By Glenn Stowe, product manager for Geospatial at MariaDB

Glenn Stowe

Here we are in 2023, kicking off what’s sure to be an exciting year in the geospatial world and looking  to see if we can tell what’s coming down the technology pipes.

Predictions are tricky things. Often the most significant changes are the ones no one saw coming. But if we look at the current landscape and its big movers, there are a few major trends that can give us a pretty good idea of where things are going. We are seeing:

1. The increasing use of geospatial data and technologies for location-based services, such as ride-hailing and delivery services.
2. The integration of geodata with the Internet of Things (IoT), allowing for real-time tracking and monitoring of assets and individuals.
3. The use of geospatial intelligence for environmental monitoring and natural resource management, such as mapping land use and predicting the impact of climate change.
4. The growth of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones for mapping and data collection, which can be used to gather data quickly and cost-effectively in a variety of settings.
5. The development of new data platforms and tools, such as cloud-based platforms and open-source software, which make it easier for organizations to access and use geospatial data.
6. The increased use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and interpret geodata, enabling new insights and applications.

Many of these trends are well underway. Individually, they won’t be driving major change in 2023. As our industry continues to grow and mature, the most sweeping innovations going forward will not be individual technologies or disruptive “game changers.”

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By Jakub Karas, Co-Founder and CTO, Upvision

Jakub KARAS

In 2023, we expect to see a continuation of the significant progress in civil drone operations development that has been accelerated in the past year around the world through various new deployments, certifications, demonstrations and other reports and decisions from authorities such as the FAA or EASA, supported by industry and other stakeholders.

This will be tied to the further development and implementation of UTM and associated technologies such as Detect and Avoid (DAA), UAS Remote ID and iConspicuity for visibility and other manned assets and secure operations for all airspace participants needed to increase the safety of drone operations with a view to supporting the development of advanced drone operations in BVLOS on a large scale. Similarly, new methods of investigating the risks of drone operations are being addressed to safely develop drone applications in urban environments. There are also first certifications in the world for BVLOS operations, drone delivery services etc.

This has a great impact on the development and efficiency of drone use also in the geospatial industry where BVLOS flying is needed in most usecases and applications. Especially in the field of mapping and monitoring of larger areas, simplification flight processes and reducing flying time also in terms of the need for certain climatic conditions for some usecases.

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By Pascal Strupler, Business Director of Autonomous Reality Capture at Leica Geosystems, part of Hexagon

Pascal Strupler

In 2023, companies will be moving more into digital workflows, especially as industry leaders digitize the process of monitoring construction projects. These digital workflows will rely on automated reality capture to compare the current state of a construction site with BIM plans. Then, to quickly close the loop, corresponding insights will be brought back into the field using augmented reality to point out inaccuracies or missing installations. However, automating this process requires frequent capturing of a construction site using reality capture technology. The most cost efficient way to do this is through the use of autonomous reality capture to minimize user involvement without compromising the integrity of the scans.

By Dr. Shawana P. Johnson, GISP

Dr. Shawana P. Johnson

In the geospatial world there are many places to focus on for industry predictions in 2023 from the ever-growing impact of 5G and the ownership of that market space by China effecting both commercial and national security sectors; to the continued commoditization of space with satellites, imaging sensors, ground stations, and launch vehicles opening the industry up to even greater market fragmentation as more and more data are accessible at lower prices. For the purposes of this prediction, however I will briefly address Digital Twins and if there were more time and space, I would include the Metaverse as well.

With the advent of global and continentally focused “Digital Twins” such as the Esri Digital Twin for the natural and built environments,  NASAs Earth System Digital Twin, Digital Earth Africa; Destination Earth (“DestinE”) moonshot project which will create multiple digital twins of Earth, including one digital twin for extreme natural disasters and another for climate change adaptation the already complex geospatial field becomes even more so for developing nations.  These massive digital twins however come at a price. For instance the DestinE will also provide a focus on developing a “configurable climate information system” enabling global climate simulations at multidecadal timescales. To accomplish this they will utilize a Finnish supercomputing center CSC and The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) to develop that digital twin, harnessing the capabilities of their  LUMI supercomputer (which is number three on the  Top500 list of fastest supercomputers in the world) list and is powered almost entirely by renewable energy).

