Planet Georezo » November 18, 2010

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18 novembre 2010
23:02
The Map Room: MapQuest Introduces My Maps — Wait a Minute
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

MapQuest's new tool allowing people to save and share their own personal maps is called My Maps. The MapQuest Blog introduces the feature. Are they absolutely sure that name is a good idea ... ?...
22:55
The Map Room: German Street View Coverage Expands
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Google's limited coverage of Germany in Street View, which rolled out earlier this month in a few public areas and a single village, has now expanded to 20 cities; Google Earth Blog has a list. Previously: Street View’s Limited Rollout in Germany....

22:27
La carte des pays par population
sur Une carte du monde.

Et si les pays les plus grand étaient ceux qui ont la plus grande population ?

La carte des pays par population

La france se retrouve au Pérou, et l’on a quelques surprises comme le bangladesh, minuscule pays qui se retrouve a la place de l’Inde ou le Pakistan, a la place de l’Australie !

Certains pays ne bougent pas, comme le Brésil ou les Etats-Unis.

via tuxboard

22:10
Bing Maps Blog: Announcing the new Bing Maps site with a redesigned left-rail and broader access to Map Apps & StreetSide
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Today, we’re happy to announce the following additions and changes to Bing Maps:
1. Launch of the V7 AJAX control
2. Redesigned left-rail
3. Broader access to Map Apps & StreetSide
AJAX V7 Control

The launch of the next version the Bing Maps AJAX control provides consumers improved browsing performance, updated navigation controls, enhanced Bird’s eye and optimization for mobile.

You’ll notice the different position for the navigation and map layer options. Previously, these controls were in the upper left of the map and now run across the top of the map. Also, the Bird’s-eye option now refers to both our exclusive Bird’s-eye 45-degree angled view and a traditional top-down aerial view (there is a toggle to switch between the two).

About three weeks ago, we talked about the enhanced Bird’s eye that was being added to the AJAX site. The enhanced Bird’s eye adds synthetic building models for larger buildings (built using a combination of top-down and Bird’s eye views).

“Enhanced” Bird’s-eye

The “New” Left-Rail

We’ve updated the layout for easier navigation. So, one thing we changed is the left-side rail for Bing.com/Maps, giving you a direct on-ramp to what you want to do: get driving, walking, or transit directions; view live traffic and traffic cameras; view local restaurants and businesses; and explore Map Apps.

We feel the new design really surfaces how you can use Bing Maps to make decisions on which mode of transportation to use, when is the right time to avoid traffic, where to find local businesses, and how to experience Map Apps.

Unifying the Reach of AJAX with the Richness of Silverlight

Now, everyone using Bing Maps can access Map Apps and StreetSide (through a Map App). These features are still built on Silverlight and users will need Silverlight installed to use them. To access Map Apps, click either the “explore map apps” link or the Map Apps button in the lower-left of the screen. Use the search box or change the sort to find the map app you’re looking for.

I look forward to hearing feedback about the new Bing Maps site and the accessibility of Map Apps & StreetSide to all of our users. Enjoy!

Follow me @BingMaps ^BH.
Learn more on Facebook & Wikipedia

Brian Hendricks
Bing Maps Product Manager
21:16
All Points Blog: Microsoft Wants You to Know
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Moments ago Microsoft announced the release of the new Bing Maps AJAX Control 7.0. Built from the ground up to be agile and fast, the control is less than one-third the size of Bing's previous AJAX Control 6.3 and renders multiple points nearly thre...Read more

21:16
Microsoft Wants You to Know
sur All Points Blog

Moments ago Microsoft announced the release of the new Bing Maps AJAX Control 7.0. Built from the ground up to be agile and fast, the control is less than one-third the size of Bing's previous AJAX Control 6.3 and renders multiple points nearly thre...Read more

20:30
Écotech Québec dévoile le portrait des technologies propres québécoises
sur Directions Magazine : Blogue

À loccasion de son 2e Forum des technologies propres, Écotech Québec a dévoilé ce jeudi 18 novembre une carte interactive présentant les entreprises innovantes et les organismes de recherche québécois uvrant dans le secteur des technologies propres. «Ce puissant outil nous permettra de mieux positionner notre expertise tant au Québec, au Canada qu'à létranger et ce, dans un secteur en

20:16
James Fee GIS Blog: SHRUG GIS Workshop 2010
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I’ve been in Tallahassee, FL on the campus of Florida State University this week for the 2010 edition of Seven Hills¹ Regional User Group (SHRUG) GIS Workshop. They were nice enough to invite me for to speak during the keynote which I focused on the disruptive nature of GIS. I was also able to sit on a panel that talked about the struggles that local government is dealing with working with the cloud, data sharing and cost recovery. Some of the SHRUG leadership team was also kind enough to take me on a walking tour of Tallahassee at night through the Kudzu. Fun times, fun times.

There is quite the vibrant GIS community in the Tallahassee area. I had a really good time meeting everyone and look forward to coming back in the future. Now I’m off to Denver for a little WhereCamp 5280 debauchery. I sure hope I packed a jacket!

1: And here I thought Florida was completely flat, there are at least 7 hills in this state and I jogged up them in the morning.

20:16
SHRUG GIS Workshop 2010
sur James Fee GIS Blog

I’ve been in Tallahassee, FL on the campus of Florida State University this week for the 2010 edition of Seven Hills¹ Regional User Group (SHRUG) GIS Workshop. They were nice enough to invite me for to speak during the keynote which I focused on the disruptive nature of GIS. I was also able to sit on a panel that talked about the struggles that local government is dealing with working with the cloud, data sharing and cost recovery. Some of the SHRUG leadership team was also kind enough to take me on a walking tour of Tallahassee at night through the Kudzu. Fun times, fun times.

There is quite the vibrant GIS community in the Tallahassee area. I had a really good time meeting everyone and look forward to coming back in the future. Now I’m off to Denver for a little WhereCamp 5280 debauchery. I sure hope I packed a jacket!

1: And here I thought Florida was completely flat, there are at least 7 hills in this state and I jogged up them in the morning.

19:35
AnyGeo - GIS, Maps, LBS, Geo and Social Location Technology: 10 Geo Twitter Faves
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Once again, here’s a sampling of 10 cool and useful Tweets that I’ve faved over the past couple of days. Enjoy these fine tips and consider following some of these interesting Tweeps!
@OviPublish 3m apps downloaded from Ovi Store everyday, 165m Ovi users in 190+ countries @lacouvee Presenting with @jzinkewich at Pecha Kucha [...]
19:08
Mapoholic: Free geospatial data for Greece
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Enclosure: [download]

In a previous post (in Greek) I was complaining about the slap-dash look and feel of the free online service for viewing orthophotos provided by Ktimatologio S.A., Greece’s cadastral organization, . (You can view the site here. NOTE: You will not be impressed) Well, I definitely cannot say the same about the Geodata portal , [...]
18:57
NSGIC News: URISA’s Advocacy Agenda
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
URISA announces the development of their Advocacy Agenda, now in draft form. The basic components were developed at their annual conference earlier this Fall.

