All posts by Juan B. Plaza

Saving Alcatraz (Digitally)

The infamous island is under attack by climate change, rising sea levels, and old age. Can scanning it from the sky and on the ground preserve it? When the first functional photogrammetry uncrewed aviation vehicles (UAVs) became mainstream technology around 2013, geodesists and land surveyors around the world adopted these flying wonders as an innovative...

What GIS (knowledge) can do for AI?

Part 3 By Juan B. Plaza and Giulio Maffini Now that we have explored what AI can do for GIS in the first two parts of this series, let’s embark in the more complex task of exploring what a GIS-empowered AI will look like. First, let us clarify that it is our belief that it...

What AI Can Do for GIS

Part 2 By Juan B. Plaza and Giulio Maffini Before we can even attempt to describe what AI can do for GIS, we need to understand what a GIS is and how it is used. What do these three letters mean? A pretty good definition is: A geographic information system consists of integrated computer hardware...

Interview with ChatGPT

Answers to Questions put to ChatGPT 3.5 Validating our Thought Experiment Premises  How do you convert an ArcGIS vector map to a Geodesic Planetary Model using a Quaternary Triangular Mesh (QTM)   ChatGPT:Converting an ArcGIS vector map to a Geodesic Planetary Model using a Quaternary Triangular Mesh (QTM) is a complex process that involves several steps....