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By Margarita Dadyan, Content Specialist, WGIC

Margarita Dadyan

Utility industry is fast embracing spatial digital twins – dynamic digital replicas of physical counterparts that facilitate real-time performance monitoring and status – as they provide an excellent understanding of the criticality of assets and networks, reduce inefficiencies, improve safety and reliability, culminating in improved customer satisfaction and returns on investments.   

Historically, asset mapping has been a critical aspect of managing utility infrastructure and improving the efficiencies of utility service providers. Such mapping helped engineering design programmes, supported early digitalization, and integrated into corporate GIS.

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By, Jean-Michel Brière, President, PRESAGIS

Jean-Michel Brière

As the world moves forward and out of the most uncertain times in recent history, the industry enters 2023 with optimism and the hope that technology continues to play a pivotal role in its evolution. Geopolitical unrest, climate change and other global issues are prompting governments and the private sector to look at geospatial technologies to help inform and solve some of the biggest problems we’re currently facing.

The predictions below focus on four technologies as the main levers of that evolution: 3D data, the Metaverse, Simulation and AI.

3D Geospatial data will become a commodity

• More and more providers are including 3D data in their offerings either free of charge or low cost, particularly buildings footprints. Democratization of its access is now on the way
• 3D data makes complexity look easier, when the representation of geospatial data takes into consideration the accuracy of such data
• 3D data facilitates the proper development of simulation. For example, for flooding simulation (how water will spread, accelerate, change course, etc.)
• 3D mapping and visualization will bridge the gap between experts’ knowledge and stakeholders together with decision makers
• 3D Data puts upfront geographical data in context as a truly geospatial representation of a region
• Photogrammetry and LiDAR will enable stakeholders to take better decisions by visualizing information within relevant context, as an accurate representation of the real world
• Modelling reality requires accurate data, and LiDAR will provide just that.

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By Brad Burgess, Founder, The Mindshare Manager

Brad Burgess

With the year 2022 in the books, attention of course now turns to what we might expect in 2023. While 2022 certainly presented all industries with a number of challenges, the geospatial industry saw continued advancements in a number of areas that set it up well, in my view, for the new year ahead.

With that in mind, keep an eye on these important trends this year:

Technology

Interest in remote (field) access to visual infrastructure asset information remains high and will only continue to grow. Having the ability to virtually “see” buried utilities under the pavement, or MEP installations behind the wall, is not only highly productive but serves to reduce errors. Use- cases are emerging that impact business results across the full asset life-cycle, including Concept & Planning, Design/ Engineering, Construction, and Operations & Maintenance.

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By Eduardo Coloma, CEO, Maptek

Eduardo Coloma

Every company feels the pull to become a data company. The cloud is now accepted as the modern foundation for managing data, promising unlimited data storage space. However, increasingly larger datasets collected from multiple sensors and systems bring novel challenges for effective and efficient value extraction. Complexity also increases with multiple providers offering proprietary data formats. Everyone is claiming a best-of-breed solution, leaving end-users wallowing in an information mire, without a clear strategy for decision support.

Maptek has developed various strategies to answer the need to harness both data and data management. GeoSpatial Manager offers smart visualization tools combined with a simple web interface to deliver a single source of truth for managing as-built surfaces across an organization. Dynamic updates to surveyed surfaces allow users to manage, visualize and download any as-built surface at any point in time over the life of a project and apply it to downstream tasks. Opportunities then arise to automate workflows involving surface data and improve cross-team collaboration and inter-team communication.

Many organizations are developing use cases for data analytics and machine learning that will deliver significant business outcomes. Computing frameworks such as Maptek DomainMCF combine cloud computing power and machine learning to deliver resource and grade trend models 2000 times faster than traditional methods. Speedy turnaround on modeling scenarios releases professional staff for in depth analysis and investment reporting. In this way the power of technology augments the power of the user.

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