Spatial computing doesn’t get much attention these days, however it plays a pivotal role in our everyday life. Almost every aspects of our life have a spatio-temporal context and we are using spatial computing services like map applications, location based services intentionally, but other activities, like ride sharing, public transport, the logistic pipelines behind online and brick and mortar shops and many other things rely on this fascinating field. Spatial Computing by Shekhar and Vold gives a brilliant overview of the state-of-the-art geoinformatics.

Distilling vast amounts of highly specialised knowledge must be extremely hard and that is what The Essential Knowledge Series by MIT Press tries to achieve. According to our experiences the books in this series delivers what one can expect from a short introductory book. Spatial Computing covers an enormous area, from satellites through digital maps to geographic databases and spatial algorithms, and it gives you the necessary information to understand the very basics of these things so you can continue exploring GIS on your own. We think this book is perfect for the general audience, however we don’t recommend it to those who actually want to learn practical GIS skills.

The cover image comes from one of our first spatial project.