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Sensing and 
stems: A 
jative 12. 
nd Remote 
FROM VIDEODISK GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS TO 
MULTIMEDIA EMPOWERMENT 
Douglas Hadden 
Marketing Director, Fifth Dimension Systems, 2500 Don Reid Drive, Ottawa, Ontario KIH 8P5 
KEY WORDS: Geographic information system, Multimedia, Empowerment, Information centric 
ABSTRACT 
Despite developments in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology, potential benefits to 
organizations have not been fully realized. Only when GIS data and analysis have migrated from discrete 
systems and are available enterprise-wide, will end-users be fully empowered. Standardization in the 
multimedia world will be the conduit to bring GIS integration to large organizations. This trend began 
with the exploitation of multimedia and videodisk technology by GIS developers. 
|. Introduction 
In the mid 1980's, geographic information 
system developers began to exploit new 
technology in order to handle complex 
graphical information less expensively. 
Integrating optical disk technology and audio 
visual standards such as NTSC has become 
known as “multimedia”. 
One of the characteristics of both multimedia 
and GIS installations is that they tend to be 
specialized, discrete environments. The value 
of geographic information systems for rapid 
calculation and effective communication will 
only meet it's potential when it is integrated 
enterprise-wide on the desktop. Multimedia 
will be the vehicle to bring this about. This 
vision of GIS integration is not a new one, it 
has been articulated in varying ways by many 
people. The purpose of this paper is identify 
how multimedia is the vehicle to propel GIS 
corporate-wide, and that the technology is 
realizable today. 
2. "Video Disk" GIS 
Applications from simple colour maps with a 
minimum of data running on a personal 
computer to weather system simulations on 
super computers fit into the general category 
of CIS. The processing and memory 
391 
requirements of higher-end GIS applications 
needed very powerful computing in the 
1980's. The costs for integrating large 
amounts of raster and vector information 
made software expensive, reducing the 
penetration of GIS into organizations - even 
those that had a legitimate and immediate 
need for automation. 
Since the 1960's when the value of digital 
processing was proven to be more effective 
than analogue processing, there has been a 
general tenet in the computer industry that 
systems are only elegant when all the 
information is digital and collected in a vector 
format with all sorts of attribute information. 
This has not always been a practical approach. 
In the case of GIS, developers have had to 
make decisions regarding the usefulness of 
information as it relates to processing and 
memory ramifications. 
Video disk technology brought GIS to the 
personal computer without compromising the 
quality and amount of information that can be 
displayed. Although the information is digitally 
stored on a disk, it is in raster format and 
integrated with the computer through 
analogue inputs. A software database allows 
the linking of what are essentially pictures of 
hard copy maps with the computer. The 
system immediately shows the wealth of