The process of planning and managing of the entire territory requires a deep understanding of a very large area, of its problems, evolution and resources. Traditionally, this process was carried on with the use of paper based maps and more recently through the use of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) technologies.
The availability of 3D Geobrowsers has introduced a new powerful tool to planners and administrators, as it allows for interactive access to vast amounts of territorial data. In the last four years, GraphiTech’s vision has rapidly evolved to embrace recent research trends, aiming to provide users seeking decision support with tools capable of visualizing very large amounts of multidimensional data in an interactive form.
The vision has been shaped along with the concept of “Digital Earth,” first introduced a decade ago by US Vice President Al Gore during one of his most well-renowned speeches. Quoting an axiom from Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology, GraphiTech’s vision follows the principle that IT systems, within strategic contexts, should enable users to “move from low to high level consciousness states.” Consequently, our research focuses on promoting the convergence of interactive visualization with intelligent complexity reduction. This includes investigating methodologies and developing IT platforms designed to support the discovery of unexpected patterns relative to prior knowledge.
The challenge for our research activities was to develop tools capable of ensuring access to, processing, filtering, and representing large geographical repositories characterized by high dimensionality and variability over time, while embedding complex relationships related to the different territorial factors.
The domain of GeoVisual Analytics provides an answer to the aforementioned scenario through the development of techniques and tools capable of identifying relevant data or information patterns within a vast flow of multidimensional geographical data, which may come from databases, traffic, pollution, or environmental sensors. GeoVisual Analytics can help identify relevant conditions emerging from:
- Variation of spatial configurations.
- Monitoring of geographical data over time.
- Variation over time of numerical values associated with geographical features.
Furthermore, the convergence among:
- Technologies to access and process geographic information (GI).
- Localization technologies (e.g., GALILEO).
- Wireless communication infrastructures (e.g., Wi-Fi, WiMax, H3G, etc.).
This creates the conditions to develop a wide range of innovative services based on geographic information (GI) and localization, also known as Location-Based Services (LBS). Development at GraphiTech in the domain of LBS will create relevant market opportunities in areas such as eGovernment, eEnvironment, eEnergy, eTraffic, eDisaster Management, Homeland Security, and Environmental Security.
