Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Integrated with Virtual Reality: examples from Polar Knowledge Canada's (POLAR) Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS)
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00:00
Virtual realityChemical polaritySample (statistics)InformationBit rateComputer-assisted translationComplete metric spaceChemical equationSoftware development kitShared memoryVirtual realityExtension (kinesiology)Metropolitan area networkLevel (video gaming)TouchscreenMereologyConnected spaceBitThomas BayesBroadcasting (networking)SoftwareComputer programmingCartesian coordinate systemComputer fontRevision controlInterface (computing)MathematicsMultiplication signUsabilityFiber (mathematics)InternetworkingDescriptive statisticsKey (cryptography)Semiconductor memoryPhysical systemPoint (geometry)Structural loadNeuroinformatikIntegrated development environmentEmailSlide ruleEnvelope (mathematics)WebsiteVideo gameBand matrixInformationArc (geometry)Pairwise comparisonVideoconferencingWindowAdventure gameMoment (mathematics)Process (computing)Modal logicINTEGRALDependent and independent variablesWeightField (computer science)Real numberTime zoneWavefrontFile formatDiscrete element methodSuite (music)Unified threat managementLink (knot theory)Model theoryCAN busSeries (mathematics)Binary multiplierData storage deviceOperator (mathematics)Workstation <Musikinstrument>Row (database)Differential algebraic equationStandard deviationComputer fileShape (magazine)Vector spaceMaterialization (paranormal)SurfaceSet (mathematics)NumberFeedbackExecution unitHuman migrationPresentation of a groupDimensional analysisMetreCoordinate systemContrast (vision)Block (periodic table)Boundary value problemDisk read-and-write headLimit (category theory)Data conversionBootingEndliche ModelltheoriePlanningGame theoryContingency tableProduct (business)Software developerAreaDesign by contractObservational studyRaw image formatMessage passingHierarchyGroup actionOpen setDegree (graph theory)Position operatorObject (grammar)GodControl flowArtificial neural networkRaster graphicsConnectivity (graph theory)CircleCyberspaceData managementVapor barrierOpen sourceCASE <Informatik>Remote administrationFrame problemSelf-organizationFloppy diskOcean currentGEDCOMImage resolutionGoodness of fitWordData structureHead-mounted displayComputer animationMeeting/Interview
03:26
VideoconferencingDependent and independent variablesVirtual realityTime zoneDescriptive statisticsBitSlide ruleComputer fontAdventure gameINTEGRALCartesian coordinate systemReal numberWorkstation <Musikinstrument>Meeting/Interview
04:15
Chemical polaritySample (statistics)TouchscreenFloppy diskSlide ruleNeuroinformatikInformationConnected spaceMessage passingGoodness of fitWindowComputer animation
05:31
Object (grammar)Degree (graph theory)Dependent and independent variablesPosition operatorConnected spaceIntegrated development environmentWorkstation <Musikinstrument>Limit (category theory)Interface (computing)View (database)InternetworkingGoodness of fitComputer animation
07:01
Computer animationMeeting/Interview
07:27
BootingWindowShared memoryBand matrixProper mapTouchscreenContingency tableMeeting/InterviewComputer animation
08:02
Addressing modeWindowVirtual realityIntegrated development environmentFrame problemStructural loadVideoconferencingMeeting/InterviewComputer animation
09:14
Scalable Coherent InterfaceMassMultiplication signSlide ruleIntegrated development environmentVirtual realityInformationField (computer science)Data structureComputer animation
10:10
Gamma functionVirtual realityVideoconferencingNumberCircleIntegrated development environmentWordView (database)Interface (computing)Connectivity (graph theory)Field (computer science)Artificial neural networkObject (grammar)AreaComputer animation
11:24
Virtual realityOpen sourceCASE <Informatik>Set (mathematics)Integrated development environmentVapor barrierSeries (mathematics)Computer animation
11:49
Integrated development environmentPlug-in (computing)Virtual realitySuite (music)File formatComputer configurationHeat transfer coefficientWaveHead-mounted displayIntegrated development environmentEndliche ModelltheorieSoftwareNumberSet (mathematics)Computer animation
