geoinformatics 2007 vol05

From the Points of Inflection beyond the Limits of Convergence

An Unprecedented Transformation of G

This months interviewee Geoff Zeiss is a man of broad geospatial and IT

knowledge with a great talent to transform it into clear and inspiring thoughts.

Being a chief technology guru at Autodesk his thoughts and ideas reach far

beyond the limits of his company. In the interview we discussed about several

critical trends, thus enabling you to get an excellent first hand insight in the

present and future developments in the geospatial industry.

By Joc Triglav

The developments of the last few yearsshow that spatial is not so special anymore as it used to be. Are we finallyreaching the long expected point ofentering the mainstream?

In the last two years the geospatial industryhas undergone an unprecedented transforma-tion. I see this as a point of inflection for sev-eral reasons, one of which is the widespreadrecognition that geospatial is no longer spe-cial because geospatial has joined the ITmainstream. What this means in reality is thatgeospatial has become one of the coreenabling technologies that is available toeveryone in IT, not just to GIS specialists. An important example is relational databasemanagement systems (RDBMSs). RDBMSsused to be restricted to numeric and text data types. Now virtually every RDBMS

including Oracle support spatial data types.This trend also applies to architectural and engineering design, where the trend istoward designing buildings and infrastructurein their geographic environment. A numberthat has been bandied about in the geospatial industry for many years is that 80% of IT applications could benefit from spatial enabling. I think the mass marketgeospatial phenomenon has confirmed thegeospatial industrys 80% estimate and illustrated the tremendous benefits of inte-grating spatial data and functionality withgeneral IT.

How does the so called mass marketgeospatial technology, like GoogleMaps/Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth andothers, influence Autodesk's behaviourand visions in the geospatial business?Do you see this technology more as acompetition or as some kind of a boosterof Autodesk's development or as some-thing else?

Many more people are using spatial data and software in theirday to day life than everbefore in history, thoughmost of these peoplewouldnt recognize whatthe letters GIS stand for.Well-known examplesin clude MapQuest,Google Earth and Maps,Yahoo Maps, andMicrosoft Virtual Earth.Google Earth has had200 million downloads,an incredible statistic.

What this means in the design world is thatthere is much greater demand for design dataincorporating location. In other words, youcant design buildings, highways and roads,and other infrastructure any longer in isola-tion from their location. Since Autodesksproducts are used for creating most of theworlds building, roads, and facilities designdata, the requirement for location is onedimension of the trend to converged designapplications. For the past decade Autodeskhas been investing in the technologiesenabling this fundamental business transfor-mation, such as 3D, model-driven design,geospatial, and 3D visualization and gamingwhich I am convinced is going to change howarchitects, engineers, utility and telecommu-nications, local government, urban planners,emergency responders and others model anddesign our urban worlds.

Which are the strategic and operationalstrengths of Autodesk in the field ofgeospatial convergence? Where doesAutodesk fit in convergence completelywith its product line already and whichare the main steps that still have to bemade?

Several years ago the National Institute ofStandards and Technology (NIST) commis-sioned a study to attempt to quantify the effi-ciency losses in the U.S. capital facilities indus-try resulting from inadequate interoperabilityincluding design, engineering, facilities man-agement, business processes, software sys-tems and redundant paper records manage-ment across the entire facility life-cycle. NISTestimated that poor interoperability cost thecapital facilities industry $15.8 billion in 2002

July/August 20076

Interv iew

Geoff Zeiss

Geospatial-enabling and GIS

Prod_GEO_5_2007:Prod GEO66 20-07-2007 13:00 Pagina 6

Traditionally disciplines such as architecture,engineering, and construction, civil engineer-ing, and GIS have been classic informationsilos. Each has maintained its own island ofdesign applications and data. To break downthese barriers many people see convergenceas a key part of the solution. Another dimen-sion of convergence is to be able to experi-ence a building, road, or facility before build-ing it. 3D visualization is a critical componentof converged solutions.

An implication of convergence for emergencyresponders and urban planners is that will

architectural, mechanical, and civil. Secondly,spatial technology is a well developed plat-form technology at Autodesk. Thirdly, wemade the decision a decade ago to begininvesting in 3D technologies and model-drivendesign. In the area of architectural designBuilding Information Modeling (BIM) is amodel-driven design technology that wasintroduced by Autodesk. In the area ofmechanical design Inventor has been a lead-er in solid modeling, and in civil engineeringCivil3D has introduced the concepts of model-driven design and 3D. Thirdly, AutodesksMedia and Entertainment Division is a majorplayer in the gaming and special effects mar-ket for films and television. For example, 3dsMAX is a de facto industry standard gamingengine. Because Autodesk has access to thesetechnologies in-house including architecturaland engineering design, geospatial, and gam-ing and 3D visualization, we are uniquelypositioned to provide the desktop and web-based design and digital prototyping toolsthat will be required in a converged world.

With Autodesk's strong position in thearchitectural, engineering, and construc-tion (AEC) and 3D geospatial business, is it reasonable to expect that BuildingInformation Modelling/Management(BIM) solutions are one of theAutodesk's key paths of development?

The annual spend of the worlds constructionindustry construction worldwide is estimatedto be US$ 2.3 trillion. The construction indus-try is highly competitive, and firms must con-tinually improve their productivity to remaincompetitive. This challenge of continual pro-ductivity improvement has reached crisis pro-portions in the US where statistics publishedby US Bureau of Labor Statistics show thatthe productivity of the construction industryhas actually declined in the last 40 years whilenon-farm productivity has increased by over200% in the same period. To improve produc-tivity we need to change how we design andconstruct buildings. In addition we have toaddress the challenges of global climatechange, more efficient use of energy, and minimizing environmental impact.

Traditional CAD is used to produce pieces ofpaper, often called construction drawings or

have access to comprehensive data about thefacility inside, outside, and under. For exam-ple, when a first responder enters a buildinghe or she will have his or her fingertips seam-less access to all of the existing architectural,engineering, infrastructure and geospatial dataincluding structural, h/v, plumbing, under-ground cables and pipes, aerial photography,and roads and highways for that structure.

Autodesk is uniquely positioned to lead thistransformation of the construction industry forseveral reasons. We provide design tools inall of the major design disciplines, including

July/August 2007Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com 7

Interv iew

f Geospatial Industry

Burj Dubai 120 floors (by Calajava, Flickr.com)


blueprints. Traditional CAD drawings are notvery intelligent because they lack a model orintelligent simulation of real world objects.Models make it possible to do intelligentthings like a downstream trace from a failedtransformer to determine the customersaffected, changing the footprint of a 50 storybuilding without having to redesign everyfloor, or designing an engine that can be ani-mated it to visualize the moving parts. In thecontext of architectural design this is called aBuilding Information Model or BIM, and manypeople in the industry believe that BIMs notonly reduce the costs of design and construc-tion for new structures, but also significantlyreduce the downstream costs associated withoperation and maintenance. In a nutshell thebusiness drivers for this transformative tech-nology advance are productivity and efficien-cy in the construction and facilities manage-ment industry by improving the performanceof facilities over their full life-cycle. Becausethese are key business drivers for our cus-tomers, Autodesk has been at the forefront inintroducing building information modelinginto the AEC market.

Is the fast growing field of buildingcadastres in many European countriesinfluencing your technology developmentplans? The right product in this field,functionally exploiting the AEC, geospa-tial, BIM and database synergies, is stillmissing on the market. Based on thehuge 3D knowledge base at your com -pany do you feel that Autodesk will grabthe opportunity and fill the gap?

I see automating the management of cadas-tres and land registry as an important priorityfor Autodesk, especially in Eastern Europebecause of the legacy of a political systemwhere land was state owned, South America,and Asia. For example, Budapest is a city ofapproximately two million people. It occupies52,000 hectares and there are 230,000 sepa-rate land parcels registered in the city in addi-

required to address the problems that I'veoutlined are a spatially-enabled relationaldatabase management system (RDBMS),CAD/GIS integration, and Web 2.0 technologyto enable field force participation. I see Web2.0 as a key enabling technology, because itenables remote field staff to participate direct-ly in the maintenance of spatial facilities data.The result is greater productivity andimproved data quality, which will make itmore feasible for utilities and telecommunica-tions firms to employ younger and less expe-rienced field staff to replace more experiencedstaff as they retire. MapGuide Open Sourceand FDO provide a Web 2.0 platform enablingparticipation of the field force in maintainingand improving the quality of facilities data.

Which further developments can weexpect in the field of geospatial intellec-tual property rights? What do you thinkof GeoCommons, a recently announcedrepository for geodata available formashups, with regard to the Web 2.0world of mapping and Creative Commonslicensing?

