| Recent Offerings in Information Technology
Are the new products improving the way we do business and meeting the requirements of the end user, or are vendors providing faster, cheaper, but not necessarily better tools to perform the job the same way it was done in the past?
By Damon Judd As a practitioner and a consultant in the GIS profession it is a matter of keen personal interest to keep in touch with the latest technology trends affecting the industry. In this column, I would like to offer some insights and personal views into the societal tendencies and future directions of information technology as they relate to GIS applications.
Some trends are obvious and have existed long enough to be considered established methods for doing business. Examples are the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers for surveying and the commercialization of the Internet. There is already an abundance of information about those topics and their effect on the GIS industry.
Rather than focus on those topics, I would like to offer some observations about where the GIS industry appears to be headed using several new software products as examples. For instance, are the new products improving the way we do business and meeting the requirements of the end users, or are vendors providing faster, cheaper, but not necessarily better tools to perform the job the same way it was done in the past?
I certainly do not know all the answers or pretend to understand the specific requirements of a universe of GIS users. However, there do appear to be some clear trends emerging and I would like to share my perceptions of a relatively young and blossoming GIS market. The Digital Society
One of the attitudes I have noticed among vendors of GIS and related products (hardware, software, and data) is that if a tool or product with whiz-bang technology is properly marketed, people will find reasons to buy it.
An example of that attitude is apparent with the introduction of Windows 95. There is very little that Windows 95 has to offer in terms of productivity improvement, yet the expectation of Microsoft seems to be that thousands, if not millions of PC users will run out and buy it. If someone really needs 32-bit processing power, they are probably better off investing in Windows NT and obtain true multi-tasking capabilities as well.
It is my belief that the primary reason that many people are deciding to upgrade to Windows 95 is to "keep up with the technology." This techno-envy also seems to be evident with the incredible popularity of the World Wide Web and to some degree, with the general inclination to computerize everything, as exemplified by the growing demand for digital orthophotography and the increasing adoption of softcopy photogrammetry capabilities.
The trend toward an all-digital society is so pervasive that even the Colorado motor vehicle department is now computerized! I recently went to renew my driver's license and was amazed to see that everything about the process, from taking a photo and a fingerprint, to running a records check and even recording my signature, was performed electronically.
This tendency to focus on the gadgetry rather than the actual needs of end users also penetrates into the GIS software industry. As computing hardware continues to improve in performance and the price continues to drop, we see a lot of attention being placed on creating or modifying software to take advantage of the newest hardware gadgets. The latest revision of ArcView 2.1 might provide the capability to display a vegetation map using Windows NT in only five seconds, rather than the twelve seconds it took under Windows 3.1.
There is nothing wrong with this trend, except that in my opinion it should not be the only motivating factor behind a new software release. As a GIS "power user," I would rather see the efforts being focused more on improvements to methods or techniques for solving real-world problems. ArcView 2.1 also includes the capability to view CAD files directly, and this is the sort of enhancement that is of greater benefit to the user community than pure performance enhancements, although those are nice, too. Faster, Better, Cheaper (choose two)
One recent demonstration I was involved in consisted of a customized application to illustrate how a GIS can be used to site a new dam. The demonstration database included a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the area of interest, surface hydrologic features, locations of roads, cities, towns, and other populated areas, general soil types, land uses, and a few other data layers. In this particular application, the user can enter the proposed dam location interactively using the cursor on a screen display of the DEM shown as a shaded relief map with any combination of the other layers superimposed. The height of the proposed dam is entered and the software then performs a series of calculations. Within seconds, the area of inundation based on filling the new reservoir to the maximum dam height, the acreage of inundated land, and the volume of water required to fill the simulated reservoir are computed and displayed.
This is an impressive use of GIS tools for helping to solve a real-world engineering problem. But it is a simplified solution and only part of the thought process required to site a dam is included in the application. Additional criteria would need to be considered before a reasonable decision could be made to site the dam.
The reason for including this particular example is to point out that the technology now exists to perform blindingly fast computations, but the answer provided may not adequately address the particular needs of the end user. There is a need for more products which build on the basic GIS tools to address application-specific requirements. The Land Use Suitability (LUS) Modeler from Vestra Resources is an example of one recently introduced product which addresses that need. Yield of Dreams
Another example of the "if we build it, they will come" attitude is the recent commercialization of high-resolution satellite imaging technology (Note: see December 1995 Down to Earth column). Several firms are actively trying to identify potenital markets which may or may not exist. They are banking on the notion that if the demand does not now exist, it will be created by a sudden supply of new, technologically superior products. They may very well be correct in their assessment. As a society, we seem to be extremely focused on applying the latest high-technology equipment to solve age-old problems, and this tendency is especially evident in the GIS industry which is entirely dependent on information technology.
Many new products that we are seeing now appear to be the result of competitors playing catch-up with one another. ESRI was losing market share to MapInfo in the retail and business applications of GIS, so they developed a new, low-cost GIS software product called BusinessMap. Intergraph has recently announced Voxel Analyst, a 3-D modeling and visualization package that runs under Windows NT (or Windows 95 if you dare) which competes directly with similar packages costing quite a bit more. And ERDAS, not to be outdone, has added significant new GIS capabilities to its Imagine 8.2 product.
This is not a criticism of a competitive marketplace, but it is an indication of another trend I have noticed - one in which vendors are attempting to provide complete, one-stop shopping for all the GIS needs of their end users. Where are my Data?
Another significant trend which is already taking place and is likely to continue well into the next century, is the desire for faster, better data management. This is definitely not a new direction, but one which will receive much greater attention as GIS applications are adopted with greater frequency and in more non-traditional market areas such as the utilities and telecommunications industries. The environmental consulting industry has struggled for many years with this problem and as more tools are developed to collect better data faster (GPS, digital orthos, satellite imagery, real-time data collectors, etc.) there will be a glut of data to store, retrieve, and process within tighter time frames.
ESRI and Oracle recently announced a joint development and marketing agreement for a new software solution to address this requirement. The Oracle 7 Server with the Spatial Data Option and ESRI's Spatial Database Engine (SDE) offer integrated spatial data management and analysis functions as integral components of information systems that may be hundreds of gigabytes in size. Companies that are currently using relational databases and spatial databases independently, such as utilities and telecommunications companies, will be able to combine those data into a single, unified system that will be accessible throughout the enterprise.
This is one of the more interesting announcements I have seen in recent months. It is already having a significant impact on the marketplace as competitors scramble to offer alternative solutions to the growing predicament of managing hordes of data. Since ESRI's introduction of SDE, Vision International, a division of Autometric Inc., announced SQS (Spatial Query Server), a similar product which is integrated into the Sybase Open Server architecture. And GDS, by way of their recent merger with Australia-based ARC Systems Pty. Ltd., has added the Spatial Data Manager product to their suite of software offerings. Without a doubt, there will soon be additional announcements of similar offerings from other GIS vendors.
If you wish to share your opinions with me, send an e-mail message to my Internet address: [email protected]. I appreciate the feedback. About the Author:
Damon Judd is manager of GIS and computer applications for RUST Environment and Infrastructure in Broomfield, Colo. He may be reached at 303-469-6660 (phone) or 303-469-6665 (fax). Back |
