My presentation at the Smallworld User Conference in Baltimore, talking about the benefits of combining the strengths of Smallworld and Google Maps (the work we are doing with Ubisense myWorld).
23. Sparse data Sparse data Trucks Outages Jobs Often don’t need GIS maps KML and GeoRSS are good formats
24. KML is child’s play! <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <kmlxmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"> <Placemark> <name>Simple placemark</name> <description>Attached to the ground. Intelligently places itself at the height of the underlying terrain.</description> <Point> <coordinates>-122.0822035425683,37.42228990140251,0</coordinates> </Point> </Placemark> </kml>
25. So is geoRSS <entry> <title>M 3.2, Mona Passage</title> <link href="http://example.org/2005/09/09/atom01"/> <id>urn:uuid:1225c695-cfb8-4ebb-aaaa-80da344efa6a</id> <updated>2005-08-17T07:02:32Z</updated> <summary>We just had a big one.</summary> <georss:point>45.256 -71.92</georss:point> </entry>
31. Raster map tiles Pre-render maps into image files Approach used by Google, Microsoft, etc Very high performance and scalability Easy to integrate with Google Maps etc
33. System Architecture Overall sync Other enterprise systems Web mapping server(s) Google/Bing servers Smallworld OMS, WMS, CIS … Streetview, geocoding Spatial database Raster map tiles Base maps, imagery GSS REST, GeoRSS, … End user Any web browser Desktop or mobile Easy to use High performance and scalability
34. Google strengths Smallworld GSS strengths Simple viewing and query Rich data Additional functionality: geocoding, routing Simple “data mashups” Rich functionality Leverage existing applications Business process integration Network tracing Data update Highly complementary!
82. “Government’s record year of data loss” Daily Telegraph, UK, 2008 The biggest single loss was in November when Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, revealed two CDs with personal details of 25 million child benefit claimants and their parents had gone missing in the post. Last February it emerged 80 passports are lost in the post every month. Last month, CDs with personal information on thousands of benefit claimants were found at the home of a former contractor to the Department of Work and Pensions. Three weeks ago Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, admitted that the details of three million learner drivers had gone missing when a hard drive was lost in Iowa. http://bit.ly/c1ry5s
83. There is a strong case that your data is more secure in the cloud
This is a typical utility basemap in Smallworld – fairly sparse. But you can see with the raster tiled approach that the data looks exactly like it does in Smallworld
Adding in a Google Street Map gives a lot more context. Maintaining base maps is not a core activity for utilities, and is very expensive. It really makes sense to use basemaps maintained by somebody else. There are ways that you can add updates where necessary, for example adding a new subdivision which isn’t on the basemap yet.
And Google satellite imagery is good for many applications. I hear a lot of people say that Google imagery is out of date but I think they are updating it more and more frequently.
What if your data doesn’t match the Google landbase? Many utilities have an old and inaccurate landbase and want to transform or conflate their network data to a new and more accurate landbase, for multiple reasons – sharing data with other entities, using GPS, and working with external data like Google Maps, or imagery from other sources. This is an example of some data from PNG, who went through such a conflation exercise. You can see here how much better their pipes align with a Google map background after the conflation progress. That’s not the main focus of my talk today, but
Google street view can give you valuable extra information about facilities. Often you can see details on pole configuration and so on that may not be stored in the database. We’ve integrated tightly with this, so that when you click on a facility you automatically get the right street view displayed. In cases where the data doesn’t line up exactly it’s easy to adjust the view and save that for next time.
A very powerful feature is that you can display icons in the street view itself and mouse over or click them for more information.
In this example we can see several poles further away as we look along the street.
You need a wireless connection in general … but this massively reduces admin. No need to sync, no need to install software on any devices, no need to upgrade, no need to do anything when you change your data model. If you have foreign crews, they just need any device with a web browser and some login information.
Another thing we can make far more use of in mobile applications is georeferenced photos. These pictures were taken with my iPhone, the location was automatically recorded by the built in GPS, and the pictures were uploaded wirelessly by email and appeared on the map automatically like this – I have not adjusted anything manually.
These type of photos can be displayed on the map in near real time, and have huge potential for damage assessment after storms … just get members of the public to email pictures from their smart phones (in addition to your crews), and you have a really powerful crowdsourced solution, that can give you a much better near real time view of the situation than you have today.
Mention example of field systems – how are these currently secured?Growth in customer web portals – need to work out internet securityMore complex network security challenges in smart grid
The back button is the most used feature of web browsers
Mention change from enterprise driven innovation to consumer driven innovation