Tag Archive for 'geographic information systems'

Angelina Jolie and the wikification of GIS

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on March 3, 2008
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I know, I’m late about this news of Angelinas Geo-tattoo. The Geo-community has produced mash-ups of these locations and so millions of users of Google Maps and Google earth can view an these coordinates on street-level information or uising high resolution statellite imageries for these four places.

jolieTattoo
(Source: “Angelina Jolie is a Geowanker” at O’Reilly Radar)

Example mashup of the coordinates:

TatGraphic

N 11 33 0 E 104 51 00 Maddox Phnom Penh, Cambodia
N 9 2 0 E 38 45 0 Zahara Marley Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
S 22 40 26 E 14 31 40 Shiloh Nouvel Swakopmund, Nambia
N 10 46 0 E 106 41 40 Pax Thien Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A well-known definition of Geographic Information Systems (GIS)devide GIS in four major component - hardware, software, data and people. The wikification of GIS has clearly been manifested in all these four aspects (Sui 2008). This is one aspect where web 2.0 has influence in GI Science. Also the borders across geographic, social, economic, cultural, and demographic information are blurring. It is not so unusal that J. Dangermond commented in 2007 that the information available over the entire World Wide Web could be georeferenced or geo-tagged in the near future, and that filly georeferenced or geo-tagged world is approaching us far mich faster than anybody ever predicted.

The accelerating wikification of GIS has also promoted the emergence of what Turner (2006) calls NeoGeography. As demonstrated by the Angelina Jolie story, the NeoGeography is practiced by the masses using the last Web 2.0 technologies.

[The wikification of GIS and its consequences: Or Angelina Jolie's new tattoo and the future of this, Daniel Z. Sui, 2008, Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, United States]

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Is Google Maps a GIS?

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on February 20, 2008
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There are some interesting discussions about the topic if Google Maps or related Products like Yahoo! Maps, Live Maps, virtual Earth or Google Earth can be defined as Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

http://jrhicks.net/82/img_Apr_12_2005_40_32?display=medium

By definition Geographic Information Systems are:

  • Burrough, P.A., 1986: Principles of Geographic Information Systems for Land Resoures Assessment, Oxford
    A powerful set of tools for collecting, storing, retrieving at will, transforming, and displaying spatial data from the real world for a particular set of purposes.
  • Hemenway, 1989:
    A GIS is a computer system designed to allow users to collect, manage, and analyze large volumes of spatially referenced and associated attribute data.
  • Clarke, 1986:
    A computer based system for the capture, storage,retrieval, analysis and display of spatial data.
  • Dept. of Environment (1987):
    A GIS is a system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analysing and displayiong data which are spatially referenced to the Earth.
  • Rhind, 1989:
    A GIS is a computer system that can hold and use data descirbing places on the earth’s surface.
  • Goodchild, 1985:
    … a system which uses a spatial database to provide answers to queries of a geographical nature. … Since putting spatial data into a computer at great expense for the sole purpose of getting it out again would be pointless, a GIS must allow a variety of manipulations to be carried out, such as sorting, selective retrieval, calculation and spatial analysis and modelling. We also expect a full range of functions to allow input of data in map form, and cartographic output …
  • Strobl, 1988:
    Systeme zur Erfassung, Speicherung, Prüfung, Manipulation, Integration, Analyse und Darstellung von Daten, die sich auf räumliche Objekte beziehen …
  • Bill/Fritsch, 1994: Grundlagen der Geo-Informationssysteme. Band 1: Hardware, Software und Daten, 2. Aufl., Karlsruhe:
    Ein Geo-Informationssystem ist ein rechnergestütztes System, das aus Hardware, Software, Daten und den Anwendungen besteht. Mit ihm können raumbezogene Daten digital erfaßt und redigiert, gespeichert und reorganisiert, modelliert und analysiert sowie alphanumerisch und graphisch präsentiert werden.
  • Wikipedia, 2008:
    A geographic information system (GIS), also known as a geographical information system or geospatial information system, is a system for capturing, storing, analyzing and managing data and associated attributes which are spatially referenced to the Earth.

The question is: Should all aspects a GIS can have, be fullfilled that you can define a system as GIS?

 Can you “do” some GIS functionality with Google Maps. Yes, Expample 1 and  Example 2.

 Can you “do” as much GIS with Google Maps as you can do for example with ESRI? No.

Some other interesting questions are: In which directions GIS is going in the future? Is there a trend from Desktop GIS to Web GIS? Is there a market for both strategies in the future?

 [inspired by spatiallyadjusted]

 Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.