GEOINT 2011 Tech Talk Discusses the Rise of Geospatial Collaboration

I travelled to San Antonio recently for GEOINT 2011 - a fantastic event that attracted over 4,400 attendees, exhibitors and leadership from the defense, intelligence and homeland security communities. During the Symposium I had a chance to present at the GEOINT 2011 Tech Talks and highlight the potential of 'GeoSynchronization and Geospatial Enterprise Collaboration'.

The Carbon Project's Tech Talk focused on how knowledge about the Earth and the activities on it rarely comes from one source, the movement to geospatial crowd-sourcing and the need for 'geospatial enterprises' to collaborate and share in real-time. To meet these challenges we highlighted four GEOINT collaboration scenarios based on GeoSynchronization and emerging OGC standards -

- Mobile Geo-Apps for Android that put the power of GEOINT into the hands of users.
- Using CarbonCloud Sync to 'Plug and Play' with any OGC WFS service in seconds.
- 'Initializing' online services with open Geodata Bulk Transfer (GBT) GML tools.
- Sharing automatic updates from GIS using our 'SDE Watcher' for ESRI databases.

I even had the chance to pull our Android 'GeoSync' app out of my pocket and show how we were connecting to three different services live, including WFS from CubeWerx ;-). Check it out on GEOINTv.

- Jeff

Carbon Project Demonstrates Android App for Geospatial Crowd-Sourcing [Video]

A new Android app from The Carbon Project is set to make geospatial crowd-sourcing based on international standards almost as easy as using Twitter.

In the video above Mark Mattson from The Carbon Project shows the basic functions of this easy-to-use app for CarbonCloud Sync. The app lets enterprises receive crowd-sourced mapping updates from users on Android smartphones - and then sends the updates to the CarbonCloud GeoSynchronization Service and many OGC Web Feature Services (WFS) in real-time. The app is unique because not only can real-time updates come from many sources, the geospatial data can also come from almost anywhere. This is unlike many systems today which store data centrally. The demo above uses WFS provided by CubeWerx.

We've recently featured this Android 'GeoSync' app in demos at the Army Geospatial Center, NGA, OGC meetings in Boulder, GEOINT 2011 in San Antonio and many other places - and we're getting great feedback. Check it out and let us know what you think.

- Jeff

Geospatial Collaboration and Interoperability Goes Mobile

Interoperable Android app updating GEOINT

In today's world knowledge about the Earth and the activities on it rarely comes from one source, and it's constantly changing. For example, Army units may transfer in and out of areas. Military personnel need to work in collaboration with coalition partners and non-governmental organizations. In addition, there are growing geospatial crowd-sourcing communities adding updates every day. In this environment a new generation of interoperability and collaboration is vital. But current mobile apps for geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) are often 'stovepiped' - in other words they often work with one vendor or online service only, and usually store geospatial data centrally. What's needed are easy-to-use, interoperable mobile geo-apps that put the power of GEOINT into the hands of users. With these geo-apps users can connect to dynamic data networks and create a sharable geospatial foundation in real time.

Here at The Carbon Project we've been working on this challenge and rolling out a new generation of CarbonCloud Sync Android apps built on standards from the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC). These geo-apps support collaborative, dynamic GEOINT data networks - and enable information and updates to be shared enterprise to enterprise, vertically and horizontally, and from tactical to national levels in real time. Enterprises also have the ability to 'plug-and-play' with any standards-based data service in seconds (via OGC WFS) and manage communities of users as information and collaboration needs change.

With these easy-to-use apps enterprises can get answers to critical questions, including:

- Where are the refugees & where do we need to send relief supplies?
- Where is the damage? Where should we send our rescue teams?
- Is the road open? And for how long?
- Can I see just the updates for next week over this hotspot?


CarbonCloud Sync mobile apps help by allowing enterprises to receive geospatial updates from many sources, validating them if needed, and then instantly sharing them with the people that need them. With this new capability enterprises gain the power of mobile GEOINT collaboration and interoperability - and needed insight about our rapidly changing world.

- Jeff

GEOINT data services shown above provided by CubeWerx WFS

Group demonstrates open access & update for geonames

Access to consistent, reliable and local geographic names information is essential for understanding communities and geosocial dynamics. In many situations, ‘geonames’ provide one of the most important keys for referencing and accessing a variety of other information. Geonames databases, called Gazetteers, are used to represent place-names - and an interagency group recently came together to demonstrate new ways to share this important resource using online web services.

The demonstration was hosted at USGS and highlighted the ability to deliver data from both US domestic and foreign place-name databases using ‘Web Feature Services for Gazetteers’ (called WFS-G). The WFS-G services provided easy, real-time access to both domestic and foreign place-name databases from common geospatial clients - a primary goal for the WFS-G effort.

The OGC developed the Web Feature Service (WFS) to enable geographic feature data sharing and updating across a standard web-based interface - and the group highlighted its work on a profile of WFS to support geonames. It's also interesting to note that the WFS-G profile traces its legacy to the OGC Geospatial Fusion Services (GFS) initiative where an OGC Gazetteer interface was defined and eventually published as an OGC Discussion Paper. The latest version of WFS-G builds on this work and specifies a minimum set of feature types and operations needed for gazetteer services and includes collections of geonames that can be related to each other in vocabularies of geographic places – much like terms in a thesaurus. The information model was demonstrated as a Geographic Markup Language (GML) application schema and is based on ISO 19112 (‘Spatial Referencing by Geographic Identifiers’).

