Use of Geospatial Information in Simulation

1
Use of Geospatial Informationin Simulation

Frederick Kuhl, P.E., Ph.D.
OMG Yokohama MeetingApril 2002
MITRE
2
Agriculture Combines GIS With Various Simulations

• U. Illinois sponsors a variety of applications of
  GIS to natural resource conservation
• A farmer's introduction to the application of GIS
  to precision agriculture data
• Illinois Watershed Management Clearinghouse
  grassroots organizations promoting management of
  watersheds
• The Dynamic Integrated Urban Expansion Model An
  Ecological Approach
• See http//web.aces.uiuc.edu/sriit/water.asp

3
USDA Transforms Standard GIS Data for Farm
Simulation Inputs

• Farm Spatial Data Management System (FSDMS)
  transforming data from a georectified map or
  nongeorectified image format to a data format
  acceptable to GPFARM
• GPFARM farm/ranch decision support system in
  which agricultural strategies can be developed
  and tested
• site-specific management
• socio-economic analysis
• environmental impacts
• site database generation
• risk analysis from which alternative
• Uses data contained in ARCVIEW
• See http//gpsr.ars.usda.gov/products/fsdms.htm

4
Geospatial Data Combines with Visualization for
Land Care Decisions

• RMIT University (Australia)
• Project to combine geospatial data with visual
  simulation of landscapes
• reduce damage wrought by bushfires
• record the early outbreak of pests in crops
• forecast the occurrence of dryland salinity
• "Through the convergence of a range of
  technologies, including the geospatial sciences
  and visual simulation, fire fighters will be
  able, in much quicker time and with greater
  accuracy than was available, to see a fire
  landscape in real time on a virtual reality
  screen and decide the best methods to effectively
  deploy fire fighting resources"
• http//www.rmit.edu.au/

5
USGS Funds Applications of Geospatial Data to
Biological Simulations

• Effects of climate change on fish and wildlife
  habitat GIS digital data layers are being used
  with simulation models on sea-level rise to
  predict the effects of climate change on fish and
  wildlife habitat in the San Francisco Bay area.
• Developing a three-dimensional mountain
  climatology and validating a spatially explicit
  microclimate simulation model
• GIS digital data layers for a four-county study
  area in the Delaware River basin, Kansas, are
  being used with soils data and a sediment yield
  model to simulate reductions in sediment yields
  from lands converted from crops over a 10-year
  period
• http//biology.usgs.gov/geotech/documents/applicat
  ions_and_infrastructure/highlights/mesc.html

6
Geospatial Information Should Be Used in Urban
Planning

• Very crude GIS was used in 1970s in planning and
  simulating urban transportation
• Road needs studies
• Carpooling
• Google turned up nothing, surprisingly

7
Geospatial Information Crucial to Military
Simulation

• All military simulation depends on geospatial
  information
• Scenario, i.e. initial conditions, must be
  created for analysis or training simulation
• Synthetic Environment Data Representation and
  Interchange Specification (SEDRIS)
• long-term effort, begun 1994
• driven initially by simulation
• other applications
• Standards through ISO/IEC Joint Technical
  Committee 1 (Information Technology) Subcommittee
  24 (Computer Graphics and Image Processing)
  Working Group 8 (Environmental Representation)
• Implementations through SISO, www.sisostds.org
• www.sedris.org

8
SEDRIS Main Principles

• Goal is to support
• representation of environmental data
• interchange of environmental data sets
• all environmental domains ocean, terrain,
  atmosphere and space

9
SEDRIS Core Technologies for Description of
Environmental Data

• SEDRIS Data Representation Model (SDRM)
• 360 UML classes that allow the description of any
  environmental data, regardless of resolution,
  domain, or density
• Environmental Data Coding Specification (EDCS)
• What something is, what are its characteristics,
  what units are used to measure those
  characteristics
• SEDRIS data types go beyond cartographic domain,
  so SEDRIS began with FACC standard but expands
  it, maintains a mapping to FACC
• Spatial Reference Model (SRM)
• 151 spatial reference frames, in addition to a
  large set of object reference models (earth
  reference models such as ellipsoids)
• Associated sw provides fast, accurate conversions

10
SEDRIS Core Technologies for Interchange of Data

• SEDRIS interface specification (API)
• API encapsulates functionality needed to produce
  and consume SEDRIS transmittals
• ANSI C (for maximum portability), implemented in
  C
• Reference implementation on Unix (SUN, SGI, IBM),
  Win9x and NT (Intel-based machines), Linux
• SEDRIS Transmittal Format (STF)
• Platform-independent format designed to support
  the full capabilities of the SDRM
• File-based storage system, as space efficient as
  possible

11
State of SEDRIS Acceptance

• ISO/IEC acceptance of core standards is
  progressing
• Mandated by U.S. Army STRICOM as format for
  environment data
• Used by all U.S. DoD Army and Joint simulations
• Favorably evaluated by U.K. MoD and NATO

12
Relation of SEDRIS to Commercial Packages

• SEDRIS, like many commercial tools, imports and
  exports various data formats
• Import DTED- and VPF-formatted data to STF
• Export STF to MS-unique formats
• Work underway
• ESRI ArcObject "compliant" applications to
  export/import data (mainly vector) for STF
• FME (vector, grid) exporter/importer for STF
• Data models SEDRIS supports only EDCS, mappings
  between the EDCS other Data Dictionaries "out
  there
• MS database-building community often uses
  commercial GIS technology to "clean" vector data
  from a variety of sources

13
Summary

• Simulation domains involving geographic entities
  all use GIS, not surprisingly
• Agriculture
• Biology
• Military
• Urban analysis and planning doesnt seem to be
  represented
• There is a U.S. military standard for exchange of
  environmental data, SEDRIS