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Internal creation and use of 3D virtual environments, within the development control consultation process in Local Government using GI data widely available – what are the barriers and benefits?
The development control process is heavily focused on consultation; therefore the use of 3D virtual environments would seem an ideal way to improve communication. Their use is currently not widespread within local government planning departments and is has largely been used on large schemes. This study examines the barriers and benefits that exist to the creation of these environments internally within local government, using widely available GI data. Discussion with participants involved with the development control process from professional’s to member’s of the public were undertaken to discuss views and opinions. This was backed up by a practical examination of the creation of three environments at varying levels of realism with approximate costing's for the creation of the environment. A large scale questionnaire was also undertaken involving all local authority planning departments within England.
From the research undertaken it is clear that there is significant support for the use of these environments within the development control process and a strong belief that they would improve the consultation process. However various barriers are also identified, the most restrictive of the barriers being the cost and current licensing restrictions placed on GI data that is used within local government.
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An exploration of the PGC’s web processing service: A road traffic accident case study
The ubiquity of the Internet has enabled the development of distributed architectures for GIS. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has developed a suite of open standards for serving raster maps, vector data and now geoprocessing functionality via the web. Their Web Processing Service standard allows client software to submit spatial datasets to a remote service for analysis. The purpose of the standard is that all services built to its specification will offer the same interfaces to clients whatever particular spatial analysis is being offered. A single service may offer any number of functions.
Remote geoprocessing using open standard offers several potential benefits; algorithms may be shared and developed more easily when held in a single location; remotely stored datasets need not be downloaded and processed locally, they can be e processed at source; users need not invest in highly featured desktop GIS applications, where much of the functionality goes unused.
However, this model has its critics. Is s distributed computing appropriate for spatial datasets, which can be of great size? Previous research into the WPS standard has also raised concerns about its architecture and some for the standards that it itself is based on.
In order to assess the WPS standard and the remote geoprocessing model, this project builds a demonstration WPS, using Microspft.NET technology, that takes the locations of road traffic accidents as input and identifies “black spot” clusters in the data. A web client application to the service is developed using Google Maps API.
The study concludes that some of the issues raised by early research can be solved in implementation rather than by changing the standard and that the WPS standard could be a useful component of Spatial Data infrastructures.
In maps we trust? GIS evolution in local government utilities
Local governments have come to rely, unquestioningly on Geographical Information and the diffusion of that information through various media, from map based hardcopies to mobile digital interfaces. The use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and geo-information technology has been escalating and has become ingrained in business processes and daily work activities to the extent that GIS is now classified as an essential service critical to the work process. “The dazzling development of GIS technology in recent years has rendered each of the traditional, mostly instrumental, views of GIS – as spatial database, mapping tool and spatial analytical tool – inadequate to capture the fundamental essence of this technology and its social implications”, (Sui and Goodchild, 2001, p.387). With this development of, and reliance on, technology comes a distinct need to establish a clear understanding of the uses and objectives for representation of geospatial information, integration of visual aspects, interface and geovisualization environments and cognitive/usability aspects of geovisualization as they begin to shape the social aspects of our culture. Although the traditional role of the map, and the insight it has offered into geospatial information patterns and relationships, has long since been surpassed by this new technology, maps are still regarded as the epitome of trustworthy information. Do our digital representations of our world inspire this same degree of confidence, and has our attitude towards geographic information changed?
Visualization is arguably the most attractive aspect of the development trends in Geographic Information. However, although these impressive visual aids add values and clarity to geoinformation, such visualization can also be misused and misleading without appropriate understanding and deployment. This paper is intended to explore a single facet of Utility based data infrastructure at the local government level with specific emphasis on the visualization aspect of GIS information and the possibilities that may be considered with the implementation of a 3 Dimensional environment. The Case Study focuses on the operation of GIS within the Utility infrastructure at the City of Kamloops Public Works Department in British Columbia, Canada and the complications and development of this implementation and its future applications.
Spatial Business Intelligence: A Case Study in the Property Development Sector in Dubai
The real estate and construction are the largest contributors of GDP in UAE. In Dubai several large scale development projects covering several million square feet area are undertaken not only in the desert land but also in reclaimed land in the sea. Recently more and more real estate and property development companies have started using GIS technology to take advantage of the benefits that it offers, while some of the companies view it only as a cosmetic technology needing huge investment. The application areas of GIS in these companies include data visualisation, cartography, asset management, urban planning, utilities design and planning etc. With web based GIS gaining momentum, information sharing across the organisation is a key factor of the success of GIS, making the employees better equipped to perform. Even then, a business case for GIS is very difficult to get approved in many companies, owing to the huge cost of investment and existence of less powerful but alternate methods like CAD. Some companies have scrapped their GIS system after investing in their development as they fail to realise the advantages it offers.
