agency would need to notify when sending staff on private property to do surveys. "At that point I was so used to working with GIS," she says, "that I realized that I couldn't work without it."

Siegel did a lot of field data collection when she was younger, often hiking, bushwacking, or floating down rivers. Now she mostly manages projects and uses GIS to analyze data. She specializes in using all the available data on an area to identify opportunities for restoring ecosystems, which is what interests her the most.

While Siegel still does some field data collection, she mostly acquires data previously collected by others. It often has "a lot of holes," she says, which makes it hard to compare areas. For example, she explains, data on water quality or macrovertebrates may be available in some areas but not in other ones. "At times it is hard to be consistent and piece together everything, but it is also hard to leave out information when it is available."

Furthermore, the available data was often collected at different times, by different people, with different criteria—and has little or no metadata. When no hard data exists, features and coverage types are classified on the basis of the "best professional judgment" of experts.

Another challenge is extrapolating the conditions that prevail at a distance from where data is collected. For example, Siegel explains, water quality data is typically taken at one point in a river and it is assumed that the water upstream is the same—which may not be true. "That is an example of a problem that I run into frequently and makes using GIS difficult," she says.

Identifying restoration opportunities involves looking at large areas and trying to figure out "where you will get the biggest bang for your buck," Siegel says. The goal of one of her projects, jointly funded by the Army Corps of Engineers and a local agency, was to produce a project list, which could then be further refined and prioritized. It did not include any funding for on-the-ground data collection. Therefore, in order to "compare apples to apples throughout the basin," Siegel and her colleagues had to compile all available data and convert it to a single format. They then used a lot of the project money to run the ecosystem diagnostic and treatment (EDT) model to identify salmonid populations.

A panel of stakeholders—such as local watershed councils, state and federal agencies, and resource managers—value-ranked the various parameters. For example, Siegel explains, "they may have ranked anadromous fish as more important than resident fish, or wetlands as less important than riparian areas." She and her colleagues then converted all the data into raster format, so that each pixel was color-coded based on the value of that section of the stream. The resulting map clearly displayed opportunities for environmental conservation according to the stakeholders' criteria. "Then, once funding becomes available, you can start working down the list and actually putting some of these projects on the ground, which is the eventual goal." The project's final product consisted of maps and a narrative that walked the reader through them.

The special knowledge that Siegel and her company bring to these projects from previous work includes an understanding of the response variables. Data "is not going to be meaningful if it does not detect changes in land use," she explains. "You want to look at variables that are showing differences in the current conditions, but also variables that reflect the changes being implemented. I could have tons of data on air quality, for example, but I am not going to change air quality with a habitat restoration project. I can put it in the model, but it is not really meaningful."

On the other hand, for example, when dealing with point source pollution, installing filters will make a large difference. You could measure the level of a certain toxin, then install the filters, then measure it again. So, the previous knowledge that Siege contributes to a project of this sort is "knowing what variables are important, what sort of responses are out there, which data to really focus on and spend your energy on," she says.

When dealing with complex policy-making processes, Siegel adds, it is also important to know your client's goals and priorities. Clients also vary widely in their understanding of GIS. Some have specific requirements—regarding, for instance, projections or metadata formatting—while others don't even mention GIS. "We will turn something into a GIS project because we feel that that is the best way to approach it," says Siegel.

Ultimately, Siegel's maps help politicians and others without training in geography or biology make policy decisions. "The maps are there to say a thousand words," she says. "You can pick up a report and read through it or you can look at a map and say, 'OK, that makes sense to me.'" Additionally, she points out, GIS-generated maps make decisions more transparent, because they document the data that was used to arrive at them.

Recently Siegel began to use an interface to bring AutoCAD data into GIS. "I'm just learning CAD, but most of the people with whom I work are engineers," she says. "They develop the actual, on-the-ground projects that are engineered so that we don't kill anybody when logs get blown out. They want to make sure that things work, so we'll start with their drawings, bring them into GIS, move stuff around. Or, if we are just doing a conceptual-level drawing, we often start with GIS, then they will take that and import it into CAD and take it to the next level."

Geospatial Industry Survey

Here's a first, small batch of responses to my industry survey questions. I will have many more next week. Please send me yours!

1. What are emerging as the biggest drivers and the narrowest bottlenecks in the delivery of interactive maps and location-based services, including local search, to consumers?

