Planet Georezo » June 24, 2011

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24 juin 2011
22:58
GIS Lounge: Perspective on a GIS Career
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Michael Gould is interviewed about his thoughts on a career in GIS by American Sentinel University: The job market for people who know about these larger GIS deployments is quite strong. I recently heard an estimate of some 2,000 open GIS positions in the US, mainly in the regions of Washington D.C., Colorado and California. [...]
22:45
Earthquakes Do Not Make GPS Less Accurate
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Sometimes I come across something that causes me to scratch my head. ‘Earthquakes and GPS Ruin SatNavs‘ is one of those. It appears to me, that the article is stating that earthquakes cause GPS and SatNavs to make inaccurate measurements. That’s not true. GPS and all other satellite based navigation systems determine their positions based [...]
22:29
James Fee GIS Blog: I’ve Come to Praise ArcObjects, Not Kill It
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
OK, I’m the first one to dance on ArcObjects grave ¹, but others seem to like it.

… This all comes from the following fact: being a complete ignorant about ArcObjects and the ArcGIS API, I have been able to create the corresponding SEXTANTE bindings from scratch in less time than I needed to create any other bindings before. That means less time than the gvSIG bindings (an application that I knew pretty well), and way less than the OpenJUMP or Geotools ones (both of them softwares that I had worked with before, at least once).

This is basically due to the clean, well designed and perfectly documented API of ArcGIS, which, along with the additional Eclipse plugins, makes it very easy to develop new plugins and extensions for the software.

Now, let me just tell you first off. Sextante coming to ArcGIS — awesome! But the real meat of the matter here is if there is a well documented API, developers just love it ². That is the real less for any project, proprietary or open source. Documentation matters!

In API hell, as long as there is documentation we’ll all be fine!

Notes:
1. In fact I suspect I’ll take my anti-love of ArcObjects to my grave ↩
2. No matter how crazy the ArcObjects API may be ↩
22:16
Fuzzy Tolerance: Fix Busted Google Earth in Ubuntu 11.04
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Apparently this bug doesn’t get everybody, but it smacked me right across the chops.
```
Google Earth has caught signal 11.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but Google Earth has crashed.
 This is a bug in the program, and should never happen under normal
 circumstances. A bug report and debugging data have been written
 to this text file:

    .googleearth/crashlogs/crashlog-4e04e689.txt
```
Well, damn. Not what I was looking for Google. The stacktrace from glibc in the crash log didn’t help a whole lot either.

Turns out it’s a pretty easy fix. Apparently the startup tips inexplicably embeds a media player like flash or totem, and if the version isn’t just right google-earth will collapse in a big ball of suck. Some folks seem to have varying luck with removing/changing flash or mozilla-totem and whatnot, but the easiest thing to do is just to disable the tool tips.

Head into ~/.config/Google. Open up GoogleEarthPlus.conf in your favorite text editor, find the line:
```
enableTips=true
```
and change it to:
```
enableTips=false
```
Root owned my Google folder for some reason (might have tried running it as root after one of my curse-riddled reinstalls). If so, just chown that sucker first:
```
sudo chown -R yourusername ~/.config/Google
```
22:12
Between the Poles: Making substation design more efficient and more fun
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I have blogged previously about how Duke Energy and Nashville Electrical Service have used model-based design to make substation design more efficient.

Next week, on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 from 2 – 3:30 p.m. (Eastern Time), Terri Humel, Principal Associate Engineer on the substation design team at Nashville Electric Service (NES), in Nashville, Tennesse, will describe on a American Public Power Association (APPA) webcast how her team is using model-based design ( also known as BIM ) to double design productivity, improve design quality, and communicate more effectivily with non-technical stakeholders. They are also finding that the new technology is a lot more fun than traditional CAD-based substation design.

Many utilities are incorporating 3D design tools into their processes, but Nashville Electric Service (NES) is going even further. NES is creating intelligent digital models of their 60 existing substations, which can then be used to design rehabilitation and upgrades. This allows many of the formerly time-consuming aspects of the design process to be automated. NES has found that with this approach the design process has been cut in half, human error reduced, and design quality increased. NES expects its enhanced design process to help it meet a number of challenges including a workforce nearing retirement and the need to use resources more efficiently in the smart grid era.