The document contains several references to NSGIC - our Advocacy Agenda and their interest in working with us. The URISA Advocacy Agenda is now in outline form, but will be further developed after a brief comment period.

The draft URISA Advocacy Agenda has four components:
1. Executive Support & Sustainable Funding for Geospatial Programs
2. Nationwide Development of High Quality, Publicly Accessible Geospatial Data
3. Affordable Geospatial Training Programs Offered by Academic Institutions and Other Organizations
4. Highly Capable Geospatial Workforce to Meet Current/Future Demands
18:41
AnyGeo - GIS, Maps, LBS, Geo and Social Location Technology: The New Yahoo! Goes Loco With Local offers and a Dozen Partners
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Out of the Web2.0 event this week in San Fran, Yahoo! has lifted the lid off their latest plans to harness the power of location and mobile location tech – enter Yahoo! Local offers. Some details… Yahoo! is launching its Local Offers program with more than a dozen partners to provide a wide selection of [...]

18:30
Comment la ville réinvente-t-elle la voiture ?
sur Les Cafés géographiques

Débat, "Comment la ville réinvente-t-elle la voiture ?" avec Antoine Beyer, université de Paris IV et Jean-Baptiste Schmider, Auto'trement, Strasbourg le jeudi 18 novembre à 18h30 au NUOVO CAFFE MILANO (23 Bd de la Victoire à Strasbourg. Tram Université)

18:10
Vector One: Renewable Resources: EU Wind-Biodiversity Guidelines
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The European Union has published ‘Guidelines to reconcile wind energy development and biodiversity policy’. I started to look at this closer to understand what these issues are. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also publishes guidelines for siting wind turbines. Research into this relationship has been ongoing for some time. As far back as 2005 [...]
18:03
Bing Maps Blog: Introducing the AJAX map control V7
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Today we have the distinct pleasure of announcing the release of the new Bing AJAX map control v7 (V7). It seems to be the year of 7s at Microsoft and we’re excited to carry on the reputation that V7 does indeed denote something very special.

Let’s start off with discussing V7 performance:

- V7 is less than 1/3 the size of our v6.3 control. This smaller size helps V7 load faster than our previous control.
- V7 renders multiple points on a map up to 3 times faster than v6.3. This improvement will help you deliver more information to your users, faster.

These numbers are based on internal tests of our compressed controls, including all secondary JavaScript, CSS and image-files. I invite you to try out V7 for yourself and compare. Add 10, 100 or 100s of pins and evaluate the performance. I think you’ll be pleased.

While you’re doing this, make sure to check out three other major features:

Optimized for mobile web. As more business is done on mobile, you need to have a control that’s built for mobile browsing. V7 delivers in these scenarios with a small control size, support for HTML5 and touch support for mobile devices.

Enhanced Bird’s eye. V7 introduces our new “Bird’s eye” to AJAX. It’s the same 45-degree perspective, viewable from all 4 compass directions imagery that you love – enhanced to include seamless, smooth panning at all zoom levels, life-like building models in urban centers and 3D-like terrain features. This new experience is ripe to provide a differentiated and highly useful perspective to your applications.

New map style. First seen on [www.bing.com] , our new map style for “road” and “hybrid” modes is now the default map style for V7. This means that when you build a V7 app, you’ll have the opportunity to show it off on an updated canvas with improved look/feel, readability and interaction with data overlays. We’ve received some great customer feedback since its first debut and we’ll be incorporating that into an updated version soon.

It also means that effective today, all Bing Maps customers have the opportunity to opt-in to the new map style for testing or production “go live” scenarios across all controls/APIs (REST Services and SOAP Services opt-in also goes live today). This opt-in period will end on April 30, 2011 and beginning on May 1, 2011, the new map style will become the default and only style delivered across all Bing mapping services.

So there you are –V7 is fast, is great for mobile web and introduces new and differentiated ways for you to connect with your customers. To learn more about all of the features and enhancements in V7, take a look at the Bing AJAX map control v7 SDK. Also look out for future blog posts that delve deeper into individual functionality.

I’d like to thank our engineering team for all of their hard work and our customers for building some of the best applications on the web - I look forward to seeing what you do with V7 on desktop and mobile!

Follow us @BingMaps
Learn more on Facebook & Wikipedia

Floyd Mendoza,
Bing Maps Product Manager
Enterprise Mapping
18:03
Bing Maps Blog: Introducing the AJAX map control V7
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Today we have the distinct pleasure of announcing the release of the new Bing AJAX map control v7 (V7). It seems to be the year of 7s at Microsoft and we’re excited to carry on the reputation that V7 does indeed denote something very special.

Let’s start off with discussing V7 performance:

- V7 is less than 1/3 the size of our v6.3 control. This smaller size helps V7 load faster than our previous control.
- V7 renders multiple points on a map up to 3 times faster than v6.3. This improvement will help you deliver more information to your users, faster.

These numbers are based on internal tests of our compressed controls, including all secondary JavaScript, CSS and image-files. I invite you to try out V7 for yourself and compare. Add 10, 100 or 100s of pins and evaluate the performance. I think you’ll be pleased.

While you’re doing this, make sure to check out three other major features:

Optimized for mobile web. As more business is done on mobile, you need to have a control that’s built for mobile browsing. V7 delivers in these scenarios with a small control size, support for HTML5 and touch support for mobile devices.

Enhanced Bird’s eye. V7 introduces our new “Bird’s eye” to AJAX. It’s the same 45-degree perspective, viewable from all 4 compass directions imagery that you love – enhanced to include seamless, smooth panning at all zoom levels, life-like building models in urban centers and 3D-like terrain features. This new experience is ripe to provide a differentiated and highly useful perspective to your applications.

New map style. First seen on [www.bing.com] , our new map style for “road” and “hybrid” modes is now the default map style for V7. This means that when you build a V7 app, you’ll have the opportunity to show it off on an updated canvas with improved look/feel, readability and interaction with data overlays. We’ve received some great customer feedback since its first debut and we’ll be incorporating that into an updated version soon.

