Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/33025
on issues, exit polls and precinct reports during elec- tion times. People are just beginning to see the impact that well-designed geospatial visualizations have on their understanding of the world. Geospatial Visualization in the Real World People have been looking at data for decades, but the relevant information that accompanies the data has changed in recent years. In late 1999, Esri released a new software suite, ArcGIS, that could use data from various sources. ArcGIS provides an easy-to-use inter- face for visualizing 2-D and 3-D data in a geospatial context. In 2005, Google Earth launched and made geospatial visualization available to the general public. Geospatial visualization is becoming more signifi- cant and will continue to grow as it allows people to look at the totality of the data, not just one aspect. This enables better understanding and comprehen- sion, because it puts the data in context with their surroundings. The following three cases demonstrate geospatial visualization use in real-world scenarios: 1. Urban Planning Planners use geomodeling and geovisualization tools to explore possible scenarios and communicate their design decisions to team members or the general pub- lic. For example, urban planners may look at the pres- ence of underground water and the terrain’s surrounding topology before deciding to build a new suburb. This is relevant for areas around Phoenix, for example, where underground water presence and proximity to a knoll Figure 1. A collection of videos are displayed without overlap (top). The outline color represents how close each video matches a query. An alternate view (bottom) places the videos on top of each other in a stack, showing only the strongest match result. M AY 2O11 / WWW . GEOPLA CE . COM 27