Planet Geospatial

Butterflies Made of Maps

2009-07-07T01:41:46Z

Image Surgery takes maps and charts and shapes them into butterflies, then arranges them like butterflies on pins in a case. They're for sale, for several hundred pounds and up. Via Cartophilia....

ArcGIS on a Microsoft Surface

2009-07-07T00:55:38Z

We talked a little bit about how we saw Autodesk using MS Surface devices and HP Touch computers in our coverage of AU’08 back in December, and we were excited by the tech. ESRI’s new Applications Prototype Lab recently posted a few sample videos of eight apps that are built using ArcObjects for use on an MS Surface. Sue may be especially in the sample built using XNA and the Globe Control (below) that incorporates some of the ideas that she has been waiting on me to work on (pesky dissertation). I have been trying to figure out how to get the $15,000 for a Surface for a while and the examples have just bumped up that search. If you would like to support my effort to get one of these for research and classroom use please send an email to youhavegottobekidding@veryspatial.com

BLM Maps Potential Solar Energy Areas

2009-07-07T00:47:03Z

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is looking into using federal lands for solar energy development, and has issued maps of six states showing the locations of so-called Solar Energy Study Areas where solar energy generation may be a possibility. "Only lands with excellent solar resources, suitable slope, proximity...

Nous sommes arrivés à Montpellier

2009-07-06T23:27:11Z

We had an idyllic overnight flight from Denver, long slog through the mirror-world disasters of LHR (nice new terminal, but no jetways or gates, lots of hiking) and CDG (plenty of jetways and gates, dangerously decrepit terminal), and a with only 2 rough bedtimes are comfortably established in Montpellier. My wife, Ruth, has a sabbatical from CSU, a Fulbright, and an appointment at INRA (French equivalent of the USDA, more or less). I'm telecommuting to ISAW. This is our home for the next year.

It's an interesting city. We're in the quartier Les Cévennes which rather reminds me of some Albuquerque neighborhoods: dusty and somewhat scruffy, renting from a pair of teachers who are off on an exchange to Morocco. There's a fine bakery and a good pizzeria down the street, we hear the neighborhood école is excellent, and there's a reliable evening breeze. One trip to a suburban garden store, one trip to a kitchen boutique in the centre for the essential skillet and badass chef's knife, and British Airway's return of my oldest's car seat so we can get safely to the beach, and we'll be completely set for the summer.

FOSS4G 2009

2009-07-06T22:51:58Z

I'm going! Are you?

We're hosting the Tour

2009-07-06T21:39:36Z

The Tour de France is in Montpellier tomorrow: every seven minutes a team departs la Place de la Comédie in the center, heading up the 1 km hill on our own Avenue du Professeur Louis-Ravas less than 4 minutes on, and then looping around to the NW, West, and SW, arriving at the Stade Yves-du-Manoir about 45 minutes later. This evening, my oldest daughter and I went out to take some pictures in the rue before the race.

This spot on top of a wall at the Maison pour tous Paul-Emile-Victor should be the best viewing location. I'm not sure how early I'll need to get out there with the patio chairs. An hour before the caravan?

My kid is excited about the race: wants to be a bike racer when she grows up, race with her little sister (like the Schleck brothers), be fast like Mark Cavendish, and sleep in castles every night.

Last photo is looking down the course (and uphill) toward the Alco roundabout and Grabels. We'll try to reproduce these shots during the race tomorrow afternoon.

Michael Jackson NeverLand Ranch up for Charity Auction via WhatsYourPlace google mashup

2009-07-06T21:34:08Z

Neverland Ranch is being auctioned off on Whatyourplace with the proceeeds being donated to charity - the German Red Cross. Recall this mashup allows users to bid on real estate (Virtually) —...

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State of the Map: an idea got Big

2009-07-06T21:10:26Z

Later this week I’ll head back over to Europe for State of the Map (SOTM), the annual OpenStreetMap conference. Three days of talks, demonstrations, brainstorming, demos, and camaraderie. In fact, GeoCommons is a Sponsor again this year (all three years and counting) with a very exciting and interesting surprise on how we’re supporting the conference.

Of all the upcoming conferences (Open Gov Innovations, GeoWeb, FooCamp) I have to admit I think SOTM is the most exciting. All the conferences are about change – incredible advancements that have come about in the past few years – but State of the Map has gone from a nascent concept, even an activist movement against the complex, and onerous licensing requirments of geospatial data in the UK, to a global phenomenon that is being leveraged by individuals, companies, governments, and global NGO’s.

For verification, take a glance at the OSM statistics. Two years ago there were just 8,000 registered users, last year there were 40,000, and today there are more than 124,000 users! The “Year of Edits” video never fails to leave an audience speechless and amazed. The US WhiteHouse is using OpenStreetMap and projects like WikiProject Palestine Gaza show that OSM is the tool people now turn to in a time of crisis and for data.