It also means that effective today, all Bing Maps customers have the opportunity to opt-in to the new map style for testing or production “go live” scenarios across all controls/APIs (REST Services, SOAP Services and Silverlight Map Control opt-in also went live today). This opt-in period will end on April 30, 2011 and beginning on May 1, 2011, the new map style will become the default and only road style delivered across all Bing mapping services.

So there you are –V7 is fast, is great for mobile web and introduces new and differentiated ways for you to connect with your customers. To learn more about all of the features and enhancements in V7, take a look at the Bing AJAX map control v7 SDK and the recent announcement regarding Bing.com/Maps. Also look out for future blog posts that delve deeper into individual functionality.

I’d like to thank our engineering team for all of their hard work and our customers for building some of the best applications on the web - I look forward to seeing what you do with V7 on desktop and mobile!

Follow us @BingMaps
Learn more on Facebook & Wikipedia

Floyd Mendoza,
Bing Maps Product Manager
Enterprise Mapping
17:49
AnyGeo - GIS, Maps, LBS, Geo and Social Location Technology: Location Technology – More than just social check-in on Twitter (video)
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

In a recent presentation I delivered on mobile location technology I touched on a number of examples of how social media fanatics can checkin and share their location information on social media streams like Twitter and facebook… although, as we all know, location technology is about much more than just the social check in! I [...]
17:47
MapLoser: WhereCamp5280 Here We Come!
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

On Monday night some of FortiusOne was having drinks with Peter Batty, we were sad to be missing WhereCamp5280 this week though. However in a last minute flash of geonerd brilliance Andrew Turner booked himself and I last minute flights to Denver for WhereCamp5280. The second year of this unconference of all things location and geo I’m excited to see what sessions people propose this year. Last year there were talks on everything from CouchDB by my now coworker Chris Helm to OpenStreetMap to traditional GIS. This year there appears to be many more people coming from out of town so I expect even more excitement. Supermayor coconspirators Michael Wiseman and James Fee as well as fellow GeoGlitterDomination expert Thea Clay are attending just to name a few.

Things kick off with a hackday today. I’m hoping to continue work on pushing more social media streams into GeoCommons for temporal analysis, though if previous events are any indication it is entirely possible someone will have a shiny other project I’ll get distracted by. Tomorrow is the regular unconference which I expect a similar mix of academic geography, open source and traditional GIS, though perhaps with a bit more neogeography mixed in this year. I won’t be attending the Saturday event but there is ski mapping party as well. Overall I’m excited for a fun couple of days of geohacking and discussion!
17:44
VerySpatial: Save a (Geography Related) Word
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Oxford Dictionary is launching a campaign to save words that are being dropped from the English Language. According to their website, 90% of everything we write is communicated by a 7,000 word vocabulary. The Save The Words website, which allows you to “adopt” a word and keep it in use, has a hodge-podge collage of words to choose from many of them geography or location related. I located bimarian (relating to two seas), poliadic (of the nature of a local god), telligraph (charter outlining boundaries of landholdings),montivagant (wandering hills and mountains), cosmogyral (whirling round the universe), and ruricolous (living in the country or field). It an be argued that some words are just not used as often, such as ten-cent store, but it seems sad to lose them. The British Council asked “7,000 learners in 46 countries what they considered to be the most beautiful words in the English language.” The top five words were Mother, Passion, Smile, Love, and Eternity. I haven’t chosen the word I want to save yet, but I will in order to demonstrate my sodalitious (adj. belonging to society or fellowship) nature. (Wait — spell check don’t change it to seditious nature that isn’t what I meant.)

17:30
ESRI Canada choisie par lassociation nord-américaine Green Roofs for Healthy Cities pour son projet de toit vert
sur Directions Magazine : Communiqués de presse

ESRI Canada choisie par lassociation nord-américaine Green Roofs for Healthy Cities pour son projet de toit vert
17:30
ESRI Canada donne accès à des cartes interactives sur les téléphones intelligents BlackBerry grâce à la solution Freeance Mobile
sur Directions Magazine : Communiqués de presse

ESRI Canada donne accès à des cartes interactives sur les téléphones intelligents BlackBerry grâce à la solution Freeance Mobile

16:41
Fuzzy Tolerance: GIS Day 2010 Expo
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Mecklenburg County’s Public Service & Information department put together a great video on our GIS Day 2010 Expo.
16:31
Google Earth Blog: Google releases a lot more Street View imagery in Germany
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

A few weeks ago, amid a good bit of controversy, Google finally released Street View in Germany. It was a well-publicized release, largely due to the thousands of blurred houses, but it only covered tiny sections of a few cities. Now that has changed.

While it's still not the solid coverage like we see in the US or the UK, the coverage has just been expanded quite a bit, now covering 20 cities in Germany.

[UPDATE: The official post from Google is up.]

I haven't seen an official list of updated cities yet, but it seems to include Bielefeld, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Dusseldorf, Dresden. Hamburg, Hannover, Koln (Cologne), Leipzig, Mannheim, Munchen (Munich), Nurnberg, Stuttgart and Wuppertal.

If you're not familiar with using Street View in Google Earth, check out this great tutorial that Frank created last year.

Have you noticed new Street View imagery in any other cities/countries? Leave a comment and let us know!
15:46
got geoint?: Welcome to the “Think Geospatial” Column by Dr. Max Baber, Director of Academic Programs, USGIF
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, a first step into space that shocked America and galvanized our national resolve. We responded with significantly increased public investment in science/math education and committed the US space program to manned lunar landing before the end of the 1960s, barely more than a decade after the first satellite! Consider that achievement for a moment, and compare with where we are today — decommissioning our workhorse space shuttle fleet and sending American astronauts to the space station via Russian rockets.

Statistical comparisons among industrialized nations clearly reveal evidence of declining emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education in the United States. If this decline continues, how will we sustain the workforce required to maintain the leading edge of STEM innovation that fostered the US rise to national supremacy during the 20th century? Without ongoing investment in STEM education, our international prominence will surely fade. The GEOINT Community may not be reeling from the economic catastrophe that the rest of our nation is currently suffering, but deeper cuts in public education proposed by politicians represent a real and present danger for GEOINT workforce development.