Speakers:Terri Humel, Principal Associate Engineer, Nashville Electric Service, Tenn.
Geoff Zeiss, Industry Program Director, Utilities, Autodesk

This webinar is worth .2 CEU/1.5 PDH credits.

You can register here
22:02
Vector One: Hamburg – European Green Capital 2011
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The City of Hamburg, Germany has become the European Green Capital for 2011. Cities that win this competition act as role models to other cities embarking upon greener city living and the development of infrastructure that is oriented toward sustainability. As Deutsche Welle indicates, Hamburg’s climate goal is to reduce it’s carbon footprint by 40% [...]
21:13
All Points Blog: LBS Tidbits – 6/24/11
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Banjo, launched Wednesday for iPhone and Android, isn’t a checkin application — although you can do that, too. Instead, it’s an aggregator of all location-based social updates and it’s designed for both social-mobile-local early adopters and newbies alike. - Mashable With a... Continue reading

21:13
LBS Tidbits - 6/24/11
sur All Points Blog

Banjo, launched Wednesday for iPhone and Android, isn’t a checkin application — although you can do that, too. Instead, it’s an aggregator of all location-based social updates and it’s designed for both social-mobile-local early adopters and newbies alike. - Mashable With a... Continue reading

20:49
SEXTANTE Team: Is propietary software better for developers?
sur Planet OSGeo

I have recently been programming the SEXTANTE bindings for ArcGIS (they are not finished yet, since I am having a very busy week with other priorities, but I will resume working on them next week and hope to have them ready soon) and working with the ArcGIS API has made me think a bit about how the propietary software model can somehow be an advantage for a certain kind of developers. I am not, of course, saying that propietary means better (I will always prefer open source to propietary), but there might be a few things that we can learn from propietary software developers and some positive side effects of not sharing your source code.

This all comes from the following fact: being a complete ignorant about ArcObjects and the ArcGIS API, I have been able to create the corresponding SEXTANTE bindings from scratch in less time than I needed to create any other bindings before. That means less time than the gvSIG bindings (an application that I knew pretty well), and way less than the OpenJUMP or Geotools ones (both of them softwares that I had worked with before, at least once).

This is basically due to the clean, well designed and perfectly documented API of ArcGIS, which, along with the additional Eclipse plugins, makes it very easy to develop new plugins and extensions for the software. Unfortunately, open-source GIS lack that kind of APIs, or they are, at least, not so carefully designed, documented and implemented. Although other factors might concur, I am convinced that the propietary nature of ArcGIS is a decisive one to have such a powerful and developer-friendly API.

Let's put it this way: ArcGIS developers want other developers to create plugins for their software, so they have to provide an easy way of doing so. However, they cannot let you see the source code or their application, so they have to make sure that everything that an external developer might need to create his plugin is correctly exposed through their API. The API has to, somehow, replace the source code for certain development tasks. On the other hand, open-source programmers are aware of the importance of developing a correct and well documented API, but the availability of source-code might act as an excuse for sloppy or unfinished APIs, assuming that, if an external developers misses anything in it will search the source code and try to find whatever he is missing.

That doesn't necesarily mean that open-source APIs are not as good as proprietary ones, but, while an open-source software, even if it lacks documentation and has a poorly designed API, it is still useful (albeit frustrating) for a developer, the same circumstances will render a proprietary software useless in term of development. That alone should encourage proprietary software developers to create and document practical and useful API (and we all know that this is important, since that is not always a nice and rewarding task...)