   1. Tim Ormsby

      I think what is driving the delivery ultimately is that there is a market—people get lost, people can't find things, people don't know where to look for things they want. It's the same market that has always existed for the Yellow Pages or for a tourist guide in a city. Interactive maps and LBS's are an improvement on those resources. What is driving delivery more immediately is a confluence of factors—the technology is mature enough, the broadband and/or wireless access is in place, and critical mass has been achieved in terms of user fluency with computers, software, and communication devices. The bottlenecks I think are data quality, data currency, and data completeness.

   2. Bibiana McHugh

      Open Standards.

   3. Anthony Miles

      Drivers: in-field data availability and capture, wireless connectivity, remote dispatch.

      Constraints: communications network infrastructure (coverage and bandwidth), awareness and consumer "skill set" limitations.

2. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the pace of development of the NSDI? Are you involved in the process?

   1. Bibiana McHugh

      I was involved in developing the Transportation Theme for the GeoSpatial ONE Stop initiative (national basemap).

3. Which sector of the geospatial industry do you think will grow the most this year? Why?

   1. Tim Ormsby

      High-resolution remote sensing imagery. People like it. They know how to interpret it. It's still fresh and exciting. It's available. Maybe 3D virtual tour stuff. So I don't just see a static out-of-context photo of the Bed & Breakfast I might stay in, I can actually move around the neighborhood in 3D.

   2. Bibiana McHugh

      Good Question. I wish it would be transportation, but I'm not optimistic.

   3. Anthony Miles

      Location based services—because this is where "non-geospatial" people see where the most money can be made (I don't mean to be cynical)

   4. Chat Minteer

      Mobile applications. Rugged hardware and GPS components continue to get more affordable. Large projects like the 2010 Census show that Mobile GIS applications are useful in large applications.

4. How is your company / agency benefiting from the greater availability of satellite imagery?

   1. Bibiana McHugh

      It has become a standard layer in all our mapping applications.

   2. Anthony Miles

      No benefit at this stage, but there are improvements on the horizon. We still rely on good old fashioned orthophotography!

5. Have you switched to 3D or begun to use it more? Is it enabling new applications for you?

   1. Bibiana McHugh

      There's an interest in Google Earth, however, we have no driving need for 3D from a business perspective.

   2. Anthony Miles

      We have been using it for a while (for construction drawings) but will be including 3D modelling for the likes of radio path planning etc., in the medium term.

6. Are you planning to access large amounts of CAD data from your GIS this year or to migrate CAD data into your GIS?

   1. Bibiana McHugh

      No.

   2. Anthony Miles

      Yes, both. We are currently converting from CAD technology to full GIS, and we will include access to legacy CAD data with the GIS environment

7. Have you implemented any open source solutions? Do you plan to do so this year?

   1. Bibiana McHugh

      Yes, wherever we can, such as Apache, Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and Eclipse. We also plan to migrate to GeoServer this year. In addition, we have developed an OS transit application we plan to release later this year. It uses several OS libraries.

   2. Anthony Miles

      No and no, although I have been keeping an eye on what's happening

8. Are you satisfied with the coverage, accuracy, update frequency, and cost of commercial street centerline data? Do you expect any major improvements this year? Do you expect to make any major changes in how you acquire this data?

   1. Bibiana McHugh

      We use a regionally maintained basemap that has met our requirements in the past, however, we now need a basemap that supports navigation and driving instructions with turn restrictions and speed limit data.

   2. Anthony Miles

      1. Yes, New Zealand is relatively lucky in this aspect: the central government "owns and maintains" the data and provided it "free". Vendors only charge a low cost of processing.
      2. No, the data is pretty good "as is".
      3. We have just changed this dramatically from traditional CAD-based delivery to raw database (Oracle Spatial). Much better process!

9. In what ways do you expect geospatial technologies to contribute the most this year to solving global problems, such as climate change?

   1. Tim Ormsby

      Mainly through compelling imagery, like satellite photography, where that speaks for itself. Here's what forest clear-cutting in the Amazon looks like, for example. By helping scientists do better work, all advances in geospatial technology help solve global problems. But in terms of making a case to the public, I think it's imagery mostly.

   2. Bibiana McHugh

      Global problems are inherently spatial. New technologies now provide the ability to look at these problems and analyze them spatially.

   3. Anthony Miles

      How long is a piece of string — the possibilities are endless!

