Category Archives: Conferences

GIS Visions 2045

I gave a presentation where GIS might evolve in 20 years from now as part of the GIS Ostrava 2025 conference on 5.3. 2025. it was great to see again colleagues ! get eye-contact with audience and not just virtual applause. Also nobody was showing physically thumbs-up or red heart (in that case I would call emergency), rather real spoken (I mean real sound wave based ) comments, real talk and smiles. That was the main topic of the talk – Spatial Interactive – with people, tech, discoveries. Step out of the ‘glass-illusion’ trap.

Spatial Interactive

Stanislav Sumbera, GIS Vision 2024, 5.3. 2025,GIS Ostrava 2025

  • What happens here is more important than what happens now.
  • Space is naturally interactive, enabling collaboration and sharing.
  • The computer is not behind a 2D glass screen but understands 3D space and interactions within it.
  • People learn through observation, collaboration, and play.
  • Community Computer
  • Projective Augmented Reality (Projective AR)
  • Bret Victor – Dynamicland

image sources:https://gislab.utk.edu/tag/ar-sandbox/ , Dyamicland.org, Lightform

  • HMD / Head-Mounted Displays – Apple Vision Pro
  • Spatial Computing
  • Control through advanced gestures
  • Super persistence” of objects – digital objects remain anchored as if truly part of the physical world
  • Pseudo-haptic feedback – realism in rendering creates the illusion of tactile response
  • Currently at the UNIX Workstation” stage of the 1980s – showcasing possibilities that will later become accessible to everyone.
  • Also bloged here

2. Web, Open Source, and Technology Accessibility

  • From Google Maps → OpenLayers → Leaflet → MapBoxGL → MapLibreGL → ?
  • Each step represents greater availability, democratization, and accessibility of mapping technology, pushing development forward.
  • How difficult was it to render an image in 1993? How difficult was it to share that image with others? And today?
  • What is difficult, expensive, yet possible today that will become commonplace in 20+ years?

3. Lifespan of Data vs. Lifespan of Technology

  • WMS – Simple for visualization
  • Vector tiles – More complex to render (OGC API Tiles, MapBox Tiles, MapLibre Tiles – MLT)
  • 3D tiles – OGC 3D Tiles, evolving standards for spatial data
  • More aesthetics, smoothness, and artistic expression in maps
  • Real-time rendering techniques, such as Gaussian Splat, for next-generation visualization

from Book: Eneterpise SOA by Krafzig, Banke, Slama

4. Scanning Spaces and Objects

  • 3D scanning is accessible to everyone
  • Spatial Video, Spatial Photo
  • 3D scanning is as simple as taking a photo
  • Photorealistic scanning

5.Precise Geolocation ~2-10 cm

  • VPS (Visual Positioning System) – accuracy < 10 cm
  • 5G geolocation
  • Affordable high-precision GNSS + RTK/PPP (< 10 cm)
  • Accessible VPS from panoramic images, Mapy.cz?

6. AI – Welcome to the Jungle

  • NPCs have become “thinking machines” (are we, on other side, turning into NPCs ourselves? aka Jumanji 2 )

Image from Jumanji 2,driver – Mason Pike ?

  • The Chinese Room paradox – an English speaker perfectly assembles answers in Chinese following instructions without understanding the Chinese language and symbols meaning.
  • AI cannot create true originality but excels at combining and compiling existing inputs – a “super plagiarist” or “super puzzle resolver” ?
  • Might replace a significant amount of human (intellectual + routine) labor – in GIS (georeferencing, recognition/classification), programming/syntax, and more
  • “Hard work for machines, thinking for people” (Tomáš Baťa) is evolving into “(Pre)thinking* for machines, creativity/ideas for people” (in Czech Language : pre-mýšlení)
  • AI model marketplace – grow (cultivate) your unique “thought twin” that integrates into an open AI network.
  • Developer Twin: Blog post

