Big Data and cloud computing: innovation opportunities and challenges

ABSTRACT

Big Data has emerged in the past few years as a new paradigm providing abundant data and opportunities to improve and/or enable research and decision-support applications with unprecedented value for digital earth applications including business, sciences and engineering. At the same time, Big Data presents challenges for digital earth to store, transport, process, mine and serve the data. Cloud computing provides fundamental support to address the challenges with shared computing resources including computing, storage, networking and analytical software; the application of these resources has fostered impressive Big Data advancements. This paper surveys the two frontiers – Big Data and cloud computing – and reviews the advantages and consequences of utilizing cloud computing to tackling Big Data in the digital earth and relevant science domains. From the aspects of a general introduction, sources, challenges, technology status and research opportunities, the following observations are offered: (i) cloud computing and Big Data enable science discoveries and application developments; (ii) cloud computing provides major solutions for Big Data; (iii) Big Data, spatiotemporal thinking and various application domains drive the advancement of cloud computing and relevant technologies with new requirements; (iv) intrinsic spatiotemporal principles of Big Data and geospatial sciences provide the source for finding technical and theoretical solutions to optimize cloud computing and processing Big Data; (v) open availability of Big Data and processing capability pose social challenges of geospatial significance and (vi) a weave of innovations is transforming Big Data into geospatial research, engineering and business values. This review introduces future innovations and a research agenda for cloud computing supporting the transformation of the volume, velocity, variety and veracity into values of Big Data for local to global digital earth science and applications.     

Digital Earth: a new challenge and new vision

ABSTRACT

Digital Earth has seen great progress during the last 19 years. When it entered into the era of big data, Digital Earth developed into a new stage, namely one characterized by ‘Big Earth Data’, confronting new challenges and opportunities. In this paper we give an overview of the development of Digital Earth by summarizing research achievements and marking the milestones of Digital Earth’s development. Then, the opportunities and challenges that Big Earth Data faces are discussed. As a data-intensive scientific research approach, Big Earth Data provides a new vision and methodology to Earth sciences, and the paper identifies the advantages of Big Earth Data to scientific research, especially in knowledge discovery and global change research. We believe that Big Earth Data will advance and promote the development of Digital Earth.     

Towards Ubiquitous Cartography

Computer-generated maps have become commonplace over the past decade. Most internet search engines, for example, have the ability to generate maps in response to spatial queries and routes between specified origins and destinations. Advances in mobile computing technologies provide access to these mapping capabilities from virtually any location on the Earth's surface. Maps and map-making have become ubiquitous, and this phenomenon requires cartographers to rethink basic concepts about map design and map use. In this special issue we present five research projects that are focused on the emerging field of ubiquitous cartography. These projects were selected, in part, because they are representative of key research challenges that face the cartographic research community. In this introductory paper, key terms are defined and research challenges outlined. By way of this collected set of papers, ubiquitous cartography is presented as a new and important arena for cartographic research.     

泛地图学理论研究框架

信息与通信技术的快速发展带动人类进入地理空间、人文社会空间和信息空间相融合的三元空间。地图制图的目的、人员、对象和环境等均发生巨大变化,地图的类型、空间对象、表达维度、地图角色等呈现出显著泛化特征,现有地图学理论无法引领和指导当代的地图实践。地图学理论亟待"突围"。从地图学研究的角度出发,重新梳理泛地图的对象空间理论、表达维度模型,以及表达机制与方法,构建适应新环境背景,满足地图新视角、新思维、新制图需求的泛地图学理论框架,以适应地图学在新时期发展的需要。     

大数据视角下的地矿工作发展与变革研究

本文提出了地矿大数据应用需要考虑地球系统和社会系统两个方面的内部规律,分析了地矿大数据的三类组成,给出了地矿大数据的四层应用架构;重点就大数据下地矿工作发展和变革提出了四项建议,包括重视数据,转变地矿工作决策模式;收集数据,夯实地矿工作决策基础;分析数据,提高地矿工作科学决策水平;开放数据,提高地矿工作服务能力和水平。     

Complexity and Intractability: Limitations to Implementation in Analytical Cartography

The computational complexity of algorithms is an important consideration for all computer systems, including geographic information systems and mapping systems. Mathematical cartographers and GIS professionals need to understand and to take into account the limitations imposed on problem solving by the very nature of computation itself. We look at three active research sub-areas of analytical cartography to highlight the differences between traditional mathematical solutions and solutions with computationally tractable algorithms. The three sub-areas are map projections, map feature labeling, and map generalization.     

