Webupon

Ten years ago, a “Digital Earth ” Initiative was established, with a vision of a 3D representation of the earth that would make it possible to find, visualize, and make sense of vast amounts of geo-referenced information. Such a system would allow users to navigate through space and time, access to historical data as well as future predictions, and can be used by scientists, policy-makers, and children alike.

At that time, this vision of “Digital Earth” seemed almost impossible to achieve given the requirements it implied about computer speed, broadband internet, interoperability of computer systems, data organization, storage, and retrieval.

Now, many of the elements of Digital Earth are not only available but also used daily by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Geo-browsing (browsing digital geographic information over the web) has become a major industry and introduced novel ways to explore data geographically, and visualize overlaid information provided by both the public and private sectors, as well as citizens.

Major natural disasters like the Indonesian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Sichuan earthquake have raised people’s awareness of our globe. The same is true with global warming, climate change, and their relation with our ecosystem.

The more we understand the complexity of interactions and inter-dependencies between environmental and social phenomena at different levels (local, regional, & global), the more we need dynamic information systems to provide reliable, accurate, timely, and openly accessible information at the relevant geographic scales.

Geo-browsers (e.g. Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, & NASA Worldwind) use the globe as mechanism to pan, zoom, and fly over the Earth’s surface to the surfer’s areas of interest. Associated to these 3D representations of the Earth are also 2D applications (e.g. Google Maps, & Microsoft Live Search Maps) that also allow users to add and share information via simple Application Programming Interfaces (API).

Four years ago, Google acquired Keyhole ‘ s Earth Viewer and launched its Google Earth, also making available its API for Google Maps, thus making it possible for anybody to add information to the Google platform. The Keyhole Markup Language has also become a powerful way to document and index information with a geographic reference, and display it on maps or global interfaces. The aim is not to organize geographic information, but to use geography as a way to search, view, and organize information.

The widespread success has also led an increasing number of interactions on the Web (i.e. the Web 2.0). Platforms such as Google Maps and Microsoft Live Search Maps have made it possible to publish, share and make geographically searchable user-generated content.

Initiatives such as Wikimapia and OpenStreetMap show how organized & volunteered information can come up with good-quality products that are openly accessible to all.

Someone may ask: “Why all these efforts in this decade?”

There are virtual sea of information exists on the earth. There are many infrared satellite photographs, along with databases full of information about transportation, population, commerce, crime, food production, etc.

In the past, much of the data stored about our globe can’t be easily used with other information. The data incompatibilities may result from using different file formats or coordinate systems. Also, some metadata, which is information that describes the data itself, is missing.

Hence the Digital Earth program is a global effort to find easy ways for anyone, anywhere, to quickly get information from servers worldwide and blend it with other data on a desktop computer.

The uses for such a technology are many, like giving officials the chance to map a hurricane or typhoon, and quickly plan for mass evacuations of populated areas via major highways.

Using Digital Earth, it is possible to put together complex combinations of data, using a browser-equipped computer and typing in a request. A user could choose a data source, such as a road map, on his browser and then select a region to analyze. He could then add other data to the selected region easily. He would quickly have a map with multiple layers of data that provides detail information.

Without Digital Earth, to merge incompatible data set for such a map, the user has to do a lot of custom programming or use complicated and costly Geographical Information System software.

The Digital Earth project hopes to solve that problem not by changing the data but by standardizing how it is cataloged and retrieved, through an Open Geographical Information System standard. The data are stored in thousands of high-speed servers (from Google and Microsoft) around the world. The servers are linked by high-speed networks to route the data to processing centers and on to users.

The data could also include weather statistics, roads, water-ways, voting information, census data, zoning districts, and much more – almost any information that is geospatial, i.e., it can be referenced to at a given spot at a given time.

Experts believe that Digital Earth will do for geospatial information what the World Wide Web did for text and multimedia.

Boys and girls, look up to the ” Digital Earth” vision. Set a high and achievable goal, and proceed with courage.