First of all I would like to clarify an importantpoint and that is that intellectual propertyrights (copyright and licensing) and price areseparate issues and that what I will discusshere is IP, copyrighting and licensing of spa-tial data, which is getting a lot attentionrecently. In the UK where spatial data collect-ed by the Ordnance Survey, which in the UKis called a trading fund and is expected to generate a financial return for theGovernment, is copyrighted, access to publicsector information is perceived to be sorestrictive financially that there is an initiativeFree Our Data supported by The Guardian(freeourdata.org.uk). I was recently in Tasmania where I heard a very interesting presentation by two mem-bers of the Government of the State ofQueensland, a Crown lawyer and a statistician.Their objective is to develop a standard setof licenses for the Government of Queenslandto be used for digital spatial data. What isbeing recommended in Queensland is that all

tion to 750,000 other types of properties,such as condominiums, for which theBudapest District Land Office maintains dataand legal registry information. The Land Officehas just completed a pilot in three districtsof Budapest using Autodesk Topobase. Amongthe features of Topobase that attracted theLand Office was that all data is stored inOracle Spatial, a vendor neutral, spatially-enabled relational database management sys-tem, so that Budapests cadastre and landregistry is not locked into a single vendor andis open and accessible to other applications.Secondly, Topobase was also attractivebecause its desktop client is based onAutoCAD, which is the de facto industry stan-dard precision data creation desktop. TheLand Office was already familiar with AutoCAD,so this minimized the training was required.The combination of the de facto industry stan-dards, Oracle Spatial and AutoCAD, simplifiesautomating a cadastre and land registry sys-tem. In the future I also see increased inter-est in 3D cadastres especially in the AsiaPacific region, and Autodesks investment in3D technologies such as Building InformationModeling (BIM) provides a foundation for creating and maintaining this new form ofcadastre.

Which are the necessary near futuregeospatial developments in the world ofnetwork infrastructure, like the powerlines, telecommunications, water, wastewater and other public utilities?

Throughout the world utilities and telecom-munications firms manage infrastructure inbasically the same way and are facing similarchallenges. If you look at the information flowin these organizations, the most obvious thingthat strikes you is the problem of silos orislands of information. The second thing isthat the information flow in these organiza-tions is for the most part based on paper. Forexample, the Engineering group uses CADtools, the Records or Network Documentationgroup uses GIS tools, and the flow of infor-mation between these two groups is paper.The result is redundant processes and back-logs. In addition the aging of the work forceexacerbates what is already a critical problembecause there is no effective mechanism fortransferring the knowledge in the heads ofexperienced workers to the facilities databasewhere it can be accessed by younger, lessexperienced workers.The challenge for IT is how to help organiza-tions make progress in solving these businessproblems. Most IT people would agree thattechnology is no longer the excuse. From atechnical perspective the critical components


Interv iew

Islands of Information

3D technologies


government spatial data would be availableunder Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Thisis possible in Australia because copyright isautomatic and because government data iscovered by Crown copyright. I believe this isalso the case in Canada. In the US, in contrast,data emanating from the Federal Governmentis not covered by copyright. I think that their ground-breaking researchand recommendations will get a lot of atten-tion nationally in Australia and even moreattention worldwide. There are several sitesthat offer data collected voluntarily by partici-pants including OpenStreetMaps (www.open-streetmap.org) and GeoCommons (www.geo-commons.org) under a Creative Commonsshare alike with attribution license (cre-ativecommons.org). Another interesting site iswww.malsingmaps.com, where you will findstreet maps of Singapore and Malaysia, whichare collected voluntarily but which are alsocopyrighted, and which can be freely down-loaded for personal use.

What is your opinion on geospatial stan-dards? We are lost without standardsand we need them simple, effective andefficient, but why do they seem increa -singly diversified and complicated to the geospatial layman and professionalas well?

A famous saying we've all heard is that thebest thing about standards is that there areso many to choose from. In the context of thegeospatial industry, I believe that over thepast two years we have seen a strong trendtoward recognizing the importance of stan-dards and standards bodies such as the OpenGeospatial Consortium (OGC) and ISO, andtoward adopting geospatial standards. Iwould suggest that the Simple FeatureSpecification for SQL(SFS) has had a tremen-dous and positive impact in opening upaccess to spatial data. Most of the world'srelational databases (RDBMSs) have imple-mented the SFS in some form and all of themajor geospatial vendors support one or

more spatial RDBMSs. Another spatial stan-dard that has been widely adopted is theOGC's open web services (OWS), for example,WMS and WFS. Again both of these are sup-ported by all major geospatial vendors. Sothere has been tremendous progress.

There are two kinds of standards, de iure oropen standards and de facto standards.Geographic Markup Langauge (GML) is anexample of the former, and Google Earth'sKML of the latter. Many people believe thatfor standards to be widely adopted, they mustnot only address real world problems, butthey must be simple. The 80:20 rule is rele-vant here. The consumer market has madeclear that KML has the right level of complex-ity to address 80% of the world's spatialproblems. The good news is that KML hasalready been adopted as an OGC BestPractices and appears to be well on its wayto becoming an OGC standard.

In various parts of the world an interestin commercial opportunities using opensource geospatial technology is growingsubstantially. In your opinion, whatshould one consider most, be it benefitsor dangers, when entering the opensource community?

Before February of last year, open sourcegeospatial was a "quiet reality". Most peoplewere surprised by how extensive andwidespread the use of open source geospatialsoftware had become. The formation of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation(www.osgeo.org) with the support of Autodeskreflects the maturity of open source geospatialsoftware and is contributing to bringing opensource geospatial software into markets whereit has had limited penetration in the past. Thereare two key requirements for successful opensource projects, a grass roots developer community and a thriving business sector whichrelies on the technology. Both of these con -ditions have been realized inthe open source geospatialcommunity.A common misconception aboutopen source software is thatopen source software is theopposite of commercial soft-ware. The reality is that thereare two types of commercialsoftware, open source andclosed source (often called pro-prietary). Many commercialcompanies such as Red Hatbase their business entirelyaround open source software. As a rule of thumb, open source

does better in areas where software is beingcommoditized, where the opportunity for differ-ent vendors to differentiate their software is lim-ited. Well-known examples are operating sys-tems (Linux), web servers (Apache), relationaldatabase management systems (MySQL), andscripting languages (PHP, Perl, and Python).Another rule of thumb is that where you findwell-developed standards, such as POSIX, SQL,HTTP, HTML, POP, and SMTP, you will often findcommoditization. For example, MapServer hasbeen among the leaders in supporting OpenGeospatial Consortium (OGC) open web servicesstandards (OWS) such as WMS and WFS.Another common misconception is that youreleft to your own devices when it comes to sup-port. The reality is that there are many compa-nies that provide support for open source soft-ware. Perhaps the best known is Red Hat whoseprimary business is providing support for Linux.The last time we checked Red Hats market cap-italization was $4.3B. Similarly in the geospa-tial arena firms such as DMSolutions andOrkney are providing support for open sourcegeospatial products.

Which are Autodesk's experiences so farwith the open source technologies? Willthe company expand its open source initiatives and if, in which directions orproducts?

I see an analogy between the current situationin web mapping and the early days of the webwhen the initial web servers were being devel-oped. In the mid 90s eight core contributorssupporting the NCSA HTTP Server got togetherfor the purpose of coordinating their fixes and"patches" to the HTTP Server and formed theoriginal Apache Group, which was little morethan a shared mailing list. The industry, includ-ing major IT players like IBM, Sun, HP and oth-ers, had to decide whether to develop and sup-port their own proprietary web servers andcompete in this arena. In 1999, with IBMencouragement, the members of the Apache

July/August 200710

Interv iew

Construction and Non-farm Productivity Index

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a model-driven design technology that was introducedby Autodesk.


Group formed the Apache Software Foundation,a legal entity, to provide organizational, legal,and financial support for the Apache web serv-er. Since then the Apache Web Server has beenadopted by IBM and others and is running over70% of the worlds web servers. I foresee thatthe future of open source web mapping will besimilar to what happened with web servers. Inthe short period since MapGuide was donatedto the OSGEO, we have seen over 25,000 down-loads of MapGuide Open Source and over 4,000of the Feature Data Object (FDO) API. We arealso seeing non-Autodesk developers activelycontributing to both projects. For example, mostof the FDO data providers currently availablewere developed by non-Autodesk developers.

At the end, please share with us yourvision on the grand picture of the globalgeospatial market in five or ten yearsfrom now?

The single most important trend that I see in thefuture is convergence, breaking down islandsof information based on traditional disciplinesor professional categories and those created bythe traditional organization of the construction,transportation, and utility and telecommunica-tions industries. This is going to create pointsof inflection in the construction industry, theutility and telecommunications industries, urbanplanning, and the emergency response and dis-aster management sectors. For example, I fore-see the replacement of much of our existinginfrastructure, which in the US is in dire condi-

local governments are going to be forced toaddress the fundamental issue of having to doa lot more with less. I foresee utilities, telecom-munications firms and others investing in IT likethe banking industry, low cost airline industry,and German automobile industry did years ago.In the immediate future I see Tim O'Reilly's con-cept of Web 2.0, harnessing the collective intel-ligence, as a key technology enabling partici-pation of the field force in maintaininginfrastructure data as a key to addressing theaging work force challenge.

