So my GIS life went something like this:
- College – Cant’ find a job
- Internship for Cranky Gov’t agency
- Intership turns into Job in Mapping/Surveying/Photogrammetry
- I have to learn skills from Cranky Gov’t employees
- Consulting 16 years later
One of the things I became interested in was positional accuracy. Why? I had to make Orthoimagery at one point and I was always asked “How good is it?” and I was really tired of saying “Good enough”. Â So I found ASPRSÂ standards and learned why “Good enough” wasn’t in a lot of cases.
Well with the work I’m doing now it’s so subjective and qualitative in nature I’m back to good enough in some cases. GIS is about half Art and half Science.
I found this in my email: The ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards for Digital Geospatial Data (current version is posted above ) were approved by the ASPRS Board of Directors on November 17, 2014. This standard supersedes and replaces prior ASPRS accuracy standards, including the ASPRS Accuracy Standards for Large Scale Maps (1990) and ASPRS Vertical Accuracy Reporting for Lidar Data (2004).
A summary: Nope – I started reading it and just stopped. Not that it’s a bad read – it just doesn’t have any current bearing on my life.
Which then started the thought while stuck in traffic of “how much bearing does it have on anyone’s life?”. If you’re getting Imagery produced by one of the “big” companies (note the power point template) then you should probably read up and learn. If you’re one of the seemingly hundred of people flying “Drones” or UAVs – maybe you look at it to see what is happening in the world of positional accuracy. If you’re doing stupid data tricks all day maybe you read up and see what the fuss is about…..Maybe you just skip it and do what you were doing last week.
I’ve been having this internal argument on what role giant lumbering organizations play in the world of mapping/GIS. I’ve heard some of these orgs go “What is FOSS4G?”. I’ve seen a lot of these orgs by taken over by private organizations. Eh – it just makes me wonder at times what role do they play.
- Is it to advance standards?
- Inform?
- Teach?
- Carry on the battle of informing the public of Geographic Information Systems….assuming GIS didn’t go mainstream a while back
- Create certifications for some purpose?
Anyway – in all of my reading – this is an update to the 1990 standard. Standards are important – lets hope it’s not another 25 years before the next update. In another 25 I hope to be sipping rum in a grass hut somewhere not here.