US colleges and universities are the best in the world and international students now comprise 50 percent of the graduate student population in STEM programs at US research universities, in part because US students are not applying to these graduate programs and the international students are filling that vacuum. What is the root cause of declining interest in STEM education among US students? Is the strident anti-science rhetoric of populist politicians and news-talk personalities spilling over from issues such as evolution and climate change and affecting students and their parents as they consider collegiate majors? Have we simply become fat and happy as a society, unwilling to take on the greater challenges of STEM education in favor of perceived profitability of business and finance degrees? Regardless of cause, the GEOINT community has the political gravitas needed to influence public funding of STEM education, a worthy investment towards long-term strength in national security.
15:36
High Earth Orbit: Heading to WhereCamp5280
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I’m enroute to the mile-high city of Denver that boasts a plethora of geo-talent for WhereCamp5280. Today there is a ‘hackfest‘ at CU Denver Campus, then on Friday a full day of discussion, brainstorming and defining the future of geo.

It’s almost half-way between Where2.0 and WhereCamp5280 is stacked to be an interesting discussion of the current state of affairs in what has been called “the year of location”. And given the cadre of people that will be coming to WhereCamp5280, such as Waze, MapQuest, WeoGeo, Safe, Google, USGS, ESRI, numerous other geo-geniuses, and of course, a cadre of FortiusOne engineers – we definitely should have some fascinating discussions. I hope if you’re nearby you can make it too!

15:36
Andrew Turner: Heading to WhereCamp5280
sur Planet OSGeo

I’m enroute to the mile-high city of Denver that boasts a plethora of geo-talent for WhereCamp5280. Today there is a ‘hackfest‘ at CU Denver Campus, then on Friday a full day of discussion, brainstorming and defining the future of geo.

It’s almost half-way between Where2.0 and WhereCamp5280 is stacked to be an interesting discussion of the current state of affairs in what has been called “the year of location”. And given the cadre of people that will be coming to WhereCamp5280, such as Waze, MapQuest, WeoGeo, Safe, Google, USGS, ESRI, numerous other geo-geniuses, and of course, a cadre of FortiusOne engineers – we definitely should have some fascinating discussions. I hope if you’re nearby you can make it too!

15:30
Nouveau partenariat avec 3G (German GeoConsultants Group)
sur Directions Magazine : Communiqués de presse

Nouveau partenariat avec 3G (German GeoConsultants Group)

15:30
NAVTEQ acquiert PixelActive
sur Directions Magazine : Blogue

NAVTEQ a racheté PixelActive, une acquisition qui sinscrit dans le prolongement de la stratégie mise en uvre par NAVTEQ pour accélérer le passage à la 3D de la cartographie 2D, et fournit une nouvelle occasion de mettre les technologies 3D au service de lensemble des produits NAVTEQ.

Source : ITR manager.com

PixelActive est spécialisée dans les outils et les

15:24
Slashgeo.org: GeoNetwork Open Source v2.6.1 Released
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Two weeks after the 2.6.0 version of this geographic metadata catalog system, here comes GeoNetwork Open Source v2.6.1.

In addition to several bug fixes, other changes include:
- Added support for OpenLayers Map config options in map viewer
- Service to retrieve the metadata owned by a user
- Use redirect for login and logout services to show in browser address bar the url of main page, after login/logout
You are not watching this post, click to start watching

15:24
Slashgeo (FOSS articles): GeoNetwork Open Source v2.6.1 Released
sur Planet OSGeo
Two weeks after the 2.6.0 version of this geographic metadata catalog system, here comes GeoNetwork Open Source v2.6.1.

In addition to several bug fixes, other changes include:
- Added support for OpenLayers Map config options in map viewer
- Service to retrieve the metadata owned by a user
- Use redirect for login and logout services to show in browser address bar the url of main page, after login/logout
You are not watching this post, click to start watching

15:21
oegeo: First things first
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Enclosure: [download]
15:00
James Fee GIS Blog: ArcGIS Desktop 10 UI Wackiness
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
So recently I’ve moved my work from the 9.3.x version of ArcGIS to 10. There are some really great things with 10 that make it much easier to use¹, but there are some other things that I just have to scratch my head and wonder what they heck were they thinking.
Dissolve is Good Honest GIS Work
I had to create a vector output from a Esri Grid last week and I did the good old Desktop equivalent of GRIDPOLY and got my shapefile. But as you’d expect, there was millions of little polygons from the grid. I did what any sane geogeek would do, grabbed the dissolve tool. A couple clicks later I’m ready to hit the run button and watch ArcGIS struggle to dissolve such a large/complex dataset. But when I clicked the run button, away went the dialog and I assumed the process crashed. So bring of the dissolve again and try it all over again. Yup, away goes the dialog and I have no idea what is going on. I go to force quick quit ArcGIS and I see its churning away on the shapefile. Hmph…

Back to the ArcGIS Desktop window and what do I see in the lower right hand corner? This bizarre feedback…

I’m sure all the ArcGIS 10 users know that thing pretty darn well. All part of the “multi-threading” that ArcGIS 10 does. But it is so counterintuitive that I wonder how many times I might have force quit ArcGIS while that thing was moving along.
So What am I Looking at Here?
It’s an interesting design choice for sure. I wonder if they were in a conference room and couldn’t agree if it should be a progress bar or percentage complete feedback. I can only imagine the “eureka!” moment when they came up with this design choice.
```
"It's like a progress bar, only better" -- Esri UI Design Specialist
```
No it could be the most annoying Esri status feedback since that “Cylon eye” thing that ArcView 3.x used to do. I admit, I’m not the youngest rooster in the coop and my eyesight is poor, but I feel like I have to struggle to see what the darn thing is saying. I’m not the only person who feels this way either. I’ve had about 5 emails about this in the past two weeks asking me essentially, “WTF?”.
Neither Here nor There
We all know ArcGIS Desktop 10 is not multi-threaded. Before this hack², we had that dialog with the progress bar that was usually modal in nature. Click dissolve and then go to YouTube to watch Justin Beiber videos until ArcGIS was done. Now you don’t have to worry about keeping yourself busy while running a geoprocessing task. It does slow down ArcGIS (at least heavy processing), but it is surprisingly workable. But this half-empty solution clearly leads to weird design choices.
No I Don’t Want the Processing Dialog Back
What would work? For me, I like the percent complete feedback over a progress bar. But don’t scroll the darn thing. Just leave it up in the corner where is. If you have to have some sort of indication that something is going on, throw a throbber up there like happens when ArcMap redraws the view. That’s such a more elegant solution than this current one and it won’t make me put my nose on my screen trying to read what the darn thing is saying.

Oh and my dissolve is still running/scrolling along…

1: I love the basemaps being integrated in to the toolbar. So much easier than going to ArcGIS Online and clicking on the LYR file.

2: Now that might be a strong word, it does work pretty darn well. Let us not kid ourselves though, it is just a bandaid solution until they get true multi-threaded ArcGIS out.