Thirdly, I foresee that government regulationand legislation is going to force the capture ofa lot more digital data about infrastructureincluding buildings, roads and highways, andother critical infrastructure. The TrafficManagement Act in the UK is a harbinger ofwhat is to come. I also foresee that homelandsecurity and global warming, human popula-tion trends, and the cost of energy will forcethe digital earth (www.isde5.org). There is ahistory of utilities, telecommunications, andlocal government having to be nudged by gov-ernment legislation or regulation, but realizingtremendous business value from digitalizingtheir business processes after the initial nudgefrom government. Legislation will force stan-dards like INSPIRE in the EU and standardizeddata models like the FGDC's Geospatial DataModel (www.fgdc.gov/dhsgdm) in the US.

Finally, I believe that the semantic web, whichhas been championed by Tim Berners-Lee andothers, is going to start delivering real businessvalue. In the building, highways and roads, andutilities and telecommunications sectors, I fore-see that the semantic web will help these orga-nizations reduce the cost of maintaining theirinfrastructure and to optimize the build out ofnew infrastructure and new technologies. Theeconomic driver for this is clear because as arule of thumb 90% of the cost of facilitieswhether buildings, highways and roads, or net-work infrastructure like telecommunications,power, gas, water, and waste and storm wateris incurred in the operating and maintenancephase, and we are going to have to increasing-ly design infrastructure to reduce operating andmaintenance costs, both in terms of dollars andenvironmental impact.

Joc Triglav ([email protected]) is editor

and columnist of GeoInformatics. For additional

information: www.autodesk.com.

tion (www.asce.org/report-card/2005/index.cfm) requir-ing trillions of dollars ofinvestment, by more envi-ronmentally friendly, moreenergy efficient, and moreefficiently maintainableinfrastructure. I expect it willbe exciting times especiallyfor the much more digitallysavvy younger generation,because I am convinced thatgaming technology is goingto be a critical technology inenabling the new convergedworld. We are going to real-ize what Roger Tomlinson,often referred to as the

Father of GIS, foresaw in 1975, being able tosimulate a model of the earth on a computerthat functions like the earth, including all peo-ple, places, things and processes...we've got atool that allows us describe the world withmuch greater facility than we ever have before.And, by definition, that's going to what weunderstand about it. In other words,SIMCity(tm) but with real data.

Secondly, I remember attending the lastEuropean Oracle Open World conference inLondon several years ago and listening to Lars Wahlstrom's, head of Oracle's EMEATelecommunications Industry Group, presenta-tion on the impact of IT in telecommunications.He said that compared to the banking industry(ATM's replacing tellers), the low cost airlineindustry segment (like Ryanair and Southwest),and the automobile industry (SAP), the telecom-munications industry hadn't even begun toscratch the surface in applying IT to streamlineits business processes. I also remember a veryexperienced director of operations at a major UStelecommunications company who was con-vinced that by breaking down islands of infor-mation and streamlining the lifecycle involvedin maintaining facilities data, he could reducecosts by 70-90 %, make his company muchmore agile in deploying new services, keep theregulator happy, and be much more responsiveto his customers. In the intervening five yearsor so since, compared to what is achievable,the progress has been slow. But the aging work-force issue, the difficulty that utilities and

telecommunications compa-nies are having in findingplanners, field staff, and oth-ers to replace staff who areretiring and the aging of theinfrastructure itself are com-ing to a head, and I foreseethat utilities and telecommu-nications companies and


Interv iew

Infrastructure Management Lifecycle Paper

Experienced Workers Database


Latest News? Visit www.geoinformatics.com

BE Conference Europe took place in London in June,

shortly after Bentleys BE Conference 2007 in Los Angeles.

By: Remco Takken

To help emphasize Bentleys efforts in thearea of CAD/GIS integration, geospatial guruStyli Camateros proudly mentioned Bentleysactive participation in OWS-4, a workgroup ofthe Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) con-cerned with CAD/GIS/BIM integration thelatter of which refers to Building InformationModelling, originally an Autodesk term.Camateros also announced the imminentlaunch of Bentley Map.

Long Service LifeThe theme of Camateros keynote-presenta-tion was Bentleys focus on infrastructure.The division between GIS and infrastructureis an historical aberration. We want to bringback engineering into GIS. We are not GISabout infrastructure, we are GIS designed forinfrastructure, said Camateros. Commentingon the new Geospatial Server being used byseveral municipalities, Camateros remarked:Its not a plan and design solution, a buildsolution or an operations solution. It appliesto the whole enterprise and the whole infras-tructure lifecycle, just like Web publishing.

European SIIClearly, Bentley is committed to advancing GISfor infrastructure and invites others to getinvolved in the process through its annualGeospatial Research Seminar, which encouragesopen, in-depth technical discussions. The hostsof the 2007 seminar were Oscar Custers fromBentley and Peter van Oosterom of the DelftUniversity of Technology. The theme this yearwas Creating Spatial Information Infrastructurestowards the spatial semantic web.Agreeing on the syntax and formats of spatialdata and the development of systems handlingthese is the first step towards SpatialInformation Infrastructures (SII). Recently, therehave been a number of large initiatives encom-passing spatial information infrastructures forexample, INSPIRE and the U.S. Department ofHomeland Security (DHS) Geospatial DataModel. These harmonised models can be used

for the implementation of information systemsaccording to the model-driven architectureapproach. The same model can be the basisof a database schema (SQLData Definition Language) andthe exchange format (XMLschema). This model canalso define the user inter-face and associatedbehaviour in an edit environ-ment. Within Bentley, the XFMtechnology is an importantexample of this development.

What Does It Mean?The SII not only covers traditional geo-information, but also geo-referenceddesigns/models and subsurface information.Also, theres the issue of 3D and, as thingschange over time, the temporal element isalso very important. How does this all fit intoa usable interoperable infrastructure? Thesemantic aspect of information is not onlyimportant for human beings to understandeach other, but is also essential if we wantmachines to do useful things with the information. Therefore, the semantics willhave to be formalized think semantic webstuff, ontologies, and OWL. The afternoon discussions during theGeospatial Research Seminar served as asneak preview to a book on the same themethat will be published shortly.

All in AllOf course, there was some overlap in the content at BE Conference Europe in Londonwith that of BE Conference 2007, which tookplace five weeks earlier in Los Angeles.However there was certainly enough to beseen and heard that was new and different,especially considering the information pre-sented during the Geospatial ResearchSeminar. Not unimportantly, London is only acouple of hours away from most places inEurope.

Bentleys Geospatial Tracks in London

Focus Was on AdvancingGIS for Infrastructure

Remco Takken (rtakken@geoinformatics) is editor

of GeoInformatics. Have a look at

www.bentley.com. for more information on the

topics discussed in this article.

July/August 2007

Conferences & Meet ings

13


Galileo

GNSS Update

Probably everybody knows by now that Galileo has hit rough weather. There is still much discussion about financing,

although by now it is clear that it will be financed using public money. Technically, however, progress is being made.

By Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

GalileoIn the previous update I reported that EUtransport minister Jacques Barrot had set adeadline for the consortium of eight compa-nies with respect to progress of the project.The problem is the contract the private con-sortium was to sign with the EU for exclusiveexploitation of Galileo. In return for a two-yearconcession, the consortium would financetwo-thirds of the costs of Galileo, in totalabout 2.5 billion dollars.In November 2006 a partial deal was closed.The March 14, 2007 ultimatum from the EUdeclared that the contract should be finalizedbefore May 10, 2007. This was not achieved,resulting in the EU ending negotiations andinvestigating the possibility of completing theproject on its own, preferably with publicfunding.

The consortium, in turn, has responded thatit does not believe the market for fee-basedGalileo services is large enough, especiallywith the well-established GPS system freelyavailable.

Financing

On June 8, the European parliament decidedthat Galileo should be funded with publicmoney. The total amount needed to finish theproject is estimated at 2.4 billion Euro. It isstill unclear where this money is to comefrom. Three options have been mentioned:

Additional funding from the EU memberstates.

The ESA budget, in return for which mem-ber states would get compensatory ordersfor the national space industries.

Financing within the current EU budget.No decision has yet been made on the methodof funding; even partial private funding is notruled out although project control will remainwith the EU parliament from now on.

(Military) Prestigious ProjectBoth the EU government and the public seeGalileo as a prestigious project that should notbe stopped. Furthermore, the German minis-ter of transport, Wolfgang Tiefensee, still thinksthat Galileo will give a boost to the Europeaneconomy through its high tech.According to a recent inquiry, most European

July/August 200714

Art ic le

Rubidium atomic clock (source: www.esa.int).


citizens support the conclusions of the com-mission. They say Galileo should proceed andshould be funded with public money. One ofthe consequences of the current financial sta-tus is that the deadline, earlier shifted from2008 to 2011, will shift again to the end of2012.At the end of May the European space policydocument was published. This documentstates that all space activities have an impor-tant defense and security role as well as apublic role. Earlier there were rumors thatGalileo would fulfill military purposes and,without explicitly mentioning Galileo, this pol-icy document seems to confirm the rumours.

