{"id":1033,"date":"2012-07-30T09:56:51","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T16:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2012-07-30T09:56:51","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T16:56:51","slug":"the-geoscape-a-new-canvas-for-understanding","status":"publish","type":"insider","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/the-geoscape-a-new-canvas-for-understanding","title":{"rendered":"The Geoscape: A New Canvas for Understanding"},"content":{"rendered":"

For many years, Bill Miller directed the development of Esri\u2019s training and support infrastructure. Later as an engineer\/architect, he was intimately involved in the design of Esri\u2019s state-of-the-art corporate headquarters and conference center. Perhaps his best-known contribution to the GIS community was development of the ModelBuilder environment released as part of the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension. More recently, he came out of retirement to rejoin Esri and head up a new Geodesign Services effort.
\nMiller\u2019s vision<\/a> for the integration of geospatial technologies with the design process was long shared by a group of people that included UC Santa Barbara’s Michael Goodchild<\/a>, Esri President Jack Dangermond<\/a>, Harvard University’s Carl Steinitz<\/a>, and a handful of others. Miller took the first step towards making this vision a reality when he assembled a small team to develop ArcSketch, a free sample extension that allowed users to quickly sketch features in ArcGIS. ArcSketch was Esri\u2019s first small step toward what is now commonly referred to as \u201cgeodesign<\/a>.\u201d
\n
\nBeyond Landscape<\/strong>
\nWhile identifying the technology hurdles the geospatial industry needed to overcome in order to advance the concept of geodesign, Miller noted a fundamental contextual obstacle as well: our traditional approach to abstracting the landscape severely limited our ability to move forward with geodesign. We couldn\u2019t fully realize the vision of geodesign without a framework for a more holistic, comprehensive understanding of the world around us.
\n<\/strong>
\n[iframe width=”480″ height=”270″ src= http:\/\/video.esri.com\/iframe\/1005\/000000\/width\/480\/0\/00:00:00 frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no””]\nBill Miller shares his vision at the 2012 Geodesign Summit.<\/em>
\nDifferent levels of understanding often require different levels of abstraction, and it\u2019s clear that\u2019s what was happening with geodesign. As TED founder Richard Saul Wurman has so succinctly stated, \u201cUnderstanding precedes action.\u201d Design is action. Before we can design, we must understand. Geodesign\u2014the act of thoughtfully creating the future for the mutual benefit of humans and the natural environment\u2014requires a heightened level of understanding.
\nUnderstanding the world for the purpose of geodesign necessitated extending our view of geographic space. \u201cThis meant moving from 2D to 3D and to 4D, coupled with the idea that most data, at some level, is spatial and that all types of spatial data (physical, biological, social, cultural, economic, urban, etc.) can be geo-referenced,\u201d states Miller. \u201cThis ultimately led to an expanded view of what is typically envisioned, or imagined, when referring to the geo <\/em>portion of geodesign<\/em>.\u201d He likes to call this new context for understanding our world “the geoscape.”
\nA New Context<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Extending our traditional methods of abstracting the landscape to include 3D \u201cprovides us with the ability to geo-reference what lies below, on and above the surface of the earth, including what exists inside and outside buildings, as well as 4D geographic space, or how things change through time,\u201d Miller notes. \u201cThis gives us the added ability to geo-reference time-dependent information such as population growth or the migration of a toxic plume through a building.\u201d
\nMiller defines the geoscape as the planet\u2019s \u201clife zone,\u201d including everything that lies below, on, and above the surface of the earth that supports life. The geoscape expands the view of what constitutes the content of geography as well as the dimensional extent of the geographic space used to reference that content. It gives us the context we need to actually do geodesign, \u201censuring that our designs consider everything that supports or inhibits life.\u201d
\nDesigning a Better World<\/strong><\/strong>
\nThe concept of the geoscape gives us the framework to extend our thinking and understanding of the world around us. As we move from thinking about only the surface of the earth to now including what\u2019s below and above the surface, we take into consideration the full spectrum of the earth\u2019s life support system. This represents a significant transformation in the way people think about geography, geodesign, and the application of geospatial technologies.
\nThe geoscape gives us a new canvas for understanding, moving beyond traditional mapping for navigation and location, towards using our maps for active designing and decision making. Moving from the landscape to the geoscape gives us the canvas we need for designing a better world. After all, as Miller is fond of saying, \u201cThe purpose of design is to facilitate life.\u201d
\nRead Miller’s new paper, “Introducing Geodesign: The Concept<\/a>“<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[275982],"tags":[277022,441,277032,241],"class_list":["post-1033","insider","type-insider","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vision","tag-bill-miller","tag-geodesign","tag-geoscape","tag-gis"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Geoscape: A New Canvas for Understanding<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/the-geoscape-a-new-canvas-for-understanding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Geoscape: A New Canvas for Understanding\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For many years, Bill Miller directed the development of Esri\u2019s training and support infrastructure. 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