Once again, I insist that I am not praising the proprietary model, but just trying to find its benefits and trying to learn from it and apply it later to my open-source projects. I believe that everyone can teach us something and there is always something to learn from everyone. And, although I am not one of those who see proprietary software as an enemy, even enemies can teach you a few valuable lessons and it is not a good idea to ignore them. Quoting the much-missed Rage Against the Machine: Know your enemy :-)

20:36
GeoServer 2.1.1 Released
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
The GeoServer team is happy to announce the release of GeoServer 2.1.1. This release is primarily a bug fixing release, with patches and enhancements submitted from many users. The GeoServer development team would like to thank the contributors for their development efforts, the users for their feedback and the companies the provided sponsorship to implement new features and bug fixes. In particular, we would like to thank the following contributors whose patches have been included in this release:
- Rudi Hochmeister for improvements to our logging configuration and documentation.
- Gianna Barrotta, Andrea Di Nora and Pietro Arena for the addition of three new WPS processes.
- Robert Coup for efforts to bring KML and GeoRSS formats in line with normal URL-assembling practises.
- Matt Bertrand for adding character set support for to uploads.
Thanks also go to LISAsoft for sponsoring this release.

--
The GeoServer Team
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20:36
Slashgeo (FOSS articles): GeoServer 2.1.1 Released
sur Planet OSGeo
The GeoServer team is happy to announce the release of GeoServer 2.1.1. This release is primarily a bug fixing release, with patches and enhancements submitted from many users. The GeoServer development team would like to thank the contributors for their development efforts, the users for their feedback and the companies the provided sponsorship to implement new features and bug fixes. In particular, we would like to thank the following contributors whose patches have been included in this release:
- Rudi Hochmeister for improvements to our logging configuration and documentation.
- Gianna Barrotta, Andrea Di Nora and Pietro Arena for the addition of three new WPS processes.
- Robert Coup for efforts to bring KML and GeoRSS formats in line with normal URL-assembling practises.
- Matt Bertrand for adding character set support for to uploads.
Thanks also go to LISAsoft for sponsoring this release.

--
The GeoServer Team
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19:54
Is Nokia Reeling in Navteq or Dragging Them Down With Them? Comments on the Nokia Ecosystem
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

You would hardly know it but Nokia owns Navteq and has for some time now. The Finnish device maker, seen by many as fledgling and gasping for air, is apparently now looking at rolling Navteq into the fold and hoping that LBS may result in LB$. FYI, let it be known that [...]

19:46
HTML5 Elevation with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Vizzuality, the Spanish developers of some of the coolest Google Maps apps, has created a Google Map that allows you to view all the world's mountain ranges.

The map uses an HTML5 canvas overlay to visualise elevation data worldwide. The map includes a slider that allows you to adjust the elevation above sea level that is shown on the map.

If you set the slider to 0 metres then most of the world's land is shaded on the map. If you drag the slider up to 5400 meters then suddenly the Himalayas look very lonely.

Visual Raster

_________________

19:44
GSA expands outreach on helping federal agencies go mobile
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

By Alice Lipowicz, Federal Computer Week, Jun 23, 2011 The General Services Administration wants to help federal agencies go mobile with its new Making Mobile Gov project to raise awareness about using mobile devices to reach the public, a senior official announced. … For full text of the article visit GSA expands outreach on helping [...]
19:26
Spatial Sustain: Maps Aid in Driving Down the 30% Cost of Sickest 1%
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

There’s a feature in today’s Denver Post about the sickest 1% that spend nearly 30 percent of healthcare dollars. The feature outlines efforts with pilot programs and modeling experiments that are underway to understand where these patients live, and how to drive down the cost of their care. Dr. Jane Brock, medical officer of the [...]
18:02
Kelso's Corner: News flash: I’m now at Stamen Design in SF
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

After 9 years in DC, I'm back in California working with Stamen Design.
18:00
WhereCampDC ignite spatial videos
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I helped organize WhereCampDC in Washington, DC, earlier this month on the 10th and 11th. Hosted at National Geographic and The Washington Post, around 275 geo nerds came together to talk about the latest technology and techniques to build maps and engaging spatial storytelling.
17:35
Andrew Zolnai Blog: More on time-based GIS
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Time-lapse GIS helps clear the clutter of a quarter million points of ship sailings from captain's logs from 1662 to 1855 re-posted last week. As an at-home project I previously split the data into arbitrary half-century time slices to better visualise it all. But that interfered with seeing trends across the span of data.
KNMI's CLIWOC project was a monumental task, fraught with difficulties not the least of which was simply running out of time to aggregate disparate data sources and formats. as detailed in my original posting. But now I reset all the geographic data into a single feature class in a database, such that we can traverse it by time, nationality, port of origin and destination etc., and thus give full justice to CLIWOC's atlas.

