Distributed Geospatial ProcessingDistributed Geospatial Processing

Michael F. Goodchild

University of California

Santa Barbara

Cyberinfrastructure for GeographyCyberinfrastructure for Geography

Atkins report http://www.communitytechnology.org/nsf_ci_report/report.pdf

Cyberinfrastructure is the coordinated aggregate of software, hardware and other technologies, as well as human expertise, required to support current and future discoveries in science and engineering. The challenge of Cyberinfrastructure is to integrate relevant and often disparate resources to provide a useful, usable, and enabling framework for research and discovery characterized by broad access and “end-to-end” coordination.– Berman/Brady report,

http://director.sdsc.edu/pubs/SBE/reports/SBE-CISE-FINAL.pdf

Infrastructure for a small disciplineInfrastructure for a small discipline

GRS budget $5 million– 0.1%– compare the geosciences, oceanography, ecology– GEON

Expanding the base– geosciences– social sciences– humanities and humanistic social sciences

CI for the social sciencesCI for the social sciences

From statistical databases to fMRI images– only a small fraction geospatial

Six research topicsSix research topics

Grid computing– high-end, integrated

• seti@home

– remote processing• IP, changing rapidly• geocoding

Data integration– spatial mismatch

• areal interpolation• NHGIS

Interfaces to other sciences– human/environment interaction

Six research topics (2)Six research topics (2)

Process objects– digital representations of process

• the processes of analysis• behavioral processes

– metadata, archives, standards, languages Discovery

– geoportals Collaborative technologies

CI for the humanitiesCI for the humanities

and the more humanistic social sciences– ACLS– Mellon funding– http://www.acls.org/cyberinfrastructure/index.htm– digitizing the cultural record– academic publishing

• the future of society journals and university presses

Geospatial CIGeospatial CI

NSDI– metadata– clearinghouse– GOS– OGC

A well-defined subset of information– pervading many sciences– what remains to be done?

A CI research agendaA CI research agenda Interoperability

– syntax– semantics– accuracy– support

Geonames– gazetteer– language, alphabets– http://ncgia.ucsb.edu/projects/nga/– phonics

Local observation– sensors– humans– integration, verification, distribution

More research topicsMore research topics

CI as a solution to the confidentiality issue– computing behind a firewall– intelligent software agents– anticipated requests