This research employed mathematical modelling as well as other system development tools to test a GIS based management support system in Nakheel, Dubai. From the system architecture perspective, this system sits above all core GIS and IT systems in the organisation i.e. it process data from many disparate systems in the company to provide a birds eye view for the management. The ultimate goal of this research was to develop a spatial business intelligence framework for the property development sector. The proposed framework can be applied to large scale property development companies which already have a full scale GIS in use, i.e. a good amount of companies data is present in the GIS.
‘An organisation wide enterprise GIS well integrated with other IT systems having business decision models and domain knowledgebase incorporated should also be a Business Intelligence platform for Management Decision Support.‘
Integration of rock mass flow data with topology of draw points in block cave mining operations through 3 dimensional geographical information system
A three dimensional geographic information system was customized to study the flow of rocks in block cave mines using SmartRock position data. A comparison of four different interpolation schemes including Inverse Distance Weighted, Spline, Kriging and Natural Neighbour was performed to find the most appropriate method to generate raster surfaces from SmartRock datasets. Z-value mean difference calculations using all these methods were performed on two simulated SmartRock datasets. If was found that Natural Neighbour method with a mean difference in Z-value of 0.21 is suited best for such datasets. Comprehensive data analyses of Natural neighbour method for SmartRock datasets revealed a linear relationship between the cell size and the distance between adjacent draw points, which would make it easier to calculate the optimum cell size for constructing raster surface from the SmartRock data related to any block cave mine.
Geographical Information Systems and Eco-towns: The Role of Geographical Information Systems in the Evaluation of Eco-town Sustainable Settlement Locations
The importance of environmental considerations and related issues of sustainability have been on the international, national and local agendas for many years. However, recent heightened awareness of climate change, and attempts to reduce carbon emissions, has seen environmental and sustainable thinking come to the fore.
Examples of sustainable development and eco-settlements have been seen around the world, but the idea of ‘eco-towns’ has been put forward as a ground-breaking new programme, that aims to build up to fifteen new sustainable eco-settlements in England over the next decade or so.
The paper examines the environmental, social and economic factors relating to sustainable development, as well as the importance of political and cultural frameworks, and considers the requirements for sustainability criteria assessment. The role of information technology and specifically Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to facilitate assessment of geographical information is considered, and the ability of GIS to collate, store, retrieve and analyse spatial data will provide support for the assessment of sustainability criteria. A range of spatial techniques to assess sustainability are identified, as well as the growing involvement of GIS in planning and decision making, such as Environmental Impact Assessment. Data to evaluate sustainability criteria and provide coverage of a range of topic areas, from a range of sources, were seen to be available.
Developments and milestones of the eco-town process to date were considered. Organisations from both public and private sector that were involved in the eco-town process were questioned on their GIS usage, and more in depth case studies were used. This showed that GIS was being widely utilised, but spatial work was limited in certain aspects, such as the lack of advanced analysis and especially spatial modelling techniques. It was also evident that in the public sector there was a reliance on external consultant organisations to facilitate GIS on a range of topics areas.
The study recommends future stages for the eco-town process, and how GIS can play a role in the assessment of potential locations. An example framework is suggested for possible individual theoretical sustainability topic models. These factors can be potentially combined into overall assessment models allowing GIS to facilitate overall sustainability matrix to assess locations. GIS is seen as a useful tool for undertaking post and pre-construction monitoring.
Although wide ranging data are available to assist the process, questions are posed as to whether it will be fit for purpose for more advanced spatial sustainability analysis. The paper concludes by suggesting areas of future research potential, specifically relating to the assessment of eco-town sites, but also for sustainable settlements in general, and opportunities for GIS and spatial technology to support inclusion for all interested parties in decision making processes.
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Spatial analysis of factors impacting perceived route difficulty for cyclists
As route selection is an inherently spatial problem, this project sought to develop route =selection tools via a tightly coupled (Brandmeyer and Karimi, 2000) (Tarantilis et al., 2002) GIS-fitness model/Decision Support System. The system related concepts from Exercise Science to a physics based model that attempted to determine the approximate power output required for an athlete to complete a course Current research in exercise science defines several metrics which normalize the intensity of a workout. The Borg (Borg, 1998) Perceived Exertion Model was used as a basis for survey participants to rate the difficulty of a route.
The prototype system developed used the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) implementation of the Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) model in conjunction with the route or PolylineM complex datatype. The network data model (dynamic segmentation) was used to partition the route into segments based on model values of slope, power requirement, and work performed. In the OGC’s model, the TIN is represented as a subclass of a polyhedral surface composed of specialized polygons containing three nodes, termed triangles (Ope, 2006) (van Kreveld et al., 1997). This breaks from the more traditional TIN model, which represents the surfaces as a mesh or network of nodes and arcs without much regard to the triangular surfaces formed in the space between the edges (van Kreveld et al., 1977). By intersecting the route with the three-dimensional faces of the various TIN polygons, the elevations at the point s of intersection can be determined. Further, by doing this intersection in the PostGIS spatial database, SQL-MM geoprocessing functions were used to complete the spatial processing.