First GIOVE-A ResultsOn May 2, Galileo transmitted the first truenavigation signals. When the satellite became

meant to test the (future) expansion of theGPS constellation to 32 or more satellites.Further, Lockheed Martin has been awarded asix-million-dollar contract for building a module that will temporarily transmit on theL5 frequency from a Block IIR-M satellite.Earlier, the plan was to install this frequencyon the Block IIF satellites. This frequency isimportant for aerospace purposes but willalso enhance survey applications.

GlonassIn the previous update we reported that therewas a possibility Glonass would switch to thesame radio technique (CDMA) used in GPS. Arecent press release, however, stated that nodecisions would be made before the end of2007. Switching to CDMA is costly and it isrumored that Russian military circles considerthe change unnecessary due to the robust-ness of the current FDMA technique.Premier Putin has indicated that Glonass willbecome fully useable for civil use in the nearfuture. Exactly what this means is not com-pletely clear, though. Communication aboutGlonass in the English language has, howev-er, improved lately.

Beidou / CompassOn April 13 China launched the fifth Beidou /Compass satellite. The previous four satelliteswere geostationary satellites. This fifth satel-lite, however, was put into a medium earthorbit as is the case with the other GNSS systems.The fourth satellite, which was discussed inthe previous update, seems to have problemswith its solar panel and has not been activat-ed yet as far as can be determined from thecommunication that is available from China.

Huibert-Jan Lekkerkerk

([email protected]) is editor of

GeoInformatics and a freelance writer and trainer

in the field of positioning and hydrography.

operational in January 2006 the signals emit-ted were test signals only. Those signalscaused some commotion as they did not con-form to the interface control document. Thesignals transmitted now are conforming to theinterface document and can be used by man-ufacturers for testing receivers.Finally, the first results from the Rubidiumclocks on GIOVE-A have been made public.The clocks function as expected and will prob-ably exceed their design life of 12 years. Acomparison with identical clocks on theground show that the clocks behave exactlyas expected. This is important since the clockis the most important part of the satellite andwill eventually determine the accuracy ofGalileo.

EgnosOn May 16, the ESA and the GNSS SupervisoryAuthority (GSA) signed an agreement concern-ing further cooperation between Egnos andGalileo. Although the Egnos system currentlyaugments GPS, it is envisioned that in thefuture Egnos will be included completely with-in the Galileo infrastructure.Tests with Egnos during an aircraft landing atthe French airport of Limoges were success-ful. Similar to the American WAAS, an impor-tant application of Egnos is airline navigation.The results of these tests have brought thesystem one step closer to official use in 2008.

GPSTests with the GPS satellite broadcastingPRN32 have been going on for a while. InDecember 2006 the satellite was activatedand as of April 1, 2007 it transmits on a con-tinuous basis. The satellite should, however,not be used for navigation and is set tounhealthy. Starting June 27, this satellite isalso included in the almanac, thereby increas-ing the chance that a receiver will try to lockonto it. It should, however, be excluded fromany position calculation and is essentially


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GIOVE-A (source: www.esa.int).

Test aircraft during an Egnos-supported landing at Limoges (source: www.esa.int).


Regional Spatial Data Infrastructures

What Makes Them Possible?

The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Associations SDI (Spatial Data

Infrastructure) Cookbook (www.gsdi.org) defines SDI as the relevant base

collection of technologies, policies and institutional arrangements that

facilitate the availability of and access to spatial data.

By Sam Bacharach

SDI advocates promote SDI as public infras-tructure, like roads and telephone systems.Like other public infrastructure, SDI providesa reliable, shared, supporting environmentthat makes individuals more effective in theworld, businesses more profitable, and gov-ernments more efficient.

From the Bottom upGeographicallyUltimately, data-sharing networks depend onpeople and the relationships between them,so policies and institutional arrangements(including technology choices) ought to beeasiest to arrange within a single city. Evenwithin a city, of course, multiple public andprivate entities must be involved in establish-ing, or at least accepting, the policies andinstitutional arrangements. But the relative

ease of arranging face-to-face meetings forthese purposes should make it easier foradvocates of local data sharing to coopera-tively apply their leadership skills and autho -rity. Logically, it would appear that larger,regional SDIs ought to be much more difficultto establish, because distance discouragesface-to-face meetings, and because manymore people must be brought into agreement.In the real world, however, regional SDIs areappearing at a rapid rate. Sometimes regionmeans a world region, or group of nations.Sometimes region means a group of cities,counties, states, or provinces. Sometimesregion means a group of institutions work-ing within a particular domain, such asoceanography (e.g. www.openioos.org), andalso within a geographic region. There areexamples of each of these types of regional

SDIs, and we have every reason to expectmore to form, at an accelerating rate. We also have every reason to expect that allof these will merge into a Global Spatial DataInfrastructure (GSDI).

TechnicallyTo understand or advocate SDI development,it helps to think of SDI as an entirely socialphenomenon. To a technically-minded person,an SDI appears as a data-sharing networkwith many nodes, each comprised of comput-ing devices that can produce, transmit, receiveand/or process spatial data. The technicalinteroperability that is a prerequisite for Web-based, real-time access to multiple data andprocessing resources may appear to the tech-nical person or the SDI user as merely a setof software features. But interoperability is infact obtained through social processes. Across the information technology (IT) indus-try, consensus standards have made steadyprogress in the last 15 years in dethroningproprietary standards. Previously, in any sub-domain of information technology, a singledominant vendor usually set the standard. Nolonger. The Internet and the Web are only themost prominent of the examples that haveshown technology users and providers thecommercial advantages of a more democraticand global approach to standard setting. Now,agreements on software interfaces, dataencodings and best practices are increasinglythe result of formal social processes, usuallyglobal, involving technical committees thatinclude both users and providers. In thegeospatial domain, the OGC and ISO TC/211are the most visible facilitators of these for-mal social processes, but their work builds onthe work of standards organizations in thebroader IT domain. Their work also involvescoordination often face to face -- with stan-dards organizations in neighboring domainssuch as transportation, emergency response,3D animation, databases, computer-aideddesign (CAD), and location based services.SDI depends on a sequence of social pro-cesses that begins with the social processesthat produce technical interoperability. Aftereveryones computer systems work togeth-er to share geospatial data, the remainingpolicies and institutional arrangements aremuch easier to implement. As we can see fromthe rollout of regional SDIs, the mutual bene-

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Virtual 3D city model of Ettenheim in Germany, automatically derived from an IFC dataset and man-

ually enriched with respect to the employed CityGML feature types. www.citygml.org


fits are, in a growing number ofcases, sufficient to overcome insti-tutional obstacles to implementingnew data-sharing policies andinstitutional arrangements.

Obstacles and ObstructorsIn a sense, all SDIs are regionalSDIs. Only under autocratic politi-cal or corporate regimes can therebe one over-arching authority thatmakes all decisions regarding suchthings as data content schemas,metadata standards, access poli-cies, pricing policies, and accessrights management. It is true thatin some cities there is a GIS dic-tator who rules a GIS fiefdom.But increasingly, within a singlecity, nation or corporate enterprise,SDI development depends on thecooperation of peer organizations,as it must in regions. Today, Web-based publishing ofand access to data and processingservices make it possible to dobusiness in much more effectiveways, but people and their institutions can-not change overnight. Individuals with author-ity over data sharing may believe that free andopen data sharing is a major burden of littlepersonal importance, or they may worry aboutlegal liabilities, or they may feel obliged tocapitalize on their data by charging significantaccess fees.Certainly, managing spatial data is more com-plex than managing other kinds of data.Spatial data is often costly to produce, it oftencontains proprietary information, and it oftenis derived from different layers with differentprovenance and restrictions. Liability is some-times a concern. Data layers that contain thesame basic type of information may havebeen created with slightly or wildly differentschemas. A dataset valuable to many differ-ent groups may be updated daily. Thoughtechnical standards have made it easier tomix different types of data vector, raster,CAD, and location users of the data oftenneed to understand the essential differencesbetween these data types. These and othercomplexities become part of the rationale forthose data managers who would resist puttingtheir data online for others to use. But datamanagers who resist SDI progress are swim-ming against the tide. The rapid advance ofcomputing and geospatial technology aremaking old ways of doing business obsolete.

ExamplesIn 1999, the German State North-RhineWestphalia established its spatial data infra -

ciations of local authorities, adopted a jointstrategy called Deutschland-Online to expandtheir cooperation in E-Government. One areaof cooperation is geoinformation, spatialdata and spatial data infrastructure (SDI).Based on the success of GDI.NRW, theSurveying and Mapping Agency of North-RhineWestphalia was chosen to lead this unit.

