NSDI-2011 and I am excied!

It's my first visit to the NSDI commune as a part of NSDI 11 to be held from 11-12 Jan.

As a part of it, my company is also sponsoring this event; and we are going out for a presentation out there!

This time there is a strong involvement of the industry, and hope that the views and ideas shared by the companies would add some value to the NSDI initiative.

More exciting is the strategy of Intergraph | ERDAS products as they are now under a single umbrella ..

What else, watch out as I would slide in my views out after the conference.

3D data getting relevance in India?

We have been seeing the phenomenon of maps, constantly improving the feature sets. One of the features I personally have been waiting for is 3D data in the online mapping services for India.

Currently working on a paper on the same, I started to explore various mapping services, but to my dismay I only noticed that Ovi Maps  is providing the 3D models along with the mapping service. This was some time last week. The models are still not that complete or mature, as you see the minarets missing out of Charminar :)

Charminar area, Hyderabad, India as seen in Ovi Maps

Today, trying to navigate through Hyderabad in Google Maps, I saw the Earth Tab and thoguht of giving it a try. To my surprise, I found that Google has got lot better 3D model data than Nokia Ovi.

View of Charminar Area, Hyderabad, India in Google Maps. Click for to View Larger Map 

Looking at such the availability of 3D data in the Indian context, I have some questions that I would like to ask the community:

• Is there a demand for 3D data for public consumption, but that data was not available till date?
• In the above is not true, the demand has to be created and this is being tried at by the mapping services?

Another step ahead for online mapping in India will be the availability of Street Maps/ Street Views. Google and Microsoft have already got the capability, however they have not yet tried this for India. What might be the reasons behind? Again I have to ask the community:

• Is Indian market not ready for such data?
• Or, has it got to do with the restrictions imposed by the policy in the name of privacy?

Looking forward for your comments.