15:00
ArcGIS Desktop 10 UI Wackiness
sur James Fee GIS Blog
So recently I’ve moved my work from the 9.3.x version of ArcGIS to 10. There are some really great things with 10 that make it much easier to use¹, but there are some other things that I just have to scratch my head and wonder what they heck were they thinking.
Dissolve is Good Honest GIS Work
I had to create a vector output from a Esri Grid last week and I did the good old Desktop equivalent of GRIDPOLY and got my shapefile. But as you’d expect, there was millions of little polygons from the grid. I did what any sane geogeek would do, grabbed the dissolve tool. A couple clicks later I’m ready to hit the run button and watch ArcGIS struggle to dissolve such a large/complex dataset. But when I clicked the run button, away went the dialog and I assumed the process crashed. So bring of the dissolve again and try it all over again. Yup, away goes the dialog and I have no idea what is going on. I go to force quick quit ArcGIS and I see its churning away on the shapefile. Hmph…

Back to the ArcGIS Desktop window and what do I see in the lower right hand corner? This bizarre feedback…

I’m sure all the ArcGIS 10 users know that thing pretty darn well. All part of the “multi-threading” that ArcGIS 10 does. But it is so counterintuitive that I wonder how many times I might have force quit ArcGIS while that thing was moving along.
So What am I Looking at Here?
It’s an interesting design choice for sure. I wonder if they were in a conference room and couldn’t agree if it should be a progress bar or percentage complete feedback. I can only imagine the “eureka!” moment when they came up with this design choice.
```
"It's like a progress bar, only better" -- Esri UI Design Specialist
```
No it could be the most annoying Esri status feedback since that “Cylon eye” thing that ArcView 3.x used to do. I admit, I’m not the youngest rooster in the coop and my eyesight is poor, but I feel like I have to struggle to see what the darn thing is saying. I’m not the only person who feels this way either. I’ve had about 5 emails about this in the past two weeks asking me essentially, “WTF?”.
Neither Here nor There
We all know ArcGIS Desktop 10 is not multi-threaded. Before this hack², we had that dialog with the progress bar that was usually modal in nature. Click dissolve and then go to YouTube to watch Justin Beiber videos until ArcGIS was done. Now you don’t have to worry about keeping yourself busy while running a geoprocessing task. It does slow down ArcGIS (at least heavy processing), but it is surprisingly workable. But this half-empty solution clearly leads to weird design choices.
No I Don’t Want the Processing Dialog Back
What would work? For me, I like the percent complete feedback over a progress bar. But don’t scroll the darn thing. Just leave it up in the corner where is. If you have to have some sort of indication that something is going on, throw a throbber up there like happens when ArcMap redraws the view. That’s such a more elegant solution than this current one and it won’t make me put my nose on my screen trying to read what the darn thing is saying.

Oh and my dissolve is still running/scrolling along…

1: I love the basemaps being integrated in to the toolbar. So much easier than going to ArcGIS Online and clicking on the LYR file.

2: Now that might be a strong word, it does work pretty darn well. Let us not kid ourselves though, it is just a bandaid solution until they get true multi-threaded ArcGIS out.

14:48
LiDAR News: Optech Calls for LiDAR Papers and Navteq Acquires 3D Firm
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Optech is going to host the Second Innovative LiDAR Solutions Conference in Toronto, Canada on May 31 - June 3, 2011. Continue reading →

Click Title to Continue Reading...
14:17
AfriSpatial: QGIS for Geography teachers
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Interest in QGIS is growing among high school Geography teachers in southern Africa. Teachers are looking for GIS software that is affordable, easy to use and understand and easy to teach with. They say it’s important to be flexible and creative in the classroom and not be stuck with fixed lesson plans. Hands-on work such as on-screen digitising and map composition is important. Quantum GIS satisfies all these requirements.

Following the recent QGIS workshop in the Western Cape we were invited to present a QGIS workshop at Michaelhouse College in kwaZulu-Natal Province. Twenty-two Geography teachers spent Monday 15th Nov in the Geography computer room learning the basics of QGIS and how it could be used in practical lessons. Bridget Fleming, as a Geography teacher who uses GIS in every lesson, gave an introduction from a teacher’s perspective and gave a background on FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and its history and principles. Then Gavin Fleming from AfriSpatial and Frank Sokolic from GIS Solutions / EduAction took QGIS through its paces.

Bridget’s tip for teachers who are daunted by technology is: “Just get the kids started and they will teach you the rest!”
QGIS course at Michaelhouse

addHSSlideshow('group2');

QGIS for Geography teachers is a post from: AfriSpatial

14:17
Gavin Fleming: QGIS for Geography teachers
sur Planet OSGeo

Interest in QGIS is growing among high school Geography teachers in southern Africa. Teachers are looking for GIS software that is affordable, easy to use and understand and easy to teach with. They say it’s important to be flexible and creative in the classroom and not be stuck with fixed lesson plans. Hands-on work such as on-screen digitising and map composition is important. Quantum GIS satisfies all these requirements.

Following the recent QGIS workshop in the Western Cape we were invited to present a QGIS workshop at Michaelhouse College in kwaZulu-Natal Province. Twenty-two Geography teachers spent Monday 15th Nov in the Geography computer room learning the basics of QGIS and how it could be used in practical lessons. Bridget Fleming, as a Geography teacher who uses GIS in every lesson, gave an introduction from a teacher’s perspective and gave a background on FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and its history and principles. Then Gavin Fleming from AfriSpatial and Frank Sokolic from GIS Solutions / EduAction took QGIS through its paces.

Bridget’s tip for teachers who are daunted by technology is: “Just get the kids started and they will teach you the rest!”
QGIS course at Michaelhouse

QGIS for Geography teachers is a post from: AfriSpatial

14:15
All Points Blog: LBS Tidbits
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Target has 242 stores offering rewards for Shopkicks check-ins. - Mashable Foursquare introduced more tools to manage its and partner badges. I guess that's important? - TechCrunch Disney has decided to partner with location service Gowal...Read more

14:15
LBS Tidbits
sur All Points Blog

Target has 242 stores offering rewards for Shopkicks check-ins. - Mashable Foursquare introduced more tools to manage its and partner badges. I guess that's important? - TechCrunch Disney has decided to partner with location service Gowal...Read more

13:57
All Points Blog: Data.gov Gets Open Data Community Page, Concept Document
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Data.gov now boasts an Open Data Community page with 10 categories related to the topic where those who register can comment and discuss. Among them: balancing security and openness; developing policies for global data sharing; and using geospatial d...Read more

13:57
Data.gov Gets Open Data Community Page, Concept Document
sur All Points Blog

