EDITORIAL
Tech Must be Used to Eliminate Silos
T
he other day someone observed that WhatsApp now included a payment option and wondered why. The reason is simple. If one can use it to order online, it makes sense for the app to also have an online payment option. The name of the game is ‘convergence’, though few use this term nowadays. The principle behind convergence of technologies is “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”. In other words, convergence of technologies enables a better solution to a problem than if each technology was applied separately to address the problem.
relational databases have added means to include graphical elements giving rise to object-oriented databases. However, applications continue to address each technology separately.
In a scenario of increasingly limited resources, such an approach is inefficient both in time and resource utilization. What is more, unforeseen problems arise, which require expensive workarounds that leave the end user dissatisfied. The field of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) is a case in point. These three fields address Prof. Arup Dasgupta a common task, but each has arup@geospatialworld.net In those early days, integrating its own practitioners who use GIS with CAD and IT was considdifferent applications, each with ered to be convergence of technologies. It avoided its own set of rules which may conflict with having to shift from application to application with other application requirements, resulting in a attendant data transformations and other hassles. sub-optimal solution. But why would one want to integrate such data in the first place? We need to look at the history of The answer is to take a holistic approach to spatial information creation. Databases were the architectural and engineering design with a first attempts at digitizing data, but they lacked view to optimize the solution and not maximize spatial referencing. CAD was the way to digitize individual parts. Thus, integration of GIS with BIM allows for a design that satisfies both the graphics, and soon maps were being turned into CAD drawings. But CAD lacked the ability to geographical requirements and architecture. A common data environment is essential for such include spatial attributes, which had to be placed an integration. Digital twinning enables a better in a separate database, making linking an issue. understanding of the design in relation to the environment as construction progresses. Many GIS solved this problem by bringing together other elements like automation of construction graphics and databases and adding a crucial through robotics, the inclusion of AI for predictive element of spatial analytics. Veterans may analytics and IoT for optimization of services also remember ArcInfo, ArcCAD and many such need to be integrated into the system. hybrids, which were essential in those early days to be able to work together with GIS, CAD As we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and Databases. Today, technology has moved technology must be used in a way that silos disapfar ahead but applications still tend to remain in pear and solutions become all-inclusive, so that silos. CAD has advanced to 3D and BIM. GIS has they provide a sustainable world for the people to moved to advanced graphical models and closer live in, now and in the future. integration with relational databases. Meanwhile, 4 | www.gwprime.geospatialworld.net | November-December 2021
