Between the Poles

Geodesign Summit: Carl Steinitz on the early days of geodesign and organizing education for geodesign

Last night Carl Steinitz, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, gave two presentations.  The first addressed the queston of how to organize education in geosdesign and was the result of Carl being invited to advise a specific university (which remained nameless).  Last night's talk was the actual presentation he gave at the university at the culmination of a week's visit to the university.  The second was a personal history of the early days in the development of geodesign, primarily in the 60s.

Organizing education in geodesign

Geodesign involves bringing together the design professions (architecture and engineering), technology, the geographic sciences, and wha Carl calls the people of the place, the folks that are going to live in the result of a "geodesigned" environment.   A major challenge arises from scale.  Scientists approaach things from the universal anf global, designers from the local, even at the level of  one building or one parcel. 

Carl made the case that the most important thing that all students of geodesign, regardless of their background, need to learn is how to collaborate in a multi-disciplinary project environment involving architects, engineers, IT folks, and folks from geographically-oriented sciences.  He made specific recommendations on how to do this, not generally applicable to all unversities but tailored to the specific unnamed univesity he had been asked to advise.

Early days of geodesign

There is a fascinating book by Nick Chrisman called How computer mapping at Harvard became GIS that describes the early days in the development of geospatial technology and science. 

Carl Steinitz was part of these early developments.  Last night he gave a personal perspective on the early days of geodesign. 

From a technical perspective the developments I found most fascinating were the first computer geographic computer graphics that was created by hooking an IBM Selectric typewriter to a computer and using overprinting to create an approximation of grey scale thematic maps. The program to do this, SYMAP,  was developed by Howard Fisher in 1963.  When the Harvard Lab for Computer Graphics was founded in 1966, Howard Fisher was its first director.  Carl also described some of the ways colour printing was simulated in these early days, and early 3D imagery.

An interesting recollection in this fascinating talk was that computing was introduced into the design course via tutorials as and when needed, not as a separate course.

Carl described the development of geodesign methodogies such as moving from traditional programming languages in the direction of what became map algebra, spatial analysis, automating aspects of design and using linear programming to optimize design.  As Carl said they did it all, though some of it was too expensive at that time to be of practical use.

In memory of Wolfgang Bitterlich, one of the early innovators in geospatial analytics

Last week a memorial event was held in Ottawa for Wolfgang Bitterlich, one of the early technical innovators in spatial analyics.  Organized by his friend Mike Comeau, the memorial brought together a large group of Wolfgang's friends and colleagues including many that I have known from the early days of DPA and Tydac;  Laura Bobak, the daughter of Wolfgang's long time partner Esther Bobak and whom together with her sister Nadya Wolf regarded as his own daughters, Giulio Maffini and Maryjane Maffini, Richard Higgins, Louis Burry and his wife Sandra, Anne-Marie Hogue,Terry and Iris Moloney, Adla Worobec and Graham Stickler, Wendy and Dave Branson, Peter and Erin Kuciak, Kate Dickinson, Bruce Thomas, Rob and Beth VanWyngaarden, Bob Madill, and Chris McBean, Fred and Joanne Meth, and Klaus and Judy.  Quite a few years ago Wolf moved to Los Angeles, so this was the first opportunity for many of us in Ottawa to meet Wolf's wife Nidia, and her family, Elizabeth, Danny and Priscilla from Los Angeles.

Rick Higgins who was master of ceremonies, provided an opportunity for other people also to speak about their recollections of Wolf - Fred Meth, who had known Wolf since 1971; Giulio Maffini, the other half of the dynamic concept/technical team that conceived and implemented Tydac's SPANS (Spatial Analysis System); Laura Bobak, who gave a touching perspective on what Wolf meant to her as a surrogate father beginning at age eight; Maryjane Maffini who read a letter from Michael Simmons who had been with Wolf at Tydac; myself; Danny, Nidia's son; Rick Higgins who told a very funny story about Wolf as the Russian ambassador in Sri Lanka; Adla Worobec; Louis Burry, Wolf's right hand man who worked with Wolf on the technical side for many years in the 80's and early 90's; Doron Nussbaum who also worked with Wolf at Tydac; Judy and Klaus, who played chess with Wolf in Vancouver; and finally Maryjane read a letter from Fiona Smith in Australia.

SPANS

To put Wolf''s contribution in context, Canada has been an early leader in geospatial technology.  In the mid 1960’s, the Canada Geographic Information System (CGIS), written in IBM 360 assembler and running on OS360 was developed under the aegis of the Department of Forestry and Rural Development.  By the late 1960's and 70s, and through the 1980's the Canada Land Inventory (CLI) was managing a geospatial database containing 2.5 million square kilometers of land and water. (The CLI database is still available on GeoGratis).