On Sunday I’m giving a talk about how we’re using OpenStreetMap in GeoCommons and our private GeoIQ servers: “Enterprise and Government Visualisation Analytics using OpenStreetMap”. It’s just one example of many about the power open and crowd-sourced data has in supporting and growing businesses and serving customer and citizen needs. Other companies such as CloudMade, DevelopmentSeed, and itoWorld are also building out the ecosystem that is necessary for open, community projects to have a longevity.

There is an entire suite of tools that has been given form and purpose because of the huge amount of open data. Mapnik and other map rendering engines have data attributes to style; JOSM, Potlatch, and other vector editing tools are beginning to provide more compelling, and non-expert interfaces for modifying topological, geographic data; GPS export, data licensing, navigation and routing are more problems that have been explored and solved through the OpenStreetMap community.

So I’m excited about State of the Map because it means a result of thousands of individuals hard work and aspirations culminating in a meeting to celebrate what has been accomplished and also set goals to much higher, and diverse peaks. It’s proof that a crazy idea of people running around with GPS receivers can make a real impact.

Thought 32845: The Secret Business Model of Satellite Imagery

2009-07-06T19:27:10Z

Traditional business models involving satellite imagery have not kept up with the times. I know some will disagree with me, but it’s true. Here is why I think that is the case. For as long as I can remember remotely sensed imagery business models have followed one or two pathways. The first involved outright selling of [...]

New Blog from ESRI’s Applications Prototype Lab

2009-07-06T18:27:07Z

ESRI’s Applications Prototype Lab have just launched a blog which will showcase innovative proof-of-concepts and other interesting research. Last month the lab released two videos of Surface applications, here and here. Today the lab released eight new Surface videos here.

For more videos please visit the post here.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Surface,ESRI,Applications Prototype Lab

Here Comes the Anti-Database “Movement”

2009-07-06T18:14:29Z

I’ve been seeing more and more articles like this one from Computerworld about abandoning SQL databases.

The meet-up in San Francisco last month had a whiff of revolution about it, like a latter-day techie version of the American Patriots planning the Boston Tea Party. The inaugural get-together of the burgeoning NoSQL community crammed 150 attendees into a meeting room at CBS Interactive. Like the Patriots, who rebelled against Britain’s heavy taxes, NoSQLers came to share how they had overthrown the tyranny of slow, expensive relational databases in favor of more efficient and cheaper ways of managing data.

NoSQLers? Oh boy are we going to be in for it when they hear how critical databases are for the geospatial industry. To me this “revolution” sounds more like a backlash against the traditional SQL DBA who doesn’t want to change in the face of “Web 2.0″. Of course it is very easy to move to a new data storage platform when you either have a ton of money or no product yet. While I do think technology such as Google’s BigTable and Amazon’s SimpleDB as an inevitable course for many web applications, wholesale abandonment of SQL and databases such as Oracle/SQL Server/PostgreSQL is absurd.

No-SQL "Patriots" dump RDBMS without a care to the implications...

James Fee's Keynote from FME User Conference

2009-07-06T16:57:00Z

I noted James Fee (of the James Fee GIS Blog and RSP Architects Ltd.) presented the keynote at the 2009 FME International User Conference in my event coverage. Safe has allowed us to embed the video here for all to see. We are happy to share this presentation titled "Removing Barriers to Data Sharing."

Continue reading "James Fee's Keynote from FME User Conference"

Help Google Earth with Survey, and other GE-related News

2009-07-06T16:33:37Z

Help Google Earth with Survey - Google is conducting a short survey on Google Earth. Here's your chance to help improve the product. You can leave comments and suggestions at the bottom.
1 Million Followers - @ Google is the first Google twitter id to reach 1 million followers.
Featured Modeler - Google has announced another featured 3D modeler at their SketchUp blog. This time the lucky guy is John of Dursley, England whose main objective is to model his home town. John is a retired architect, so he brings a more educated perspective to his 3D models.
Panoramio April Photo Contest Winners - Check out the winners of the April photo contest from Panoramio. The winners get prizes of photo geotagging tools from the sponsor ATP.
Google Earth for travel - Nice article about using Google Earth to share your travels.

How To: Display an ArcGIS Server Cached Tile Layer as a Custom Map Type with the Google Maps API for Flash

2009-07-06T16:15:00Z

Overview

This is the third post in a series where I discuss techniques for interacting with the ArcGIS Server REST API from within a Flex 3 application built with the Google Maps API for Flash. The first and second posts presented and refined an example that demonstrated how to stream features from ArcGIS Server and overlay them on top of Google Maps data. This post demonstrates how to display an ArcGIS Server cached tile layer as a custom map type with the Google Maps API for Flash.

Sample Application Concepts

The sample application works as follows:

The Google Maps API for Flash is embedded in a Flex 3 application.
A cached tile layer representing Land Base features for Portland, Oregon is served via an ArcGIS Server Map Service, accessible via ArcGIS Server’s REST API.
The cached tile layer appears as a custom map type in the Google Maps API for Flash User Interface.
The cached tile layer is displayed at zoom levels 0 - 19.

Here are a couple of screen shots of the sample application. The first shows the application with the custom “Land Base” map type selected. The second shows the application with the normal map type selected.

