PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
July 2014
609
BOOK
REVIEW
Advances in Geospatial Information
Science
Editors: Wenzhong Shi,
The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR,
China
; Michael F. Goodchild
University
of California, Santa Barbara, USA
; Brian
Lees
The University of New South Wales
at the Australian Defense Force Academy,
Australia
; and Yee Leung
The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR,
China
CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group Boca Raton, FL, 2012.
Figures, equations, index, colour plate section. Hardcover.
$169.00. ISBN 978-0-415-62093-2
Reviewed by:
Ryan E. Bowe, GISP, GIS
Technician, Photo Science, Inc. a Quantum Spatial
Company
This book constitutes the proceedings of a 2010 symposium
targeting academics, engineers, and GIS professionals.
Divided into six parts, which are subdivided into twenty-
two chapters,
Advances in Geospatial Information Science
covers many topics relating to GIS globally (Australia, China,
France, Germany, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Taiwan, and United
States). The sections are Modeling Space and Time; Spatial
Analysis and Data Mining; Uncertainty Modeling; Mobile Data
Modeling; Geo-visualization; and Location-based Computing
and Service. An Introduction and an Epilogue are provided in
addition to the twenty-two chapters. Chapters have an average
of eighteen references, which provide additional material if
the chapter is of particular interest to the reader. (It should be
noted that most chapters include at least one reference written
by one of the authors of that particular chapter.)
Michael F. Goodchild’s introduction hypothesizes about
GIScience in the 21
st
century. Although the book is largely
conjecture as to what innovations will occur within GIScience,
Goodchildmakes an excellent point: “…speculation is valuable,
if only to stimulate debate and creative thinking.” (Page 3)
Sometimes themost interesting subjects are very far removed
from the reader’s specialty because the concepts presented are
new and not something most readers consider on a daily basis.
For example, the chapter “Spatio-temporal trajectory analysis
of mobile objects following the same itinerary” discusses real
time movement tracking of ships, but the same technology
could be applied to other vehicles and even hurricanes.
In another example of a chapter that is not necessarily close to
traditional photogrammetry and remote sensing, “Cooperative
information augmentation in a geosensor network” and
“Enhancing travel time forecasting with traffic condition
detection” could potentially be updated with social media
information. But then the authors would have to develop a
stringent test of the quality of social media data received before
using it. And, with the greater acceptance of digital globes as
well as the expectation of higher resolution data being freely
available, if the same surveys done in “Using digital globes to
visualize climate change impact” were repeated today, would
those surveyed be more skeptical due to the raised expectation
of high-resolution data or less skeptical because of a greater
acceptance of the technology? “Whilst images were found
to be a useful tool for understanding overarching changes,
some decision makers still desired more specific data in the
form of tables or graphs. It is unclear whether this perceived
limitation was a result of the user’s limited exposure (or trust)
to spatial technologies or whether the grid cells were too large
and the legends unclear.” (Page 215).
Drawing closer to a typical remote sensing task, the chapter
“Hierarchical approach for an accuracy-based conflation of
multi-topographic databases discusses nationwide topographic
databases” examines how multi-scale spatial inconsistencies
impact databases. Seeing the suggested fusing process of
different resolution surface models is intriguing, especially
with the NSDI’s 2014-2016 strategic plan reaching final
draft mode in December 2013 (
/
nsdi-strategic-plan-final-draft-12-4-13.pdf) and H.R. 1604
(Map it Once, Use It Many Times Act
.
us/congress/bills/113/hr1604. Even closer to remote sensing
topics, “Multi-view augmented concept to improve semantic
interoperability” is an intriguing chapter because it could be
applied to how features are extracted from remotely sensed
data. Some might find some of the chapters to be too abstract
while other chapters may be found to focus too much on
