Free Geography Tools

GIS On A Stick

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:35:29 +0000

Jo Cook of Oxford Archaeology has created a portable suite of Windows’ GIS applications that can be run from a thumb drive on any Windows XP/Vista system, or from your local hard drive, with no installation required. Applications include: GRASS, a powerful but complicated GIS Quantum GIS (version 10), a simpler GIS viewer/editor that incorporates some GRASS [...]

New Features At MapChannels.Com

Leszek Pawlowicz — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:47:30 +0000

MapChannels writes to announce a few new features: Holiday Maps: Create an embeddable Google Maps window with the option for additional information layers: Panoramio photos Geo-tagged Wikipedia articles Google Street View Traffic Layer Weather Information User-defined KML or GeoRSS Layers Index sidebar Hotel search using the Map Channels Hotel Directory Google search Slide Show Google Earth 3D (note: currently buggy, doesn’t work for me in Firefox 3) MapChannels [...]

Summer Hours

Leszek Pawlowicz — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:25:40 +0000

I’ve been posting roughly four times a week on this blog, but that may slow down a bit over the next few months. After 10 hours of excavating in 100-degree temps (38-degree temps outside the US), it’s sometimes hard to summon the energy to write a post, and weekends are needed for recovery. I should [...]

OKMap - GPS Mapping Software For The Beta-Adventurous

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:28:13 +0000

An email, and comment on a previous post, led me to OKMap, a GPS mapping program that has lots of promise, but currently has a few issues. The feature set is certainly interesting: Open vector data in many different formats (OziExplorer, GPX, shapefile, DCW), and export/upload data Import raster images, and calibrate them; import raster images with [...]

Spreadsheet Tools For Lat/Long, MGRS and UTM Coordinate Conversions

Leszek Pawlowicz — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:17:19 +0000

Cartisan Maps has several free spreadsheet tools for basic coordinate conversions; each one can handle up to 5000 sets of coordinates. Files are in Microsoft Excel format, but seem to work fine in OpenOffice 2.4. Cartisan Map Coordinate Converter: Enter latitude and longitude in separate columns for degrees, minutes and seconds, and have them converted to [...]

KML Text Labels For Google Earth

Leszek Pawlowicz — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:19:40 +0000

While labeling items in Google Earth, you’re able to modify the font color, size and opacity. But one curious omission is the inability to change the font; you’re stuck with the Google Earth standard: The font also stays the same size regardless of how far away you are from the labeled area, which can be useful [...]

Tiling Large Maps For A Small Printer With PosteRazor

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:17:25 +0000

If you don’t have a large-format, or even medium-format, printer, you can still print full-size maps by chopping (tiling) the image into smaller subsections, and then taping all those subsections together to re-create the original map in large format. I’ve posted before about several ways to do that generically, and another option that lets you [...]

An Online KML Validator

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:19:10 +0000

A previous post linked to a video on how to add in-line KML validation to the Java-based text editor jEdit. There’s now another KML validation option for those who use their own editor to create KML files. Galdos Systems has created a free online KML validator; just submit a link to an online KML or [...]

Converting Raster Maps To Garmin Vector Format With BMap2MP

Leszek Pawlowicz — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:14:30 +0000

I’ve posted previously about Moagu, my utility that converts raster map imagery into raster-format maps for some Garmin GPS units. Moagu creates a true bitmap image for Garmin units, with advantages (accurate map and photo reproduction) and disadvantages (slow display times). An alternative approach is to convert a raster image into many small vector polygons, [...]

Sets Of Custom Garmin Waypoint Icons

Leszek Pawlowicz — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:20:55 +0000

I did a series of posts a while back on creating custom waypoint icons for compatible Garmin GPS units. If you don’t have the time or patience to make them yourself, there are several free sets of custom waypoint icons available online: Western Maps LLC has a set of icons (original size is 16×16 pixels; the [...]