12:56
Link (knot theory)SineMUDLatent heatHead-mounted displayLibrary (computing)Digital photographyWavefrontRaster graphicsComputer-generated imageryFile formatComputer fileDiscrete element methodInclusion mapPhysical systemUnified threat managementProcess modelingIntegrated development environmentTime zoneCartesian productDrum memoryLink (knot theory)Series (mathematics)WavefrontFile formatSuite (music)Materialization (paranormal)SurfaceVirtual realityPhysical systemAuthorizationBlock (periodic table)Unified threat managementDimensional analysisIntegrated development environmentExecution unitContrast (vision)Pairwise comparisonSlide ruleBoundary value problemTime zoneCartesian coordinate systemField (computer science)WindowOnline chatRaster graphicsInterface (computing)FeedbackCoordinate systemStandard deviationShape (magazine)Extension (kinesiology)Vector spaceComputer animation
16:26
Drum memoryLemma (mathematics)MUDVirtual realitySeries (mathematics)Binary multiplierData storage deviceIntegrated development environmentMultiplication signOperator (mathematics)Plug-in (computing)Computer animation
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MUDDrum memoryIntegrated development environmentReal numberUsabilityWebsiteInterface (computing)Data managementMultiplication signOpen sourceNP-hardExtension (kinesiology)Computer programmingComputer fontTouchscreenVirtual realityMereologyRevision controlCartesian coordinate systemShared memorySoftware developerComputer animation
20:00
Meta elementConnected spaceVirtual realityRemote administrationNumberIntegrated development environmentOcean currentSelf-organizationGEDCOMWebsiteCartesian coordinate systemPhysical systemRaw image formatGame theoryProduct (business)AreaDesign by contractMultiplication signDisk read-and-write headData conversionWorkstation <Musikinstrument>Level (video gaming)InternetworkingSuite (music)Video gameBand matrixGroup actionObservational studyAbsolute valueKey (cryptography)Semiconductor memoryEmailNeuroinformatikBroadcasting (networking)WindowComputer programmingSoftware developerProcess (computing)MereologyWeightSoftwareFiber (mathematics)Meeting/InterviewComputer animation
26:47
Chemical polarityInformationGoodness of fitControl flowComputer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:22
So I'm going to unmute myself. This is awesome. I keep turning on the banner and it keeps turning off. I got an angry cat in my lap, like everything's just working this morning. International. Yeah.
00:40
This is the future of conferencing right here. Yeah, I know. We're embrace the future. This is awesome. Hey, you see any host with a cat is the best host.
01:00
Thank you. I'll try to get a kitten on at the end of this session. Here, hold on a minute. Wait a minute.
01:24
Yeah, complete professionalism. That's what we're doing. So let's do the next talk. It's 7.30. Welcome to the future of conferences.
01:41
I was trying to bring a kitten up here. I'm glad I don't have to try and compete with a kitten. My talk is not as awesome as a kitten. Yeah, it's amazing. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the, okay, wait a minute. So I want to hear about the cat.
02:01
This is Kit Kat. Kit Kat's old and angry. So we have Christopher Arko up. And Christopher, where are you located at now currently? Are you, where are you? Yeah, I've actually been living for the last 13 years in an Inuit community in the Canadian high Arctic.
02:21
I'm calling in from Cambridge Bay Nunavut, also known as Iqaluktotyaktok. And this is one of the, I supposed to just put it on the map. A couple of years ago, I went to a conference in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I was the only person who traveled south to get to the conference. Oh, that's awesome. So, man, that's great.
02:42
So Christopher's gonna talk about this morning. We've got a GIS integrated with virtual reality, and he's gonna have examples from the Polar Knowledge, the Canada High Arctic Research Station. This is the best bio, accidentally born with lungs instead of gills. Chris is a lover of marine worlds.
