Free Geography Tools

Back Soon

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:00:16 +0000

Been a long field season this year, which has kept me away from this site. Not over yet – still have one more session left, running through the end of next week. Then I’ll be back home, and hope to get this site cranking again soon.

Making Maps: A Visual Guide to Map Design For GIS – A Review Of The Second Edition

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:10:00 +0000

So I mentioned to a friend that I had just received a review copy of the new second edition of Making Maps by John Krygier and Denis Wood, and she exclaimed, “Oh, our university GIS department loves that book!”. No surprise – since its publication in 2006, the first edition has a become a staple [...]

3D Textured Models From 2D Photos With PhotoFly

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:36:00 +0000

Note: PhotoFly is now 123D Catch; click here for the main product page. A few years ago, Microsoft make a big splash with Photosynth, a program that analyzes 2D photos of an area, computes their relative orientation, and lets you view them in a quasi-3D environment. Here’s a live Photosynth of the London Eye: PhotoSynth [...]

Portable Version Of The Open Source GIS gvSIG

Leszek Pawlowicz — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:21:00 +0000

gvSIG is a full-featured open source GIS program, written in Java; I’d go so far as to call it one of the two leading open source GIS programs currently available (Quantum GIS is the other). Version 1.11 was released recently, with standard installers available for both Windows and Linux (and a special installer for Mac). [...]

Geodetic Tools For Google Earth

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:19:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, I posted about a web app from Metzger and Willard that offers useful info like PLSS data and a topo quad index in a Google Earth plugin interface. Poking around their site further, turns out they have a page called Earth Survey, a set of KML network links that installs those features [...]

Earth Survey Plugin: NGS Benchmarks, PLSS Data, USGS Quad Data And More

Leszek Pawlowicz — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:54:00 +0000

A while back, I posted about a free web app from Metzger and Willard that shows National Geodetic Survey control points (benchmarks) near a specific area, and lets you view data for those landmarks. I’ve just noticed that they’ve created a newer web app called the Earth Survey Plugin, running in a Google Earth browser [...]

Free Tools For Garmin Custom Garmin Vector Maps XIX: TypWiz, The Best TYP File Editor

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:20:00 +0000

I’ve done a long series of posts on this site about various tools you can use for creating custom vector maps for Garmin GPS units, one of the most powerful features for these models (even if Garmin itself doesn’t directly support it). One especially powerful feature is the capability to create your own custom point, [...]

LightSquared And The FCC – Still Doing Their Best To Destroy GPS

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:03:00 +0000

Back in February, I had a long post about the FCC’s conditional approval of LightSquared’s wireless broadband proposal. This waiver was vigorously opposed by the GPS industry because tests by Garmin showed that it would seriously disrupt GPS in areas where it was implemented. Read the post for a full rundown, but briefly LightSquared’s plan [...]

Real-Time Crowdsourced Mapping With Crowdmap

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:55:00 +0000

I first heard about the crowdmapping platform Ushahidi a few years ago; it’s an open-source app/platform that can collect/collate geotagged data in real-time from mobile observers, or delayed reports over the web. The data can then be mapped, viewed on a timeline, and analyzed. One significant obstacle to using the platform was the need to [...]

National Geodetic Survey Online Toolkit

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:21:00 +0000

The National Geodetic Survey has a set of links online conversion utilities for performing some basic geodetic conversions, including: High-accuracy state plane coordinate system (SPCS) conversions UTM/USNG/geographic coordinate conversions Magnetic declination Surface gravity prediction Azimuth/distance to a second position (or second position from azimuth/distance data) Position from a dual-frequency GPS data file Plus many more. [...]