Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Certainly the whole world can be described in a computational abstraction but why
not use the possibility of using for instance city models as intuitive interactive plat-
forms helping understanding the increasing amount of gathered data.
The development carried out in the InfraWorld project has clearly shown a way
to face these challenges by using the GMO technology. Although the project area
was quite small and therefore no drawbacks due to size were experienced, it seems
quite obvious that a system, which can be distributed onto many servers, generi-
cally has an advantage when it comes to data size especially compared to tradi-
tional GI systems.
During the project work a lot of security concerns were discussed. As with all
open systems where it is possible to interact and alter data in a model or database
different kind of access control mechanism can be applied. A system based on a
platform like the GRIFIN platform using GMO's needs an organization designed
around it. On one hand GMO's open a possibility to access control on object
level on the other hand one of the big advantages is the openness in the concept.
Therefore organizational structured constraints would make more sense than a
technological one, although this probably can be a matter of company culture and
perhaps managing temper.
It should be stressed here that a GMO solution for sure not is a suitable solu-
tion for all geo-related information systems using client/server technology. The
GRIFIN framework made it clear that the strongest argument using GMO's lies
within the use of dynamic features, 3D interactive monitoring solutions, demand
for semantic based rules and nonetheless the combining and fusion of data coming
from many different professional domains. But exactly this kind of functionality
should be the main sales arguments for creating 3D models especially city mod-
els in the first place, rather than creating nice to look and shiny but in the long
run almost useless models. There is a growing need to find better and more useful
applications for 3D City models. If not, the models will quickly get obsolete and
decision makers will loose interest. 3D models can be used for so much more, so
lets do it.
References
Batty M, Chapman D, Evans S, Haklay M, Kueppers S, Shiode N, Torrens PM (2000)
Visualizing the city: communicating urban design to planners and decision-makers,
University College London, London
Bodum L, Kjems E, Kolar J, Ilsøe PM, Overby J (2005) GRIFINOR: integrated object-oriented
solution for navigating real-time 3D virtual environments. In: Fendel EM, Oosterom P (eds)
Geo-information for disaster management. Springer, Berlin, pp 937-949
Faus JD, Grimaldo F (2012) InfraWorld, a multi-agent based framework to assist in civil infra-
structure collaborative design. In: Proceedings of the 11th international conference on auton-
omous agents and multiagent systems, vol 3, pp 1499-1500
Faus J, Grimaldo F, Barber F (2012) Multiagent system for detecting and solving design-
time conflicts in civil infrastructure. In: Rodríguez JMC, Pérez JB, Golinska P, Giroux S,
Corchuelo R (eds) Trends in practical applications of agents and multiagent systems SE—7
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10.1007/978-3-642-28795-4_7