03:01
Wheels data and computing to fulfill his dream of reestablishing a balance between humanity and the oceans guided by Inuit culture and the high Arctic community. He's called home for 13 years. So that is awesome. And I tell you what, if you wanna go ahead and share your screen, we will get started. Yeah, I'll just share in a moment.
03:20
I'll introduce myself on camera here, but thank you, Randall, for the introduction. And yeah, I'm really pleased to be here. It's 5.30 a.m. in my local time zone. And what I'm looking to share with you today is my adventure of integrating GIS with virtual reality that has taken place over the last three years. I'm gonna demonstrate some real applications of GIS VR integration
03:41
that have been used at the research station. And I'm hoping to equip you with the knowledge necessary to do this yourself if you see the merits of this. One last point, in response to speaker guidelines, I have disabled the videos from this presentation. I've replaced them with a couple of stills. Hopefully the imagination can cover the spread on the stuff that's there.
04:02
And I've also deviated a little bit from the description of the outline only because this was, at one point, thought to be a workshop and then turned into a talk. So let me get my slides up here and that should get everything going there. Red, ah, excellent. Okay, so I'm still on the screen here.
04:20
So that's the first bit, moving on. So briefly, ooh, come on, there we go. Quickly about myself, that's me when I'm out on the land on the left there. So I'm an environmental scientist and a 30-year veteran of wielding GIS tools. Uh-oh, I see a little spinny thing. Hopefully the slide's still there.
04:41
So I go back to eight-inch floppy disks and ARC info. So I'm currently working in data science and I'm the lead of scientific data and computing at the Canadian High Arctic Research Station. I'm concerned, I've got a message here that says
05:01
I'm having trouble connecting. I'm not sure I'm, you're gonna assume? Yeah, I see Randall kind of popping back in here. You're coming through fine. Yeah, everything's coming up fine. I see you're quickly about myself. Is this behaving at all? Nope, you're good.
05:23
At least on my end, you're good. I will jump back out. Trying the chat window. Can you hear me? Randall, am I active? Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you now.
05:41
Did I wink out there? You may have, but I can see everything on screen, so I think you're good. Okay, I'm gonna continue. Pardon me, we have some of the worst internet connectivity in the world up here. I'll just continue. So that's about me. The Canadian High Arctic Research Station is Canada's newest research facility in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, up at a latitude of 69 degrees.
06:01
And there's lots of ways to talk about the research station and the objectives and what it does, but I say its purpose is to improve the lives of northerners around the globe through science. Let's move on to the GIS stuff. So I'm guessing I've gotten an audience here that's very familiar with geographic information systems. And one of the things that I've found with GIS
06:21
over the past years is that GIS places users of data above an environment. It's detached, you're in this omniscient, dare I say godlike position above these data. And I really care about this detail because as an environmental scientist, my responsibilities are not just
06:41
to properly communicate factual data, but also to get people to care about a subject. And that's hard to do when you're towering even six feet above a bunch of ants in their little world. And I needed a way to break through this limitation that was imposed by common GIS viewing and interface tools.
07:12
Christopher, oh, so Christopher may have just bounced off the,
07:24
oh, he's back. Are you back? I got the boot there, Randall. I don't know what happened. Yeah, no, I think this is my bandwidth. I've got a contingency. I wasn't planning on this. What I'm gonna do is instead of sharing
07:41
a whole screen of PowerPoint that's high resolution, I'm gonna share my window. So you'll get to see all my horrible speaker notes and everything. And hopefully that'll reduce the bandwidth associated with what we're doing here. You were good. I'm bouncing back out again, so go for it.
08:01
Proper. Okay, Randall, if we can pull up the PowerPoint window I've got there. Excellent, all right.
