Le portail francophone de la géomatique

2010 was a great year for geo. Consumer geo apps like Fourquare and Gowalla took off, while us professional geonerds got some cool new tools too. While making predictions can be a dangerous game, I thought I would share a few of my personal predictions on my favourite topics for geo as we enter 2011. Be sure to let me know if you agree or disagree with me in the comments.

1. “Open” Marches Ahead
With MapQuest releasing an OSM powered site for the United States and Microsoft bringing OSM creator Steve Coast on board, OpenStreetMap is sure to have a big year. They still face some hurdles with the road network in North America not being as complete as parts of Europe, but hopefully the support of aol (MapQuest’s parent company) and Microsoft will help push the map forward. In addition to OpenStreetMap, FOSS4G will be returning to the US this year. The backing of GITA will surely bring some new faces who are interested in seeing what this whole open source thing is all about. Paired with the 2011 State of the Map conference in the same city, Denver is going to be the place to be this year. Based on the preview that was WhereCamp5280, it is going to be a great time.

2. Crowdsourced Data Gains More Acceptance
Crowdsourced data is going to gain much more acceptance. Google’s home-rolled map data, while not open data, is crowdsourced. When Google’s Canada map data switched this year, I reported several errors in my neighbourhood which were quickly fixed. I use Google’s data for finding directions with Google Maps, and I have a feeling many who pan crowdsourcing for being “unauthoratiative” do as well without even knowing that crowdsourced data is being used behind the scenes. Even traditional GPS navigation companies like TomTom are introducing crowdsourced elements to their smartphone apps.

3. Google Expands Geo Offerings
Google adding spatial data support to Fusion Tables was arguably one of the most important new releases of 2010, but could just be the tip of the iceberg. With Fusion Tables becoming spatial, Google is enabling users to do some very powerful GIS tasks on their platform. It is not going to replace traditional GIS tools for most professionals, but it is certainly the easiest way to get data into Google Maps – and simple analysis is possible. It is not too much of a stretch to think that Google will continue to refine it into something that can replace a traditional GIS for some people.

4. Apple Enters the Mapping/LBS Space
Frankly I’m surprised this has not already happened, as maps are pretty much the only part of iOS that are powered by Google, or anyone other than Apple for matter. Recent job postings are just the latest evidence for this, along with the recent purchases of two geocompanies. What I think will be most interesting about this is who they pick as a data provider. Based on Apple’s history of taking open source tools and making well designed user experiences for them, I think Open Street Map would be a good fit, but only time will tell.

5. Real-Time Data Becomes More Common
Real-time data was the theme of this year’s GeoWeb conference (although I didn’t see too many talks specifically covering it). There are a handful of services now offering real-time data APIs. Twitter’s API for example is the “hello world” of real-time applications. Unfortunately despite the massive volume of data that comes through Twitter’s real-time API, very little of it is geocoded. The other place we are already seeing real-time spatial data is public transit agencies. Cities like San Francisco, Portland, and London are already offering real-time locations for vehicles which are being used to create some really interesting applications. With more web browsers and mobile platforms bringing support for WebSockets, real-time applications will become far more popular, both spatial and non-spatial.

What do you think?
Even if none of my predictions come true, I’m sure 2011 will be another great year for geo.

Got some predictions of your own? Put them in the comments.

When you need to find a police station, you need to find it Right Now!
The Project of the Week is to map your local police station.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Project_of_the_week/2011/Jan_05

This is the first Project of the Week for 2011. Last week we
announced the first Project of the Month for January 2011, mapping
libraries.

[wiki.openstreetmap.org]

This is your Project of the Week. Make suggestions. Inspire other
mappers. What is it about contributing to OpenStreetMap that
interests you? Postboxes? Bowing alleys? Share your OpenStreetMap
interests by contributing a Project of the Week.

[wiki.openstreetmap.org]

Police station photo by Elliot Brown [www.flickr.com]
is licensed CC-By [creativecommons.org]

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Last month, V1 reviewed the book "Web GIS: Principles and Applications" by Pinde Fu and Jiulin Sun.

