An informative and power-packed plenary on Connecting Communities for SDI got the audience glued to their chairs. They got to know the power of technology and the innovative use of the same to provide solutions to some of the most pressing problems of the world today. Prof Sr. Dr. Abdul Kadir binTaib, Director General, Department of Surveying and Mapping, Malaysia, chaired this session.

The opening presentation of the plenary by Prof Josef Strobl of Salzburg University dealt with geospatial technology integration. One of the important aspects in technology integration, Prof Strobl said, is interoperability which is facilitated through standards. Distributed architectures like GSDI etc are another way for this confluence. He said an increasing number of geospatial technologies are being brought into the workflows. The starting point to go into that is by supporting entire workflows and value chains. One needs to go from products to high-level services. All this is based on the thinking spatially paradigm.

Technologically, Strobl said, we have moved from what used to be the bottlenecks to turning them to our advantage. He cited the example of sensors in this context. He said today, real time sensors can facilitate 24X7 visualisation, monitoring and analysis for effective decision making.

He then presented case studies to depict technology integration. Integration of GIS and CAD has led to building information modelling and bang came a plethora of applications ranging from facility management, knowing the footprints of buildings, redundancies etc. He then enumerated how integration of geospatial technologies has effectively changed the way emergencies and disasters are handled.

An interesting presentation by John Calkins, Corporate Technical Evangelist, ESRI, on multiple dimensions of maritime piracy left the audience in awe on how technological modelling can aid in tackling the pirates’ menace effectively.

He said hunting pirates is more than just dots on a map. We need to spend more time on analysing these dots to take better decision. “While we are collecting dots, we are probably collecting millions of data/information – whether it is incidence of terrorism, incidence of cholera, information on bridges or fire stations. But mere data doesn’t lead us anywhere. We need to add context so that we can understand the situation better,” John said.

He presented various means to analyse and interpret data of 30 years of pirates’ activity. He said spatial thinking will lead us to understand the controlling parameters/factors of pirates’ movements like higher wave conditions and sailing close to the shore on particular days of week. “Using these models we can tell the patrolling parties where the pirates’ attacks could be expected. Once the model is generated, it can be constantly calibrated and updated with regular inputs. All these are driving situational awareness and surveillance activities,” John added.

But, John cautioned, for this to be successful, access to information and interoperability among meteorologists, environmentalists, security forces and other concerned is prerequisite, else all efforts go flat.

Giving technological solutions to the pressing problems of the world, Geoff Zeiss –Director of Technology, Autodesk, dwelt on developing digital infrastructure for a sustainable economy.

From shrinking ice caps in the Arctic to crumbling infrastructures in developed world, to dwindling workforce, Goeff listed out the major challenges of the world and then went on elaborating how GIS along with other technologies can provide sustainable solutions to these problems.

3D visualisation, BIM, laser scanning, LiDAR and a host of other technology tools enable engineers and architects to design accurate 3D collaboration models and sustainable models that use minimum resources with lesser energy emissions. He said one can bring in traditional geospatial, engineering and utility data, integrate them for better analysis. He ended asserting that new design technologies are changing the way we design, build and maintain our infrastructure.

Through his presentation, John Renard – President, UTG and MD Infotech Enterprises Europe Ltd., brought out the parallels between SmartGrids and SDI and how they can be used intelligently.

He started out by explaining the characteristics of an SDI and a SmartGrids. While SDIs are all about collaboration, common standards, information exchange and overcoming cultural barriers, smart grid is a (electrical) network that can intelligently integrate the actions of all users connected to it - generators, consumers and those that do both – in order to efficiently deliver sustainable, economic and secure supplies.

He said SmartGrids are self-healing and adaptive; they are interactive with consumers and markets; they can be optimised to make best use of resources and equipment; they are secure, integrated, and predictive and are distributed across geographical and organisational boundaries.

SmartGrid is any other grid that changes over time and spatial information is a key facilitator for this, as John puts it. And the objectives of an SDI can help by way of collaboration, for information exchange, in building common standards, and in removing crossing cultural barriers.

He brought out the parallels between smart grids and SDIs as both of them generate and manage large volumes of complex data and in both the cases, the data is not managed centrally but by the data owner or originator. In both the cases, the inter-linked data that is generated is used to help make complex decisions.

He concluded saying that geography underpins the concept of a grid or a network. It is no different with SmartGrids. He felt SDI frameworks need to be quickly modified to make sure they can fully support SmartGrids adding that the good news is that because SDI and SmartGrids have shared objectives, the progress of both should be mutually beneficial.

Source : By our special correspondent