Geosoup: CGS Discussion Blog

Added the 24/08/2007 … I had a go at it (different stages of the picture can be seen on \\\CGSFiles\Didier)

Here’s my attempt at a description of what the Centre does (written for an intelligent lay-person):

The Centre for Geospatial Science undertakes high quality, world-class research regarding information about objects and activities on, above or below the surface of the earth, with a particular emphasis on the spatial, locational aspects of such objects and activities (referred to as geospatial information). Objects and activities of interest may include (but are not limited to) physical, environmental, social or economic phenomenon.

The Centre’s research particularly focuses on the sharing and intelligent use of geospatial information. Our long-term vision is of a world in which a range of diverse users from across the globe can share, combine, understand and use each other’s geospatial information readily in order to solve real problems.

Specific areas of current research within the Centre in order to meet this vision include:

1) Research exploring the intelligent interpretation and use of geographic information, including work in semantics and ontologies, natural language processing and reasoning.

2) Research exploring intelligent discovery, data mining and analysis of geospatial (including remotely sensed) information.

3) Research developing technologies that provide infrastructures to underpin the sharing and remote invocation of geographic information by both humans and computers (geospatial interoperability).

4) Research exploring mobile, location-based technologies (for example, hand-held devices) including user interface and human factors issues.

The following diagram depicts current projects in each of these four areas:

1. Semantically-aware spatio-temporal analysis (KS).
2. Ontological registries (KS).
3. Semantically-driven map schematisation (KS, SuA).
4. Scientific knowledge infrastructures (KS).
5. New methods for map schematisation and generalisation (SuA).
6. Interoperability test bed (JS).
7. Web service transformations for geospatial processing (JS).
8. Multi-scale issues in spatio-temporal analysis (DL).
9. Metadata and SDIs (DL).
10. Agent-based systems for enhanced decision processes (VK).
11. Human factors aspects of navigation (JN).
12. Discovery and access of remotely sensed imagery (BP).
13. Remote sensing image processing and pattern recognition (PD).
14. GUI on hand-held devices for mobile navigation (ShA).
15. Conceptual frameworks for SDIs and intelligent data management (SA-S).