From the review: "While many GIS related books discuss what these software are, very few of them talk about the connection of the world wide web and GIS. The opening chapters of this book discuss and describe this relationship, helping readers to conceptualize and understand what is meant by Web GIS. "GIS is seen as the supporting science and technology for GeoDesign" and "Web GIS is unlocking the power of the technology to a wider audience." One might very well argue that GIS has evolved more fully and to become more useful worldwide as a result of the GIS + Web. [...] In summary I find this to be an important book to have on the personal library shelf. It is full of Web GIS basic information. It provides an excellent summary of the current state of GIS over the World Wide Web and is not written solely for ESRI products alone - this book applies to any product attempting to deliver geographic data as a web service. "

The recent lunar eclipse that took place on the Winter Solstice thrust the topic of solar/lunar eclipse into the spotlight once again. If eclipse spotting is your thing then take note of this resource eclipse-maps.com.  The resource shows off and tells the story of how eclipse maps were developed during the 17th century along with [...]

In 100 years, when elementary school kids crack their history books, there will be no shortage of material from the past decade — the 2000s were simply jam packed with global-changing events — to study. From the 9/11 horrific attacks (pictured) to Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and the Indian Ocean Tsunami, it was a decade that both challenged and bolstered humanity. And, GEOINT was there all along the way with DigitalGlobe capturing all of the top ten imagery-related events. It is a GEOINT snapshot of the world and what we experienced over the past decade. Be sure to check out the full post here, also we have highlighted some of the key imagery here in this post.

Ground Zero from 9/11

Hurricane Katrina

California Wild Fires

Haiti Earth Quake

Dans le cadre du projet ANR Demoloc le CEA-Leti, en collaboration avec CASSIDIAN, la société 3D+ et le Service départemental d'incendie et de secours du Rhône (SDIS), a développé un système de localisation et de capture de mouvement pour améliorer la sécurité des pompiers intervenant en milieu confiné (type parking souterrain).

In celebration of the new year many people shot off fireworks. GEB reader 'Steven' took it a step further and created some great 3D fireworks in Google Earth! As you can read about in his blog, the fireworks are intended to duplicate the 2011 Taiwan New Years Eve show, based on the simulation that you can view here.

As you can see from the photo above, the fireworks aren't just simple animated images -- they're fully 3D! Some of them shoot into the sky, and some wrap around the Taipei 101 tower. As Steven points out in his post, animations like this are only possible because of the work of 3D modelers that created the buildings. In this case, credit goes to user tang Huang who created the exceptionally detailed model of the Taipei 101 tower.

To see the fireworks in action, you can view them here using the Google Earth Plug-in, download this KMZ file, or watch the video below:

Nice work, Steven!

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (German Society for Technical Cooperation) or GTZ has put out a request for proposals and quotations for building a QGIS plugin.

GTZ is a private international enterprise owned by the German Federal Government, specializing in technical cooperation for sustainable development with worldwide operation. It primarily works for public sector organizations and is headquartered in Eschborn, Germany. It mainly operates on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Further clients are other departments of the government, international donors like the European Union, World Bank or the United Nations, partner countries and the private sector. GTZ works on a public-benefit basis. All surpluses generated are channeled back into its own international cooperation projects for sustainable development. The GTZ provides services in the following areas of sustainable development: Economic Development and Employment; Government, Democracy and Poverty Reduction; Education, Health and Social Security; Environment and Infrastructure & Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

Required Deliverables

A QGIS plugin for an automated process to manually classify land types from satellite imagery for land use mapping based on visual identification.

Please see the attached pdf for complete details.

Contact: Ricardo Aravena ( ricardo.aravena@gtz.de ) for more details.

Submission Deadline: 4 Feb 2011

read more

SFR Jeunes Talents Entrepreneurs vient de récompenser Insiteo, acteur spécialisé dans la géolocalisation, pour son innovation technologique liée à la géolocalisation. Cette avancée inédite permet aux utilisateurs de se situer à l'intérieur des bâtiments, s'adaptant ainsi aux situations du quotidien grâce à son smartphone.

