Government Technology - January 2008 - (Page 26)

On the Map: Southern California Wildﬁres The wildﬁres that ravaged Southern California in late 2007 developed into an opportunity for people to communicate using GIS data and maps. Numerous residents and media outlets throughout Los Angeles and San Diego took advantage of Google Maps’ personalization tools to quickly build maps that featured a wealth of valuable information. The tool makes it easy for users to create custom points and areas of interest, which can be updated almost instantly. Users can also easily add photos and video. As the ﬁres raged, maps began populating the Web showing residents where the ﬁres were at any given time, where evacuation shelters were located, which roads were open and which were closed — there were even maps displaying shelters offering refuge for large animals like horses. Government facilities, education institutions, news outlets and average citizens used the power of GIS to exchange and share information about the disaster while it was happening, helping to illustrate just how important a role GIS mapping has come to play in our lives. the end result is more than the sum of its parts. Most of the data rendered in these virtual structures — the plumbing, the walls, the number of steel girders, the thickness of the drywall in the building — already exists in digital format in the state offices. It’s up to agency officials to make the decision to take advantage of it. “We call it ‘democratizing’ the design data, breaking it out of the engineering department, and putting it in the hands of the business leader,” Slye said. “One of the things we’ve seen is a really strong synergy now between the nontechnical decision-makers inside of government agencies and the engineering department getting closer together, and closer alignment between what’s being created and what’s really needed.” Google Earth, Autodesk and a host of other platforms offer possibilities limited only by the imagination. But do these applications threaten the demise of traditional GIS? Old School Renewal? It might seem like these new, user-friendly manifestations of GIS data would spell the end for ESRI, CARIS and other traditional GIS solutions providers. But according to those using new-school applications, the opposite is true. At deCarta, a company specializing in providing geospatial data and imagery to Google, Ask, Rand McNally, Zillow and others, Business Development Vice President Mike Agron said the new GIS opens the door for traditional GIS applications by creating new opportunities to use the data they create. “The promise of GIS is huge — the promise of location-based information, the promise of location intelligence,” Agron said. “I think the broader implications are that location is only going to become more and more important in our decision-making process. It’s only going to become more pervasive in everything we do. The likes of the Web, and the power of the Web, are going to make that show.” Web-based GIS platforms signal a revolution in how government uses GIS data to improve citizen services and strengthen internal operations. And a role for traditional, more powerful GIS systems is likely to materialize as it has in Las Vegas, where ESRI tools like ArcGIS do the back-end work, and Google Earth delivers the data in a user-friendly format. Chikai Ohazama, product manager for Google Earth, said the relationship between old and new need not be adversarial. He said both can coexist and prosper if each is put to proper use. “ArcGIS is really good at doing analysis of geographical data,” he said. “You’re trying to do watershed-sort of calculations or all different kinds of models to analyze the data you have. Google Earth, its forte, is more like taking the information that’s used, already analyzed, and presenting that to the public so anybody can look at it and see how it impacts them, or see what it means.” Ohazama refers to Google Earth as “GIS for the masses.” It’s an apt description, given how many people now can utilize location data for a thousand different purposes. All industries and technologies evolve, and the stalwarts eventually are usurped by the upstarts. But the GIS industry may be different. Now, more than at any time in history, people have incredibly powerful and relevant ways to interact with the world they live in. Whether that world is real, or only a virtual representation, GIS has grown to be far more than a mere electronic map. Perhaps most important is the fact that — as Chuck Herring, communications director at satellite imagery provider Digital Globe, said — this new generation of GIS is doing what every technology should eventually do: move from an exclusive world of a few experts to an expansive existence where all can reap its benefits to improve lives. “I think that really the [GIS] revolution has been able to put the basic level of technology in many more people’s hands so they can understand how they could utilize it,” he said “Once they start using that, they realize the types of services they actually need.” VISIT WWW.GOVTECH.COM/LOCATION FOR CONTENT RELATED TO THIS ARTICLE. READ ESRI FOUNDER JACK DANGERMOND’S COMMENTS ON THE FUTURE OF GIS. j VIEW A SLIDE SHOW OF IMAGES FROM VIRTUAL ALABAMA. j WATCH AN ANIMATED DEMONSTRATION OF AUTODESK’S URBAN VISUALIZATION SOFTWARE. j JAN_08 WATCH GTTV’S REPORT ON MICROSOFT VIRTUAL EARTH. 26 j http://www.govtech.com http://WWW.GOVTECH.COM/location http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - January 2008

Government Technology - January 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Scene CIO Sightings Four Questions for... Spectrum Location, Location, Location Digital Governor Back to the Drawing Board Waukesha Goes Green Collaring Dangerous Dogs Public Sector Goes Web 2.0 Bounce Back SACWIS Rollout Simple Strategy Products Personal Computing How It Works signal:noise

Government Technology - January 2008

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