3D GIS looks beautiful

Published in 3snews News Weekly 22nd

 

"3D GIS" has become a hot term today. At a relatively large scale of GIS conferences and exhibitions, we can see all kinds of 3D GIS products, domestic, foreign, stand-alone, online, browsed, and analyzed, a thriving and lively scene, quite a 2dgis outdated, the feeling that the 3dgis era has come.

 

In the past one or two years, many platforms and vendors have suddenly emerged in the 3dgis market. Some of them are blockbuster, some are half-way, and some are grassroots, is there a lively scene of "depending on the self-respect of the ocean" just a short period of flourishing before the "3D war? What is the meaning of Baobao from many manufacturers on 3dgis? As a bystander who once participated in 3D Projects, my opinion is on the contrary. These excitement is nothing more than the dust of competing for projects. This industry is truly mature and is far from reaching.

 

3dgis is a 3D technology, but it is not the only 3D technology. In a broad sense, 3D technology includes at least three application forms:

 

1. The first is the use of 3D three or four years ago.
Max makes various types of data. Although this process is completely different from the "Information System", it directly leads to the 3DS file becoming a standard data format for various so-called 3D applications, just like shapefile in GIS;

 

2. Virtual Reality (virtual
Reality) technology, the first 3D application technology, focuses on "immersion", that is, using a variety of sound, light, electrical external design, creating a virtual environment that cannot be identified or highly simulated by people, the hardware investment of this technology is rather shocking, even the simplest method-displaying a virtual scene on a computer display-also requires the purchase of high-performance hardware devices. Moreover, VR applications are mostly in the single-host version. Most of the various 3D applications in China in the Early Days were dominated by this;

 

3. 3D
GIS technology, if VR technology can make a major breakthrough in the hardware and release methods it relies on, this allows home computers to access 3D data over the network. (in a browser, the format of 3D data cannot be considered as a true 3 DGIS ), these 3D technologies can also be integrated with traditional GIS systems to provide the functions of traditional GIS, which is called 3D
GIS.

 

Therefore, as a derivative of GIS technology, the characteristics of 3dgis are that it is no longer satisfied with the use of vertices, line and surface to abstract the real world to be presented, it uses the ry object of a higher dimension to describe geographical phenomena.

 

The image data and DLG technology stored in traditional GIS are provided by surveying and mapping qualified surveying and mapping units through field collection and internal sorting, which is already expensive, however, the production of 3D data is indeed a more expensive task-in addition to basic surveying and mapping results, it has to spend a lot of manpower and material resources to collect elevation data, textures, and 3D modeling, the cost of data production quickly increased.

 

In addition to expensive data costs, almost all 3D project owners are faced with a challenge-except for occasional demonstration reports, what is the purpose of the so-called "3D City" that has spent hundreds or even tens of millions of people? Don't expect your developers to give you a clear answer. Most of them are emphasizing how smooth their platforms are to run their massive data, how gorgeous the effects are, and how vivid the rivers and trees are. Some 3dgis platforms may have the "analysis" function-model comparison analysis, Sunshine Analysis, shadow analysis, and visual analysis. Unfortunately, at present, these functions can only act as one vase. Their models are just the basis of 3D browsing, and their sunshine and shadow analysis cannot be used as the legal basis.

 

Reality has proved that at present, 3 DGIS, compared with the more expensive VR system, in addition to reducing hardware costs, it still looks like a "dragon-killing technology"-a very good-looking tool, but where is "dragon?

 

So why are there so many vendors keen on this?

 

Let's take a look at the back of these 3dgis platform manufacturers. Most of them also have a large modeling team. While winning a project, these manufacturers generally accept the data production orders. What is the platform that costs a lot of data? Free!

 

Up to now, most 3D platform vendors have provided "one-stop service" for "platform vendors + developers + Data vendors", trying to occupy any profit from the upstream and downstream of a project. The consequence is that these platforms will always be "private goods". No one except yourself will be willing to help you promote, promote, and apply them, in the end, "Suddenly everyone else ".

 

Maybe 3D
GIS platform vendors have 10 thousand reasons to justify their commitment to both upstream and downstream actions, but this is a curse after all. From a technical point of view, 3dgis is not a very "advanced" thing, it is easy to suddenly appear a small company blockbuster; from the perspective of the industry, 3dgis has not yet reached the stage where it is a dominant system platform like ArcGIS. In this big wave, companies and technologies that attempt to control all profits will eventually be abandoned by the market, unless they intend to make a profit, and finally sell the company for a good price, the success rate is quite high!