Richard Higgins founded DPA Consulting in October, 1973 in Halifax.  Giulio Maffini joined DPA in 1975 and together they managed to attract Wolfgang from the Technical University of Nova Scotia to join DPA, aslo in 1975.  As a result of the combination of Giulio's conceptual and Wolf's technical genius, many DPA projects were based on innovative modeling and simulation technologies.  In the early 1980's a few of these projects involved land use planning, for example, for Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and Sri Lanka.  Land use programming requires geospatial analysis, and Wolf implemented an early, but innovative, spatial analytics application based on a grid to support these projects.  In those days the only alternatives for printing graphics were very high end printers like Applicon and Calcomp, pen plotters, and dot matrix printers such as Printronix that allowed you address individual pixels.  I joined DPA in 1981 and to my recollection all of the graphics included in the Dartmouth and Sri Lanka reports were produced on a Printronix printer.  At this time, to give some context for the state of geospatial technology, IBM's GFIS system was storing spatial data in a hierarchical database on OS360 and ArcInfo, written in Fortran, was running on mini-computers.

The early 1980's were an inflection point in computing.  I had bought and assembled my first microcomputer, a Heathkit H89 with a Z80 CPU, in the late seventies and I had just successfully completed a DPA survey project using my H89 at considerably less than using an IBM360 timeshare would have cost.  It was obvious to me and to Richard and Giulio that the microcomputer dramatically reduced the cost of entry compared to mainframes and mini-computers making it possible for even small companies to develop and market products for the new platform.  

In 1984/1985 Richard and Giulio, projecting that the spatial analytics market had a large potential and seeing the rapid expansion of the microcomputer user community after the incredibly successful introduction in 1981 of the IBM PC, founded Tydac Technologies to develop and market a spatial software product that became known as SPANS. 

The initial Tydac team was the combination of Richard's business acumen and Giulio's conceptual and Wolfgang's mathematical genius.  Later Louis Burry brought his programming and system architecture expertise to Tydac to complement Wolf's mathematical genius. 

The most innovative element of the SPANS system was the use of quadtrees, a mathematical approach used by Wolf to provide an efficient grid-based foundation for spatial analytics. 

Another major innovation was potential mapping, known as POT MAP to SPANS users, and as multi-factor suitability analysis to the broader geospatial community, that allows you to model and display spatially land use suitability for agricultural, foresty, industrial, and commercial projects.  The SPANS modeling language allowed users to perform very sophisticated suitability analyses involving many variables.  SPANS users believe that even today no GIS has reached the level of spatial analytics that was possible with the SPANS modeling language.  SPANS originally was developed and ran on DOS with high end graphics cards from companies such as Number Nine.  Later it was migrated to OS/2.  The first SPANS product on Windows was SPANS MAP.

I joined Tydac in 1987 and by the early 1990's Tydac was one was one of the top 10 GIS companies in the world with more than 3000 systems installed in over 60 countries.  In the December 1992 issue of InfoWorld, there was a very interesting review of several of the geospatial products that were available at that time including Atlas GIS 2.0, MapInfo for Windows 2.0, and SPANS GIS 5.0.  The review was very perceptive,

"Tydac Technologies Corp's Spatial Analysis System (SPANS) GIS is the most powerful program in this comparison.  In addition to its capability to incorporate both raster and vector images into maps, this OS/2 program offers an extremely strong, if difficult-to-learn, set of analytic tools. ... Surprisingly, SPANS GIS lacks some of the basic features one would expect in such as high-end program, such as address geocoding and a traditional database interface.  And the program almost completely lacks formatting features required to print high-quality map presentations.  For these tasks, SPANS GIS relies upon a lower end sibling, SPANS MAP, which is capable of loading and altering maps from SPANS GIS."

As I was the project lead for SPANS MAP, I knew exactly what the technical issues were, but what is perhaps only clear in hindsight is that SPANS was an innovative spatial analytics engine, way ahead of its time, capable of the most sophisticated spatial analysis.  To categorize it as a general purpose GIS was misrepresenting it and its capabilities.

To continue the saga of Tydac, in 1991 Flavio Hendry founded Tydac AG in Bern, Switzerland, so the Tydac name continues to this day.  In fact a few years ago, Flavio asked me to come to the Tydac AG User Group meeting in Küsnacht to speak on the topic "20 Years of GIS: From SPANS to Google".  The SPANS code base was acquired by PCI, the company to which Louis Burry moved, and is incorporated in PCI's Geomatica.

Alll of us who were involved with SPANS recognize that Wolf's innovative technical genius provided the foundation for an, even to this day, amazingly innovative geospatial analytical engine that moved goepatial analytics far ahead of the simple mapping applications that were typical of GIS products in the 1980's.  But many of us remember Wolf  not just as  colleague but as a friend.  Laura's recollections of Wolf were so poignant at the memorial event.  Giulio's and others' recollections expressed such a sadness about Wolf's leaving us because he was a friend.   My wife Ellen and I often went swimming with Wolf at Blanchard Beach on Meech Lake, his favourite swimming location.  We also remember having a great time touring the lock sites on the Rideau Canal with Wolf and Esther.  But what remains in my memory, and it was expressed so well in Laura's recollections, was Wolf's incredible loyalty to those near and dear to him.  He was a great innovator and for many of us a good friend.