The foreign and domestic gazetteer databases combined contained about nine million names records – and were developed separately and thus don’t share a common model or schema. Any attempt to fit both into a unified database would be costly and difficult – but the WFS-G allowed geonames access from both data sets in a common geospatial client (in this case Gaia and others). The USGS service also supported WFS Transactions (WFS-T) and GeoSynchronization to show the potential for trusted stewards to update geonames. WFS-G implementing the standards demonstrated are being deployed as operational services now – and the future holds the potential for advancing open WFS-G standards, WFS-T and GeoSynchronization as a means for trusted stewards to update geonames and even easier WFS-G access using web browsers and mobile technology.

- Jeff

Note - WFS-G provided by CubeWerx, Gaia provided by The Carbon Project

The Carbon Project Awarded U.S. Patent for P2P Geosocial Data Sharing

The Carbon Project today announced the award of a United States patent for the technology behind its next-generation Geosocial Networking® infrastructures.

The patent has 14 claims covering a broad range of search and distribution functions for location-based content that take place in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks. The patent claims encompass The Carbon Project's methods for searching, obtaining and distributing geospatial information directly between applications in P2P networks, including addresses, coordinates, street maps, satellite images, geospatial features, geographically referenced notes and digital media such as photographs.

The technology can support a wide variety of new applications and services in areas such as local advertising, Geosocial Networking®, emergency response, geospatial intelligence and others on fixed and mobile peer devices.

The market for location-based applications and services is poised to explode in the next few years and we're very pleased with the addition of this United States patent to our growing portfolio of intellectual property. This patent strengthens our competitive position, offers protection to The Carbon Project's clients and partners, and positions the company well in the location-based applications and services market.

About The Carbon Project

The Carbon Project is a high-energy software and technology company pioneering Geosocial Networking and cloud computing solutions to solve tomorrow's challenges, today. The company is a Microsoft Certified Partner, an ESRI Business Partner and a CubeWerx Strategic Partner that provides geosocial, Gov 2.0 and spatial data infrastructure (SDI) solutions to meet commercial, national security, infrastructure and environmental challenges. The Carbon Project is a privately owned company backed by individual investors. For more information please visit http://www.thecarbonproject.com/

The Carbon Project and Geosocial Networking are registered trademarks of Carbon Project, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their owners.

Building on the Cloud for Geospatial Collaboration

I travelled down to NCGIS 2011 in Raleigh, North Carolina recently to give some presentations in the "Techpertise" track - what a fantastic event! The panels and audiences for each session were outstanding, and the event had an air of 'innovation' around it.

One of my talks focused on "Building on the Azure Cloud" and discussed Cloud computing "Buzzword Basics" (IAAS, PAAS, etc.), how we build on Microsoft Azure and provided examples of the Cloud in action with the WFS geonames prototype and CarbonCloud Sync. But my favorite aspect of the session was discussing how Cloud computing can turn local data resources into scalable open geospatial services - ready to meet real-time collaboration challenges.

Think about it - when people are collaborating work doesn’t happen at steady pace. Computing resource needs change in real-time. This is especially true for geosocial transactions - consider Haiti, snowstorms, floods, fires and even recent social ‘revolutions’ around the world. What the Cloud means is that local data provider resources can turn into scalable open geospatial services - able to accept geosocial updates from many sources and distribute them to the people and systems that need them in real-time.

I also discussed how Microsoft Azure is ideal for startups and small companies - allowing them to battle established 'monsters' in the industry and compete. For example, it was straightforward to port an application like CarbonCloud Sync to the Azure Cloud - saving a startup like ours lots of time and money.

You can check out the presentation here (and I'll post it on SlideShare soon).

- Jeff

From Shapefiles to GeoSynchronization – ‘Pretty Damn Cool’

In our visits with folks over the last few months we’re finding growing interest in geospatial collaboration and interoperability. They see value in new technologies like GeoSynchronization that allow them to get updates from many sources, validate them if required, and syndicate them to the people and systems that need them through real-time feeds. But local, county, state, provincial and federal organizations still have a job to do. They have to get current data updates out, meet deadlines and work with systems they have today. For geospatial data production this often means using ESRI Shapefiles, a popular geospatial data format for GIS software.

So how do we bridge the gap between a future environment of online services like GeoSynchronization and current Shapefile-based production methods – and do it so organizations get the benefits without disrupting current processes? The answer lies in transforming Shapefiles into GeoSynchronizable transactions that can be used by any web service implementing open geospatial (OGC) standards. Here’s an example from our recent NSDI grant work with the State of Arkansas in the US.

Currently, Arkansas state GIS receives a drop of Shapefiles-based road data from over 70 counties about every month. These files are ingested into the state-level view, including all provided data and updates, and state personnel use their GIS systems to assess what's changed. To help speed up this process we’ve extended our CarbonCloud Sync services and clients to accommodate current workflows and data sources, while maintaining GeoSynchronization capabilities and benefits. We do this by -

• Reading the county Road Centerline Shapefiles into a new application called the GSS Change Validator,
• Comparing them against existing state data on an ArcGIS Web Feature Service (with GML),
• Automatically determining what’s changed,
• Generating change-based transactions for the county roads data. In other words, is it an Insert/Update/Delete? (the example above shows a Road as an 'Insert' transaction),
• Then sending the updates to the people and systems that need them through CarbonCloud Sync (including federal-level web services if needed).

This approach meets the needs of state data production organizations and the GeoSynchronization vision of the CAP grant - it also has the benefit of providing a very quick assessment of what’s new in each county.

When we showed the approach to a community group recently we received responses like “this will save us lots of time and money” and “pretty damn cool”. In the next few weeks we’ll break down more details of how it works, how other sources can be converted into geosynchronizable transactions and notifications, and how the approach can help other communities move to syndicated networks of real-time geospatial updates.

- Jeff