The Value of Geospatial

From the dawning of the earliest civilizations, there has been a realization of the need to understand our surroundings and relationship with them, coupled with an awareness of the earth’s dynamic state. Today, this same recognition of the changing earth continues to drive the geospatial industry, connecting it with previously untouched and disconnected industries. With the broader awareness of what geospatial technology can do, and the expectation that information should be quickly captured, conveyed, and shared, there is a growing need to respond instantly to change – not just with current data, but with fully integrated, intelligent maps providing real-time, reliable, and actionable information.

While there is a growing appreciation for crossover applications enhanced with raster and vector analysis tools, many desktop and server-based offerings largely remain segmented. Disconnected GIS, CAD, engineering, photogrammetry, and remote sensing solutions only partially address the need for creating, maintaining, sharing, and using geospatial data to understand an event for a given location. Throughout the last four decades of geospatial innovation, we have witnessed the technological progression of mapping on multiple levels – from hardcopy maps to the Web and mobile mapping, from film to digital, satellite to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), surveying to GPS, contour maps to point clouds, files to databases, and megabytes to petabytes.