08:21
Let's see if that reduces the load on the system here. So what I needed to do to get people inside an environment to immerse them the data and change the frame of reference was presented by virtual reality. It changes the frame of reference for the user and the data from the omniscient to the participant,
08:41
and it dissolves the user data divide. You're no longer hovering above it. You're actually within the data. And this is superior for a couple of analyses, including watershed analyses. I'm just gonna show one frame of what was originally a video that we used when I introduced people to virtual environments,
09:02
and that is of a tyrannosaurus that's looming over you and just, you know, terrifying with its jagged teeth. And that often, like, that I think helps convey what it's like to be a participant in an environment as opposed to an omniscient overseer.
09:20
I've got a very easy slide here. This is a deliberate black slide for imagination time. And when we have visiting researchers come to the research station, what we need to do is familiarize themselves or familiarize them with our field camp. So just close your eyes or look at the black slide for a moment
09:41
and imagine that I say, you've arrived at the field camp and 30 kilometers north of here, we've got a small facility in the field. It has two structures and there's, you know, a mountain to the north. And you need to park the boat at a very particular spot.
10:00
Now, any amount of simply conveying information that way doesn't really equip you for success. So let's take a look at what you can do with a virtual environment. Think of how different a picture is from those 10,000 words. And here's a screenshot from the virtual reality interface
10:22
we have to a GIS which manages our field camp. Now, I've gone and introduced a number of artificial components to the scene such as this sign that says, welcome to the CHARS INA or Intensive Monitoring Area.
10:42
And in the virtual environment, you can look around and move around and see objects in this space. And here's, oh, I'm gonna wait for the little circles to catch up.
11:02
And so here's a number of stills from the video I had that shows somebody walking through this environment. Let's compare and contrast that to a more traditional above down GIS view.
11:28
You're just disconnected from the environment in this case. So what we're looking to do is to break down that barrier and virtual reality is the tool. So what tools do we wield to get this done?
11:42
So now we'll be talking about the free and open source GIS VR tool set. I've compiled a series of resources because now that I work as a lot of academics, everything is false. Like when I was in the private sector, you could always spend money on software and such.
12:00
And now I'm surrounded by researchers. They're all poor, it's horrible. I wish they were better funded, but you wield what you can. And not only that, I have found these tool sets are in some ways superior. So the 3D environment for modeling
12:24
that I propose for use is Blender XR. So it's a fork of Blender, which is a 3D creation tool, but it's specially made for virtual reality. And it supports a number of commercial head-mounted displays. There's then a plug-in for this called Blender GIS.
12:43
And this has a combined, if it's coming up for you now, gives a series of links that'll allow you to access those
13:03
and I can also provide those in the chat window if you're, yeah, yeah, I see I'm breaking up again here. It's good, man, you're back now. So what I did was mute your video. Yeah, Randall, it's not giving me feedback
13:21
as to whether or not things are going well. Yeah, it's good. Just gonna proceed here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, keep going. So the first big challenge that happens is how do you interface GIS data and GIS data formats with tools that were not developed for GIS?
13:41
So we start to look at Blender-compatible file formats. So the native abilities of Blender to import data are presented in the left column here, but I've drawn attention to two, the Colada and the Wavefront OBJ. And that's because I have had the greatest success in moving GIS data into these virtual reality tools
14:01
using Wavefront OBJ format and Colada DAE. I'm surprised that VRML didn't work as well, because I thought that for sure that would have some cross-compatibility, but it's not a rigorous enough standard that everybody's kind of using their own flavor of it to get going on there. The Blender GIS extension also allows
14:24
for some pretty phenomenal import tools, including shape files, so vector data, which is a very, very commonly used, a very large suite of raster image data format, but most importantly, geotiff DEMs, which would provide basically a surface for you to start draping materials all over there.