GEO Visual GPU Analytics notes

Update June 2019:  idea on sequencing and replay  mentioned here: https://blog.sumbera.com/2019/06/28/motion-sequence-and-replay-in-dynamic-maps/

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With some delay, but before the year ends, I have to wrap up my presentation from GIS Hackathon March/2017 in Brno called Geo Visual GPU Analytics . It is available here in CZ : https://www.slideshare.net/sumbera/geo-vizualni-gpu-analytika  .  There are more pictures than text, so here I will try to add some comments to the slides.

slide 3,4: credits to my source of inspiration -Victor Bret, Oblivion GFX, Nick Qi Zhu.

slide 5: this is a snippet from my “journey log” (working diary), I keep every working day a short memo what I did, or anything significant that happen. It serves to several purposes, for example in this case I have gave up on trying WebGL , spent one /two days on other subject and then returned to the problem – and viola, I could resolve the problem.  Everyday counts, it helps to keep discipline and learn from past entries. Getting to know WebGL opened really ‘New Horizons” of GPU computing universe.

slide 7: “better bird in the hand than a pigeon on the roof  ” (English equivalent is : A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ ). This proverb is put into the context of edge vs cloud computing on slide 9.  In the hands – this is the edge , in the roof – this is the cloud.  So I believe that what users can hold in their hand, or wear or experience ‘nearby’ ‘is better’ (or more exciting)  than what exist somewhere far away (despite its better parameters).

slide 8 : We have same term for tool and instrument in the Czech – ‘nastroj’  so the question is musical instrument or just instrument (aka tool)? This goes to the whole topic of latency in user interaction, described for instance here. I tend to compare the right approach with musical instrument where tight feedback loop happens between the player and the musical instrument. The instrument must respond in less then 10 ms to tighten the feedback loop so the player can feel this instrument as his own ‘body’ and forget on ‘mechanics’ rather flow on the expressiveness of the feelings for what he is interpreting or improvising.  (right picture credit here) Why not to have such tools in visual analytics ? Why we need to wait for response from the server if the same task can be done quite  well on the edge ? mGL library for GPU powered visualization on web  or ImpactIN for iOS using Apple Pencil  reflects this principle. We have real-time rendering, we need human-sense-time interaction and bloated abstraction of current software stack do not help here despite of the advance in the hardware –  nice write up about latency problem here   …and as a side note there are computers types with very low latency – check any synthesizer or digital instrument where latency from user interaction must be very low, hence the left picture  on that slide represents them (combination of MIDI pad + Guitar).

Here is a short video form the Korg Monologue synth  on something used from 70’s , I consider this type of low-latency feedback-loop applied to new domains fascinating subject to explore. Notice real-time filter modification.

slide 9,10: nice chart from 2012 from britesnow.com    on cyclic nature of server vs client processing.  I stated there that Innovation happens on client (on edge) as servers(clouds, frames)  can do always anything and everything. Exaggerated and related to the slide 7 described above.  Workstations, PC, Smartphones (1st iPhone), AR/VR devices, wearables in general etc… it is always about efficiency in used space. Interestingly NVIDIA GPU Gems states similar on chip level.

slide 11: GPU chart over-performing CPU in conjunction with video resolution.

slide 12: Most tricky slide called ironically “Find 10 differences”. On left side is the program I did in 1993, in DOS, on right  the one I did using WebGL in 2016. Both examples are great achievements, the right side does GPU-based filtering (or marketingly in-memory)  with low user latency so it redraws immediately as user filters by his mouse pointing on brush selector.  The left was created in DOS era where each graphics card has its own way of mode switching  and that app could utilize maximum of the graphic card using 640×480 resolution with 256 colors ! that was something that time. However something is wrong in trying to find 10 differences as they are basically so similar, both using monitor, keyboard/mouse, and layout….

slide 13:  last slide titled “Find 1 difference”is the answer on the dilemma from slide 12  – the AR experience, new way of interaction, new type of the device for new workflows, visual analytic, exploration etc.  For one example of many possibilities of AR, here is a nice video from HxGN live 2017:

 

HxGN13: SG&I Perspectives LIVE

Here is a project I have been working on iKatastr2 (SpatialReader) with myVR technology showing terrain model with overlays of OGC WMS services. All from freely available data. Presented at HxGN live 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVRYfK6jyoY&t=39m10s

at 39:10 watch myVR multiplatform rendering technology integrated in the mobile app for 3D map visualisation.