10. Which conferences and trade shows do you plan to attend this year? How far in advance do you plan these trips?

    1. Bibiana McHugh

       TransITech 2007 and the Location Intelligence Conference 2007. Usually plan in advance by fiscal year for budgeting purposes.

    2. Anthony Miles

       • GITA (Australasia) New Zealand Seminar - Auckland, NZ. February
       • Intergraph 2007 - Nashville, TN. May
       • GITA (Australasia) Conference - Brisbane, Aus. August

       The two GITA events I attend annually. Intergraph 2007 is a relative one off and was planned at least 12 months in advance.

    3. Chad Minteer

       Our company will attend all the regional GIS conferences and ESRI technology seminars, as well as several conferences related to invasive species management, pest management, and water quality. Typically these activities are planned 4-6 months in advance.

11. What do you expect to be the next really big thing in GIS data or applications — of roughly the same import, say, as the introduction of TIGER files?

    1. Bibiana McHugh

       Without a doubt, web services which provide access to data or services via the Web, such as Location-Based Services (LBS), Web Feature Services (WFS), and Web Mapping Services (WMS). Hopefully, we'll see more Open Source applications and the adoption of OGC standards.

    2. Anthony Miles

       Not sure really, but I would love to see the emergence of GML take centre stage.

    3. Chad Minteer

       ArcGIS Mobile applications will be the next big thing in the mobile GIS marketplace, which has grown significantly in recent years.

12. What are Europeans doing better with regards to geospatial technology than North Americans?

    1. Bibiana McHugh

       They are generally ahead of us on the curve when it comes to the development and adoption of standards. They also have implemented multi-modal trip planning, which has yet to hit the market here.

13. Has Google Earth become a de-facto standard? If it has, is that good or bad? Why?

    1. Tim Ormsby

       Seems like it has. Seems like a good thing. It's raising consciousness about spatial information, increasing spatial literacy.

    2. Bibiana McHugh

       Its great for viewing data, but it does not replace a GIS for data analysis or maintenance and management.

    3. Anthony Miles

       Somewhat, yes, and there are both positives and negatives. On the plus side, it has undoubtedly increased the awareness of geospatial technology to a greater audience, with most benefit being the education of senior (non-geospatial) management. On the flip side, a little knowledge is dangerous… The need for specialized GIS applications across all sectors is now more apparent than ever, but the perception that we can "do it all with Google Earth" has raised its ugly head.

       Google Earth has its place (and it's fun) and is a great platform to drive geospatial technologies and awareness.

14. What do you expect to be your thorniest legal issues this year? Liability? Copyright? Privacy?

    1. Bibiana McHugh

       Hopefully none.

    2. Anthony Miles

       Liability is always the hardest… particularly in this age of electronic data sharing.

15. Scientific American, Technology Review, and the New York Times, just to mention a few of my favorite publications, almost never mention GIS specifically, even when talking about GIS-related topics. Why do you think that's the case? Do you expect awareness of GIS to significantly increase this year?

    1. Tim Ormsby

       For popular publications, like the NYT, I think it takes too much work to explain GIS. There's too much map-database relationship stuff to talk about. It's boring and takes too long. It's easier to talk around it. I'm not sure about Scientific American or Technology Review.

    2. Bibiana McHugh

       Awareness has increased and will continue to increase in the coming years, mainly due to a new interest by developers such as Google and Yahoo and the release of mapping APIs that make it easy to display spatial data. I think it really took off when CNN started using it. The term "neogeographers" recently emerged to reference developers who have interest but no formal education in geography or GIS. I think they are bringing a new and fresh perspective to an industry that has historically been populated by GIS and geography professionals.

    3. Anthony Miles

       There are a number of other publications that do mention geospatial technologies. GIS and related activity is popping up in the most unusual places too… I mean how many "cop" shows do you see now that have elements of GIS, GPS, remote sensing and other spatial technologies in them? It might not mean "headline grabbers", but the use of GIS is slowly but surely permeating the global psyche!

    4. Chad Minteer

       I would suppose for the same reason that they don't mention other technology 'middleware.' The focus of the media, even these respected members of it, would seem to be on the problems, and on the practical application of technology ('solution') rather than on the technology itself. Nonetheless, GIS awareness will continue to increase. GIS is featured in a large number of institutes of higher learning, and consumer GIS tools continue to be widely used. People are learning about the technology in the most important way—by using and applying it.

Department of Corrections

In last week's profile of Erin Aigner, I forgot to spell out UO: it stands for University of Oregon; also KML should have been KMZ.

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