14:43
And then lastly, there's the Blender photogrammetry importer. There's so many file formats that that opens up that I've just got it at that tiny little block of text that just becomes one of the most useful tools for migrating GIS data into a virtual authoring environment, okay? And now I'm gonna talk about the biggest problem
15:02
that I've had making this succeed. And that is specifically that GIS tools are very, very eager to use the units that we function in and that is coordinate systems like UTM. And the VR tools limit themselves greatly
15:22
in the dimensions of the Cartesian system that they can apply to an environment. So you're actually limited to about 10,000 units, which kind of equate to meters, depending on how you're wielding the tours. And take that in comparison and contrast to a UTM coordinate system
15:41
where these offsets can exceed that. My UTM Y coordinates for my home are around seven and a half million, which puts us well outside of that boundary. And the way that I've successfully and reproducibly corrected that is by defining a site-specific UTM zone
16:01
where the origin is actually close to your region of interest. So that's overcome the majority of the issues that I've encountered here. Let's move on then to talking about two other applications that have been successful in moving the GIS world to VR and then more importantly, then back into the GIS environment.
16:22
I'm gonna show you a slide here from a collaborative environment that was built on the same research field camp. And what I've got shown here are a series of C-containers or C-cans that were proposed to be placed into this environment so that we could have both storage and shelter there.
16:44
One of the nice things about a virtual environment is that you can manipulate that environment in any way you want at extremely low cost, usually the cost of dragging around a slider before you do any active work in the real world.
17:01
I'll go back onto the next in a different manner. So after moving all this GIS data into a virtual environment, we can start to manipulate that environment. And even better, you might've seen the reference to the Blender Multiply User plugin earlier in the slides.
17:24
And what I've actually had set up is two people, one from our operations team and one from our facilities team in this virtual environment at the same time. And together, they can discuss what the ideal placement of these C-containers are
17:46
and develop the environment. Once that's all done, we can move proposed solutions back into a GIS environment where we have the GIS functioning then
18:01
as a as-built or model proposal for the outcome there. So there's just one more example of this. Sorry, I realized that my time is getting close here. So I wanted to close on one note here. I know this has gotten quite sparse compared to the outline that is there.
18:22
It's just a final note. Blender as an application has a reputation as being challenging to learn. And that's the most generous way I can say that. It's reported to be brutal, but that's much more. That really was resolved with the development
18:43
between version 1.8 and 2.8 of the application. And many old users didn't like the change, but the interface is now really quite easy to learn. It's not the uphill struggle that it used to be. There's a lot more ease associated with getting into there. And if you have a real hard time with it,
19:01
there's actually another fork of Blender called B4 Artist or Blender 4 Artist. You can go there and get what is supposed to be the most user-friendly interface available for that. So just taking a look at the two minutes I've got left to talk, I just wanted to mention in summary that virtual reality can take users
19:22
from being omniscient and overseers of an environment to being integrated and associated with it. It gets people more involved and gives you a better understanding of an environment, can contribute greatly to a health and safety program. Is highly accessible through free and open source software, in particular Blender and Blender GIS extensions.
19:44
And it allows you to collaborate on site development and data management in an environment where people are a part of the data as opposed to independent of it. I'm gonna end the screen share now because that seems to be brutal on the connection.
20:04
How much of that came through? Man, that was pretty, am I coming through? Can you hear me? Yeah, I got you now, Randall. Excellent, that was good. No, most of that came through, you broke up. It was. You broke up a little bit, but you know, you're broadcasting from the high arctic,
20:21
man, you gotta, it is what it is. I'm waiting for the Starlink system, man, that's supposed to solve all our problems. So when you're doing, I'm sitting here looking to see if you have any questions. Have you tried Godot, G-O-D-O-T,
20:42
Blender versus Godot comparisons? Absolutely, yeah, yeah. That's a tool that we're wielding. So the reason I haven't rigorously applied Godot is because we're just in the infancy of, I'm at the stage where I'm presenting
21:01
to the research station and the researchers the fact that we can do this and what its immediate applications are. The things that people latched onto were our health and safety program and our facilities management. And so that actually gives you a very limited window of the tools you can wield. We just want, so that becomes part of our future exploration when we're refining our processes.
21:23
It's certainly part of the experimental suite, but not part of our ratified suite. Ah, excellent. So how, okay, so I got questions. How do you handle, so you're up, you have sketchy internet.