Here are also few pictures form HxGN live booth/keynote

ESA App challenge winner

  I have participated in the first ESA (European Space Agency)  app dev challenge where 5 teams competed on best  concept/prototype that will bring GMES data sources to the public on mobile devices. Our team (Czech Republic, Germany, Macedonia) won and each member got iPad 3 . We won not because we were best in terms of  the best prototype,  concept or presentation, but because we fit best to the criteria imposed by this challenge and each piece of delivery (5 page long document describing concept, presentation, prototype demo)  was pretty good and simple enough to be feasible for final realization. Moreover a unique value of mobile devices plus unique value of  GMES satellites have been addressed.  Full article can be read here :   http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMIQOBXH3H_index_0.html

Update 08/08/2012 : there is also press release from my company  Intergraph : http://www.intergraph.com/assets/pressreleases/2012/08-01-2012.aspx

 

Intergraph 2010 session

 

 Here is a video  from the prototype I did for the Intergraph 2010 keynote on “Geospatial Workflow Designer”  as part of the SOA/Composite services.

 

Another video showed prototype of hosting  GeoMedia Web Map on Amazon EC2 and Azure:

It was part of the large presentation  there #3119

3119: The Private Cloud: Integrating and Hosting Intergraph Services Using Microsoft Technologies
Abstract:
Service oriented architecture (SOA) has established a solid position within enterprise systems as the predominant way of integration and means of distributed computing. As part of the ongoing Intergraph SOA vision and roadmap, we are moving our research focus from foundation services to composite services and orchestration. The speaker of this session will discuss various aspects of orchestration using Workflow Foundation as well as options for hosting higher order services using Microsoft AppFabric and virtualization technologies – all elements of emerging private cloud architectures.
Date & Time: Wednesday, 9/1/2010 8:00 AM
Length: 45 minutes
Division: Security, Government & Infrastructure (SG&I)
Audience Type: User – General
Track / Sub-Track: Utilities & Communications;Defense & Intelligence;Public Safety & Security;Government & Transportation / SG&I General
Speaker(s): Stanislav Sumbera
 

 

Appliantization at NUC 2008

 I have heard first time the term “Appliantization” from Justin Lindsey a CTO of Netezza at Netezza User Conference 2008, September, Orlando. I must admit I love this term, especially since I was involved with virtual appliance concept for geospatial. At Intergraph I was evaluating Netezza Performance Server with gaining fascinating results –  truly the peroformance runs in ranges you read in Netezza marketing materials – that is 10-100 times faster than equivalent general purpose database.  Gartner put Netezza into leaders sections in their magic quadrant for 2008, Netezza has quite good support for spatial types and spatial operations in their database and with UDXes you can turn the machine into domain focused Data Warehouse Appliance. 

More about Netezza Spatial  : http://www.netezza.com/data-warehouse-appliance-products/spatial-analytics.aspx

But let’s start from the beginning…

“One size fits all” approach doesn’t fit for high performance.

  Computing Appliances are equipment with a specialized laser focus on solving targetted IT problems. In contrast to general purpose hardware and software solutions, computing appliances leverage a high level of coherence or fidelity between wired hardware and software pieces. Appliances hide the technical complexity of a system and expose the simplicity of the system. According to the Gartner definition an appliance is “a prepackaged or preconfigured balanced set of hardware, software, service and support, sold as a unit with built-in redundancy for high availability.”

Recently in the data warehouse market, new appliances have emerged with support for geospatial data, processing and present revolution (and disruptive) technology. These new appliances provide a performance boost by tackling the way large amounts of geospatial data can be effectively processed. These performance boosts are reaching orders of magnitude in comparison to general purpose database counterparts like Oracle.