Cross-borderBorders provide opportunities for further SDIcoordination. Since 2001, cooperationbetween the Netherlands and NRW relating tospatial information has intensified, after sev-eral successful cross-border workshops. Aregional SDI (RSDI) workshop held at the JointResearch Centre at the beginning of 2003made clear the need for cross-border SDIcooperation. Belgium has also becomeinvolved. The main application areas are disaster management, spatial planning, environment, recreation and transportation.Change on Borders is a Regional FrameworkOperation approved within the EU-pro gramINTERREG IIIC. The CROSS-SIS-project(www.cross-sis.com/) is partly financed by theEuropean Union within the Change onBorders program with the aim of enhancingthe use of spatial data for spatial decisionmaking in cross-border settings, promotingthe modernization of the regional administra-tions, the use of INSPIRE and the develop-ment of the information society (www.cross-sis.com). The ambitions of the project areclosely related to the directives of INSPIRE

structure, GDI.NRW, as a joint initiative ofstate agencies, municipalities, private compa-nies and scientific institutes. In the beginning,several software projects were partly support-ed by public funding to develop the basiccomponents of an interoperable solution forthe GDI.NRW, following available OGC stan-dards and the agreed profiles for NRW.Before long, about 140 participating institu-tions were involved, and the benefits of anSDI were demonstrated in several test bedsand joint projects involving many partners. Forexample, in the 2004 SDI NRW Joint Project,GDI.NRW undertook 25 sub-projects in whichparticipants developed more than one hun-dred OGC-interoperable geospatial servicesand 20 SDI-based applications. These activi-ties produced an operational SDI kernel withmore than 120 different services, and theresults were presented at the Intergeo fair2004 in Stuttgart. As expected, this SDI development activitycreated new business opportunities, particu-larly in the areas of data development andmanagement and Web-based software andwebsite development. The German North-Rhine Westphalia Sig3D organization, forexample, developed CityGML, an emergingand globally important OGC standard for shar-ing urban models and integrating designdrawings with spatial data. Their expertise isin demand, fulfilling the economic develop-ment vision of the early backers of GDI.NRW.In 2003, Germanys federal and regional gov-ernments (Lnder), backed by national asso-


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Catalan Map displayed on the IDEC Map Server. The viewer offers free downloads in GML, downloads of orthos, access to

metadata catalog, thematic legends, control of transparency, gazetteer-type search, and more than 200 layers of data.


(http://inspire.jrc.it/), so a decentralizedapproach is favored. The project uses a service-oriented architecture based on com-ponents that implement OGC standards.

IDEC: Geoportal of the Catalonia SDIEarly in 2002, the government of theautonomous region of Catalonia (Spain)began the IDEC project (SDI of Catalonia). Thefirst year was devoted to general planning andpreparation and to the creation of the appro-priate collaborative framework. The followingyear institutional compromises and agree-ments were made regarding general under-standing of the concepts, architecture andtechnologies proposed by the initiative.Implementation began in 2003.The regional SDI offers several services in itsGeoportal, the most important of which is themultilingual Catalog Server, with more than18,000 records of metadata available (53,000including those translated to Spanish andEnglish), describing data available from over80 providers. Metadata for services (about 40)are also available. The Viewer, a client thatimplements the OpenGIS Web Map Server(WMS) Specification, allows the user to accessmore than a dozen WMS servers from differ-ent providers who together provide about 200layers of geodata. Services that implement theOpenGIS Web Feature Service (WFS)

Specification (for Web-based query and deliv-ery of vector-based data) and the OpenGISWeb Coverage Service (WCS) Specification (forWeb-based query and delivery of raster-baseddata) are also active. This services framework is offered to otherinstitutions and organizations as a platformto which others can add value, sharing andreusing the services for specific applications. The IDEC strategy has been to promote SDI-based Catalonian themes such as environ-ment, coastal information, transportation, etc.This thematic approach, based on the IDECplatform, has had a clear impact on the mod-els upon which other projects have beenplanned. Some important initiatives havechanged their initial conceptualization: froma centralized model to an open and distribut-ed architecture; from a proprietary system toa standardized one based on interoperabletechnologies. One example is the EUROSION Project, aEuropean initiative funded by the EC to pro-mote better management of the coastalzones. Others include UNIVERS, a regional ini-tiative in the framework of an INTERREGEuropean Project to connect WMS of the uni-versity departments in Catalonia to share landinformation and other geospatial information;and LOCAL, a recently-launched project thataims to incorporate the municipalities in the

Regional SDI. All are clear samples of a newera in managing GI technologies. The openSDI paradigm demonstrates the importanceof interoperability concepts and technologies.A regional approach helped the IDEC devel-opers to set up and more easily promote pro-jects based on SDI concepts and technologies,because of its intermediate position betweenthe large scale of the State and the smallerscale of local government.

Other Regional SDIsNATO C3, the US Federal EnterpriseArchitecture, and the Group on EarthObservations (GEO) can all be seen asemploying regional SDIs. The UK OrdnanceSurvey is using GML format to distribute itsMasterMap product. The Australian SDI con-sists of a wide variety of OGC standards-basedenterprise implementations across the nation.Open Location Services (mobile wireless stan-dards) are being built into consumer offeringsfrom major location services vendors. And per-haps more than any other country, Canada hasexpanded the practical reach of national SDIdevelopment based on the Canada GeospatialData Infrastructure (CGDI) into a wide varietyof agencies at all levels of government.

Sam Bacharach is Executive Director Outreach

Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC),

www.opengeospatial.org.

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Other SDIs to look at include: http://mapsherpa.com/tsunami/ Tsunami

Information Portal Tsunami InformationPortal, developed by DM Solutions (Canada)in concert with the Asian Institute ofTechnology, Chulalongkorn University, andLaboratory of Applied Geomatics.

http://niehs.telascience.org/ Katrina MapServer Interface, developed with theNational Institute of Environmental HealthSciences to support disaster recovery in theareas struck by Hurricane Katrina in the U.S.

http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/aimstools/gis.jspNational Climate Data Center Portal (NCDC)is the world's largest active archive of weath-er data. The NCDC portal uses WMS and WFSinterfaces to provide access to numerous climatological and meteorological resources.

http://www.openioos.org The Integrated Ocean Observation System (IOOS) supports coastal oceans applications. It includes bathymetric dataand many layers of science data. Semantic interoperability has been a key factor in the development of the system. In a related effort, "Geo-interface for Atmosphere, Land, Earth, and Ocean netCDF" (GALEON), activity is focused on open access to atmospheric and oceanographicmodeling and simulation outputs.

References Spatial Information Management in the Context of SDI and e-Government The German Approach, Dr. Jens Riecken, Germany. The SDI of Catalonia (IDEC): Geo interoperability at a regional level, Jordi Guimet Project leader. GIM, June 2005. Inspire Technical Architecture http://inspire.jrc.it/reports/position_papers/inspire_ast_pp_v4_3_en.pdf. Australian Spatial Interoperability Demonstration Project Reference Model www.sidp.com.au/.


Services According to User Needs

Tailor-made Facilities to Enhance Spati

The availability of digital spatial data is essential for the functioning of modern

societies. This has been recognized by many international initiatives, such

as the recent INSPIRE directive in Europe and global GSDI or thematic GMES

or GBIF. Such initiatives focus primarily on setting up basic infrastructures

for the delivery of spatially referenced data or their metadata. The value

of these technical infrastructures is, however, finally evaluated on the

basis of the added value of the user-oriented interface services

that they are able to support and enable.

By Risto Kalliola and Tuuli Toivonen

A lot of effort has recently been put intospatial data mobilization activities and thedevelopment of common standards like theWeb Map Service (WMS) and Web FeatureService (WFS). With these techniques, manyof the previous limitations on data sharingand on-line retrieval have been resolved. Theadoption of these techniques among nationalmapping authorities and other primary dataproducers holds the promise of the develop-ment of a functional information infrastruc-ture in Europe and nationally in differentcountries. The new challenge will be in setting up ser-vices that take advantage of the increasingwealth of information and are able to provideit to users in a digestible form. Such serviceswould bring added value to the societies that

support their establishment. The INSPIREdirective of the European Union identifies arange of services that each EU country shouldprovide. Shared metadata, viewing and down-loading services are consequently beingplanned and considered in each memberstate. This implementation process includesmuch more than just technological decisions,as novel solutions are needed in conceptual,administrative and societal terms.

