{"id":596,"date":"2018-02-05T01:47:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T22:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kusuaks7\/?p=201"},"modified":"2025-04-21T11:18:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T11:18:40","slug":"pay-attention-to-spatial-data-it-is-the-next-frontier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/bigdata-cloud\/pay-attention-to-spatial-data-it-is-the-next-frontier\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay Attention to Spatial Data, It Is the Next Frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tReady to learn Data Science? Browse courses<\/a>\u00a0like\u00a0Data Science Training and Certification<\/a> developed by industry thought leaders and Experfy in Harvard Innovation Lab.<\/em><\/strong>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWith an almost endless list of sources \u2013 including map and satellite data, catchment areas, service points, building and customer locations, land use data, urban data, and communication pathways \u2013 spatial data is a valuable global commodity which comes in many forms. Spatial data also comes in different representations and scale, for example the New York subway is presented as a route map versus an actual physical map.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\nSo why do businesses need to process spatial data and what are some of the challenges they face in doing so at scale?\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpatial data has always played a role in logistics planning and location determination, but in recent years \u2013 due to an explosion of human mobility data, produced by smartphones, wearables, and the Internet of Things \u2013 its use has become multifaceted. Businesses are keen to analyze human mobility data, including spend, ecommerce, traffic, search, and event data, to better understand human activity and inform a wide variety of applications. And as these human activities happen in the real world, businesses also need to process spatial data to provide a contextual framework within which to analyze human actions, and to link multiple data streams.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpatial data attributes associated with every type of data in an enterprise is key to link data and establish context around different data points. As the data deluge continues, understanding spatio-temporal relationships between different data points is essential to interpret what is happening in reality \u2013 to understand a customer, to understand where your supplier parts are, or what your competitor is doing.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\nTo truly action on human mobility data, it must be analyzed at the appropriate spatial scale, allowing businesses to spot patterns in\u00a0activity across different geographic areas and build strategies accordingly. By incorporating spatial data into their analysis, businesses can identify location-related aspects that influence consumer trends, and can anticipate future changes that may occur due to changing spatial conditions. Spatial data also enables analytics insights to be visualized within the context of maps, making them easier to understand and more engaging.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\nThere are a number of challenges to be faced in the large-scale processing of spatial data:\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Variance in coverage and quality<\/strong><\/h3><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAs with most data types, spatial data coverage varies greatly by country and area, with metro, suburban, and rural areas represented at different density levels. The quality of data surrounding the coverage of place categories and the spatial distribution of places of interest is highly variable \u2013 with multiple different standards in effect \u2013 which can easily lead businesses to make erroneous inferences. It is vital to understand which types of physical world data to source and how to merge different data streams \u2013 such as ping data and trajectories \u2013 along both spatial and temporal dimensions to effectively inform business decisions.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Spatial data errors and gaps\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThere is plenty of room for error with spatial data \u2013 from GPS information gathered at varying levels of precision to intermediary manipulation of data \u2013 which can distort analysis. To limit the impact of spatial data errors, and support reasonable data-driven decision-making, businesses need to understand the data provenance \u2013 its original purpose \u2013 and must utilize data from sufficient different sources to identify gaps or inconsistencies.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Big Data support for processing spatial data<\/strong><\/h3><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpatial data processing requires large-scale usage of Big Data technology stacks. The ability to process human mobility data along with reference spatial data can happen in both real-time and batch modes. Each mode provides support for varying use-cases within a business depending on the nature of the requirement. For example, a business wanting to locate it\u2019s next retail store will require very different spatial and human mobility data to a business looking for a cab route to collect a customer in real-time. The variety of spatial data available is enormous and figuring out how to use it for better decision-making is a key ongoing R&D activity in many organizations. Investing in the right technology stack and working with key partners is essential to bootstrap this effort successfully.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Availability of data and talent<\/strong><\/h3><\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpatial data is not always readily available in the variety and quantity necessary to inform business decisions. Although a recent\u00a0survey<\/a>\u00a0by the Open European Location Services (ELS) Project reveals the majority of European National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registry Authorities (NMCAs) provide at least some geospatial data free of charge, this data is likely to be relatively limited in density and quality, and would need to be fused with a wide variety of other sources. There is also general a lack of knowledge and expertise, meaning businesses need to train their teams in multiple aspects of spatial data representations and use.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSpatial data provides endless opportunities for businesses to understand human activities in a real-world context, driving smarter business decisions. As long as issues of coverage and quality, data error, and the availability of data and talent can be overcome, spatial data really is the next frontier.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With an almost endless list of sources – including map and satellite data, catchment areas, service points, building and customer locations, land use data, urban data, and communication pathways – spatial data is a valuable global commodity which comes in many forms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":3275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[94],"ppma_author":[1711],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigdata-cloud","tag-data-science"],"authors":[{"term_id":1711,"user_id":198,"is_guest":0,"slug":"madhusudan-therani","display_name":"Madhusudan Therani","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Therani","first_name":"Madhusudan","job_title":"","description":"Madhusudan Therani is  Chief Technology Officer at Near<\/a>, an Ambient Intelligence Platform providing real-time information on places, people, and products. He leads the engineering and data science efforts at Near, and has a proven track record of working on large-scale data analysis, machine learning, text analysis, and decision-making models in a variety of domains including engineering design, product lifecycle management, online search and computational advertising.\n\n "}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37663,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/37663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}