Live example is here, and source code is here. Read More...

Utility Job Opportunities Up in the UK

2009-07-06T16:05:08Z

The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) publishes a biannual survey of the graduate jobs market in the UK. The most recent Summer survey found that overall job vacancies had dropped by 25%. Almost all sectors were down, but, bucking the trend, vacancies in the energy, water and utilities sector rose by 7.1%. The latest survey surveyed 226 graduate recruiters in the UK across 15 sectors who will employ a total of 12,650 graduates in 2009. The research was carried out in May and June 2009.

In the last Winter survey, overall vacancies dropped by 5.4 % with the fiancial sector particularly hard hit. However, vacancies in the engineering sector were up by 8.3 %.

ERDAS IMAGINE 2010 will have a Shoebox, what is that?

2009-07-06T15:57:02Z

In the new Ribbon Interface for ERDAS IMAGINE 2010 we will add a new feature named, "Shoebox." The idea is to provide the customer a easy to use tool where a list of the data they are likely to use in a project are readily available. The Shoebox will not load the data in a database, but rather create an XML list of the locations of the data.

Hammad Kahn outlines some of the basic concepts of the Shoebox in, “Kicking Around With the Shoebox,” found at labs.erdas.com. Some of you have commented and asked questions below the article.

We may seem a little vague at times when discussing things on labs.erdas.com because it may not be the right time to discuss the more strategic features and future of new tool. Please do not feel we are offended when we side-step a question. In fact, we will use the specific question to help refine the new tool and from time-to-time contact you in private for clarification.

Anyway, please check out Kicking Around With the Shoebox at: http://labs.erdas.com/blog_view.aspx?q=6098

Help Jordan Hatcher attend SotM

2009-07-06T15:54:00Z

The author of the ODbL, Jordan Hatcher is looking for support to hit SotM. You can donate today. Read more on his blog post:

I’ve booked my travel and am in the midst of preparing my talk at State of the Map (SOTM) 2009 in Amsterdam.

Throughout co-founding Open Data Commons and drafting the Open Database Licence (ODbL), I’ve spent several hundred hours of attorney time, all donated pro bono. While I’m more than happy to donate more time to come speak at SOTM (including a day off work and about 2 days of prep time), I don’t want to be out of pocket on any of my expenses. Even though the licence may be free as in beer and free as in liberty, it isn’t free to travel from the UK to Amsterdam and stay two nights, especially in high season.

I’ve tried to travel and stay as economically as I can, and so I’m only asking for about 554£ to cover my expenses, which include:

– 159 € for return train travel Reading, UK to Amsterdam

– 280€ for 2 nights hotel

– 32 € for bicycle rental at Damstraat

– 75€ = 25 €/day for incidentals and food while traveling

– 100€ Community Passport registration at SOTM

Total 646€ (about 554£)

All money donated in excess of the costs of travel will go towards the goals of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a non-profit promoting open knowledge: that’s any kind of information – sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata – that can be freely used, reused, and redistributed. OKFN organizes events like OKCon, run projects like Open Shakespeare, and develop tools like CKAN and KnowledgeForge to help people create, find and share open material.

Please go to

http://okfn.org/support/donate/

.. to donate via PayPal and mark your donation “SOTM”

I also would very much like your suggestions on what I should cover in my talk – and if I don’t get a chance to address it feel free to come up and find me!

US National Weather [RADAR] Animated

2009-07-06T15:53:59Z

US National Weather Animated

"A very good visual way to mix Openlayers and Google Maps with near real-time Radar information"

Animated Weather and Hazard Warning (Fire Risk, Flash Flooding etc)
Very Smooth and Animates in near real-time over the next 24hrs

Speed of animation can be controlled as is the Opacity of the overlays.

Individual Weather Monitoring Stations can also be displayed

At the time of this post South Dakota has Flood warnings across the state
http://radar.srh.noaa.gov/?zoom=3&lat=43.8511&lon=-98.4131&layers=B000TTTTTTTT

Feedback Survey - Good to see they want feedback from users

http://www.weather.gov/survey/nws-survey.php?code=RIDGEII

KMZ Overlays for Google Earth (and Other KMZ accepting applications)

"While the RIDGE radar display allows for the use of interactive toggles with the image, RIDGE images can be best utilized with GIS software. This page allows you to create "kmz" files which are compressed "kml" files compatible with several GIS software applications"

http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/kmzgenerator.php

UK Met office related post (take note UK MET OFFICE ;)
http://mapperz.blogspot.com/2009/06/met-office-google-maps-weather.html

No One Ever got Fired for Buying Linux

2009-07-06T15:00:07Z

For a while there, Microsoft made a lot of hay about the London Stock Exchange using Windows in their trading system.

As it turns out, too much hay. The LSE is now going to abandon their Windows trading system. As the author points out, IT failures aren't all that rare, what is rare is learning about them. Usually the principals bury the body and move on to "Phase II". In this case the principal was fired, and her replacement is hanging out the dirty laundry.