 Geospatially empowered Data Warehouse Appliances (DWA) with Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architecture can scale out into the hundreds of terabytes, have capabilities to perform spatial queries in seconds instead of minutes or hours, and provide to the user new levels of experience with the affordable instant geospatial analytics.

 With a huge volume of geospatially related data, there are many technical reasons to tune and assemble hardware with software and encapsulate all the complexity together into a self-contained ‘simple’ appliance with standard endpoints for interfacing. These self-contained appliances are easier to maintain and manage keeping the total cost of ownership lower than their general purpose counterparts.
2008 will be known as the year of “Appliantization.” In the data warehousing domain, appliances such as Netezza NPS, Oracle Exadata or Microsoft’s code-named project “Madison” (confluence of DataAllegro and SQL Server) are enabling technologies for high performance spatial analysis.

 Simplicity is managed complexity and computing appliances just do this

At Burton Catalyst Europe 2008 in Prague

Improving Development Process
SDLC : If you don’t build the right software, it doesn’t matter whether you build it right.
In fact…
• 35% of requirements change
• 45% of features are never used
• 82% of projects cite incomplete requirements as their #1 issue
Development Intelligence is BI applied to development – understanding the state of a development project at any point in time.
…. from the first day, Monday 20th October,2008
Future of a virtual desktops:
Steve Herrod (CTO VMWare)
http://blogs.vmware.com/sherrod/

– blend centralized and decentralized (mainframe)…(personal computers)
– Virtrual Desktop – vCloud vClient initiative
– Vision – full desktop run in the data center connect to desktop from anywhere
– Desktop term will have no meaning in few years…
– Desktop that follows user
– Evolution from Hosted to Hybrid !
– Master VM can update linked desktops/clones (as like update with windows)..new desktop image is available – it will handle user differences.
– I have asked question about graphical cards, openGL, Direct X supported in Virtual Desktops– Steve has mentioned what they have done on Apple. They can talk to those layers and still keeping VM image, they are not there yet.. may be in year or half.

The next gen application,Thomas Anne
– Macro business trends: “do less with less”
– app dev is viewed as unresponsive
Shifting the load:
– offshoring
– COTS, SaaS, “Cloud”
– “Same mess for less” (if we do not improve processes)
– Complexity kills, destroys ability to be agile (reason for app. to be unresponsiveness)

4 big trends:
SOA (Loosely-coupled shared services, SaaS, Servicing infrastructure and data)
UXP (RIA widgets, Fit Clients (not thin not thick just Fit)
WEB2.0,
Reducing Complexity/simpler more abstracts models and frameworks.

harsh reality:
– Redundant systems and portfolio bloat increase complexity and reduce agility
– Current model compounds the issues – traditional model is not SOA (model is focused on monolithical apps), they are tightly coupled distributed applications.

Requirements for a new model:
– Service-oriented rather than application-oriented
– “everything should be made as simple as possible not simpler”

Recommendations:
– The best innovation happens in the startup community
– Technology is irrelevant – what matters is how you use it. Focus on principles and patterns.
– Make clear SoCTechnology != Change

SOA presentation at Intergraph 2008

It’s been long time since my last post…I am completely busy and lot of changes have happened during the 2007 year. The most important is that I have handover my ‘start-up’ Intergraph division in Brno (called UtiCom Solution Center) and started to work as Technical Architect for SG&I division of Intergraph with Technology, Architecture and Strategy team. Moreover another important information drives me to update my blog – my presentation at Intergraph 2008. I will present in Las Vegas in June SG&I roadmap towards Service Oriented Architecture ! Looking forward to see you there.

update 2009 : you can download my presentation here :  http://www.intergraph2008.com/presentations under #9008, however you need a valid username and password. Also portions of the presentation can be found on CEN/TC 287 workshop http://blog.sumbera.com/2009/04/10/presentation-at-centc-287/