Plain Tomatoes or a Delicious Soup?GI infrastructure building is faced with adilemma in that the established structuresshould be versatile, i.e. able to serve every-one. They should deliver raw data sets withadequate metadata for GI professionals orresearchers with a variety of interests. At the

same time, school kids should be able to seeand easily interpret the information that is relevant to them in the form of interactivemaps. Administration professionals shouldfind answers to their specific questions, whichmay be very specific in terms of spatial, the-matic and temporal data combinations. As an analogue to these needs, we may viewprimary data as freshly picked, unprocessedtomatoes. They are useful in this form for cer-tain purposes, but, for example, just as rawdata is insufficient in decision-making, plaintomatoes are insufficient for those who wantto have a waiter serve them hot tomato soup,with just a hint of basil and mustard, in abone china soup plate. Despite the numberof processing steps needed to get from toma-toes to soup, the quality of the original rawmaterial is essential for the taste. Similarly,when raw spatial data is transformed intogeographical information, diverse intermedi-ary and interactive mechanisms are involved.These steps should guarantee that the bestingredients are used to prepare the desiredproduct to a high level of quality and on time.

Within the European Union, the INSPIRE direc-tive provides conditions for harmonized andcompatible spatial data infrastructures. Inaddition, other international spatial data initiatives contribute to the development ofmechanisms that enhance the use of geographical information in modern societies.In the current situation, however, the interme-diate apparatus is clearly underdeveloped.The most user-friendly solutions are stan-dalone services that do not yet utilize thedeveloping spatial data infrastructures orrespect standards. There is a diversity of plansand pilot projects around the world, but nosolution has yet resulted in a final model thatstabilizes the scene. This makes the play par-ticularly interesting for pioneering developers.

The EU Life funded project Envifacilitate (2004-2006) dealt with these challenges in threeEuropean countries: Finland, Estonia andLatvia (envifacilitate.utu.fi/). The project wasaimed at piloting or developing end-user ser-vices that would take advantage of existinginfrastructure in presenting and delivering datasets. These experiences gave a number ofinteresting insights into spatial data services and their implementation.

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Development of user-friendly services is a process of continuous evolution based on userstatistics and feedback. Therefore, ambitiousand well-functioning solutions are developedthrough long-term commitments rather than

short-lived projects.


Towards a Content-Driven WorldUntil recently, geoinformatics was technologydriven. Now it is obvious that the most revo-lutionary solutions are increasingly contentdriven. Abundant spatial data resources areavailable, numerous technologies can be usedto process them effectively, and many alterna-tive procedures and platforms can be used toprovide data to the users. The breakthroughapplications are those which get the most

The work done in the Envifacilitate projectaimed to contribute content-driven develop-ment based on established spatial data infrastructures and services (textbox). The primary focus was on facilitating access tohigh-quality geographic information at varioussteps of the information-processing chain. Theproject presented end-user solutions for easier access to metadata, downloading andviewing. As the work was carried out by

attention and the most users, and attract volunteer developers to take them further. Google Earth was an innovation of thatkind. The package is brilliant: free of charge,an easy-to-use interface, and content withenough detail to fulfil local needs. From thedecision makers viewpoint, however, thepackage is unsatisfactory. After the initialexcitement, no tools are provided to evaluatethe quality of the contents.


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i al Communication

Lounaispaikka Portal and Map Service A regional portal for GI network and services. Lounaispaikka Map Service contains an extensive variety of informa-

tion and easy-to-use map interfaces for members of the public andenvironmental professionals. It has a distributed architecture and ashared metadata service.

Special attention has been paid to the organization and cartographicpresentation of the vast array of data sets.

www.lounaispaikka.fi/kartta/

ICZM Map Viewer A demonstration map service for planners of the ICZM (Integrated

Coastal Zone Management) process. Contains data sets and metadata descriptions relevant to the ICZM

process from all project countries. Has an international orientation and a shared architecture between

Finland, Estonia and Latvia. www.lounaispaikka.fi/kartta/

Paikkatietolainaamo Download Service A data portal for the discovery and evaluation of spatial data sets. Includes a metadata search service, a map service and a download-

ing service for spatial data sets Contains data by dozens of data providers and more than 850 regis-

tered users Part of the Finnish GI infrastructure. paikkatietolainaamo.fi/

University of Turku Spatial Data Archive A repository for archiving and distributing spatial data sets. Directed at GI professionals who wish to store their own data or use

data created by others. Is intended to be operational for dozens of years to come.

www.lounaispaikka.fi/


many actors, the importance of collaborationwas also highlighted.

Mobilizing Data Is Possible With spatial data, accessibility is a commonbottleneck, and the user community welcomesall mechanisms that mobilize access-restrict-ed data. Free data and spatial data-viewingservices have gained much popularity withinthe Internet community, as they provide aneasy and immediate route to the needed spatial data resources. This has, to a degree,happened at the cost of quality awareness.Quality assurance may not be provided, andthere may not even be sufficient metadata toassess the origin of the provided data. Still,even within these limitations, some chooseto apply imperfect free data in, say, researchand education, while others consider theaccuracy of spatial information to be soimportant that it should not be sacrificed inany circumstances.A new concept for spatial data downloadingwas brought forward by the Envifacilitate project in Finland. The Paikkatietolainaamodownloading facility is based on a conceptadopted from the practice of software

companies of providing demo versions oftheir programs for test use for a given period. Accordingly, spatial data from volun-teer data producers is lent through the Paik katietolainaamo facility to registeredusers to use free of charge for a year. Thismechanism has proven to be successful as itincreases the availability of spatial data andsupports empirical work on it. More detailsabout this facility and its operational mecha-nisms will be provided in a later issue ofGeoInformatics. Another mechanism to increase the availabili-ty of spatial data is the University of TurkusSpatial Data Archive, a repository that increas-es opportunities to reuse spatial data pro-duced by individual researchers and projects.Its development stems from the fact thatbeyond the large spatial data sets producedby big actors, there are also a number ofsmaller spatial data registers that should notbe allowed to lie dormant. Data producersdeposit their data into the archive and sign acontract covering usage rights, after which thedata producer does not need to intervene inits further dissemination. Through browsingthe archives metadata register, users may find

interesting data content which they canacquire after signing a usage contract with thearchive. The service does not involve costsfor either the data producer or the users.Both of the above facilities are examples ofrather simple service concepts that add to theamount and variety of spatial data availableto users. The potential of such mechanismsis obvious, as they lower obstructions toavailability and widen the use of geographi-cal information overall. Enhanced data accesswill in turn attract more usage and promotenew spatial service innovations.

Essential in Data ViewingThe Lounaispaikka Map Service eases accessto spatial information in SW Finland. Being alocally developed map service, this portal suc-ceeds by concentrating on aspects that arerelevant in the region. Nevertheless, it takesadvantage of the interface services of nation-al data producers and retrieves, for example,detailed topographic or soil maps from theiroriginal sources. Also, frequently updated datasets such as bird observation databases areread directly from their original source, in thiscase BirdLife Finland databases. The service

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thus combines a vast collection of nationallyand locally-produced spatial information content in a single map service. Additionally, this service presents some newways of viewing the abundant spatial datausing an ordinary Internet browser. Severalindependent map engines operate in a jointinterface. Different map viewers are organizedunder separate tabs which the user maychange on the fly. Each tab provides a collection of data layers and the appropriatetools to view and study them. There aredozens of pre-arranged combinations of datalayers, visualized cartographically as clearlyand intuitively as possible. Advanced usersmay also perform individual layer combina-tions. The Lounaispaikka Map Service has succeed-ed in overcoming some of the typical prob-lems of map service designers, such as thelimited size of the computer screen and thecontradiction between a high degree of free-dom for users and the clarity of the user inter-face. Ordinary users typically expect to seeeasy-to-understand map presentations, whileprofessional users may desire tools to createtheir own map compositions, even at the costof sacrificing cartographic clarity.

are just about to emerge, and the process hasits unique characteristics in each country. Inmany cases, different parties within a regionlook forward to increased collaboration ingeneral terms, which also involves the shar-ing of their spatial data, but unclear dataaccess and usage rights prevent the transfor-mation of these intentions into practical mea-sures. This hesitation may lead to stagnationthat hinders innovative work with spatial data.The mechanisms piloted in the Envifacilitateproject revealed new ways to overcomerestrictions. When the conditions for collabo-ration are clear and mutually agreed upon,intentions may indeed be transformed intoconcrete collaboration that produces jointspatial information services. It is important toacknowledge that the process does notinvolve technological performance issuesonly; it is also very much a matter of cartog-raphy, communication and user interaction. Inadvanced services the users should be givenenhanced options such as saving workspacesor defining personal user profiles. Semi-auto-matic GIS analysis tools, map printing optionsand many other functions would further tailorthe services to users needs.

Longevity of Services The establishment of useful spatial data ser-vices is, at the practical level, a complex iter -ative process that involves many consecutivework phases. Each time new operations arelaunched, feedback is gained from their users.In order to reach the corresponding targetgroup, marketing and networking is needed.When conditions are right the service will alsomarket itself, but more user requests will alsofollow. The developer of an information facilityin the Internet thus has to be a kind of jugglerwho is able to keep many simultaneous pro-cesses moving. To be able to do this, the devel-oper has to maintain ongoing contact with theentire process, be innovative and, rather thanbeing afraid to make mistakes, accept riskswith an aim to providing ever-improving per-formance. User feedback provides the key tocontinuous improvement of the service.