Data.gov now boasts an Open Data Community page with 10 categories related to the topic where those who register can comment and discuss. Among them: balancing security and openness; developing policies for global data sharing; and using geospatial d...Read more

13:41
All Points Blog: Quote of the Week
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

"I'd like to see you invest in this [GIS]. Seventy percent of communities now have GIS in Illinois. If we don't get it we are going to be behind." - Ted Horner, speaking to the Watseka City Council's Finance Committee. Horner is Watseka's represen...Read more

13:41
Quote of the Week
sur All Points Blog

"I'd like to see you invest in this [GIS]. Seventy percent of communities now have GIS in Illinois. If we don't get it we are going to be behind." - Ted Horner, speaking to the Watseka City Council's Finance Committee. Horner is Watseka's represen...Read more

13:35
All Points Blog: Health GIS Tidbits
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

"Try the side-by-side app showing diabetes, obesity, and poverty rates demoed at #iogdc [tinyurl.com] #esri" via @martenhogeweg Promising tool for eradicating health insurance fraud? GIS. One of the most promising solutions to t...Read more

13:35
Health GIS Tidbits
sur All Points Blog

"Try the side-by-side app showing diabetes, obesity, and poverty rates demoed at #iogdc [tinyurl.com] #esri" via @martenhogeweg Promising tool for eradicating health insurance fraud? GIS. One of the most promising solutions to t...Read more

13:32
All Points Blog: Columbia Journalism Review on OpenHeatMap
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The post by Lauren Kirchner highlights how it's being used by journalists. - CJR...Read more

13:32
Columbia Journalism Review on OpenHeatMap
sur All Points Blog

The post by Lauren Kirchner highlights how it's being used by journalists. - CJR...Read more

13:12
All Points Blog: Esri Tidbits
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Matt Artz explains the quick coming and going of ArcMag, a print publication that never made it to print as ArcUser launched. - GIS and Science Blog "Besides using technology in education, the software trains future Esri employees, Beaumont sai...Read more

13:12
Esri Tidbits
sur All Points Blog

Matt Artz explains the quick coming and going of ArcMag, a print publication that never made it to print as ArcUser launched. - GIS and Science Blog "Besides using technology in education, the software trains future Esri employees, Beaumont sai...Read more

13:00
All Points Blog: Mashape Launches Marketplace for APIs (Alpha)
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Consumers of RESTful JSON-based services can find and use them and those who offer them can make them available (and make money). The vast majority of APIs we write about, however, are free (for now). But maybe this is being put in place as the free...Read more

13:00
Mashape Launches Marketplace for APIs (Alpha)
sur All Points Blog

Consumers of RESTful JSON-based services can find and use them and those who offer them can make them available (and make money). The vast majority of APIs we write about, however, are free (for now). But maybe this is being put in place as the free...Read more

12:59
Google Earth Blog: Three new 3D cities released on Japan
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

It's been a while since Google has officially released a 3D city (though new buildings are added weekly), so it was nice to see them add three more -- Yokohama, Sendai and Saitama, Japan.

The cities each feature thousands of buildings, and look excellent!

As they often do, Google has produced a nice little video to show off the highlights in the new cities, so check it out here:

To see them for yourself, here are some KML files that will fly you directly to each city: YokohamaSendai.kmlSaitama.kml
For more, check out the full entry on the Google Lat Long Blog.

12:44
Jackie Ng: Introducing: SequentialProcess
sur Planet OSGeo
Ever tried to chain multiple calls to FdoUtil.exe using a batch file?
I did recently on a client site, and found out that for one reason or another the Task Scheduler feature of Windows Server 2008 decided that the batch file I wrote was not going to run. After trying to find out the reason why (with no success), I tried running the individual calls to FdoUtil.exe with the Task Scheduler. Lo and behold they ran!
So armed with this knowledge, I have introduced a 3rd task type into FDO Toolbox, which will be in the next beta release: The Sequential Process.
A sequential process is simply an XML document that contains a series of calls to FdoUtil.exe, with an option at each invocation to abort the process if the previous FdoUtil.exe invocation returns a non-zero result (FdoUtil.exe returns 0 on success, otherwise it returns one of the predefined values here)
So for example, you can define a sequential process like so:
1. Run a SQL command to delete some rows 2. Execute a bulk copy task file (eg. SDF to SQL Server) 3. Run a SQL command to rebuild indexes
The SequentialProcess document would look like this:

Here's what it looks like visually (yes! This will have design support):

When you run this sequential process. Each step will be run as a separate FdoUtil.exe process, with the root process waiting for a return result from this process before continuing onto the next step.
For reference, FdoUtil.exe currently supports the following commands:
- ApplySchema
- CreateDataStore
- Destroy (data store)
- DumpSchema
- CreateFile (data store)
- RegisterProvider
- UnregisterProvider
- BulkCopy
- RunTask
- ExecuteSql
The sequential process task has opened up the design space for more FdoUtil.exe commands. So this list will definitely grow in size in future releases.
And yes, the RunTask command now supports SequentialProcess documents, so theoretically speaking, you can also nest Sequential Processes and other supported task types.
As I said before this is task scheduler friendly (the main reason for introducing this feature), so you can hook this up via the task scheduler for painless daily data updates or other automated spatial data maintenance.
12:42
QGIS Polska: blog:czwarty_hackfest - utworzono
sur Planet OSGeo

Recepta na piękną pogodę ostatniego długiego weekendu we Wrocławiu pozostanie tajemnicą Instytutu Klimatologii i Ochrony Atmosfery Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. Kiedy większość Wrocławian spędzała ciepłe dni poza miastem lub podziwiając kwitnące na Biskupinie stokrotki, we wspomnianym Instytucie przy ulicy Kosiby gwarno było jak w ulu, nieraz do późnych godzin nocnych, lub raczej, jak to w innych kulturach - do wczesnego ranka. Ostatni programiści zamykali komputery grubo po trzeciej w nocy, a pie…

12:41
Street View Expands in Germany
sur Google Maps Mania

Street View has expanded in Germany to cover 20 cities.

The cities that now have Street View coverage on Google Maps in Germany include the capital Berlin, Dresden, Bonn, Essen, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Hannover, Munich and Stuttgart.