Visualizing spatiotemporal trajectories of mobile social media users using space–time cube

The implementation of social network applications on mobile platforms has significantly elevated the activity of mobile social networking. Mobile social networking offers a channel for recording an individual’s spatiotemporal behaviors when location-detecting capabilities of devices are enabled. It also facilitates the study of time geography on an individual level, which has previously suffered from a scarcity of georeferenced movement data. In this paper, we report on the use of georeferenced tweets to display and analyze the spatiotemporal patterns of daily user trajectories. For georeferenced tweets having both location information in longitude and latitude values and recorded creation time, we apply a space–time cube approach for visualization. Compared to the traditional methodologies for time geography studies such as the travel diary-based approach, the analytics using social media data present challenges broadly associated with those of Big Data, including the characteristics of high velocity, large volume, and heterogeneity. For this study, a batch processing system has been developed for extracting spatiotemporal information from each tweet and then creating trajectories of each individual mobile Twitter user. Using social media data in time geographic research has the benefits of study area flexibility, continuous observation and non-involvement with contributors. For example, during every 30-minute cycle, we collected tweets created by about 50,000 Twitter users living in a geographic region covering New York City to Washington, DC. Each tweet can indicate the exact location of its creator when the tweet was posted. Thus, the linked tweets show a Twitter users’ movement trajectory in space and time. This study explores using data intensive computing for processing Twitter data to generate spatiotemporal information that can recreate the space–time trajectories of their creators.     

A Cartographic Animation of Average Yearly Surface Temperatures for the 48 Contiguous United States: 1897–1986

Animation is an important method of communicating information that lends itself to cartographic display. Cartographers may be delinquent in their utilization of this technique. Meteorologists, medical researchers, and physical scientists, employing mini-, mainframe, and supercomputers, are creating today's most sophisticated animated maps and continue to develop high-quality systems for data display. Though today's cartographers are concerned with the geometric accuracy and computer automation of their map products, they may be overlooking current developments in spatiotemporal display within other disciplines. Creating a method to bridge the current animation gap between cartography and these disciplines has been the primary goal of this research. Since personal computers are the platforms most commonly available to cartographers, development of animated cartographic displays is feasible with this technology. As a result of this research, an interactive microcomputer-based animated map of U.S. surface temperatures was designed to help understand the rapid climatic change occurring during the 20th century.     

Cartographic Software Capabilities and Data Requirements: Current Status and a Look toward the Future

In this article, we suggest that a universally accepted cartographic software program does not currently exist and has never existed, but mapping software capabilities are improving, and cartographers should be involved software developments for map making. We describe the current state of software development and explore what an ideal solution for the future would be. In a related vein, GIS and other data are not generally designed for cartography, but we are learning how they can be, and cartographers should also be involved in the modeling of GIS and other data used for map making.     

Retrieving Hierarchical Information from Maps: The Role of Metric and Configurational Variables

Abstract

One of the most important challenges for cartographers is to be able to transmit information appearing in maps in a simple manner to users. The commonest strategy to do so consists in displaying visual information in a hierarchical way, that is, making it some elements to appear as being more important than others. Nevertheless, recent research has shown that people also pay attention to configurational information, or information about relationships among elements appearing in a map, to retrieve hierarchical information of it. This is the topic of this paper. It aims to investigate the role of metric and configurational information in enabling people to retrieve hierarchical information from maps. The main problem consisted in identifying ‘the main street’ of different layouts whose paths were sometimes widened to make them appear more important. The main findings show that people retrieved hierarchical information by paying attention to a combination of metric and configurational factors.