Displaying all 252,917 points look of course rather messy, like my daughter's finger painting as she traced imaginary voyages on her globe - which she did, not the finger painting! - the joys of sharing projects at home...

The same for 1762 however cleans up the map to show the Dutch triangular trade in the West Indies in yellow, as well as the British East India Company routes in blue, also in blue far to the north the Hudson Bay Company route, but not yet the Dutch East India ones.

Best of all is the time-slider that allows to interactively slide back &forth to see the trends, or even play it all in one go. See the end of my latest posting in arcgis.com for brief explanations. Also how GIS helps find missing data and point to further research.
Roger Tomlinson once told me casually - sipping tea and lemon awaiting the return flight from Tyumen to Moscow five or so years ago - carefully scrutinising the data helps us see both its strengths and weaknesses. Words never spoken truer, with another tool-kit to help us along! And as I said earlier this is but the spatial data, the tip of the iceberg if you add CLIWOC weather / climate data, to follow...
17:31
VerySpatial: Must – Have – Coffee!
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Where you live might decide where you get your AM cup of joe (unless you get your fix from a local favorite). Numbers Run has a neat series of maps that shows the number of store locations (Starbucks Vs. Dunkin Donuts) by zip code. Living in New England I can already tell you that I don’t need a map to find a Dunkin Donuts. They’re in every gas station, grocery store, shopping plaza… I think one is going in at the end of the hallway in my department! To be honest, I’m looking forward to visiting the zip code with the largest number of Starbucks next month for the 2011 ESRI UC in San Diego, CA.

From: Numbers Run.com
16:54
GeoChalkboard: Reminder: ArcGIS Server Bootcamp Early Registration Ends Today
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Enclosure: [download]
The next session of our ArcGIS Server Bootcamp begins July 11th and runs through August 19th. The early registration price of $615 is good through June 25th. The regular course price is $999.

We still have seats available.

We do accept purchase orders. Payment does not have to be made by today in these cases. We just need the registration form or you
can pay online at the course web page.

This is a self-paced, instructor guided course. You do have access to the course for a full year so you can go back and review as necessary or take some extra time to complete the materials if your schedule doesn’t allow you to finish during the course session.

During your one year of access to the course materials you also receive any updates to the course free of charge. This will include our Introduction to Managing ArcSDE course materials slated for completion late this summer.

The bootcamp currently consists of two sections (soon to be 3 with the addition of our ArcSDE
materials).
- Introduction to ArcGIS Server
- Custom ArcGIS Server Developer (includes your choice of Mastering the ArcGIS
  Server JavaScript API, Programming the ArcGIS Server API for Flex, or
  Programming ArcGIS Server with Silverlight)
- Introduction to Managing ArcSDE (coming late this summer)

16:28
Scrolling Backgrounds with Google Map
sur Google Maps Mania

Tourism New Zealand has implemented a very clever and striking website using Google Maps in conjunction with a series of related background images.

As you use scroll through the New Zealand 100% Pure website the background images change to create some impressive effects. The scrolling images are used to create animated clouds moving across still landscape images or to provide a narrative, for examples as the people portrayed in the images move around.

The effect of the scrolling images is hard to explain, so you really need to see it yourself on the 100% Pure website. When you visit the page notice how the Google Maps inset changes as you scroll the page to reflect the location of the current background image shown on the page.

New Zealand 100% Pure

_________________

16:16
got geoint?: Friday’s Food for Thought: It’s a Small World After All
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Have you ever heard the expression “big things come in small packages?” Of course you have … and this expression nails precisely where innovation is headed these days…we are talking about going small. Earlier this week, we did a post about new drones being developed that will be the size of birds and bugs. And we all know that nanosatellites will be the next phase in GEOINT. So, we wanted to explore the concept of “small” in this week’s FFFT post. We hope you enjoy and happy Friday! Oh, and registration for GEOINT 2011 is officially open and USGIF members receive special registration discounts. Act fast! Some registration prices increase after July 15!

