On Jun 16, 2010, at 5:54 PM, ext Sean Gorman wrote:
> One last try then I give up for lack of time if not frustration.
>
> I'm not talking about building things (web apps) and I'm not talking about
> raw imagery - (ps Chris I never said WMS was a "picture" - actually I never
> mentioned WMS period. I said the AGS "mapping service" was a picture -
> http://www.gulfofmexicoresponsemap.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/MC252_Incident_Data/MapServer?f=jsapi
> - most of your arguments seems to be around imagery which was never part of
> what I was discussing.)
You said "It is a picture on a map - nothing more." My argument
was:
1. That it is more.
2. That the fact that it isn't more makes it *useful*,
which the other aspects of it do not.
The arguments that I made apply equally to imagery and other
specialist GIS formats. KML is borderline (and that only
because of Google Earth.) CSV and shapefiles for GIS-related
data are not at all borderline. Hand a shapefile to the
Ushadhidi folks and tell them to get it into the map they're
using. (Their answer? "Ask the people who build the map.")
> There are data formats that people commonly would like to have data in .csv
> .kml .shp .xls etc.
My argument is this:
These formats require specialized knowledge that is
not held by the majority of the community who are
interested in the data. To the majority of people,
shapefiles are less interesting than maps that make
shapefiles available.
The same can be applied to every data format (except
possibly KML; Google Earth changes the game there)
that you've mentioned.
If I have a CSV file with lat/lon coordinates, 90%
of the time, it's more useful if I have them on a map.
Isn't that that whole idea behind http://maker.geocommons.com/?
Maker fills the gap of #2 for certain problems, precisely because
layman can not do #2 on their own: they either need smart people,
or tools made by smart people. Maker is the latter, and pretty
good at that -- but it's specifically designed because people
who have a file can't do things with it without a smart tool!
> These are file formats that can be used on-line and off-line by a wide
> variety of applications.
But 90% of the applications that can use a shapefile are
expert tools.
> When you build a Web app it would be great if you could also get the data
> used on top of it, out in a format that makes it re-usable.
Most of the time, web apps for mapping are built either on
WMS services, tile services, or WFS services. All of these
are re-usable. Some of them are exportable/copyable.
> That way I can take it into the field and do useful things with it; like
> create derivative work that I can then contribute back and you can put on
> your Web app.
... Okay, if you think that's a practical situation, then
you're right, we're coming from completely different worlds.
> I shouldn't have to be a Web developer to do this or know how to use an API.
> I'm not saying API's are useless. They are awesome for developers, but not
> so awesome if you are not a developer and need some data to take into the
> field or load into your app of choice. All the other things you mentioned
> are important, but as a community "we" tend to be very tech and Web centric.
> I'm simply trying to add the perspective of those on the ground in disasters.
>
> It is a simple principle that comes from deploying into or supporting many
> disasters, and seeing the frustration of those who can't access the data they
> need.
So you ignored the key question I asked in my previous email:
> Very few of the people deployed to deal with a disaster have
> any way of dealing with GIS data, in my estimation. Are you
> saying you feel otherwise?
It sounds like your answer is: "Yes, I feel that people on
the ground during disasters have the ability to work with
and edit GIS data." If that's the case, then I will simply
say that my experience and yours are completely different.
I'm glad that there are people who are exceeding my expectations;
I have experienced a lower common denominator.
During the Haiti crisis, I got emails from people saying "Okay,
I've loaded your map into Google Earth, and I can see that;
but now I want to see it with this KML, and I can't figure
out how to do that. Can you add this KML to haiticrisismap.org
instead, please?"
Now, that's clearly not the common case: Google Earth should
'just open' a KML file, and I don't know why this particular
Army official was having problems with it. But my experience has
consistently been that people who need information -- and are
on the ground in remote places -- often do not have the
expertise, experience, or tools, to even do so much as open
a KML file in Google Earth, much less do anything more complex,
like working with a shapefile in qgis. I'm sorry that I've
based my argument around my experience, but I don't really have
anything else to offer.
Regards,
--
Christopher Schmidt
Nokia
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