Innovation and Geographical Visualisation tools

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There have been a number of innovative tools developed for visualizing geographical information. This section provides just a snapshot of some of these on-line resources. Perhaps one of the most ambitious programs proposed was proposed in 1998, when then US Vice-President Al Gore said: “Now we have an insatiable hunger for knowledge. Yet a great deal of data remains unused. … part of the problem has to do with the way information is displayed.” “The tools we have most commonly used to interact with data, such as the “desktop metaphor” employed by the Macintosh and Windows operating systems, are not really suited to this new challenge. I believe we need a “Digital Earth”. A multi-resolution, three-dimensional representation of the planet, into which we can embed vast quantities of geo-referenced data”. “A Digital Earth could provide a mechanism for users to navigate and search for geospatial information - and for producers to publish it. The Digital Earth would be composed of both the "user interface" - a browsable [sic], 3D version of the planet available at various levels of resolution, a rapidly growing universe of networked geospatial information, and the mechanisms for integrating and displaying information from multiple sources”.

A very interesting product developed as a prototype was NASA Goddard's Digital Earth Workbench, an interactive system that allowed those interested in geospatial information to retrieve, view, and compare large amounts of Earth related information. For scientists, it was a tool to identify the intricate correlations among the various geological, biological, climatic, and civilization forces that affect the Earth. For others, such as museums or the general public, it provided a tool for teaching and exploring. Stereo goggles were used to view an apparent 3D image of the Earth and with “intuitive hand movements” users navigate the globe to view a number of geographical visualisations of the Earth.

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Digital Earth (external link)	Digital Earth will be a virtual representation of our planet that enables a person to explore and interact with the vast amounts of natural and cultural information gathered about the Earth.
NASA Goddard's Digital Earth Workbench	Used to retrieve, view, and compare large amounts of Earth related information
Flickr: Memory Maps (external link)	Memory maps Combining Google's new satellite imagery with the photo sharing of Flickr to describe neighbourhoods or other community-owned areas.
MicroSoft Virtual Earth	Demonstration of the use of Virtual Earth software.
La Jolla Surfing (external link)	Animated global imagery.
Virtual Field Course (external link)	Computer-based support for fieldwork and a visual environment for exploring spatially referenced information. Used to support geography field trips in the UK.
Skylink Frankfurt	Test bed to explore function, architecture and navigation in the multidimensional digitial network towns of the future. The project was developed as a three-dimensional navigation interface in VRML.
Smart Money : Market Map (external link)	Map-like browser interface for depicting investment trends and opportunities.
Human-Environment Regional Observatory project (HERO) (external link)	Collaborative means to study the local causes and consequences of global environmental change, such as climate change and land-use change.

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