The municipal world has been buzzing with the concepts of Open Data. Many regions and municipalities have declared their support for the idea, and a Global Open Data Day was declared on February 22, 2013. Organizations have formed and principles declared (see…
The Future of Urban Planning: Interactive 3-D Visualization
In many cases, the software used by urban planners and architects is nearly as complex as urban planning itself—especially for owners and operators…
Location-enabled Smart Planning and Community Development
The economic downturn impacted many nations around the world including the US. In particular, decreasing home values left many Americans underwater on…
OGC Sensor Web Standards and the “Smart City”
Sensors are everywhere. There are now thousands of sensors for every human on Earth. And there will be even more thousands in the future. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, applications that use sensors to monitor your home environment, track your…
Sensor Sensibility: Applications to Analytics, Modeling and Simulation
Deploying sensors in the environment provides opportunities that previously were impossible, or at least cost prohibitive. Twenty years ago, monitoring a wide field meant a deployed field crew visiting areas of interest frequently, or perhaps aerial surveys…
Examining the Concept of Informed Infrastructure
While later columns will most often look at the details, I thought this first column should be devoted to the variety of concepts that might be attributed to Informed Infrastructure. Clearly it goes beyond the site’s byline of “Extending design to include…
Game On – Why Your Tween is Poised to be the Next Geospatial Super User
Much has been written about converging threads in the geospatial arena over the past several years (6 articles in Safe’s blog alone!), whether it’s BIM and GIS, 3D and 2D, 2.5D and 2D, or even geospatial and music videos! But over the past couple of…
Sensor Sensibility: Deployment Strategies and Design Tradeoffs
Before we delve too far into the various applications of wireless sensor networks, it may be of some use to review the characteristics of such a system. While wireless sensor networks allow us to deploy and gather information in a variety of places that are…