One of the main challenges that cartographers face is to transmit information in a way that is simple to understand for everyone. The most frequent strategy for this is to display the information in a hierarchical way; that is, by exaggerating the size or width of specific elements and thus assigning them a greater degree of importance. Nevertheless, recent research has shown that when reading maps, people also read configurational information. This is the topic of this paper. It aims to investigate the role of metric and configurational information in enabling people to retrieve hierarchical information from maps. For this, a set of exercises was designed and carried out where people were asked to identify the main street of different specially designed layouts. The main findings show that people retrieved hierarchical information by paying attention to a combination of metric and configurational factors.     

专题地图图面要素自动配置方法的研究

实现地图图面要素配置的自动化是地图制图自动化中的一个重要部分,能够帮助制图人员提高制图效率。文中在分析国内外有关研究成果的基础上,利用地图图面配置规律和视觉平衡理论,提出一种自动搜寻地图图面要素合适位置的方法。该方法从专题地图生产的实际需要出发,考虑了纸张大小和地图比例尺等因素,用矩形框表示图面要素的大小和位置,简化设计过程。最后,在CorelDRAW环境下,利用VBA技术实现文中所提出的方法。该软件提供了多种地图图面要素配置模板供地图设计人员选择,能进行地图图面要素位置的自动冲突探测,可以为地图设计人员提供一个标准化地图图面配置模板。     

制图学是一门工具科学——对地图应用问题的设想

地图的特性在于运用系统化的符号抽象概括地表现事物或现象的空间位置。以测量为基础的精确定位的地形图为军事和其它经济建设起过重要的作用，而且制图工作成为隶属于政府的一种专业。在当代专题地图的迅速发展时期里，使传统的制图人员不可能包揽各种各样的专题制图工作，因为他们不可能同时是许多不同科学领域里的专家，为此，必须把地图的理论与方法普及，使在研究和管理工作中经常需用相应专题地图的广大工作人员掌握制图技术。从这一观点出发，在现代，我们是否可以把制图学看作是一门工具科学。     

Remote sensing and social sensing for socioeconomic systems: A comparison study between nighttime lights and location-based social media at the 500 m spatial resolution

With the advent of “social sensing” in the Big Data era, location-based social media (LBSM) data are increasingly used to explore anthropogenic activities and their impacts on the environment. This study converts a typical kind of LBSM data, geo-tagged tweets, into raster images at the 500 m spatial resolution and compares them with the new generation nighttime lights (NTL) image products, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) monthly image composites. The results show that the monthly tweet images are significantly correlated with the VIIRS-DNB images at the pixel level. The tweet images have nearly the same ability on estimating electric power consumption and better performance on assessing personal incomes and population than the NTL images. Tweeted areas (i.e. the pixels with at least one posted tweet) are closer to satellite-derived built-up/urban areas than lit areas in NTL imagery, making tweet images an alternative to delimit extents of human activities. Moreover, the monthly tweet images do not show apparent seasonal changes, and the values of tweet images are more stable across different months than VIIRS-DNB monthly image composites. This study explores the potential of LBSM data at relatively fine spatiotemporal resolutions to estimate or map socioeconomic factors as an alternative to NTL images in the United States.     

大数据时代的农情监测与预警

农情信息是世界粮农组织、各国政府、粮食贸易企业以及农场管理迫切需要掌握的信息。大数据时代的农情监测与预警正在由模型驱动向数据驱动转变,大数据正逐渐成为监测与预警的核心驱动力。伴随着农情监测与预警大数据的爆炸式增长,大数据与云计算技术的发展为农情监测与预警提供了全新的技术手段。2013年以来,全球农情遥感速报系统(CropWatch)已逐步引入聚类分析、时间序列分析、关联分析、时空变化异常诊断等大数据分析方法,并应用于业务化运行的农情监测与预警中。大数据技术提升了CropWatch的数据挖掘能力,对CropWatch农情监测与预警时空尺度的拓展以及农情监测内容的精细化起到推动作用,促进了面向需求的CropWatch农情信息与预警精准云服务的发展,促成了大数据时代CropWatch农情监测与预警技术体系的升级。未来,大数据时代的农情监测与预警将逐渐向全自动化监测、实时化精准农业管理与智能化信息服务方向发展;通过众源采集技术高效低廉的获取农情观测大数据将成为未来的发展趋势;大数据技术跨领域数据挖掘的能力,使得丰富多元化的跨界信息服务将成为大数据时代农情监测与预警的主流发展方向。大数据时代的CropWatch正在向基于大数据的农情监测与预警系统全速迈进。     

