Establishment of quality standards for basic spatial information with high usability such as roads/railways/buildings

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has finalized the ‘Spatial Information Research and Development Innovation Roadmap’ and the ‘Basic Spatial Information System Improvement Plan.’

Spatial information is gaining importance as a foundation for supporting the development of new industries such as self-driving cars, drones, and smart cities in the era of the 4th industrial revolution. However, domestic spatial information technology is only 74.5% of the world's best, and the technology gap is about 3 years behind.

Research and development to overcome this has also shown limitations in that it does not properly reflect future prospects and technological demands, and is promoted by focusing on areas where research and development is possible in terms of fragmentary demand response.

In addition, inconveniences in use due to the lack of systematic quality management of basic spatial information, which serves as the basic framework for integrating/utilizing spatial information such as terrain, roads, rivers, and buildings, have been continuously raised.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has been working to establish a roadmap for innovation in spatial information research and development (R&D) by forming a committee with participation from academia, industry and research institutes since September of last year, while also continuing efforts to establish a plan to improve the basic spatial information system.

1. Spatial Information Research and Development Innovation Roadmap
As we enter an intelligent information society where big data and artificial intelligence are commonly used in our lives, cyber-physical systems are expected to play a key role in smart land management and improving convenience of life.

Accordingly, the need for the development of spatial information technology that can recognize, predict, and control reality through analysis and simulation experiments that consider spatial situations and virtualize (digital twin) all information in reality with spatial information is increasing.

Based on this situational awareness, we decided to promote the development of seven core technologies in four key areas: virtualization, hyper-connectivity, intelligence, and utilization support, under the vision of “a smart country and a convenient and safe life created with spatial information.”

According to the roadmap, approximately 159 billion won will be invested over the next eight years. Considering urgency and feasibility, two projects will be launched first in 2018, including the development of realistic 3D convergence content renewal and utilization support technology. The specific technology development contents and investment amounts for the remaining projects will be sequentially promoted after a preliminary feasibility study from 2019.

2. Improvement of basic spatial information system
In order to resolve inconveniences in the use of basic spatial information, we decided to promote the reorganization of the basic spatial information system, including establishing data models and quality standards and improving the management and distribution system.

First, the country selected core spatial information and adjusted the items of basic spatial information to properly construct and manage it, while establishing quality standards and data models for basic spatial information items with high usability, such as roads, railways, buildings, and boundaries.

The current system that only lists detailed items has been reorganized into a system that groups similar items together and classifies them by field, type, and layer. In addition, after conducting a survey and interview survey (April - May 2017) and consultation with relevant ministries (September 2017), it was decided to exclude indoor spatial information and watershed boundaries from the basic spatial information items in consideration of usability and location compliance.

In order to minimize inconveniences in use, such as location errors when overlapping spatial information is constructed without consistent standards for each production organization, data models and product specifications for roads, buildings, etc. will be established, while a dedicated basic spatial information management organization will be designated to oversee the quality management of basic spatial information.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport expects that through the development of core technologies presented in this spatial information research and development roadmap, it will overcome the limitations of existing spatial information construction and updates and evolve into core technologies that support the construction of ‘intelligent space (Geo-CPS)’ and the realization of a ‘smart country.’