Tiny Satellites Can Do Big Science
When it comes to laptop computers and cell phones, bigger isn’t better. The same logic applies to satellites: the bulkier the satellite, the more time it takes to design and build, and the more expensive it is to put into orbit. Researchers are now taking advantage of the electronics technologies that have made personal gizmos compact and affordable to make satellites that weigh less and cost a fraction of their predecessors. These pocket- and backpack-sized satellites are changing the way astrobiology research is done. Conventional satellites used for communications, navigation or research can be as large as a school bus and weigh between 100 and 500 kilograms. Universities, companies and NASA are now building small satellites that weigh less than one kilogram (picosatellites) or up to 10 kilograms (nanosatellites). Read the full Space.com story here.

What is Nanotechnology?
Nanotechnology (sometimes shortened to “nanotech”) is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with structures sized between 1 to 100 nanometre in at least one dimension, and involves developing materials or devices possessing at least one dimension within that size. Quantum mechanical effects are very important at this scale, which is in the quantum realm. Nanotechnology is very diverse, ranging from extensions of conventional device physics to completely new approaches based upon molecular self-assembly, from developing new materials with dimensions on the nanoscale to investigating whether we can directly control matter on the atomic scale. Read the full Wikipedia entry here.

World’s Smallest Car Measures 26 Inches Wide
What’s the size of a washing machine and made from a child’s coin-operated ride? The answer: The world’s smallest car. Made by British inventor Perry Watkins, the “Wind Up” measures just 41 inches high, 51 inches long and 26 inches wide and is now listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s smallest car with a license to drive on public streets. It can drive 37 miles per hour and even has seat belts. Check out the full USA Today article here.

Mini-Homes: Cozy and Cost-Effective
It was mainly the burden of regular mortgage payments and the costly upkeep of his home in California that set Jay Shafer to thinking. Whittling away everything he didn’t absolutely need, he came up with a big idea – in a rather small package: the “Tiny House.” The 269-square-foot space is comprised of a kitchen, bathroom and living and sleeping space. Shafer’s mini-house even has wheels. Since designing the home, the 46-year-old has been producing and selling them through the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company he founded for that purpose. Each house costs roughly 40,000 dollars, or 30,000 euros. There’s a growing demand for the little homes, which are tailor-made to suit individual tastes and budgets. “Business is booming,’’ Shafer says. “The idea of keeping things to a bare minimum is currently very popular.’’ Read the full World Crunch post here.

Video of the Week: Disney’s “It’s a Small World”
We could have very easily featured Blink 182′s “All the Small Things,” but that would have been too easy. And I don’t think we are ready for an revival of the year 2000, or a Blink 182 revival for that matter (we’re just sayin). So, we thought to ourselves … is there a song about small things by Wilco or Fleet Foxes? Nope. So, we thought we would go right to the source for all things small and wonderful: Disney. Check out this clip from 1964 from “Disneyland Goes to the World Fair.” We hope you enjoy and yes, it’s a small world after all.

15:44
Feature Layers: Généralisation à la volée
sur arcOrama, un blog sur les SIG, ceux d ESRI en particulier

J'ai évoqué précédemment la notion de Feature Layer et l'intérêt d'utiliser le mécanisme de tuilage vectoriel proposé par les APIs ArcGIS pour exploiter les Features Services d'ArcGIS Server. Cependant, si la complexité des géométries est importante, chaque tuile risque de retourner plusieurs Mégaoctets de données, le tuilage vectoriel n'apportera pas grand chose et votre application sera peu

15:02
'sproke: Summarizing why WMS is Dead
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

At the urging of @wonderchook I did an Ignite talk at WhereCampDC titled: WMS is Dead

I feel that I've flogged this issue enough but nothing like putting in finishing nails in the coffin to tidy it up.

