1 / 28

Integrating GIS and OLAP: a New Way to Unlock Geospatial Data for Decision-making

Industrial Research Chair in Geospatial Databases for Decision-Support. Integrating GIS and OLAP: a New Way to Unlock Geospatial Data for Decision-making. Dr. Yvan Bedard Professor Laval University Quebec City, Canada. Presentation Plan.

loe
Download Presentation

Integrating GIS and OLAP: a New Way to Unlock Geospatial Data for Decision-making

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Industrial Research Chair in Geospatial Databases for Decision-Support Integrating GIS and OLAP: a New Way to Unlock Geospatial Data for Decision-making Dr. Yvan Bedard Professor Laval University Quebec City, Canada

  2. Presentation Plan • Origins and characteristics of Spatial OLAP (SOLAP) applications • Approaches to develop SOLAP applications (definition, pros/cons) • GIS-centric • OLAP-centric • Integrated SOLAP • Benefits and future directions

  3. Origins of SOLAP • Organisations worldwide invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually to acquire large amounts of data about the land, its resources and uses • These data however prove difficult to use by managers who need: • aggregated information - trends analysis • spatial comparisons - space-time correlations • fast synthesis over time - unexpected queries • interactive exploration - geogr. knowledge discovery

  4. Origins of SOLAP • GIS data have a transactional nature • Transactional databases are oriented towards data: • acquisition • storing • updating • integrity checking • minimal querying, with the help of an expert Ex. Normalized relational databases

  5. Origins of SOLAP • Decision-makers need data with an « analytical » nature • Decision-support databases are oriented towards data aggregation, data summarization with several levels of granularity in time, space and themes • Integrating GIS and OLAP has become a very promising field. It offers new possibilities that are just starting to emerge.

  6. Origins of SOLAP • BI offers the foundations to build the data rich environment needed for SOLAP DW= data warehouse DM = datamart G = Geospatial Geospatial nature of data GDW GDM SOLAP GIS Geospatial Non-geospatial DW DM OLAP DBMS Decisional nature of data Not Aggregated aggregated

  7. Origins of SOLAP • 1996-2000: pionneering • early prototypes in universities • Laval U. - Simon Fraser U. - U. Minnesota • 2001-2004: early adopters • advanced prototypes in universities • first applications in industry • 2005-... : maturing • larger number of ad hoc applications • SOLAP technologies to facilitate the development of SOLAP applications

  8. Characteristics of SOLAP Applications • Provides a high level of interactivity • response times < 10 seconds independently of • the level of data aggregation • today's vs historic data • measured vs simulated data • Ease-of-use and intuitiveness • requires no SQL-type query language • no need to know the underlying data structure • Supports intuitive, interactive and synchronized exploration of spatio-temporal data for different levels of granularity in maps, tables and charts that are synchronized at will

  9. Experiences since 1996 • Besides developing theoretical concepts, we have experimented with several technologies to build SOLAP applications • Experiments in: • forestry - agriculture - public health • transport - search & rescue - sports • recruitment - archeology - etc. • Experiments with: • MapX - ArcGIS - Geomedia - SoftMap • Oracle - Access - SQL-Server • Proclarity - Cognos - etc.

  10. Example: Quebec Public Health Analysing hospitali- sation and death statistics with regards to respira-tory diseases, cancer, etc. • K-MapX • ProClarity • MS-SQL Server • VBScript development

  11. Example: Transport Quebec Analysing accident quantities and severities with regards to road conditions, traffic, topography, etc. • Geomedia WebMap • ProClarity • MS-SQL Server • VB development

  12. Example: Montmorency Forest 3D analysis of forest stands with regards to tree species, age, drainage, etc. • ArcGIS 3D • ProClarity • MS-SQL Server • VB development

  13. Results • Applications using GIS+OLAP were limited • insufficient data exploration capabilities • limited visualization customization • too slow in certain cases to support interactivity • do not always fit in the map updating workflow • Applications required months of programming • We decided to design and develop our own integrated SOLAP technology in Java • commercial name: JMap Spatial OLAP Extension

  14. Example: Laval Univ. recruitment Analysing students statistics with regards to origin, last diploma, language, etc. • JMap Spatial OLAP • Oracle 10g + spatial

  15. Example: Olympic sports Analysing performances with regards to position, trajectory, weather conditions, technique, etc. • JMap Spatial OLAP • Oracle 10g + spatial

