Even pictures you take with your smart phone are geotagged. In an increasingly interconnected world, spatial relationships are revolutionizing the way we visualize data. Today, thanks to the ubiquity of smartphones, tablets and wearable gadgets, technologies like global positioning systems (GPS), geographical information systems (GIS), and remote sensing are no longer exclusive to defense and homeland security; they are becoming integral parts of our daily lives.
Hexagon President and CEO, Ola Rollén, recognizes this trend. “The explosion of geospatial data is outpacing even what the experts predicted,” he said. “Since more everyday products have become geospatially enabled, everything now has a geospatial component.” Other forward thinking IT companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, etc., are following this trend and buying up core geospatial firms that offer location-based services they can incorporate into their products.
An increasing number of businesses are nontraditional geospatial consumers are coming to recognize that location-based intelligence and analytics can boost their performance and help them better understand their customers. With the increasing demand for readily available, consistent, accurate, complete and current information, geospatial applications have become the primary tool for accessing sophisticated geographic information, and transform the raw data into actionable, authoritative intelligence.
From data collection to data management to dynamic information services
For years we struggled to get our hands on enough data to answer the questions we had about our changing world. Today, we have the inverse problem: with mobile laser scanners, mobile mapping, and the explosion of minisat and UAV data, we are recording so much of the earth’s surface every day that we have a hard time finding the piece we need in the deluge of data. We need applications that can not only organize the constant stream of fresh data, but access it on the fly and deliver it rapidly to decision-makers, helping them quickly sense, decide and act as the earth changes.
This need for storage and access of large amounts of data lead to many to the usage of cloud computing. Acting as a centralized repository, the cloud can make this data available instantaneously available to consumers across the globe. The ability to run accurate and rapid field-based analysis that produces immediately actionable information is the key to success in all businesses. There are a wide variety of how businesses and governments are currently leveraging innovative apps on Cloud platforms.
→ Smart Governance: Government agencies can utilize crowd-sourced feedback and notifies local or state government agencies with detailed information in less than a minute about the feedback from citizens.
→ Intelligent Navigation: The shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line, especially when transporting over-size/overweight loads. You need intelligent systems that provide the best route for your cargo.
→ Smart Transportation: The basic spatial network of all roads and their properties need to be tagged and made intelligent to be used in a number of applications, from Intelligent Traffic Management systems to Advanced Driver Assistance systems and Telematics to deciding when to upgrade and repave the road network.