Architecture and Scaling
WMS was designed in the late 1990's, when we really didn't understand how the web worked at scale. I think that the dominant mental model of web services at that time was RPC and it's evident in the architecture of OGC W*S. The architecture was designed to mimic GIS systems, so WMS requests are standardized RPC calls to an abstract model of a GIS. Where WMS went wrong was that it ignored existing Web standards and that the Web's architecture and infrastructure was optimized for delivering documents via links. Ignoring URIs to retrieve standard well known mime types such as pngs contributes to it's clunky interface. Retrieving tiles via URIs is a Web native operation; whilst sending long requests to create a single document is not. That being said, I believe that layering a REST interface over WMS is a futile exercise in trying to hang with the cool kids. As Bruce Sterling often says, "Good luck with that."¹

Cartography
In WMS, you make make maps with SLD. I can't say enough that SLD is a bad idea. XML is for data, it should not be perverted in a single configuration, query, and pseudo programming language.

Projections
Projections have been cited as one reason WMS is superior to tile based mapping. My response is that Web mapping is a different medium from traditional cartography. In traditional cartography, the map maker has only the X and Y dimensions to convey information; which makes projections one of the most important tools for the cartographer. In web mapping, we have n dimensions to present information from info bubbles to interactive tools. Projections are still important for operations that require measurement, but that occurs on the backend and is less important for presentation.

Interoperability
WMS fails at interoperability because it is implemented at the application level. Chaining together a bunch of applications through a series of client requests does not result in a performant web application. In addition, WMS stateless (request/response) operations bypass web native optimizations such as HTTP caching; which has led to software such a MapProxy to overcome this shortcoming. Again this is a bandaid solution to a deeper architectural problem.

Interoperability should take into consideration how the Web is designed rather than providing an overlay that implements loosely-coupled client-server like architecture over the Internet. This means that interoperability should occur at a much lower level than application to application communications, such as data and document types.

I think that the prevalence of tile servers proves the point that URIs plus well known mime types trumps Web RPC. Data is out of the scope of WMS since it is primarily designed as a presentation interface (with lots of kruft), but I think it is important to the future of Web mapping as well as interoperability.

When the W*S standards were under initial development, OGC made a bet that XML would rule the day; which is understandable since XML was the new hotness at the time. Implicit in this assumption was that XML parsers would improve, especially in the browser. However, as this blog explains, developers are tired of writing XML parsers and use JSON instead. JSON is a well supported and compact way to serialize data that trusts that the developer will use good taste to unpack the data instead of mandating the download of XML schema. The rise of fast and powerful Javascript engines as well as server side Javascript such as node.js was certainly not predictable. This does not bode well for W*S standards, which will be overcome by events even more quickly. For the INSPIRE folks, "Good luck with that."

I feel that the direction of Web mapping will be tied to Javascript on both the client and server side. We are already seeing this with the popularity of TileMill which uses node.js and client scripting libraries such as Leaflet and ModestMaps-JS. Like it or not, this direction in Web mapping is organic instead of top down from a standards body.

¹In all fairness, WMS was designed to retrieve a map dynamically based on a user's request. The use case was not, "I want a fast background map with data sprinkles"; which is the real world use case.
14:55
Google Earth Blog: Exploring the deserts with Google Earth
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Google Sightseeing is in the middle of "Desert Week 2011", uncovering interesting tidbits from various deserts around the world. It might sound boring (miles of sand...), but they've found some good stuff so far!

On Monday they took at look at a very odd formation in the Grand Erg Oriental (KML). At first glance, it appears that it could have been from a plane crash, but there is no wreckage to be found. Their user comments have suggested some other theories, but nothing conclusive. What do you think it might be?

Tuesday they traveled to the "Official Center of the World", which is apparently in Felicity, California (KML). The story behind how that title came to be is quite interesting, and the various monuments (plus a man-made hill and pyramid) are quite impressive to see from Google Earth.

Wednesday took us a few states east into southern New Mexico to White Sands National Monument (KML). There are a variety of beautiful areas to look at in White Sands, but Lake Lucero is the most stunning from the air. After heavy rains, water pools in the area and leaves behind large crystals as the it evaporates. It's certainly a sight to see.