NAVTEQ, le leader mondial de la cartographie numérique, des informations routières et des données de géolocalisation alimentant les systèmes de navigation, les services géolocalisés et la publicité mobile dans le monde entier, a annoncé le renouvellement de sa collaboration avec ORTEC, le spécialiste de l'optimisation des flottes de véhicules et de la planification avancée. Étendu jusqu'en 2013, l'accord entre les deux entreprises inclut dès à présent davantage de contenus

Pole Star, LE leader français des solutions de localisation Indoor, vient de livrer le 500 000ème m2 couvert par sa solution NAO Campus®, 1er système de géolocalisation Indoor (à l'intérieur des bâtiments) présenté en avril 2008.

Bionatics, le leader des logiciels de modélisation 3D des villes et des territoires, annonce la sortie de la version 3.0 de LandSIM3D, son logiciel d'aide à la décision et de visualisation 3D dédié à l'aménagement urbain et la préservation du paysage.

I came across this nice post about maps from memory – its a fun exercise and is quite revealing about how we perceive place & space.

I came across this nice post about maps from memory – its a fun exercise and is quite revealing about how we perceive place & space.

So, I'm heading to a decidedly non-developer focused GIS conference, and I'm kinda excited. When I first heard about the GeoDesign Summit back in late 2009, I automatically assumed it was going to be a conference focusing on the "design" aspects of geospatial applications - usability, user experience, cartography - a "future of web design" type event, but for geoweb developers and designers.

Although that would be a fantastic event, apparently that's not the case. From what I have about last year's event, it's more about using GIS as an interactive design tool - enabling on-the-fly "what-if" scenarios. In the past I've helped create desktop tools that did this sort of "just-sketch-and-the-app-does-all-the-hard-work" apps, so I expect it will be interesting to learn about how this is being applied and how it's implemented in Esri software.

Since these new "GeoDesigner" tools are likely directed towards the non-traditional GIS user, I hope there will be discussions addressing usability of the tools. For too long the UI's for geoweb applications have been in lock-step with the desktop UI paradigm, and I think we need to dispatch with the table-of-contents + toolbars +map model because it simply does not work for those who have not used desktop GIS. It is also much to "open-ended" and overly complicates applications, yet so many "GIS" people staunchly believe that every map related application simply must have a table of contents.

Yet somehow Google Maps and the zillion mashups it spawned, all the pretty and amazing apps by Stamen Design, and a growing number of application created by DTS and others still manage to be easy to use - despite not having a "table of contents". 

For a while Esri was actually trying to force this issue by simply not providing a TOC control or TOC services, but it seems like the angry mob bearing pitch forks and torches has prevailed. A search for "esri flex table of contents" leads to all sorts of articles where people are clearly still trying to cram a desktop experience into what should be a focused web application. Repeat after me - "I don't neet a TOC, I don't need a TOC."

Anyhow, I hope that this is addressed, and if not I'll try to bring it up and see what the "great minds" in this space are thinking about this. We can create all sorts of cool new technology but if it's poorly packaged it will not have anywhere near the intended impact. 

It should be an interesting few days of hanging out with various bloggers and Esri folks, as well as a nice break from the freezing temps here in Colorado!

If you're out at the GeoDesign Summit and see me wandering around - drop by and say hi!

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From Global imagery provider DigitalGlobe, their Top Ten Imagery Related Events of the Decade Collections… To celebrate one year since the company’s most advanced remote-sensing satellite, Worldview-2, achieved full capacity, DigitalGlobe has compiled this unique recap of remarkable satellite images depicting historic moments

Every Time the Calendar flips over to a new year people all over decide to get it together and get fit… not a bad resolution indeed. Myself, I have no resolution to that effect, however, I am pleased that during the past year I have managed to kick-start my work out routine, having dropped about [...]