Risto Kalliola ([email protected]) is a professor in

the geography department of the University of Turku,

Finland.

Tuuli Toivonen ([email protected]) is a

university lecturer in geoinformatics in the geography

department at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Both have taken part in building Finlands SDI and

its expert panels, and they coordinated the EU-LIFE

funded project, Envifacilitate. The project provides

background for the present article. It is based on the

projects Lessons Learned document, available at:

envifacilitate.utu.fi/deliverables/ENVIFACILITATE_

lessons_learnt.pdf.

Challenges in International Services The ICZM Map Viewer combines internationaldata content from diverse sources, such asthe European Environment Agency and theBaltic Sea regions organization, Helcom, withdata from national data producers. Cross-country data combinations do, however, con-tain problems that may be hidden from theirusers. For example, the production of datamay have been different in different condi-tions even though the data may look uniform. These problems are common, especially innational border areas where different dataproduction cultures coincide. Metadata of thedata lineage and quality estimates are seldomavailable, making it more difficult to estimatehow suitable the data is for a particular pur-pose. The ICZM viewer can be seen as areminder of the need to critically evaluate allthe raw data components of Internet map ser-vices.

Synergy as Ground Practical work with spatial data infrastructuresand services involves simultaneous integrat-ed actions in different spatial scales from sub-national through national to international. Inmany countries, national level organizations


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Lounaispaikka MapService combines localviews with the utili -zation of nationalinformation resources.Distributed architec-ture supports the currency of frequentlychanging data, such as bird observations.Photo: Sampo Kunttu.

Different user groups require different processing levels of geographic information. SDIs should support servicesranging from simple download options and database queries to advanced citizen services that also utilize the bestdata available.


Aerial Observation to Help Prevent Conflicts Between Countries

Open Skies

Over the last few years, there has been a continuous stream of reports and

discussions in the media about Open Skies treaties and agreements. Within this

context, much of the media attention is focused on the long and tortuous

negotiations between the United States and the European Union (EU) regarding

the liberalization of transatlantic air travel and the vexed question of take-off

and landing rights for airlines on both sides of the Atlantic. However there is

what some people would regard as an even more important

Open Skies Treaty that receives much less publicity - even though its remit

extends far beyond the U.S.A. and the EU bloc of countries.

By Gordon Petrie & Hartwig Spitzer

This particular Treaty is concerned with themonitoring of military sites from the air andhas the following three main objectives:-(I) First of all, it is designed to enhance

openness and transparency with regardto the military activities being carried outin Europe, North America and parts ofAsia.

(II) Its second objective is to help support theverification of the many international armscontrol agreements that have beenreached in recent years.

(III) The third objective of the Treaty is tostrengthen the international capacity forthe prevention of military conflicts and forthe management of political crises anddisputes with a view to ensuring greaterstability and peace over the vast land areaof the northern part of the NorthernHemisphere lying between Vancouver andVladivostock (Fig. 1).

The technology that has been adopted to tryto achieve these ambitious objectives is aerialobservation - using unarmed manned aircraftequipped only with cameras, scanners and SARimagers to monitor military activities and siteson a cooperative basis between participatingcountries. The Open Skies Treaty was originallysigned in 1992. However the ratification of theTreaty proved to be difficult in some countries.So the Treaty did not come into actual operationuntil January 2002. Indeed it has only becomefully operational with the full set of permittedimagers since 1st January 2006. It is interestingtherefore to report on the implementation,operation and achievements of the Open SkiesTreaty to date and, in particular, to discuss theairborne imaging aspects of the Treaty.

BackgroundThe original idea of having an Open Skies pro-gramme to make mutual use of aerial pho-

tography to monitor the weapons arsenalsand military dispositions of the U.S.A. andSoviet Union during the Cold War - with theobject of preventing surprise attacks by eitherside - was set out by President Eisenhower in1955. This purely bi-lateral proposal wasquickly rejected by the Soviet Union. Howeverthe idea was revived by President GeorgeBush Sr. in 1989. On this occasion, the pro-posal was to carry out multi-lateral monitor-ing of all the countries in the NATO andWarsaw Pact blocs on an equable and strictlycontrolled basis. Times and attitudes hadchanged, the Cold War was coming to an endand the new proposal met with a much bet-ter response. After a long period of detailednegotiation starting in February 1990 and aseries of conferences held in Ottawa,Budapest and Vienna, the terms of an accept-able treaty were reached. The Open SkiesTreaty was formally signed by the foreign min-isters of the 26 countries of the two blocs ata meeting held in Helsinki on 24th March1992. Over the next two or three years, theTreaty was ratified by all of these countriesexcept Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Eventuallythe Ukrainian parliament formally ratified theTreaty in 2000, followed by Russia andBelarus in 2001 - which allowed the Treaty toactually come into force on 1st January 2002.Since then, a further nine European countrieshave signed up to the Treaty. The detailedcoordination of the Treatys implementationand the resolving of any disputes, proceduralissues or technical issues is carried out by theOpen Skies Consultative Committee (OSCC)which is based in Vienna.

PreparationDuring the years between 1992 and 2001, agreat deal of work was carried out in prepara-tion for the coming into force of the Treaty.This included the setting up of Open Skiesunits in each country, the training of the appro-priate personnel and the preparations for thecertification of suitable aircraft and imagersthat would fall within the strictly defined termsof the Treaty. Furthermore, over 350 trial over-flights were conducted during this periodbefore the Treaty actually came into operation.This provided much practical experience to thenewly formed Open Skies units in all of thecountries that had signed the Treaty. It alsoresulted in a real spirit of cooperation and a

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Fig. 1 - The huge land area - from Vancouver to Vladivostock - that is covered by the Open Skies Treaty is shown in blue.


great deal of confidence and trust being builtup between all the participants engaged in theOpen Skies programme before the Treaty didformally come into force.

I - Treaty Rules & Requirements

(a) QuotasThe Open Skies Treaty operates on the basis ofactive and passive quotas of overflights for eachparticipating country. These quotas have beenset largely on the basis of the geographic

ing the maximum distance that can be flownduring a single individual overflight. The spe-cific restriction that applies to a particularcountry is largely related to its size - thelargest distances being 7,200 km in the caseof the Russia/Belarus combination andbetween 5,000 and 6,000 km each in the caseof Canada and the U.S.A. Each country hasone or more airfields designated as its pointof entry for the aircraft carrying out an over-flight. Further airfields are designated as refu-elling stops (Fig. 2).

(c) MissionsThe rules and procedures for the conduct ofeach individual mission are also set out indetail by the Treaty. Each country wishing toconduct an overflight over another countrymust give a minimum notice of 72 hoursbefore the arrival of its observation aircraft atthe designated point of entry. Besides which,a mission plan must be submitted 24 hoursbefore the intended flight, giving details of theintended route, distance and estimated flighttime. Each overflight must then be completedwithin a period of 96 hours from the time ofarrival of the aircraft at the point of entry.There are no territorial restrictions on theoverflights. Thus any part of the full territoryof each country can be overflown, except fora 10 km zone adjacent to the country's bor-ders with a state that has not signed theTreaty.

dimensions and themilitary capabilitiesand strategic impor-tance of each countrythat adheres to theTreaty. The so-called passive quota definesthe number of over-flights that a country(or state party) isobliged to receive fromother countries. Theactive quota is thenumber of overflightsthat each country (orstate party) has theright to conduct overother countries. Theactive and passivequotas of permittedoverflights are usually

equal in number for each country. Both theU.S.A. and the Russia/Belarus state party eachhave an annual quota of 42 overflights;Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Ukraine and theU.K. each have a quota of 12 overflights;Sweden and Norway each have 7; and so on -with smaller quotas for each of the remainingsignatory countries!

(b) DistancesIn close association with the number of per-mitted overflights, there are also limits regard-


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Fig. 2 - In the U.S.A., several airfields are designated for use by Open Skies observation aircraft. There are two Points of Entry (POEs) - in Washington, D.C. and California; three Open Skies Airfields (OSAs) where observation flights can start and finish; and four airfields where refuelling can take place. (Source: DTRA)

Fig. 3 (a) - The coverage of the full suite of permitted imaging devices - a panoram-ic film camera (yellow); 3 photogrammetric film cameras (red/blue); 3 video cam-eras (green); an infra-red line scanner (purple); and a SAR imager (blue) - asdeployed on the German Tupolev Tu-154M aircraft. (Source: IGI)

Fig. 3 (b) - The three Zeiss Jena LMK photogrammetric film cameras and three ZeissVOS-60 video cameras (pushbroom scanners) mounted in the German Tupolev Tu-154Maircraft . (Source: IGI)

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(d) Allowable Imaging DevicesThe imaging devices that are allowed underthe Treaty for use in the overflights are alsostrictly regulated. Optical photographic filmcameras can be used in either a vertical oroblique mode of operation provided that theground resolution of the resulting image is notfiner (smaller) than 30 cm. Up to three (onevertical and two oblique) frame cameras anda single panoramic camera can be used dur-ing a specific overflight. Video cameras givinga real-time display of the ground on-board theaircraft may also be used, again with the sameground resolution limit of 30 cm. With the fullimplementation of the Treaty from 2006onwards, infra-red and SAR imagers may alsobe used during overflights with minimumground resolution values of 50 cm and 3 mrespectively for the resulting images. It should

be said that onlyRussia plans to oper-ate its Open Skies air-craft with the full suiteof permitted imagingdevices (Fig. 3).Indeed many of theTreaty countries oper-ate their observation

aircraft fitted with only one or two film cam-eras and a video camera.

