PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
July 2019
473
BOOK
REVIEW
The 3-D Global Spatial Data Model:
Principles and Applications, 2
nd
Edition
Earl F. Burkholder
CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, Boca Raton, Florida. 2018.
xxxii and 492 pp, 4 color and 109 black and white illustrations,
tables, index. Hardcover. ISBN 978-1-4987-2216-2. $116.00.
eBook and eBook rental are also available.
Reviewed by
Stewart Walker, sole proprietor,
photogrammetry4u, San Diego, California.
Earl Burkholder is a professional land surveyor, who, until
he retired in the latter 2010, held posts at Oregon Institute
of Technology and New Mexico State University. During a pe-
riod of self-employment between the two academic posts, he
worked on projects for the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional
Planning Commission. These projects confirmed the concepts
he proselytized in the first edition of The
3-D Global Spatial
Data Model: Principles and Applications
, published in 2008.
Burkholder argues that point information should always be
held in a 3D database and located in a three-dimensional,
right-handed, rectangular Cartesian coordinate system with
the origin located at the center of mass of the Earth. The XY-
plane lies in the equatorial plane with the X-axis through the
Greenwich meridian. The Z-axis coincides “very nearly with
the mean spin axis of the Earth, as defined by the Convention-
al Terrestrial Pole” (p. 4). Burkholder’s Global Spatial Data
Model (GSDM) concept, however, also includes mathemati-
cal concepts and procedures that can be used to work with a
GSDM repository and compute geospatial information such as
coordinates, distances, bearings, and azimuths in the base or
other coordinate systems as required. Your reviewer, until he
read the book, mistakenly thought that GSDM was some sort
of formal standard, but it’s the work of the author, who writes
persuasively and competently.
The concepts behind GSDM are not new, but even the basic
definition advanced above hints that there is some geodesy in
store. After two chapters on GSDM itself, the book continues
with three solid chapters that rapidly review spatial data and
the science of measurement, mathematical concepts, and geo-
metrical models for spatial data computation. There follow five
tougher chapters on geodesy – overview, geometric geodesy,
geodetic datums, physical geodesy, and satellite geodesy and
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). The foundational
material necessary to understand and work with GSDM con-
tinues with a chapter on map projections and state plane coor-
dinates and another on spatial data accuracy. The remaining
three chapters are concerned with the application of GSDM:
computing a linear least squares GNSS network; computing
network and local accuracy; and a series of sample projects.
There are five technical appendices, the most interesting of
which provide short histories of the development of GSDM and
the terms “network accuracy” and “local accuracy”, and a ten-
page index. For many readers, the value of the book may lie in
the ten review chapters: these are best construed as a whis-
tlestop refresher, not an alternative to the major texts on sur-
veying and geodesy that prospective specialists must peruse.
The book is well written and proceeds logically, though
some of the review chapters move so fast, for example, the
material on map projections, that their utility may be com-
promised. There are few typos and errors – and most of those
are corrected on the website of the author’s company, Global
COGO, Inc. The purpose of the book, of course, is to showcase
Burkholder’s GSDM, but his palpable enthusiasm results in
many repetitions of arguments. Moreover, considerable space
in the last three chapters is used to reproduce computer out-
put. This shows the GSDM resources, which are cited copious-
ly and could be of great value to readers interested in adopting
the system, but is hard to justify in an expensive hardcover
book. All the referenced URLs were viewed in May 2017 – let
us hope they still function.
Chapter two is new to the second edition, together with his-
torical material on GSDM and commentary on the new hori-
zontal and vertical definitions to be introduced in 2022 by the
National Geodetic Survey. This is revealed in the preface, but
the preface to the first edition is reproduced verbatim: it would
have been easier on readers if the two had been combined.
Decisions on datums and coordinate systems are more like-
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 85, No. 7, July 2019, pp. 473–474.
0099-1112/19/473–474
© 2019 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.85.7.473