Another thing that is rare is for a dominant vendor to shoulder any blame for these kinds of failures. The usual principle is that, if everyone is doing it, it can't possibly be stupid.

Did you buy an expensive web mapping server and then have to put it on a nightly re-boot cycle to avoid service degradation? Don't worry, everyone is doing it, it doesn't reflect badly on you.

Is all your e-mail locked in binary file archives, where a small corruption can render the entire archive irretrievable? Don't worry, everyone is doing it, it doesn't reflect badly on you.

It's not an IT thing, really, it's called "culture", our common shared beliefs and idiosyncrasies.

Did you start your day by repeatedly accelerating and decelerating a 4000lb metal box holding only yourself and a cup of coffee over a hot tar field, place your box in another hot tar field, and then hike over the tar field to a large glass box enter, and place yourself inside a further fabric covered box? Don't worry, everyone is doing it, it doesn't reflect badly on you.

MapWindow Release Candidate 2 Announced

2009-07-06T14:59:00Z

The MapWindow Version 4.7 RC2 has now been released. This is a good sign and seems to indicate the time line for the final release (October 2009) will be attainable. I have notice some bugs have been fixed for this RC including cleaner install on Vista machines and some issues around cartographic elements like exporting the scale bar and north arrrow. A couple of bugs that are still to be resolved at this point are previous zoom issues and incorrect scale bar showing for printing and previewing maps.

All in all this release (4.7) promises to be a significant improvement on 4.5. There has also been significant movement on version 6.0 which is being developed in parallel with the current version. Visit http://www.mapwindow.org for more details.

The W3C Browser Geolocation API

2009-07-06T14:29:55Z

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) have published a Geolocation API specification that allows a web page to query the user's location using JavaScript to access objects exposed by the browser. Last Tuesday's release of Firefox 3.5 was the first mainstream implementation of this API.

This article demonstrates how to use the new geolocation functionality, and implements it in an existing Google Maps application.

CitySearch in search for killer local mobile/web application for Sidewalk.com

2009-07-06T14:22:56Z

I got this tip off from Michael regarding an interesting contest that could get you some great recognition… and cash! Come up with an idea for a local search app, submit details, wait to be...

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My Favorite CSS3 Features You Can Use Right Now

2009-07-06T13:56:51Z

Although generally still in draft (it’s modularized and different pieces are further along than others), CSS3 support amongst modern browsers is getting much better. Here are a couple of my favorite tricks you can use right now. First, take a look at this: Here we have two average looking div’s with some h1 text, one plain and [...]

SpatialLite 2.3.1 and RasterLite 1.0 Released

2009-07-06T13:25:41Z

Alessandro made two announcements today. First SpatiaLite 2.3.1 has been released. Changes include: * including SQLite v.3.6.16 * including GEOS.3 1.1 * added SQL version functions: spatialite_version(), proj4_version(), geos_version() * added SQL functions: IsTiffBlob(), IsWaveletBlob() [RasterLite compatibility] * now supporting the ‘F’ (float) datatype for DBF [while reading some Shapefile] bug fixes: * fixed a stupid initialization bug disabling [...]

Consolidated Mosaic

2009-07-06T13:20:16Z

Consolidated Mosaic is a working name for a new mosaic paradigm that will be introduced in ERDAS IMAGINE 2010. Consider the different tools ERDAS, Inc. has for mosaicking images:

ERDAS IMAGINE's MosaicTool (original mosaic tools, good defaults options)
ERDAS MosaicPro (advanced MosaicTool, easy cutlines, ortho-correct from block files )
ERDAS ER Mapper Mosaic (fast virtual mosaic, a lot of capacity, limited capability)
ERDAS ER Mapper Color Balance (fast color balance, limited to true color)
ERDAS Image Compressor (fast ECW and JPEG 2000 compression)
ERDAS IMAGINE's MosaicDirect (Wizard to feed to MosaicPro and batch)
ERDAS IMAGINE's MosaicWizard (Wizard to process mosaic)
ERDAS IMAGINE's Virtual Mosaic (more capability than ER Mapper Mosaic, less capacity)

What if we combined these products in a single product? What if you could mosaic >2.5 terapixels of data straight into a single >2.5 terapixel IMG, or to a 20:1 compressed ECW, or to a lossless compressed JPEG2000 image. What if you could break that >2.5 terapixel mosaic into tiles with your shapefiles (and it has no temp files)? What if you could do all this within a 32-bit operating system environment?

If you think this can help you, keep your eyes open for a WebEx or an erdas labs discussion on this topic very soon.

I gave you a hint of where we were going when I asked Hammad to post to The Field Guide in: http://field-guide.blogspot.com/2009/02/benefits-of-64-bit-architecture-in.html

EarthURL Released

2009-07-06T12:53:51Z

Roman Nurik is a Googler who develops tools to help developers create Google Earth applications. Recently he announced on Twitter the release of an application he's developed using the GE API which lets you easily pass a URL as a placemark. An app like this is handy for twitter which is all about passing short URLs to help add context to a message. Roman calls the app EarthURL.org. You simply use the GE Plugin to fly to a place you want to share, position the view you want (including 3D view angle), and then copy and paste the URL. Here, for example, is the Sphynx in Egypt .

