[Geowanking] open voxel space and an open photosynth

[stephen white]

On 01/07/2008, at 5:02 AM, Anselm Hook wrote:
> I wanted to just share the observation that it might be time for us  
> all as a community to look at building a kind of open photosynth -  
> what could be called an 'open voxel space' map of the planet.

Count me in.

> The goal would be to start collecting all photographs and building  
> an open 3d model of the photographed planetary surface of earth.   
> Basically one would be building a kind of open voxel space - a 3d  
> model of our cities and spaces - and this could help with other  
> projects.

Rich Gibson expressed interest in doing an Open Street View, and that  
would be a good piece of the puzzle.

> Generally I feel that the best data is more data.  An Open Voxel  
> Space could help with lots of other problems.  We define and attach  
> labels to streets as a way of doing a kind of manual position  
> sensing.  We of course care to know about streets and paths because  
> we cannot walk through walls.

Instead of voxels for volume (and to answer Alan Keown), I think  
there's a need for a new meta-model to handle the vast range of data  
without categorising anything.

Voxel is very flexible in 3d, but it has the disadvantage of  
inherently categorising to 3d shapes. It wouldn't cope so well with  
varying concentrations of gases over an area (it could define the  
region, but not densities), or other organic shapes where the  
boundaries become a puzzle of where to draw the line.

I think David Gelernter nearly had it right with Mirror World, agents  
and intelligent linking of events. Where we could improve on things is  
avoiding the use of tuple space as that inherently requires labels and  
values, which in turn is categorisation.

So here's the new meta-model... instead of schlurping labels and  
values around, change the whole thing to a Turing machine and schlurp  
code instead. The visualisation of data would interrogate code  
(objects, agents) for relevant values.

> Also (and this is less firm, more speculative, but still seems  
> marginally relevant): maybe a voxel map of space; that wasn't just  
> focusing on labelled streets or paths, but on space in general,  
> might also help with the puzzle of better delivering real time and  
> volatile data to people - "just in time knowlege" - the "help I lost  
> a kitten" kinds of stuff.  It's unclear to me why there isn't really  
> a kind of real-time bartering service yet - perhaps twitter is  
> closest - but one that focuses more on discrete signalling for very  
> specific services; rather than just "saying"... Maybe a better map  
> of space could help - maybe the issue is that "distance" between  
> things is blocked by buildings in a way that street-maps don't quite  
> convey and when that is not clearly factored in it acts as a barrier  
> to surmounting distance?

The meta-model as code can respond to standard queries (like physics)  
or ignore other things, and all of them do have to respond to a set of  
standard queries like location and time (like physics). So there could  
be groupings of interfaces for things like recorded information,  
derived information, overlaid theories, etc.

The visualiser would interrogate the gas agent at specific locations  
and times. Gas dispersion could be calculated or read off from data  
within the agent. The visualiser would render the information however  
it felt like drawing it. The visualiser can interrogate multiple  
agents and render by its own choice.

By that same methodology, agents can query other agents and summarise,  
becoming meta agents. Basically Gelernter's book "Mirror Worlds",  
using Linda with Turing instead of Tuple. :)

--
   steve at adam.com.au