Perceptual complexity of soil-landscape maps: a user evaluation of color organization in legend designs using eye tracking

ABSTRACT

We compared the ability of two legend designs on a soil-landscape map to efficiently and effectively support map reading tasks with the goal of better understanding how the design choices affect user performance. Developing such knowledge is essential to design effective interfaces for digital earth systems. One of the two legends contained an alphabetical ordering of categories, while the other used a perceptual grouping based on the Munsell color space. We tested the two legends for 4 tasks with 20 experts (in geography-related domains). We analyzed traditional usability metrics and participants’ eye movements to identify the possible reasons behind their success and failure in the experimental tasks. Surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of the participants failed to arrive at the correct responses for two of the four tasks, irrespective of the legend design. Furthermore, participants’ prior knowledge of soils and map interpretation abilities led to interesting performance differences between the two legend types. We discuss how participant background might have played a role in performance and why some tasks were particularly hard to solve despite participants’ relatively high levels of experience in map reading. Based on our observations, we caution soil cartographers to be aware of the perceptual complexity of soil-landscape maps.     

电子地图的色彩配合实验

在地图的色彩设计中,设计人员不仅要考虑色彩单独使用的效果,而且要考虑地图上各素的色彩配合,即各种色彩在图面上的整体感受效果。电子地图由于有极大的色彩选择空间,背景色不局限于白色,因而选色、配色比纸质地图更加复杂。用哪种简称颜色作为背景视觉效果较好？图面上各要素的色彩如何配合？针对这两个问题,作者设计了电子地图的一个色彩感受实验－色彩配合实验,利用自编的电子地图视觉感受测试构件（ＴＥＶＰ）进行了实验     

基于3维API的电子地图显示研究

电子地图显示速度直接影响地图用户的交互感受,一直是地图制图者关注的一个重点。本文从地图显示速度与适人化交互操作的关系出发,分析了GDI与OpenGL的特点和差异,提出了基于OpenGL的电子地图显示的方法,重点对基于OpenGL多线程的电子地图快速漫游显示技术和基于纹理映射的地图要素符号化方法进行了分析讨论,并进行了实验论证。     

数字地图的理论、方法和技术体系探讨

本文探讨数字地图的理论、方法和技术体系,既介绍研究心得,更意在诚邀专家学者的合作。在理论体系方面,本文章阐述了数字地图的概念、体系结构、理论基础,以及数字地图带来的地图学新观念。在方法体系方面,文章阐述了数字地图能够解决的地学问题、数字地图的分析方法、数字地图的数据模型;在技术体系方面,文章阐述了数字地图制图系统、移动数字地图技术等内容。文章给出了数字地图的应用实例,包括国家自然地图集数据库、电子版、网络版,以及中国科学院资源环境数据库电子地图集等两内容。     

Cartography in the GIS age

Abstract

At the end of the 1980s, the computer experts who had been in the vanguard of cartographic development lost their position due to the fact that computers became democratised. This may be ascribed to the 'Macintosh' effect. This in turn led cartographic companies back to the core of their professional know-how: it is cartographers themselves who now develop the scope of their profession, utilising all the resources provided by the new computer technology. But, if cartographers want to keep playing a major role in the geographic information arena, they have to determine and develop the specific elements of their discipline: if technology mobilizes all forces to the detriment of theory, then the discipline progressively weakens and ends in being swallowed by another discipline.

It is the cartographers' task to transform the spatial information from its verbal, social and numerical form into visual form for visual thinking; this visualisation provides for cognitive functions, communication functions, decision support functions and social functions. In order for maps to perform these functions cartographers should continue, now with digital tools, to safeguard data quality by monitoring the compilation stage during which they have to see to it that the heterogeneous datasets in databases will be made comparable, both from a geometrical, semantical, updatedness and completeness point of view. This main aspect of the cartographer's job can be called its engineering part. The other main aspect will remain the map design part, that leads to proper communication of the spatial information. Both aspects will remain the cartographer's domain if he/she succeeds in providing a theoretical basis for his/her work.