Raj, That's funny - that sounds like my 2002 planning dissertation! I formed a similar theory utilizing shape grammar research as a formalism. The rulebase however was comprised of cultural and ecological, as well as regulatory, themes. To implement, I built an object-oriented GIS (in LISP) with the rules operating over raster and vector data. It aimed to reproduce residential landscapes with a certain character. And yes, it was a lot of work and had I been an experienced programmer it might have been usable to more people than just me. :-) The dissertation is online at http://etd.uwaterloo.ca/etd/kmayall2002.pdf
The topic of generative landscapes is being tackled by some impressive work these days. Kevin Eric, personally I thought the ontologies + generalization topic sounded more interesting for a PhD than working on FOSS4G. Imho, if you've got the "philosophical BS", some derived methods, and demonstrative code, then you've got a good PhD. The value of the research doesn't have to be some widely deployed body of code, although it's nice if you can do that. Or maybe that's a sacrilegious comment for a geowanking list. :-) -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raj Singh Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 8:38 PM To: Eric Wolf Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Dissertation Advice I'll give you the dissertation topic I ended up not pursuing because I decided it was too hard, and my urban studies and planning department wouldn't have rewarded me for the hard parts (computational math). The premise was that the "design" of the American landscape has in large part been determined by regulations -- not by urban designers. Things like federal highway legislation, commercial parking requirements, etc. almost completely determine the cheapest design options for developers. My idea was to take the most significant legislative "rules", encode them in some sort of geographic computational engine, and see if I could re-create the American suburban landscape just by the direct application of these rules. Step 2 for extra credit would be to design a what-if system that let the user change the regulations so that we could see what new rules would lead to better urban design. The big problem is that there are plenty of simulation games you could start with, but they are all grid/cell-based for their geography. This lets you get an idea of large-scale patterns, but doesn't tell you anything about the look and feel of place. Doing this right would require a different approach, combining small-scale, vector mapping and possibly 3D modeling. --- Raj On Mar 11, at 12:37 PM, Eric Wolf wrote: > Fellow Wankers, > > I have reached the point in my PhD where I have to decide exactly what > the "big question" my dissertation will address. This is a Geography > PhD, so the "big question" has to be focused on Geography, not > Computer Science. And since it's not a Masters Degree, it can't just > be a novel application of existing concepts. > > Thus far, I have been focusing on problems of automated generalization > of vector features. My planned question to answer has been something > along the lines of "Can database ontologies be used to guide > conceptual generalization for cartographic applications?" It's a very > heady topic and attempts to blend a currently "hot" topic, ontologies, > with a classically difficult problem: generalization. But it's also a > very contrived project since I get much more excited about things a > little more "hands-on" and grounded in application. > > So my advisor left the door open for me to try to come up with a "big > question" based on some of my current efforts in my job at USGS. I > have been playing with ways to enrich the capabilities of the FOSS4G > web mapping stack for The National Map. Specifically, I've started > exploring embedding geoprocessing methods inside OpenLayers whilst > designing an architecture for rapid deployment of tile cached > basemaps. This really excites me because I feel like I'm making real > contributions rather than just reformulating some philosophical BS > about difficult, vague questions. > > My question to you, dear GeoWankers, is: What kind of big question > could or should I attempt to answer with FOSS4G-oriented efforts? > > Think big. Think vague... > > -Eric > > -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- > Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818 > USGS Geographer > Center of Excellence in GIScience > PhD Student > CU-Boulder - Geography > > _______________________________________________ > Geowanking mailing list > [email protected] > http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org