The data sets used for the system included road center lines for counties in the states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania; the United States National Elevation Dataset (NED) elevations data; and LiDAR Elevations for Aiken County, SC. The processing methodology included determining which points were on a road surface or right of way based on the road center lines and then developing filters to reduce the data volume to a manageable size to allow for proper performance of the system when generating the TIN’s. For comparison purposes, the prototype system was developed to generate input data from contour lines as well as TIN faces.
The underlying platform for the development of this project is based on the use of an Open Source GIS tool set including PostGRESQL, PostGIS, QuantumGIS(QGIS) and GRASS. Custom code development was completed in the Open Source Python language. Source code for the developed tools is licenced under the GNU General Public License (Version 3) and included in Appendix 1.
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Positional Accuracy Improvement of the Cyprus Digital Cadastral Data Base
The Department of Lands and Surveys (DLS) of Cyprus is the oldest governmental department of the public sector. The strategic objective of DLS is to establish a fixed boundary coordinated cadastral system after resurvey. The DLS has already implemented the Cyprus Integrated Land Information System (CILIS), which serves the needs of the Department. The system development started officially in September 1995, was accepted in 1999 and it is currently used in a production environment.
There are two geographical databases at the DLS: The Digital Cadastral Data Base (DCDB), which stores the digitized cadastral maps and the Survey Data Base (SDB), which is progressively developed after resurvey, with accurate GPS measurements. Due to the fact that the DCDB was created after digitization, its positional accuracy needs improvement.
The aim of this research is to investigate the spatial accuracy of the DCDB compared to the accurate SDB. The procedures and functionalities of the customized application at the DLS will be used for evaluation and improvement of the positional accuracy of the DCDB data. The data sources will include areas covered by cadastral maps at scale 1:1000, 1:2500 and 1:5000 existing in both DCDB and SDB. During this research relative and absolute accuracy will be evaluated. This evaluation will include measurement of the Mean Absolute Error (MAE), standard deviation and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The results will be compared to the PAI programme standards of the Ordnance Survey (Great Britain's national mapping agency), as well as to the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) accuracy standards for large-scale maps.
GIS Supporting Emergency Management for Hurricanes
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is used to support hurricane events, especially evacuation planning and effects modelling. GIS ins not only being used in a general support role, but the emergency management community is also taking advantage of specialized GIS software, and trained GIS personnel, to improve risk management. A survey was designed to ask people who assist in planning and response for hurricane about their responsibilities, software usage, product usage and importance of various issues relating to using GIS.
This use of complex spatial analysis tools is a departure from the traditional reliance of emergency managers on cartographic products for situational awareness. While the need for cartographic products has not diminished, the survey results demonstrate use of more advanced products, which convey complex spatial relationships and model outputs. The use of advanced technologies gives the emergency management community better tools to help protect lives and property.
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Geospatial Information Systems Compatibility and Standards: A Military Perspective
This paper explores compatibility issues within Geospatial Information Systems (GIS). The aim is to provide information and guidance for GIS management and technical personnel, with a view to minimising long term costs and expanding product marketability. The premis of the research is that management should be able to maximise interconnectivity for legacy, current and future systems by setting standardisation policies at the planning stages for geospatial information systems. The research was based upon the notion that standardisation of GIS formats would be the way forward to improve compatibility, to benefit both the supplier and user, through Network Enabled Capability (NEC) interoperability and longevity.
The research was undertaken by a Ministry of Defence (MOD) employee, so the initial awareness of problems arose from the experiences of military personnel. However, this dissertation was written with commercial GIS in mind, the managers of which might benefit from the lessons learned by military experiences, because the military has been at the forefront of development since the conception of GIS.
Through analysis of the evolution of GIS compatibility and standards, and an exploration of contemporary approaches, this dissertation concludes with recommendations for a pragmatic approach to future GIS structure and policy decisions.
Assessing the Benefit of Corporate GIS: A case study of Crawley Borough Council
This research project attempts to conceptualise and examine corporate GIS success using research framed in the wider IS literature. Given the vast investment in corporate GIS by local government, there is no evidence other than that provided anecdotally that corporate GIS projects are beneficial to host organisations. By carrying out an extensive literature review of both the GIS literature and wider IS literature, an established success measurement framework that has been empirically validate in the IS literature has been identified but not yet applied within the GIS domain. Through the use of questionnaire survey and interview techniques, the framework provided an indication of success for an established corporate GIS implementation. The framework proved useful in conceptualising components of GIS success and gauging individual and therefore organisational views on the relative success of corporate GIS. The results of the research not only provides an overall picture of success of corporate GIS, but also provided valuable insights into specific system areas where users believed the system was not only successful but more importantly areas where improvements could be made allowing the IS manager to fine tune systems and prioritise resource development.
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