EarthURL isn't the first easy GE URL targeted for Twitter (see EarthTwit), and going way back to shortly after Google Earth was released in 2005 there was the introduction of Tagzania. Tagzania allows you to mark placemarks in a concept they call "tags", and their URLs are short and easy to understand. See for example the location of the Eiffel Tower on their site, or with Google Earth . Twitter also lets you embed their tagged locations on a web page.

Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships from Finland

2009-07-06T12:43:18Z

Haven’t you always wanted to just take that flippin mobile device and just toss it as far as you can?? Well, each year in Finland you can do just that - enter the Mobile Phone Throwing World...

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The Need for Breaklines

2009-07-06T12:07:53Z

The need for breaklines has been debated for a number of years without a clear standard being developed.
Producing contours from a LiDAR survey causes additional issues in the area of breaklines.
Should we still be using contours in a 3D world?

A quick review of the literature reveals that the issue of LiDAR and breaklines has been debated for a number of years. This is an important issue because of the cost of creating them. Mark Romano from Earth Eye wrote a very important article on the topic in 2004. Dr. Qassim Abdullah, from Fugro also provided important insights in his PE&RS Mapping Matters column on the subject and how it relates to LiDAR point density. (The above image is from a presentation that he recently made.)

Unfortunately, like many of the other key technical issues involving LiDAR technology, there is no single correct answer, or accepted standard industry practice. I guess this is an indication of the maturity of the industry.

As both experts point out breaklines are a carry over from manual survey data collection workflows that produced a relatively sparse number of actual 3D data points. Without breaklines, you simply could not generate contours, unless you were in a field.

Enter LiDAR. Now the issue is too many points, and the fact that when combined with most digital terrain modeling software if the desired output is contours then breaklines and TINs may not be the best solution. The LiDAR data will certainly have to be thinned in the area of the breaklines if the end product is to be cartographically appealing.

My question is, “Why do we need contours in a 3D software environment? Weren’t contours needed to represent the third dimension on paper maps and for interpolation? Are there not better ways of describing and visualizing surfaces in 3D? And if that is the case, should we be using TIN to create the surfaces? Isn’t a grid approach better suited to LiDAR data collection methods?

Going Local for Online Degrees

2009-07-06T11:56:35Z

One upshot of the rise in online degree programs (I teach in one) is that many "commuter schools" have lost significant enrollment. Many are working to integrate an online component to keep those students.

But, findings suggest that as students get more comfortable with online education, location does matter:

The bottom line is that even online, for many students there seems to be no place like home. Surveys show around two-thirds of consumers interested in online education would rather do it at a local institution, notes Richard Garrett, program director and senior research analyst with Eduventures Inc., an education-consulting firm.

That preference may fade in the future, he says. But for now, "there's a strong sense, at least so far, that geography isn't removed from the equation by any means."

- The Chronicle of Higher Education

Exhibit Showcases Natural History of New York City

2009-07-06T11:32:59Z

A new map-based exhibit opened at the Museum of the City of New York titled, “Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City.” The exhibit consists of historical accounts, maps and computer models that explore the ecology of Manhattan from the time before it became a city, with the aim to reveal new details about [...]

Google Steps into Map-based Real Estate Search in Australia/NZ/U.S.

2009-07-06T11:31:29Z

The code for the tool was developed in Sydney and launches today in Australia and New Zealand. It has already been added to real estate searches in the U.S. Providers of real estate data can submit their listing, but some in the region have already said they will not, arguing they offer better portals. Some third party developers will no doubt think this is a land grab (ha!) for their business.

This is perhaps no different than when the large GIS technology vendors slowly but surely put their third party developers out of businesses. You have been warned.

- Brisbane Times

Roundup of Augmented Reality Ventures

2009-07-06T11:00:00Z

Augmented reality (AR) refers to layering computer generated (or collected) information on top of real time, real world data. Venturebeat offers a tighter definition that required live 3D data,but I prefer the broader one.

In any case, Venturebeat reviews the existing mobile AR browsers and content providers, along with the more "hockey" (so far) marketing uses of the technology. You've likely heard of firms like Earthmine, but may not have head of some of the other players.

Yahoo Placemaker Update: GeoMaker

2009-07-06T11:00:00Z

Placemaker is a developer tool to take locations from unstructured text and pop them onto a map. With some time on his hands, London-based Yahoo developer Chris Heilmann, made it more accessible to non-programmers in GeoMaker, which debuted July 1 (when many in the U.S. were getting ready for a big holiday weekend). The resulting autogenerated comes in two forms - an embeddable map (you need a Map Developer key) or the data in the geo microformat.

Heilmann is looking for feedback and plans to release the code as open source in the future.

