The devel­op­ment and release of 3D GIS is a major step for­ward into the future. It will undoubt­edly cause a stir, sev­eral peo­ple to scratch their heads and unleash a wave of new think­ing that we have not expe­ri­enced in the geo­com­mu­nity for quite some time. It will cross dis­ci­plines, open doors and stir the pot of con­tented indi­vid­u­als who thought we had gone as far as we could go. Visu­al­iza­tion is poised to sky rocket in terms of activ­ity due to new ways for inter­pret­ing prob­lems, under­stand­ing their nature and rep­re­sent­ing their inter­ac­tions. Is 3D GIS about to rev­o­lu­tion­ize visualization?

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The devel­op­ment and release of 3D GIS is a major step for­ward into the future. It will undoubt­edly cause a stir, sev­eral peo­ple to scratch their heads and unleash a wave of new think­ing that we have not expe­ri­enced in the geo­com­mu­nity for quite some time. It will cross dis­ci­plines, open doors and stir the pot of con­tented indi­vid­u­als who thought we had gone as far as we could go. Visu­al­iza­tion is poised to sky rocket in terms of activ­ity due to new ways for inter­pret­ing prob­lems, under­stand­ing their nature and rep­re­sent­ing their inter­ac­tions. Is 3D GIS about to rev­o­lu­tion­ize visualization?

In some ways we have set­tled into a com­fort zone at the present moment in terms of geo­vi­su­al­i­sa­tion and map­ping. While we enjoy plac­ing loca­tions with fea­ture infor­ma­tion on 3D globes, and that has helped mil­lions of peo­ple to engage in the map­ping and graph­ics of the world, but an expanded world built on 3D objects that can be spa­tial analysed and rep­re­sented in new high res­o­lu­tion ways is about to unfold through 3D GIS.

At the recent imag­ina 2010 con­fer­ence in Monaco, France sev­eral speak­ers and exhibitors spoke about and expressed issues that are 3D in nature and sev­eral of them already accept we are into the next step — 3D visu­al­iza­tion and 3D worlds. While the movie Avatar has grasped the minds of movie-goers, 3D build­ing infor­ma­tion mod­els (BIM) served through iPods, deliv­ered through inter­ac­tive dis­plays and analysed with spa­tial analy­sis tools for safety appli­ca­tions are just a few of the pos­si­bil­i­ties ahead.

Through 3D GIS we will be able to look at inter­sec­tion analy­sis (the­mat­i­cally) from a mul­ti­tude of angles. There is a like­ness to the work that med­ical imag­ing spe­cial­ists have been able to do arriv­ing into the hands of ter­ri­tory and land­scape inter­ested indi­vid­u­als and orgrani­sa­tions. In turn GPS is also about to see greater growth as 3D GIS picks up speed and peo­ple begin to realise the impor­tance of 3D coor­di­nates and their power to fuel new map and visual cartographies.

We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.

An explo­sion of activ­ity sur­round­ing our under­stand­ing of cul­ture, his­tory and change will arrive with 3D GIS through analy­sis, but it is visu­al­i­sa­tion that will be the voice to the thoughts, images and expe­ri­ences that 3D GIS unleashes, forms and creates.

I’m not con­vinced that one giant model is about to emerge, instead, I would see thou­sands upon thou­sands of inde­pen­dent pieces of infor­ma­tion inte­grated in real-time and near-real-time expe­ri­ences. Recently I had the oppor­tu­nity to see French researchers explor­ing the use of visu­al­iza­tion tablets built on gyro­scopes that show new images as they walked through churches — the images dis­play­ing the his­tor­i­cal past and linked to every head turn. This being a fusion of his­tory, GIS and visualisation.

There is a grow­ing inter­est in the design and artis­tic qual­i­ties emerg­ing from 3D imagery. Ethics in their use is on the agenda, and prob­a­bly one topic geo-professionals ought to con­sider as they begin to explore 3D GIS and 3D visu­al­i­sa­tion going ahead as it aligns with busi­ness mod­els and the sale of prod­ucts and services.

3D GIS is about to cause change. These changes are going to be very excit­ing and will cause us to look at every­thing we have been try­ing to under­stand in 2D, in new ways. New analy­sis will touch on robot­ics and become much more asso­ci­ated with real­ity. Yet, we will also tread a line a between real­ity and the non-real and that bound­ary alone has shifted and will shift further.

Where will it go next?

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Comments (1)

• 2010-02-09 17:11:08 | Joseph Young  - Fragmentation and growth
  Jeff, Mobile 3D is on the verge of strong growth again. Looking at the mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, Palm), you can see the shift towards 3D again. This time with embedded graphics chips. These will allow immersive 3D GIS to be a viable solution for the masses. At PixelActive, we've seen a variety of customers interested in CityScape and believe that there are many applications for 3D environments. The market will grow in many directions and the leaders will consolidate, leading to a 3D standard that will eventually dominate the market.
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