Beyond Desktop GIS

Emerging technologies will change the future use of geographic information systems (GISs), moving GISs from the office desktops into the users’ hands. Current GIS architectures focus on a static environment in which a user sits at a workstation to perform spatial analysis. With the advent of ubiquitous computing, this setting will change dramatically. Devices that combine a hand-held computer with a GPS receiver, a cellular phone, and a digital camera will enable users to integrate spatial analysis into their daily lives, opening GIS to the mass markets of day-to-day use. Mobile GISs will differ significantly from today’s multi-purpose GISs and we envision a whole family of portable spatial information technologies that will be tailored to specific needs. Smart glasses, for instance, will allow people to augment reality by seeing additional thematic information or seeing through obstacles. Smart Compasses will be based on entry-level Personal Digital Assistants, giving directions in the field on such phenomena as weather-fronts, congestions, or geographic areas. Mobile GISs pose challenging new research questions about the spatial concepts people employ when they move through space, the interaction styles and modalities people use in the field, the particularities about processing spatial queries posed in the field, the efficient handling of massive amounts of spatio-temporal data, and the on-the-fly integration of new field observations with data warehouses across a distributed information network.