- Yahoo Developer Blog Post (includes video demo)

via TechCrunch

Turning a GIS Commission into a Political District to Ensure its Longevity

2009-07-06T11:00:00Z

Louisiana Rep. Hollis Downs, of Ruston, introduced legislation that transforms the Lincoln Parish Geographic Information System Commission into a GIS district. Sounds like semantics, but it's more than that.

The legislation formalizes the entity meaning it can receive grants and will continue on. The current Commission has a year to year existence. Further, now that it's a political subdivision, the seven sponsoring agencies are required to fund it.

Even the governor’s office was behind the change; they see the district as a model for other parishes.

The seven agencies share hardware, software and information and after 16 years have invested $2.5 million into the system.

- Rushton Leader

Why Your GIS Conference Should include non-GIS Presentations

2009-07-06T11:00:00Z

Tim O'Reiily tweeted about a new exhibition at the City Museum of New York profiled in the New York Times. It's a project that recreates the natural history of the island of Manhattan, aka Manahatta. Is this an article I'd read or exhibit I'd attend? Not necessarily. But, include it in a "GIS" conference, and yes, I'd attend the presentation. I did; at the NYS Summit in 2008. And it was memorable.

How many presentations at today's events are really that memorable? Not so many. Which are memorable? One characteristic of the really memorable ones, so far as I'm concerned: presentations where we are not talking to ourselves. This was one of those. Consider that when putting together your conference program; I know we are doing that for the Location Intelligence Conference.

3D Routing Through OpenStreetMap-3D

2009-07-06T09:53:04Z

Users now can plan a route online at OSM-3D.org and then interactively fly along the route presented in 3D. Currently the routing is available for cars (fastest/shortest) as well as for pedestrians or bicycles for all of Germany. It is also possible to create an animation that follows the 3D route automatically. The application is powered by an extended version of OpenRouteService.org and uses the free data from OpenStreetMap.org and the Open Location Services (OpenLS) specifications of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

ArcGIS 9.3.1 Download Layer Package Patch

2009-07-06T00:17:58Z

ESRI released this patch a few weeks back but since then there has been a few issues so the patch has been pulled and updated. The final version of this patch is now up. The ArcGIS 9.3.1 Download Layer Package Patch was released to address issues with downloading secure content from ArcGIS Online when using ArcGIS.

This patch addresses issues with downloading secure content from ArcGIS Online when using ArcGIS Desktop. Content that is not shared with everyone cannot be downloaded. This patch allows all content from ArcGIS Online to be downloaded. We recommend that all Desktop users download and install this Patch at their earliest convenience to ensure the highest quality experience when working with ArcGIS 9.3.1.

ArcGIS Online is now in public beta. Information about this can be found here: http://mandown.co.nz/esri/.... It is highly recommended for those going to make use of ArcGIS Online to apply this patch.

Information on this patch, including download links can be found here: http://support.esri.com/index.cfm...

A VerySpatial Podcast – Episode 207

2009-07-05T23:00:21Z

A VerySpatial Podcast
Shownotes – Episode 207
July 5, 2009

Main Topic: Our conversation with Chris Sharpe of Holistic City

Click to directly download MP3

Click to directly download AAC

Click for the detailed shownotes

Music

This week’s podsafe music: “Red Light” by ODi

News

New Aster elevation dataset
First test images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
GAO to investigate FEMA flood mapping techniques
Software
–ArcGIS Online Beta/li>
–Firefox 3.5 ships

Web Corner

News Games

Main topic

This week we feature our conversation with Chris Sharpe, Director of Holistic City, as we discuss CityCAD, Streetscape, and Holistic City in general

Tip of the Week

Free Remote Sensing viewer software – Tetracam’s Briv32, SPRING, ERDAS ER Viewer, PCI Geomatica FreeView

Events

Applied Geography Conference 2009: 28-31 October, Baton Rouge, LA
5th gvSIG Conference: 2-4 December, Valencia, Spain
2010 State of the Arctic Conference: 16-19 March, Miami, FL
2010 MidAmerica GIS Consortium (MAGIC) Symposium: 18-22 April, Kansas City, MO

This week A Very Spatial Podcast is sponsored by ESRI.
The Early Bird deadline for the 2009 ESRI Electric & Gas User Group Conference is July 17th.
The conference is taking place October 11-14 in Atlanta, Georgia and will go beyond presentations and demonstrations as an engaging forum for professionals from all types and sizes of electric and gas utility organizations. Register online at www.esri.com/egug.

GI Forum 2009 - Salzburg, Austria

2009-07-05T17:01:43Z

I’ll be attending GI Forum 2009 in Salzburg, Austria this week. An excellent program is online. On Wednesday I will chair a session on Digital Cities. There is a strong sustainability them to the event and AGIT also runs. If you are interested to meet, let me know. I’ll blog from the event and write [...]

Using R to Create Misc. Patterns [smocking]

2009-07-04T23:15:08Z

Pattern Chunk

Premise
My wife asked me to come up with some graph paper for creating smocking patterns. After a couple of minutes playing around with R-base graphics functions, it occurred to me that several functions in the sp package would simplify grid-based operations. Some example functions, along with a simple approach to generating "interesting" patterns, are listed below.