Mapcrunch

________________

12:33
Spatial Sustain: Code for America Hopes to Spur Local Government Toward Platform Thinking
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Code for America is a non-profit organization that draws on the models of Teach for America and the Peace Corps to recruit and place top Web development talent to aid government technology initiatives. The effort to place coders, developers, writers and other talented Web professionals in one-year internships aims to spur government to adopt platform-style [...]
12:01
The Map Guy(de): Introducing: SequentialProcess
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Ever tried to chain multiple calls to FdoUtil.exe using a batch file?
I did recently on a client site, and found out that for one reason or another the Task Scheduler feature of Windows Server 2008 decided that the batch file I wrote was not going to run. After trying to find out the reason why (with no success), I tried running the individual calls to FdoUtil.exe with the Task Scheduler. Lo and behold they ran!
So armed with this knowledge, I have introduced a 3rd task type into FDO Toolbox, which will be in the next beta release: The Sequential Process.
A sequential process is simply an XML document that contains a series of calls to FdoUtil.exe, with an option at each invocation to abort the process if the previous FdoUtil.exe invocation returns a non-zero result (FdoUtil.exe returns 0 on success, otherwise it returns one of the predefined values here)
So for example, you can define a sequential process like so:
1. Run a SQL command to delete some rows 2. Execute a bulk copy task file (eg. SDF to SQL Server) 3. Run a SQL command to rebuild indexes
The SequentialProcess document would look like this:

Here's what it looks like visually (yes! This will have design support):

When you run this sequential process. Each step will be run as a separate FdoUtil.exe process, with the root process waiting for a return result from this process before continuing onto the next step.
For reference, FdoUtil.exe currently supports the following commands:
- ApplySchema
- CreateDataStore
- Destroy (data store)
- DumpSchema
- CreateFile (data store)
- RegisterProvider
- UnregisterProvider
- BulkCopy
- RunTask
- ExecuteSql
The sequential process task has opened up the design space for more FdoUtil.exe commands. So this list will definitely grow in size in future releases.
And yes, the RunTask command now supports SequentialProcess documents, so theoretically speaking, you can also nest Sequential Processes and other supported task types.
As I said before this is task scheduler friendly (the main reason for introducing this feature), so you can hook this up via the task scheduler for painless daily data updates or other automated spatial data maintenance.

10:30
Séminaire C&D 6
sur Articque - Les Sytèmes d'Analyse Géographique, la cartographie, le géomarketing et la géostatistique

Vous souhaitez participer au séminaire spécial Cartes & Données 6 à Paris Montparnasse le 16 décembre 2010 de 9h30 à 12h30 ?
Inscrivez vous en cliquant sur ce lien

8:07
Arnulf Christl: The Hierarchy and the Graph
sur Planet OSGeo

Recently I had an interesting thought about the Web. To the knowledgeable of us this is probably obvious but anyway. Just ignore me if it bores you.

The Internet is a HierarchyThe technical foundation of the Web is the Internet. It consists of a domain naming system and is typically three levels deep. The Internet top-level domain (which should be called the root-level?) is a two or three letter string as in com, org, de or us. For some reason they are not directly addressable (as empty nodes?). Below (or rather: growing from there) are the domain names as in osgeo.org or w3.org and they are addressable. Below (or rather on top) we oftentimes add a pretty superfluous "www" as in http://www.gov.vu/. Sub domain piling as in http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ typically visualizes over structured organizational mammoths. We can add directories to the other end of the string. Old sites make a habit of organizing their content in useless and empty directories like in http://www.osgeo.org/content/sponsorship/sponsors.html which is the identical resource as in http://www.osgeo.org/sponsors. But essentially there is no difference in how we structure them (think Wikipedia where everything is on exactly one(!) level, except for categories and some special pages).

One can display this as a site map which looks almost like an uprooted tree growing from the top downwards. There are really big sitemaps but they are still flat, two levels, maybe three.

The Internet is FlatThe Internet is a really flat hierarchy. Looking at the Internet horizontally makes this obvious. There are a billion web sites and most of them are typically three levels "deep" (or "high") and almost never more than seven levels. It reminds me of our beautiful planet earth. The highest elevation above sea level is a mere vertical 10km. Compared to the 40000 km circumference this is not much at all. And look at our breath after climbing a flight of stairs (something like 0.001 km).

XMLBack to technology: XML is a commonly accepted format to represent trees and hierarchies. Each web site structure can be represented as an XML tree. If you put them all together and call the root "Internet" then you have one single tree of the whole Web. But this type of representation does not help us at all because it is too "wide" and "flat" to be useful. Additionally there are no directions and there is no way to find ourself around. Which is why we still depend on search engines so much.

The Web is a GraphLets switch perspectives and go to the Web (keeping in mind that it runs on the clear hierarchical structure of the Internet). On the Web we can typically follow links to other sites. We can jump (or surf) from any level and branch and leaf of one tree (web site) to any branch or leaf on any other tree - provided they are linked just like Tarzan of the apes.
Movie poster for Tarzan of the Apes (1918 film); Wikipedia
This is pretty crazy. We can hop through billions of web sites without ever having to climb down one tree and up the other. We can hop from one top branch to the next. Where is the intricate bit? What makes this possible? We can only jump from any tree to any other tree like (Bild) Tarzan of the apes when we have links. This is actually the most important aspect - Hyperlinks.

Links are a bit more complicated and differ to trees because they are always directed. We can go back through our browser history, but not necessarily anybody else (except we carelessly or consciously allow Google, Facebook, Bing, Yahoo, eBay and the rest of the gang to eavesdrop on us and record whatever we do). With a tree this is different because going up and down does not make much of a difference (except you you are a hapless cat). And you can only come down a tree if you went up before. But you can follow this link from my little home here to the home of the oracle turing machine but you will surely never ever find a way to jump back here from there. Which is inherently different from hurrying up and down trees where you will always have to go down one tree before you can hurry up the next. Actually there is a way to climb back but it is tied to the state of the representation (in the referrer URL) and the path of the surfer, but it is also private - but to the destination web site. Yes, intricate.

Now what? We have this great XML technology to represent the hierarchy of the domain naming system but it fails hopelessly if we want to use it to hop to another branch or leaf directly. Because the Web is a directed graph.

The Web is Truly MultidimensionalThis is where my bulb started to shine and then blew. Because it goes beyond what my little mind can handle. The Web is truly multidimensional. And to be honest, I already have problems with 3 dimensions.

Two and a half dimensions are all that my mind can confidently handle. Now you might say that we live in a three dimensional world - but do we really? Is it not just surfaces? And then we have time which could be seen as a fourth or fifth dimension - but we are pretty much stuck in the present and move through time involuntarily. Only our mind can travel time to some degree but that is a different story. Moving to the fifth or sixth dimension we are definitely lost. The Web has billions of dimensions. Literally.