  16. Example: Canadian Coast Guard Analysing search and rescue data with regards to position, boat characteristics, weather conditions, pilot experience, etc. • JMap Spatial OLAP • Oracle 10g + spatial

  17. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications • Ad hoc, proprietary programming specific to one application • Combining GIS + OLAP capabilities • GIS-centric • OLAP-centric • Integrated SOLAP -The dominant tool offers its full capabilities but gets minimal capabilities from the other tool -GUI provided by the dominant tool

  18. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications • Ad hoc, proprietary programming • typically used to develop one application for a very specific need without using OLAP and GIS libraries • Advantages • can perfectly fit the needs, no less no more • Disadvantages • very expensive • very long delays before delivering • hard to maintain • very difficult to modify for other purposes • silo application

  19. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications • OLAP-centric • Application developed along the OLAP tool and server • OLAP functions are predominant and GIS functions are kept to a minimum • zoom, pan, select, layer on/off for example • sometimes, minimal spatial drill • Advantages • supports OLAP exploration and visualization • uses OLAP server capabilities • OK for simple map viewing and exploration need

  20. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications OLAP-centric • Disadvantages • requires complex analysis to provide an elegant and efficient user interface • typically requires months of programming • recent alliances between OLAP and GIS providers simplify this development • limited number of spatial dimensions and analysis • limited interaction and difficult map updates

  21. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications • GIS-centric • Application developed along the GIS and a DBMS • GIS functions are predominant and OLAP functions are kept to a minimum • drill down and up in a table for example • Advantages • supports GIS thematic mapping • uses spatial analysis capabilities • OK when maps are of primary importance while table/chart viewing, tabular exploration needs are simple

  22. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications GIS-centric • Disadvantages • requires complex analysis to provide an elegant and efficient user interface • typically requires months of programming • recent alliances between OLAP and GIS providers simplify this development • must include explicit data to manage the spatial dimension hierarchies in the data cube • limited interaction

  23. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications • Integrated SOLAP • high level of functionnality for both spatial and non-spatial data and views • sophisticated integration and synchronization of OLAP and GIS functions • Advantages • better user interface • more interactive and sophisticated functions • works the same way in maps, charts and tables • can be implemented in hours without programming by using a generic stand-alone software built especially to develop SOLAP applications: SOLAP technology (ex. JMap Spatial OLAP) • works with or without underlying GIS and OLAP

  24. Approaches to Develop SOLAP Applications Integrated SOLAP • Advantages • fits in the map update workflow • supports spatial analysis • synchronized exploration of data between maps, tables and charts • Disadvantages • when not using SOLAP technology, it requires complex analysis to provide an elegant and efficient user interface • when not using SOLAP technology, it typically requires several months of programming • recent alliances between OLAP and GIS providers simplify this development

  25. Benefits of SOLAP applications • In our projects, positive results in many applications have been achieved, such as: • cutting by a factor of 10 the time required to produce maps and reports that summarize key information • allowing new users having never heard of GIS to produce hundred of thousands of synchronized maps, reports and tables on demand with only three hours of training • providing keyboardless access to geospatial data at different levels of detail with a facility never achieved before

  26. Future Directions: enrich the integration of "S"+"OLAP" + related products Quebec Hydro Kheops Defence Canada Syntell Transport Quebec New NSERC Industrial Chair on BI+Geomatics • 3M US$ • 2005-09 NRCan Intelec Laval U. Holonics

  27. Conclusion • This presentation has • introduced SOLAP • characteristics • origins • examples • presented 4 approaches to develop SOLAP applications • ad hoc - OLAP-centric - GIS-centric - Integrated SOLAP • identified advantages and disadvantages of each approach to help identify the best strategy to combine GIS and OLAP for a given need • All solutions have advantages and inconvenients, but 8 years of experimentation has proved that using an off-the-shelf integrated SOLAP technology significantly improves the results while leading to a major reduction in time and development cost • More R&D will bring even better solutions

  28. Industrial Research Chair in Geospatial Databases for Decision-Support Thank you ! Yvan Bedard, PhD http://sirs.scg.ulaval.ca/yvanbedard/ http://mdspatialdb.chair.scg.ulaval.ca http://www.crg.ulaval.ca

More Related