The (Grand) Challenge of Visualization

If you're spending your weekends figuring out how to use 3D geospatial tools to visualize the human impact on climate change, or better yet, you're devising new tools to do Google Earth and ESRI one better, make sure you get yourself over to the International Symposium on Digital Earth's Grand Challenge 2007 by April 1st. As the site says:

How can we better experience this world of ours at the cross roads of human impacts and climate change? How can we best communicate these experiences, particularly in light of the major changes Earth now faces, as one world? How can we most compellingly understand and communicate those experiences and processes? What 3D experiences or 3D tools can you share that might encourage the opportunity for a better world?

If you think you can do this in a way that demonstrates how people can more easily and effectively communicate, YOU COULD WIN BIG!

Although there is a Publishers' Clearinghouse element to this come-on (in fact, you may ALREADY be a winner!), their hearts seem in the right place, and certainly my heart beats faster when someone talks about innovative visualizations of social issues. So, what is it exactly you're supposed to do to win this contest? Keep scrolling down, and they finally tell you at the bottom that "Entries must demonstrate unique or innovative applications, tools, or utilities for 3D Visualization". So in other words, maybe you've found something interesting to do with an existing web 2.0 app, or maybe you've gone ahead and coded your own. Given the competition for uptake among new software tools, I'd be more interested in the former -- what new stuff can you do with what's already out there? However, my suspicion is that the contest will favor the latter -- new tools are more impressive than new applications of old ones.

But whichever way your heart lies, I'm delighted that Google Earth, NASA, ESRI and other sponsors are supporting this contest. And note, on the intellectual property issue: "Copyrights and ownership will remain with the author/creator; however, copyright permission to publish the entry and announce the winner's name will be retained by the ISDE5 Secretariat.". So if you are building a tool, make sure it's open source, would you? The rest of the world will love you even more.