Every technological revolution will create huge change on GIS platform software, which brings major influence on GIS developers and end users.
GIS software develops very fast, which has 2 driving factors: requirement needs and IT driving.
On the requirements part, Chinese practitioners are at the best times. The mobile payment, electronic commerce and logistics are globally leading. So is GIS industry, Chinese GIS application has already reached world leading position, especially in application of merging technologies, like in 3D GIS application, 3D has been widely used in Chinese informatization process. The leading application requires leading products and technologies. Chinese GIS enterprises, no matter are platform software providers or solution providers, are lucky due to the requirement needs.
On the IT driving part, GIS combines with IT technologies, the latest concept is ABC, which is AI, Big Data, Cloud Computing while in the past, we would focus on cloud computing, IoT, mobile calculation, Big Data and Smart City. Those new technologies advanced the development of GIS software technology.
With the 2 drivers, the GIS technologies can be concluded as CCTB. In this article, we will introduce CCTB reversely.
Big Data GIS technology is to store, index, manage, analyze and visualize spatial big data, since last year, some GIS manufacturers released big data related GIS technology, the technology is still developing and evolving, which is still at primitive stage.
3D GIS develops for nearly 20 years and acquired great success. And new 3D GIS technological architecture has formed.
2D & 3D integration is the basic infrastructure for new 3D GIS technology. Some colleagues defined secondary development on application layer integrating 2D and 3D as 2D & 3D integration, which is actually 2D & 3D linking. The true 2D & 3D integration is the integration in data model, software kernel and software ideology, which makes 3D more practical.
Besides traditional hand-made 3D modeling, new 3D technology also combines with oblique photogrammetry, point cloud, BIM and GIS combination. Oblique photogrammetry and point cloud technologies improve the realness, detail and production of 3D. BIM and point cloud allows 3D GIS transform from indoor to outdoor, from macro to micro.
The new 3D GIS realizes 2D & 3D integration, ground & underground integration, aerial & surface integration, land & ocean integration, indoor & outdoor integration, macro & micro integration. New 3D will greatly influence the development of future GIS.
Cloud computing is to integrate calculation resources to efficiently use calculation resources. Cloud computing allows calculation in larger scale. Cloud GIS needs GIS running on cloud environment, or utilize the cloud computing advantages to improve the GIS services and calculation.
GIS software in cloud computing era needs the connection between cloud GIS and client GIS. In most applications, GIS platform also needs to provide thin client and reduces the maintenance cost.
In the cloud computing era, the GIS software on server is not just WebGIS or Service GIS, it also needs GIS portal software, cloud GIS management server software to improve the performance of cloud GIS.
Cross platform allows software run on different hardware and different OS. The hardware includes various servers, desktops and mobile devices. OS includes Window, Linux, Unix and Android, iOS. The cross platform needs to solve the following issues.
First is to support the mainstream servers. Most servers use Linux server, which is more stable and effective. How can GIS platform supports them directly influence the performance.
Second is to support different clients. When it is online, B/S allows clients accessing different servers. When it is offline, whether GIS can access different clients is a challenge.
In the 4 directions of CCTB, cross-platform is driven by requirements and cloud computing, 3D and big data are driven by technologies. The 4 directions will influence the development of GIS application. GIS will also create new technological direction.
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