call for presentations at the Data Model sessions in Cambridge , September 2007

[Doug Tody]

On Tue, 28 Aug 2007, Alasdair Allan wrote:

> Lets not make the same mistake the professional GIS community made with Google
> Earth, they complained continuously about the poor geo-retification inside
> Google Earth. But it doesn't really matter, that wasn't what people cared
> about.

Which people - the scientific GIS community, or the public which
uses Google Earth instead of something like the open source World
Wind visualization tool, or the many other GIS visualization tools
out there?  I suspect that products like Google Earth or Microsoft
Virtual Earth will rule where public outreach is concerned, but
open source tools based on open standards will rule where serious
scientific visualization is concerned.  The public-oriented tools
are unlikely to ever address all the issues important to either GIS
or astronomical science applications.

Regarding KML, it appears to be pretty much a Google thing at the
moment, however I see that it is being submitted by Google to OpenGIS
for development of KML 3.0 as an open GIS standard.  It is oriented
towards driving GIS-style visualization, and is very different from
something like VOTable.  I doubt if KML itself would address something
like coordinate systems, rather this would be something the client
app and server would need to negotiate and support.

	- Doug