Andrew Hunter

The 2012 free and open source GIS software map - A guide to facilitate research, development, and adoption

Over the last decade an increasing number of free and open source software projects have been founded that concentrate on developing several types of software for geographic data collection, storage, analysis and visualization. We first identify the drivers of such software projects and identify different types of geographic information software, e.g. desktop GIS, remote sensing software, server GIS etc. We then list the major projects for each software category. Afterwards we discuss the points that should be considered if free and open source software is to be selected for use in business and research, such as software functionality, license types and their restrictions, developer and user community characteristics, etc. Finally possible future developments are addressed.

Free and Open Source GIS Software for Building a Spatial Data Infrastructure

The implementation of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) for governments and companies is a task that has gained ample attention in recent years. Different categories of spatial software such as desktop GIS, server GIS, web map servers, spatial database management systems, web map development toolkits, etc., are required to realize the software components of an SDI. We catalogue a (selected) variety of free and open source projects that develop and maintain spatial software that fit within these categories. Our analysis reveals that for all categories of software used in SDIs a free software product is available. This enables adopters to implement an SDI on a limited financial budget, and allows the distribution of a proven SDI architecture without legal constraints. Our software evaluation shows that free and open source solutions support a wide range of industry standards that ease interoperability between SDI components.

PlanYourPlace – A geospatial infrastructure for sustainable community planning

Technological advances over the past 5 to 10 years have made Geographic Information Systems a powerful and affordable tool for geographic analysis and urban planning. These technological advances have also enabled and shaped new forms of communication and participation, particularly within the domain of social networking via webpages such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Connecting the analytical power of GIS with mapping tools and interaction capabilities of web 2.0 technologies, as well as with environmental, economic, and social models should result in a promising toolbox for urban planning. This article presents a framework that outlines requirements and constraints for a web-accessible planning platform within the context of sustainable urban development of established neighbourhoods in the City of Calgary, Canada. The platform focuses not only on the urban planner as user, but more specifically on the citizen as a contributor to the planning and development process, to further include public opinion in the planning process. The following three aspects for the implementation of the participatory planning platform are

A service-oriented architecture to enable participatory planning: an e-planning platform

Recent advances in Web technologies have opened avenues to create socio-technical platforms that can empower citizens in urban planning processes. The rise of the GeoWeb and the popularity of Web 2.0 collaborative tools can facilitate the development of a new generation of bottom-up Public Participatory GIS (PPGIS) platforms that can incorporate user-generated content into Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). New service-based delivery mechanisms can provide architectural flexibility and adaptability, and enable the public to benefit from ubiquitous information access. From an e-participation perspective, Web 2.0 social networking functions support interactive communication among various PPGIS stakeholders, e.g., citizens, planners, and decision makers. The main contribution of this article is to present a reference architecture for e-planning platforms that (1) facilitates effective e-participation by allowing multidirectional map-based communication among various land development stakeholders (e.g., planners, decision makers, citizens, etc.), and (2) enables incorporation of visualization, evaluation, and discussion capabilities to support community planning processes. To achieve this, we developed a service-oriented architecture (SOA) that exploits SDI principles and Web 2.0 technologies. The platform architecture allows heterogeneous data sources, analytical functionality and tools, and presentation frameworks to be plugged into a coherent system to provide a planning and decision support platform. We present two real-world implementations of the proposed architecture that have been developed to support community engagement in the City of Calgary, Canada.

Mobile GIS and speech recognition

The research investigated whether a Mobile Geographic Information System (MGIS) incorporating speech recognition was a viable tool for locating defects in the streetscape. The Geography Markup Language for encoding spatial information was used to implement an application schema for street condition surveys. Speech accuracy exceeded 95% in environments that were quiet or constantly loud. However, for tests where the noise level varied, recognition accuracy plummeted to 58 percent. Accuracy of captured defects was determined while “standing,” “walking,” “cycling,” and “driving.” Errors ranged from 0.27 m to 12.49 m at the 95 percent confidence interval. A web-based questionnaire indicated that municipal geographic information users are unhappy with the quality of their data, and as yet, do not require data in real-time. Future research involves investigating alternative ways of capturing spoken commands, the effect that mobile computing has on the cognitive abilities of the user, and wireless connectivity required for real time access to spatial data.

Lis and land tenure : An examination of fuzzy theory as a means of assessing aboriginal land rights native title to land in British Columbia

In the wake of the Mabo decision from Australia and the Delgamuukw decision from Canada, it is clear that Aboriginal Title to land can only be lost through cession by treaty, abandonment, conquest, or legitimate legislation of the Crown. What is less clear is the effect that legitimate Crown Grants and Certificates of Title (accompanied by parcel boundary surveys) have on claims to aboriginal servitudes. Such servitudes represent non-territorial aboriginal title, and are akin to easements in statute law. Some of the tension over title to, and use of land can be defused by using fuzzy theory to define zones of overlapping rights in land. Such a methodology is similar to the continuing use of general boundaries in which a feature (sometimes ambulatory) defines the spatial extent of a parcel, allows sites of spiritual significance (sometimes used only seasonally) to be defined, and has application to New Zealand and Australia. Waahi Tapu could be thus defined (if not demarcated), thus according with the principle of the silent files used by the Ngai Tahu in Canterbury. Gustafsen Lake, British Columbia, Canada is used as a case study. The context is that the Shuswap peoples have never ceded their land by way of treaty to the Crown. The tragedy is that when Percy Rossette and a score of his friends used the land for a Sundance ceremony during the summer of 1995, the police blew up their truck, shot and wounded a woman, and killed a dog. The explanation can be traced to an 1892 Crown Grant, to the present use of the site for ranching, to the natives fencing an area larger than the Sundance site, to persistent opposition by most Shuswap peoples to ceding their land, to a treaty claims process intent on extinguishing aboriginal title, to a brilliant if quixotic lawyer, and to politicians keen to uphold the rule of law.