21:40
Software updates were a pain, I assume? You know, I run a sneaker net. You guys aren't gonna believe this. The internet is so bad here. I have a small computer, it's about this big, and it sits in my parents-in-law's broom closet down south. They happen to be in a town on a fiber connect. I take remote control of the system,
22:02
download it like a madman. Every two weeks, they stick two memory keys into that computer. I load them up. They drop it into a envelope, mail it to me in Canada Post. And when I, they're two one terabyte sticks. And when that comes up here, that represents $6,800 of over bandwidth charges in a month.
22:25
So yeah, that's just the way life is until we get better connectivity. That is awesome. Sounds like a joke, doesn't it? Oh man, I've worked in low bandwidth areas, and that's, you gotta be creative. Yeah, yeah.
22:41
So we got another question. So you carried out any study groups using this VR tech with indigenous people. If so, how did that go, and what did they gain in their experiences? Yeah, okay. Wow, I don't know who asked that question, but here's somebody who knows the environment. Absolutely.
23:00
Not only that, we're looking at the applications of this for preservation of cultural artifacts and archeologic digs. So one of the things we've gotten, you saw the products of drone photogrammetry, and you saw me talking about open drone map. Imagine an archeologic excavation
23:20
where after you erode a series of layers, you're constantly recollecting imagery of the site as you move down to that archeologic excavation. And then you get a slider in the virtual environment that becomes either depth or time depending on how you're looking at it. So we've already explored applications for cultural preservation with this,
23:43
and yeah, that's a real fusion there. I don't even know where to begin talking about all the potential applications we have for, I mean, and people seem to love this. We've got, oh my God, I'm sorry, I'm so lost by the sheer number of concepts that are flooding to my head where we've talked about applications for preservation
24:04
and development of Inuit culture that involve VR. The VR is kind of the one thing, the GIS does play into that. And it's like that one thing I was talking about, archeology and moving down through layers is where the GIS meets VR, which is why I presented that one. But yeah, don't get me started.
24:20
That's a four hour conversation to talk about the other applications. Man, that's awesome. It does appear, so that was probably the last question. So how, okay, another question. We got a few minutes, like a couple more minutes. How did you end up in the Arctic? So you said originally commercial life,
24:41
and then you ended up up there, and then I heard father-in-laws, so I'm assuming marriage was somehow involved or something. Yeah, yeah, my wife sent me up here. The last place I was working prior to coming up here was in Northern Alberta doing environmental remediation of oil and gas spill for raw material and product.
25:05
And I kind of got tired of that game and took a year off and in my year of bumming around, my wife found this opportunity for, it was a three-year contract to come and I actually did develop the geographic information system to manage and administrate
25:21
all of the Inuit-owned lands of Nunavut, which is actually more area than the Holy Roman Empire at its largest, and basically built the GIS to administrate Inuit-owned lands. I then trained a number of Nunavut Inuits to run and administrate the system and then left that organization. So I thought I was coming out to hammer out
25:41
two years of a three-year contract, and that was 13 years ago. I stuck with that first organization for eight years, took a year off to go out on the land and just experience all the wonder that this environment has to share. And then I joined the Hierarchic Research Station about four years ago.
26:01
Wow, that's amazing. Well, cool, man, that was excellent. Current temperature? Oh, it's starting to be regularly icy here. We've had snow every day for the last month and the ice is starting to freeze, so it's generally hovering around minus one, minus two.
26:22
It's when the ocean starts to freeze that you know it's cold. That's the good stuff. Excellent. Christopher, thank you. That was good. Hey, my pleasure. Yeah, yeah, very quick. But, oh, you can find me if you just look up Christopher Arko on the Canadian government GEDS, GEDS tool.
26:44
And if you'd like to contact me with anything else, by all means, I'd love to hear from anybody. Excellent. Good deal, man. We will take a very small break and then come back with Mr. Hughes and make this work. All right, have a great day, everyone.