The Nokia N97 un-boxing video

2009-07-04T21:23:53Z

I captured this video a couple of weeks ago, but in case you missed it here it is… enjoy! A special treat as I unbox the Nokia N97 S60 smartphone (S60 5th edition). The N97 is very comfortable,...

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Free Data Viewers

2009-07-04T20:46:17Z

Free data viewers for a variety of GIS formats. These viewers allow you to display geographic data as well as perform some basic GIS functions. ArcExplorer The free GIS application offered by ESRI products. A lighter version of ArcView this application allows basic mapping and spatial querying. ArcReader ArcReader is a free, easy-to-use mapping application that allows users [...]

Augmented Reality App for iPhone 3GS - another reason to upgrade

2009-07-04T17:37:48Z

This is a great reason to think about upgrading to iPhone 3G S… augmented reality!! A great video showing augmented reality for searching the London Tube… amazing watching the data...

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Canada Establishes Two ISO Standards on Geospatial Data

2009-07-04T13:24:07Z

Canada established two standards on geospatial data. They are designed to help users across all government departments to locate, understand, use and share geospatial data. The primary idea here is to achieve greater efficiency through reuse. From the press release: The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat has established the Standard on Geospatial Data for the Government of [...]

links for 2009-07-03

2009-07-04T03:09:58Z

Barco | Barco Events | On tour this year... A 360° experience

U2 concert tour's transformable 360-degree giant LED screen:

Comments (0)

Free GIS Stuff

2009-07-04T02:38:38Z

All of the costs involved to learn GIS, purchase hardware and software, and obtain data can be a bit disarming. Listed here are some completely free GIS related resources. ArcVoyager Special Edition A package designed expressly for school use, based on ESRI’s ArcView, and available for both Windows and Macintosh systems. ArcVoyager Special Edition contains runtime [...]

Nearest Tube Augmented Reality App for iPhone 3GS – The AR is starting

2009-07-03T22:22:58Z

I’ve just spent the last few days in London rushing around the place, not really having a clue where I was going. Meaning that most of the time I’d rather jump into a cab than take the tube.

Well that and the heat, the Underground is hot, taxis have Air Conditioning. Also I generally don’t know where the tube stations are … however if I had this …

(YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fZk0HaIs4s)

… then I probably would grab the Tube. As one of the comments on YouTube says …

“You missed a trick here. Surely the app could also work out my average walking speed so that as well as the distance to destination it could also display time to walk to it? :)”

To which I’d just add that it should also show when the next train is due to arrive. Allowing you to figure out if you need to speed up, or can relax.

Although not yet approved acrossair are one of the first groups of surely many many more to get AR apps out there. This is just the beginning. I also hope more people concentrate on these specific apps then general ones that’ll try and do everything.

(oh and more games plz)

[Via: LDN]

Is Canada unlocking the GIS Data vault finally? Perhaps!

2009-07-03T21:09:31Z

For years now, Canada (ironically, the home of GIS) has been criticized for locking up Geospatial data in government vaults, with sharing and donating data to each other being non-existent (almost)...

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GeoServer 1.7.5 critical WMS patch

2009-07-03T19:43:10Z

The latest stable GeoServer version, 1.7.5, was released with a small but critical bug that slows down rendering when a very small polygon or a line is displayed at a high zoom level (so that the displayed area is a very small fraction of the
whole). The slowdown increases as one zooms in, and eventually may lead the Java Virtual Machine to crash.
The bug also makes for non optimal rendering of cased roads (the typical highway display).

The issue is actually due to a Sun Java bug, but happily we have a workaround for it. If you find you’re affected by this problem, follow these simple instructions:

stop GeoServer
download this patch jar and save it under geoserver/WEB-INF/lib
restart GeoServer

Voilà, bug gone.

We want to thank Stefan Ziegler for the quick bug report and the other users that reminded us of how important this patch is.

XHTML2 Bites the Dust

2009-07-03T19:26:43Z

As reported on Slashdot and elsewhere, W3C has ended the XHTML2 working group’s charter and increased the resources working on HTML5. This effectively kills XHTML2 and places HTML5 as the defining standard for HTML content going forward. Well, once it’s finalized anyway. I always thought pursing two widely overlapping standards was odd, and I fastened my [...]

Summarizing Grouped Data in R

2009-07-03T18:34:52Z

A colleague of mine recently asked about computing basic summary statistics from grouped data in R. These are a couple examples that I suggested. Additional documentation for the plyr package can be found here.

Ignite Boulder 5 moments from the Boulder Theater

2009-07-03T17:27:44Z

Messing around a little more with some of my media sharing tools… here’s a “moment” that I’ve created on thismoment.com sharing some images and videos from last...

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The Web Goes Local

2009-07-03T13:47:34Z

Clive Thompson's piece on location services makes a point I was planning on making in a future piece, damn him, as he looks at how location services may transform the Web: The whole reason the Web revolutionized the world was that it rendered geography irrelevant. People connected worldwide based not...

