GIS专业英语原文及翻译结果

Is What You See, What You Get? Geospatial

Visualizations Address Scale and Usability

AashishChaudhary and Jeff Baumes

Unlimited

geospatial

information

now

is

at

everyone’s

fingertips

with

the

proliferation

of

GPS-embedded mobile devices and large online geospatial databases. To fully understand these

data and make wise decisions, more people are turning to informatics and geospatial visualization,

which are used to solve many real-world problems.

To

effec

tively

gather

information

from

data,

it’s

critical

to

address

scalability

and

intuitive

user

interactions

and

visualizations.

New

geospatial

analysis

and

visualization

techniques

are

being

used in fields such as video analysis for national defense, urban planning and hydrology.

Why Having Data Isn’t Good Enough Anymore

People are realizing that data are only useful if they can find the relevant pieces of data to make

better decisions. This has broad applicability, from finding a movie to watch to elected officials

deciding how much funding to allocate for an aging bridge. Information can easily be obtained,

but how can it be sorted, organized, made sense of and acted on? The field of informatics solves

this

challenge

by

taking

large

amounts

of

data

and

processing

them

into

meaningful,

truthful

insights.

In informatics, two main challenges arise when computers try to condense information down to

meaningful concepts: disorganization and size. Some information is available in neat, organized

tables, ready

for users to pull out the needed pieces, but most is scattered across and hidden in

news articles, blog posts and poorly organized lists.

Researchers are feverishly working on new ways to retrieve key ideas and facts from these types

of messy data sources. For example, services such as Google News use computers that constantly

them

by

topic,

or

organize

them

based

on

what

the

computer

thinks

is

important

to

viewers.

Researchers

at

places

such

as

the

University

of

California,

Irvine,

and

Sandia

National

Laboratories

are

investigating

the

next

approaches

to

sort

through

large

amounts

of

documents

using powerful supercomputers.

The other obstacle is the sheer vo

lume of data. It’s difficult to use informatics techniques that only

work

on

data

of

limited

size.

Facebook,

Google

and

Twitter

have

data

centers

that

constantly

process

huge

quantities

of

information

to

deliver

timely

and

relevant

information

and

advertisements to each person currently logged on..

Figure

1.

A

collection

of

videos

are

displayed

without

overlap

(top).

The

outline

color

represents

how

close

each

video

matches

a

query.

An

alternate

view

(bottom)

places

the

videos on top of each other in a stack, showing only the strongest match result.

Informatics is a key tool, but it’s not enough to simply find these insights that explain the data.

Geospatial

visualization

bridges

the

gap

from

computer

number-crunching

to

human

understanding.

If

informatics

is

compared

to

finding

the

paths

in

a

forest,

visualization

is

like

creating a visual map of those paths so a person can navigate through the forest with ease.

Most people today are familiar with basic geospatial visualizations such as weather maps and Web

sites

for

driving

directions.

The

news

media

are

starting

to

test

more-complex

geospatial

visualizations such as online interactive maps to help navigate politicians’ stances on issues, exit

polls and precinct reports during election times. People are just beginning to see the impact that

well-designed geospatial visualizations have on their understanding of the world..

Geospatial Visualization in the Real World

People have been looking at data for decades, but the relevant information that accompanies the

data has changed in recent years. In late 1999, Esri released a new software suite, ArcGIS, that

could use data from various sources. ArcGIS provides an easy-to-use interface for visualizing 2-D

and

3-D

data

in

a

geospatial

context.

In

2005,

Google

Earth

launched

and

made

geospatial

visualization available to the general public.

Geospatial

visualization

is

becoming

more

significant

and

will

continue

to

grow

as

it

allows

people to look at the totality of the data, not just one aspect. This enables better understanding and

comprehension, because it puts the data in context with their surroundings. The following three

cases demonstrate geospatial visualization use in real-world scenarios:

1. Urban Planning

Planners

use

geomodeling

and

geovisualization

tools

to

explore

possible

scenarios

and

communicate

their

design

decisions

to

team

members

or

the

general

public.

For

example,

urban planners may look at the presence of underground water and the terrain’s surrounding

topology before deciding to build a new suburb. This is relevant for areas around Phoenix, for

example, where underground water presence and proximity to a knoll or hill can determine the

suitability of a location for construction.

Figure

2.

Videos from

the

same

location

are

partially

visible,

resembling

a

stack

of

cards.

Each video is outlined by the color representing the degree to which it matches the query.

Looking at a 3-D model of a house with its surroundings gives a completely different perspective

than just looking at the model of a house by itself. This also can help provide clear solutions to

problems, such as changing the elevation of a building’s base to make it stand better.

Urban

planning

is

one

of

the

emerging

applications

of

computer-

generated

simulation.

Cities’

rapid

growth

places

a

strain

on

natural

resources

that

sustain

growth.

Water

management,

in

particular, becomes a critical issue.

The East Valley Water Forum is a regional cooperative of water providers east of Phoenix, and it’s

designing a water- management plan for the next 100 years. Water resources in this region come

from the Colorado River, the Salt River Project, groundwater, and other local and regional water

resources. These resources are affected directly and indirectly by local and global factors such as

population, weather, topography, etc.

To

best

understand

the

relationship

among

water

resources

and

various

factors,

the

Arizona

Department

of

Water

Resources

analyzes

hydrologic

data

in

the

region

using

U.S.

Geological

Survey MODFLOW software, which simulates the status of underground water resources in the

region.

For

better

decision making

and

effective

water

management,

a

comprehensive

scientific

understanding of the inputs, outputs and uncertainties is needed. These uncertainties include local

factors such as drought and urban growth.

Looking at numbers or 2-D graphs to understand the complex relationship between input, output

and

other

factors

is

insufficient

in

most

cases.

Integrating

geospatial

visualizations

with

MODFLOW simulations, for example, creates visuals that accurately represent the model inputs

and outputs in ways that haven’t been previously presented.

For

such

visualizations,

two

water

surfaces

are

positioned

side-by- side

—

coming

from

two

different

simulations

—

with

contour

lines

drawn

on

top.

In

this

early

prototype,

a

simple

solution

—< /p>

providing

a

geospatial

plane

that

can

be

moved

vertically

—

brings

the

dataset

into

a

geospatial context. This plane includes a multi-resolution map with transparency. Because these

water layers are drawn in geospatial coordinates, it matches exactly with the geospatial plane. This

enables researchers to quickly see the water supplies of various locations.

2. Image and Video Analysis

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a program, Video and Image Retrieval

nd

Analysis

Tool

(VIRAT),

for

understanding

large

video

collections.

The

project’s

core

requirement is to add video-analysis capabilities that perform the following:

? Filter and prioritize massive amounts of archived and strea

ming video based on events.

? Present high

-value intelligence content clearly and intuitively to video analysts.

? Reduce analyst workload while increasing quality and accuracy of intelligence yield.

Visualization is an integral component of the VIRAT system, which uses geospatial metadata

and video descriptors to display results retrieved from a database.

Analysts may want to look at retrieval result sets from a specific location or during a specific

time range. The results are short clips containing the object of interest and its recent trajectory.

By embedding these results in a larger spatiotemporal context, analysts can determine whether a

retrieved result is important.