(e) CertificationA very important matter for all Open Skiesflights is the certification of the whole of theobserving system that is being used to collectthe imagery. This involves the validation of boththe aircraft and the imaging devices that it car-ries. This is achieved in the first instancethrough the detailed inspection of the aircraftand its imaging devices that is carried out atthe certification site by a wide ranging teamdrawn from many of the Treaty countries. Thisprocedure is then followed by flights over a testfield of calibration (bar) targets from a desig-nated flying height in order to demonstrate thatthe ground resolution values of the resultingimages do not exceed the limits defined by the

Treaty. This is checked through the subsequentanalysis of the image data that has been col-lected in-flight over the test field. Besides thisoverall certification carried out at the certifica-tion site, prior to each individual operationalflight, the observation aircraft and its imagingsystems are inspected thoroughly by a teamfrom the country being observed to ensure thatthey are in exactly the same condition as whenthey were certified. A team from the observedcountry is also present in the observation air-craft during the actual flight to ensure that thecriteria and procedures laid down in the Treatyare indeed being followed. The exposed filmsand magnetic tapes (the latter from the infra-red and SAR imagers) are certified in-flight byboth parties. The films and tapes are then pro-cessed and duplicated at a laboratory on theground (Fig. 4). These operations are carriedout in the presence of both teams with certified copies being handed over to eachteam. All the Treaty countries receive a reporton each mission. If requested, further copies ofthe films and tapes resulting from the flight canbe supplied (at an agreed cost) to any otherTreaty country. Thus the Treaty embodies bothequity and transparency: every state can seewhat every other state has observed.

Fig. 4 - A U.S. Open Skies team in action with (a) an operator working at an imagingcontrol station; and (b) a film magazine being changed - on-board the Boeing OC-135B aircraft - and (c) the inspection of a processed film being carried out at the Open Skies Media Processing Facility (OSMPF) in Dayton, Ohio. (Source: OSMPF)

Fig. 5 (a) - A Boeing OC-135B Open Skies observation aircraft in flight. (b) - A Boeing OC-135B aircraft being prepared for flight - the "canoe" or bulge on the underside of the fuselagebehind the front wheel of the aircraft undercarriage houses the SAR antenna. However the radome and antenna have since been removed from the aircraft. (Source: DTRA)

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II - Observation Aircraft

The various types of aircraft that are used inmilitary aerial reconnaissance operations playno part in Open Skies overflights. The use ofhigh-flying U-2 "Dragon Lady" aircraft or high-speed, low-flying Tornado aircraft would giveeveryone quite the wrong impression aboutan Open Skies flight. Besides which, none ofthese aircraft could accommodate the moni-toring teams from both the observed andobserving countries as well as the flight crew.Similar remarks about accommodating theseteams can be made about the small single-or twin-engined photographic aircraft that areused in civilian aerial mapping operations. So,based on purely practical considerations, theoperational Open Skies aircraft are all multi-engined transport aircraft that have beenmodified to act as platforms for the imagingsystems with seating for a minimum of 14 to16 persons.

(a) Jet AircraftThe two major powers - the U.S.A. and Russia- together with Germany all opted to use long-range jet aircraft. In the case of the U.S.A., twoBoeing 707 four-engined jet aircraft - labelled

C-130 four-engined turbo-prop aircraft whichhas a range of up to 5,000 km. The otherOpen Skies aircraft are all twin-engined turbo-prop types with a much shorter range. Severalof the former Warsaw Pact countries -Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania,Russia and Ukraine have all used AntonovAn-26 and An-30 survey aircraft (Fig. 8 (a)).Sweden uses a modified Saab 340 airliner andTurkey a CASA CN-235 transport aircraft (Fig.8 (b)). After the loss of its Tupolev jet aircraft,Germany has used the Swedish Saab 340 andvarious aircraft from other countries to under-take its overflights. The U.K. uses a modifiedHS Andover military transport aircraft. Theremaining Treaty countries do not operatetheir own observation aircraft. Instead theyhire or lease a certified aircraft and imagingsystem from one of the other countries or theymake suitable arrangements with the countrythat will be overflown - the so-called "taxi"option that is permitted by the Treaty. Thus,for example, the U.K.'s Andover aircraft hasbeen used for flights over Russia on behalf ofGeorgia (which does not posses a suitable air-craft) and flights over Georgia on behalf ofRussia. The Andover has even been used to flyover the U.K. on behalf of Russia with aRussian observing team on board executingthe Russian mission plan (Fig. 9)!

III - Imaging Systems

(a) Frame CamerasWhile civilian mapping aircraft play no part inOpen Skies overflights, by contrast, standardphotogrammetric film cameras producing 23x 23 cm frame photographs are used widelyduring these flights. Thus Leica RC30 camerasare used by Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary;Zeiss Jena LMK cameras were used by theCzech Republic and in the German Tupolevaircraft; and a Zeiss Oberkochen (nowIntergraph) RMK-TOP camera is mounted inthe Swedish aircraft. The attraction of usingthese metric cameras is that they can also beused to undertake aerial photography formapping purposes besides the relatively fewOpen Skies Treaty flights that form the quotafor smaller countries. The AmericanRecon/Optical KS-87 reconnaissance film cam-era producing 12.5 x 12.5 cm frame images isalso used quite widely on Open Skies over-flights. For example, three of them (one verti-cal and two oblique) are used both on theAmerican OC-135B and the Turkish CN-235 air-craft and in the SAMSON "Pod" that can beattached to C-130 Hercules aircraft.

(b) Panoramic CamerasPanoramic film cameras are widely used inmilitary reconnaissance aircraft in general,

as type OC-135B - were modified for the pur-pose (Fig. 5), while Russia and Germany eachopted to utilize a single Tupolev Tu-154 tri-engined jet aircraft (Fig. 6). Russia is preparingto bring a new Tupolev Tu-214 twin-engined jetaircraft into service quite soon. All of these air-craft are capable of flying the Atlantic Oceanwithout refuelling and of undertaking longduration flights across the vast lands of Russiaand North America. Unfortunately the GermanTupolev aircraft was lost in a mid-air collisionwith an American C-141 Starlifter cargo aircraftoff the coast of south-west Africa in 1997 withthe loss of both crews.

(b) Turbo-prop AircraftTurning next to propeller driven turbo-propaircraft, since most NATO countries operatethe Lockheed C-130 Hercules long-range military transport aircraft, a group of ten ofthem - Belgium, Canada, France, Greece, Italy,Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,Spain - formed the so-called "Pod Group". Inthis context, they share a single "pod", whichis a modified C-130 fuel tank converted byLockheed to accommodate a suite of frame,video and panoramic film cameras (Fig. 7).The "pod" is mounted under the wing of the

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Fig. 6 (a) - The Russian Tupolev Tu-154M Open Skies jet aircraft. (b) - The Tupolev Tu-154M aircraft about to beboarded by a Canadian and U.S. inspection team prior to its Open Skies overflights over North America. (Source: Canadian Forces)

Fig. 7 (a) - A French C-130 Hercules turbo-prop aircraftabout to undertake an observation flight over Bosnia.(Source: NATO-SFOR)(b) - The SAMSON "Pod" that is attached to the wingof C-130 aircraft. A video camera is mounted in thenose of the "Pod". Behind this, on the underside of the"Pod" are the windows for the KS-116A panoramiccamera and the nadir-pointing KS-87B frame camera,followed by the two windows for the two KS-87Bframe cameras pointing obliquely to the left andright of the f light line. (Source: Canadian Forces)

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combining high ground resolution (at leastaround the nadir) with very wide angle cover-age of the ground. Quite a number of OpenSkies aircraft carry these cameras, most man-ufactured in the United States byRecon/Optical, Fairchild, etc. Thus each of theAmerican OC-135B aircraft has a KA-91 cam-era fitted; while both the SAMSON "Pod" andthe Turkish CN-235 aircraft each utilize a KS-116A camera. The U.K. Andover aircraft hasa KA-95B camera (Fig. 10 (a)). The Bulgarian An-30 aircraft has a British-made Vinten 900Bpanoramic camera. If these panoramic cam-eras are fitted with long focal length lenses,then, if they are operated from low altitudesto get below the cloud cover, they will gener-ate images with very high ground resolution

- much higher than the 30 cm limit that is setby the Open Ski

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