Quote of the Week

2009-07-03T13:14:45Z

"It’s extremely gratifying. I can’t wait for this to show up on Google Earth for the first time."

Entrix Inc. senior project scientist Chris Pfeifer on Slough’s Gut Marsh which his company helped rebuild in Delaware (corrected per comment) in the Cape Gazette.

Images from Ignite Boulder 5

2009-07-03T12:57:23Z

Last night in Boulder, CO at the Boulder theater, myself and some 740+ attendees took in another fine edition of Ignite Boulder (#IgniteBoulder 5). This was the first time at the Boulder theater for...

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Japanese Imperial Army Maps Online

2009-07-03T12:31:25Z

Maps from the Japanese Imperial Army archives are now online (Japanese language archive) and might be used to study changes in forest cover or the growth of cities, per one researcher. Some of the maps date back to the 1880s. The maps were collected, copied or created during times of Japanese colonialsim, making residents of some impacted countries less than pleased with their appearance on the Web.

- AFP

Spike!

2009-07-03T11:06:40Z

Here’s a snapshot of recent activity on the Royal Tennis Court website that I run, from Google Analytics:

My secret spike tip is to get your site mentioned on the BBC website: works every time.

ODbL 1.0 launched

2009-07-03T08:56:05Z

The Open Database License 1.0 has been launched. Check out OSM’s implementation plan.

The ODC announcement is here:

The Open Database License (ODbL) is an open license for data and databases which includes explicit attribution and share-alike requirements.

This license, the first of its kind, is a major step forward for open data. There are currently very few licenses available suited to data and databases and none which provide for share-alike (existing share-alike licenses such as the GPL, GFDL and CC By-SA are all unsuitable for data).

The development of the ODbL, has been a major effort extending over more than one and half years with an intensive consultation and review period for the last 6 months. We’d like to express our thanks to the communities and individuals who have contributed during this time.

How does remote sensing connect to the concept of ecological building and infrastructure?

2009-07-03T08:46:02Z

In the ‘Perspectives’ column this week - “How does remote sensing connect to the concept of ecological building and infrastructure?” Remote sensing has a strong relationship to the concept of ecological building. Unlike green building and sustainable architecture which are more directly oriented to building performance and efficiency, ecological building is based on ecology. [...]

GlobalMapper v11 (Beta1) now with OpenStreetMap

2009-07-03T08:40:31Z

GlobalMapper v11 (Beta1) now with OpenStreetMap

"Global Mapper just got even better."

Open Street Map as a background layer note: OSM Rasters are projected on the fly to British National Grid in this case.
But very useful now the Digitising Tool is updated and dock-able (also shown)

One of the best and affordable GIS software packages around just got a lot better.

Global Mapper v11 (beta1) now introduces OpenStreetMap as background layer for your map projects, It is also available to capture your own content.

New Features: summarised as the list is way too long

- Added free built-in access to global street-level maps from OpenStreetMap.org via the File->Download Online Imagery menu command.
- Added real-time display of current cursor information (location, distance, elevation) to 3D Path Profile dialog. In addition, you can now also click to define a sub-path on the 3D Path Profile dialog and get information about that sub-path displayed.
- Added support for scaling point symbols, adding custom point symbols from PNG, GIF, and JPG files, and easily creating symbols of custom sizes and colors for common shapes, like dots, squares, etc.
- Added toolbar for Digitizer/Edit Tool to make it easier to perform many commonly used operations.
- Added ability to create new line features by tracing them without clicking at each vertex with the Digitizer/Edit Tool.
- Added ability to rotate and scale features using the Digitizer/Edit Tool.
- Added support for numerous new formats, including Vertical Mapper (MapInfo) Grid, QCT, QED, HTF, SPS, BAG, and many others.

All of the other numerous changes are listed in the What's New document that is displayed during installation.

Prior to the v11.00 release we also plan on adding several other major features, including a map layout tool for more easily creating finished maps, PDF export, DWG export, access to better world-wide imagery, support for combining area features, and support for exporting new multi-band files.

Please visit this forum for the latest new and link to the download
A great way to allow many users to comment on new features and find potential bugs before a full released version
Download Global Mapper 11 (beta1) from here: (Includes full version for a limited number of days '15th July 2009')
There is also a 64-bit version of Global Mapper for 64-bit versions Windows
http://www.globalmapperforum.com/forums/announcement-news/4301-global-mapper-v11-00-beta-1-now-available.html

GlobalMapper v11 with be officially released v11.00 in approximately 1 month.

Unregistered Versions do work with this software though you will not be able to export data or overlay more than 4 layers of data. But for the price $349 or $129 (upgrade from v10) you get a lot features for your money.

Well done to the GlobalMapper Team always surpassing expectations.

New Related Post:
In addition there is a very good blog post showing you how to make your own customised maps/imagery for bing maps
http://www.soulsolutions.com.au/Blog/tabid/73/EntryId/610/Getting-your-custom-imagery-onto-Bing-Maps-with-Global-Mapper-and-the-Cloud.aspx