Geospatial World Forum: Land administration in Germany to include 3D cadastre by 2013

At the Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam, Peter Creuzer, Director State Survey of Lower Saxony, gave a very interesting introduction to land management in Germany and some of the things that are on the horizon. 

Germany has about 82 million citizens, or about 229 people per km², and the population has been declining since 2003. It has about 64.5 million parcels (land properties) valued at about €9 trillion.  About 48% of households own land.  The land administration system handles about a million transactions per year. 

Germany has the same problem that other jurisdictions have, urbanization, but it has limited land resources.  It loses about 77 hectares/day to urban sprawl.

Land administration in Germany is comprised of two parts, a land register and the cadastre.The land register includes information about owners, land use, encumbrances, and other legal obligations.  The cadastre includes the land parcel geometry, owneship, buildings and public restrictions.  The objectives of the land administration system are security of tenure, some revenue for the government, and support for a transparent planning process.

There are some interesting future goals, one of the most important of which is enabling sustainable development.  This includes land consolidation and revitalization of older cities.

Another major initiative is revision of the land taxation system which is expected to be completed by 2014.  The alternatives that are being considered are taxation based on market value (which is what is used in Ontario), a fixed tax, and a combined system.

There is also a new data model underway based on ISO and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards referred to by the abbreviation AAA, which stands for AFIS (uniform geodetic reference), ALKIS (uniform cadastre), and ATKIS (uniform topography).  By 2013 the data model will include support for a 3D cadastre and will include the CityGML standard.  It will be accessible via OGC web services; WMS, WFS, and others.

Germany is also working on being compliant with the EU INSPIRE directive.  There is a pilot in progess involving the Netherlands, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine Westphalia.

EEA report focuses on integrated water, energy, and landuse efficiency

The European Commission intends to publish a 'Blueprint to safeguard Europe's Water Resources' by the end of 2012. The Blueprint will set out policies for efficient use of water resources in Europe.   Since the Water Framework Directive(WFD) was adopted in 2000, EU water policy has aimed at achieving "good status" of all EU waters by 2015. 

Among other objectives the Blueprint will address water efficiency.  The Blueprint will provide "first indications" for water efficiency targets including the development of water efficiency targets at the sectoral and river basin level. In addition, it will ain at improving water efficiency in buildings and in distribution networks.  The time horizon of the Blueprint is 2020, but the analysis supporting the Blueprint will cover up to 2050.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has just published the first in a series of five reports that EEA will publish in 2012 to support the development of the Blueprint. This first report focusses on resource efficiency.

Some of the major global issues that will impact the EU are growing global demand for food and increasing cultivation of biofuel crops, recognition of the interdependence of water, energy and land use, and the impact of climate change.  As a result of climate change much of Europe will likely face reduced water availability during summer months and the frequency and intensity of drought is projected to increase in the south.

The report argues that to enable sustainable economic production future economic growth must be decoupled from environmental impacts and that this requires increased resource-efficiency innovations and limits to environmental impact.  The Water Framework Directive was intended to define the limits to water environemntal impact by defining and mandating 'good status' objective for EU water bodies.

Resource-efficient technologies in agricultural irrigation, water supply and treatment can deliver substantial water savings.  Sustainable public and industrial water management depends on innovative production treatments and processes, ecological design in buildings and better urban planning.

The report recognizes the interdependence of water use, energy production, and land use.  For example, technologies that cut water use also help to reduce energy use. The energy intensity of deslaination
requires the development of renewable energy.  Hydropower while reducung emissions has impacts on water ecosystems, which limits the growth potential of hydropower compared to wind and solar energy.

Some of the economic measures that the report anticipates can inprove water efficiency includes water pricing and market-based policies.  Water prices and tariffs should reflect the true costs of water including environmental and resource costs. In the case of public water supply, volumetric pricing and metering needs to generate adequate revenues to finance resource-efficiency measures and upgrade aging infrastructure. Utilities expenditures and investments needs to be transparent to consumers.  For water used in irrigation, pricing structures should provide more incentives for resource efficiency removal of adverse agricultural subsidies should be a priority.

The report also promates an integrated apprioach to sustainable water management,  Water efficiency must be consideres together with resource efficiency s energy and land use.  The WFD provides the limits to environmental sustainability that should be applied in an integrated approach to define common limits for sustainability for the competing users in all sectors including agriculture, energy, transport and tourism. This will require strong intersectoral exchange, particularly in operational water management at the river basin level.