RDFSo what can we do about this? For a change we could explore the graph that represents the Web. The technology that invariably comes up is RDF and with it the concepts around semantics or the semantic web. Which is something that I now understand is not to be implemented but already there - only that we have no common way to really comprehend or represent it visually. Fortunately the graph and RDF and triple stores can be represented using XML, which brings us back to our holy hierarchy and things we do understand. The path out of our informational doom is probably tied closely to exploring the graph. But there is no way to visualize the graph as a whole. We can get a two-dimensional representation as shown in an example right on the face of the Linked Data web site. To better understand what the graph of the Web can give us we need to make it intelligible by twisting it and then cutting it into planes creating two-dimensional cross sections. Once there we can follow with our two dimensional minds and explore nodes by cutting new cross section planes.

Maps are structured Geographical Data I can see a certain analogy here. What always intrigued me is that maps seem to bend the Web back down to physical locations on earth. And in my perception it is high time to redesign navigating maps - or rather geographical data - to resemble how we browse the Web. Catalogs and structured metadata fall short of addressing this need, thought they might be a handy asset. We need an open perception of data and meta and how they intermingle and link... Ah - there was that magic word again. Link it, babe.

Same for directory trees. They are good for structured layers in maps but not suitable at all for arbitrary geographical content. We should move away from folders towards dynamic graphs. Pick a node and display it in a growing map context. Simple as that. The idea is far from brilliant and many others will have brought this up before but so far I did not find a convincing implementation yet. If you have, please let me know.

Have fun,
Arnulf.
7:32
Stefano Costa: Publishing digital collections. An experiment with “Ancient Marbles”
sur Planet OSGeo

Everyone is taking thousands of digital photographs each year. For an archaeologist, it’s common practice to collect pictures of museum artifacts, archaeological sites and landscapes.

I want to push the concept of “digital collection” going beyond the traditional habit of creating a database. Federico Marri and I have started to build something about Ancient marbles, that is all semi-precious building and decorative stones that were used in the Greek and Roman Classical antiquity and afterwards.

We are building what? Something. Let me me explain in more detail.

For example, take the Ancient Marbles Wiki (hosted at Wikia).

read more

5:37
MapLoser: Talk: Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in Haiti
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Back in the beginning of October I attended the International Conference on Crisis Mapping. The first day of the event was open to the public and included many ignite talks on a variety of topics related to crisis response. I gave a talk titled “Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team in Haiti: from Crisis to Capacity Building.” I highlighted how HOT has been working to transfer the maintenance of the Haiti portion of the map to Haiti as well as some ways the data is currently being used.

See for yourself:
5:02
GeoData Policy: Geography Awareness Week – Developing the Geospatial Workforce
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Enclosure: [download]

Do we have a sufficient geospatial workforce to meet national needs and spur innovation? Several efforts by the National Geospatial Advisory Committee, NRC Mapping Science Committee, ASPRS, Association of American Geographers, and others are exploring this issue. National Geospatial Advisory Committee – Workforce Development Subcommittee Geospatial Workforce Development Subcommittee Update, June 2010 Geospatial Workforce Development Subcommittee [...]
1:07
It's All About Data: Experimenting with Spatial Data in the Cloud: First Impressions of Microsoft’s Azure
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

One of the things I most enjoy about what I do is that I get to play with new technology. With the FME 2011 release coming out soon and its new support for Microsoft’s various Azure data storage services – namely Windows Azure, OGDI (based on Windows Azure), and SQL Azure – I set out to answer a few questions about Microsoft’s latest advances and how they impact the geospatial realm.

My first question was a basic one, what is Azure? I knew it was related to cloud-based storage, but how did all the various Azure-named services relate to each other? My first step of course was to look online through documentation and also read the Windows Azure blog.

The first thing that I discovered was that SQL Azure and Windows Azure are not related to each other, other than that they are both cloud storage services from Microsoft. (One definition of Azure, by the way, is “the clear, cloudless sky!” Hmmm.) SQL Azure in fact is SQL Server in the cloud complete with spatial capabilities! This led me to start also reading the SQL Azure blog.

The second thing that I discovered was that the Windows Azure table storage (which is not spatial) is schema-less, or more accurately consists of Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) tables.

OGDI essentially leverages Windows Azure and defines a standard way for geometry to be stored in its Azure tables. To test this theory I wrote to the same Windows Azure table using both OGDI and non-OGDI techniques with no difficulty at all. I was also then able to read the table back using both the Windows Azure OGDI Reader and the Windows Azure Reader. Using the Windows Azure OGDI Reader I was returned geometry which I could then work with or visualize. Using the non-OGDI reader I see the attribute name kmlsnippet which contains the geometry.

What is this? Microsoft adopting KML to represent geometry within OGDI! I like it.

Cloud Storage for Sharing and SQL Azure
For no reason other than I had more early success in our beta cycle with SQL Azure than Windows Azure/OGDI, I have spent more time playing (I mean working!) with SQL Azure. In fact for the past few months I have not used a local install of SQL Server at all. I have done all my SQL Server demos, testing, and scenario building using SQL Azure instead.

In the past I have talked about the “Cloud” but only in the context of a new deployment model for applications within organizations. Leveraging the “Cloud” to deploy new solutions is a complicated step for organizations. Using the cloud for storage of data is a less complicated step. Using cloud storage for data sharing or communication is a much easier step and has my mind racing with possibilities.

Having used SQL Azure, I can see the value of this easier step as a way to share data while providing the data’s consumers with the ability to leverage the full power of a database when working with the data. On our recent roadshow I showed this when I created a scenario that used SQL Azure and wrote out notifications of interesting events. With SQL Azure anyone from anywhere can access these notifications. I was even able to control the locations that have access to my database through SQL Azure firewall technology, giving me security beyond standard userid and password.

I am continuing to experiment with these new cloud storage environments and would love to hear from anyone who is also looking into, or using these exciting new technologies. What new applications or solutions do you see that can leverage these technologies?

0:53
SAGEO 2010, résumé de cette 1er journée de colloque
sur Geotribu

Le SAGEO 2010 a officiellement ouvert ses portes aujourd'hui. Cette cinquième édition, de ce rendez-vous désormais devenu incontournable, se propose d'aborder les différentes problématiques liées à la Géomatique et l'analyse spatiale. Après le traditionnel mot de bienvenue, cette première journée d'ouverture s'est divisée en deux sessions :

en lire plus

0:09
GeoData Policy: San Francisco Passes First Open Data Law
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Enclosure: [download]

Source: E.B. Boyd, Fast Company, November 9, 2010 One year ago, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing the city’s departments to make their data public. Yesterday, the city’s board of supervisors turned that order into law. As far as we could establish, this is the first time any city in the [...]

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