There are plenty about historical trends in the development and use of Geographic Information Science (GIS), but what about where GIS is headed into the future? Demand continues to grow for enterprise geographic information system (GIS) solutions. Let’s take a look at a few popular favorites in the GIS space that are currently shaping up.
Digital Twins
GIS has always represented a digital placeholder for a real-world object like a natural feature, well, road or building (usually a 2D footprint). Digital Twin is the evolution of the point, line and polygon into a full-blown, 4-dimensional detailed electronic representation in a database with real time sensor feeds adding additional dimensionality to the model. So, Digital Twin is a model of a natural feature or built physical facility or asset that digitally resembles the original and maintains a live feed of readings about that object as if it were a living system. The readings can be pressures, flows, capacities, weather impacts, personnel movements, or any other piece of data about the object that needs to be monitored. This model expands on the information system version of the tangible asset to support enhanced reporting, machine learning and multi-dimensional mapping in new ways.
And, as former gamers and visual learners, we will want to see and interact with these models in new ways, integrated with improving models of the features and assets in geographic context to your new Digital Twin. The perfect next step for GIS and for the generation entering the workforce today. GIS evolved.
Spatial Data Analytics / AI / ML
It seems like everyone is clamoring for data scientists and data engineers these days. Companies are creating and obtaining ever increasing amounts of data and need new ways to sift through and make meaning of it all. Luckily, Esri has provided several tools to help companies begin their data science journey. Jupiter Notebooks as well as other tools such as the Random Forest Classification geoprocessing allow savvy GIS analysts to explore relationships between complex and voluminous data which may not have been possible before. The line between GIS Analyst and Data Scientist is getting blurry.
And, as companies discover that they can run models on all of the columns and fields in their databases and also explore geospatial aspects to that data, spatial data science will continue to gain momentum in 2022 and beyond.
Animated Maps
Geography and Cartography, as disciplines, have been around for millennia… and humans have looked at static maps long enough. Discover Esri’s newest API’s (Application Programming Interfaces) that allow features to move in elegant ways across your viewing device. Maps can be boring – why not make them pretty, fun, and engaging?
Indoor Mapping
Some companies have already implemented variations on indoor mapping in valuable ways and must be applauded. When navigating a campus with 10 or more buildings, be it office space, a hospital complex, a college campus or Disney Land, wouldn’t it be cool if you could get turn by turn directions to Milton’s desk, see how to navigate to the McDonald’s a few buildings over to get your spouse an Egg McMuffin before she goes into labor, or if you could map your route to your favorite roller coaster and see how long the line is before you get there? These things are possible with new technologies like ArcGIS Indoors, so dream bigger and get implementing!
Mobile Maps + AR
Mobile Maps have been around for a while now and almost everyone uses a mobile map to get directions when travelling. But what about mobile maps with your own business data on them that allow engineers to immediately update, notify, and track what’s going on with assets in the field? Now, pair a mobile map in an engineer’s hand with augmented reality that can display underground utility lines and pipelines or planned above ground facilities along with all of their attributes. And not only display, but the engineer can provide inputs like statuses or notes that can be sent to headquarters in real time or when she can get a signal. Now that is powerful. This trend seems destined to grow in 2022 and beyond.