Yesterday they ventured out to the Mojave Desert and nearby Owens Valley (KML). This area is full of cool sights, including Edwards Air Force Base, Red Rock Canyon, the Coso Volcanic Fields and the Alabama Hills. The Alabama Hills have been popular shooting location for movies over the years, with 150 movies and a dozen TV shows using the location due to it's "rugged" environment.

Sometime later today they'll wrap up the series. Be sure to check out their site to see what they show off next.
14:40
Spatial Sustain: 750-kilometre Hike to Highlight Pristine Haida Gwaii
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Two young men are setting off on an unassisted 750-kilometre hike through the Haida Gwaii in British Columbia in order to highlight the pristine nature of the wilderness, and to protest Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project. Sam Harrison, a recent social geography graduate of the University of Northern B.C. and Nathan Leenders of Whitehorse [...]

14:07
Revue de presse de la semaine
sur Geotribu

Comme chaque fin de semaine, retrouvez l'actualité du monde géospatial. Faites le plein de nouveautés avec les sorties de la semaine avec notamment GeoServer, mapfish, qgis et leaflet mais aussi le renouvellement du bureau de l'OSGEO et quelques nouvelles sur le front de l'Open Data

en lire plus

13:39
A Google Maps Trading Game
sur Google Maps Mania

A Map of the Floating City is an interesting looking new game that has created its own game world with the help of Google Maps.

You can sign up for the game with Twitter or Facebook and you are then given your own ship, which will magically appear on the Google Map. The main objective of the the game is to trade with other players in order to move your ship forward on the map.

When you have a trade accepted you get to move your trading partner north on the map. If you accept a trade from another player then your ship gets to move.

This game does require a little patience. The game requires responses from other players so it is obviously never going to be an all out action game. You'll need to make your trade offers and then come back later to see if they have been accepted.

A Map of the Floating City

_________________

13:15
All Points Blog: Update: Figuring Out the Open Indicators Consortium
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Weave has launched (softly) in beta! Partners in the multi-region Open Indicators Consortium (OIC) and UMass Lowell's Institute for Visualization and Perception Research lab announce the BETA 1.0 release of Weave (Web-based Analysis and Visualization Environment). Weave's core code... Continue reading

13:15
Update: Figuring Out the Open Indicators Consortium
sur All Points Blog

Weave has launched (softly) in beta! Partners in the multi-region Open Indicators Consortium (OIC) and UMass Lowell's Institute for Visualization and Perception Research lab announce the BETA 1.0 release of Weave (Web-based Analysis and Visualization Environment). Weave's core code... Continue reading

13:11
MapLoser: WhereCampDC Videos are Up!
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Though I was involved in the planning of WhereCampDC, I missed the actual event for the most part. Instead I spent the week in Fiesole, Italy at the Vespucci Institute (I’m sure all of you are now crying for me that missed WhereCampDC). At least there is video taken of the Ignite Spatial talks held at National Geographic.

The combination of the strong geo community in DC plus a great crowd traveling in for the event made the talks really exceptional. I was really excited to see Sophia Parafina’s talk “WMS is Dead.” Just the title stirs up controversy among the geonerds, controversy is always a good aspect to an ignite talk.

No matter what realm of the geospatial world you come from I think there is something to be learned from her talk.

Javier de la Torre took a different approach to his talk and just showed a really great project. I’m always surprised when someone hasn’t heard of Old Weather, it is my favorite crowd-sourcing project (well other than OpenStreetMap;)). The only good source of weather data from 100 years or more ago is ships’ logs. Old Weather makes it fun to transcribe that information and yes you can become the captain of a ship!

All the talks are listed on the WhereCampDC website, I suggest if you missed the event like I did you check them out.
13:03
All Points Blog: Google StreetView Data Capture on Hold in India
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Google has been barred from taking pictures of streets in India for its popular Street View service until it obtains approval from the federal government, police said Tuesday. T. Sunil Kumar, a senior police official in the technology hub of Bangalore, said the company would... Continue reading

13:03
Google StreetView Data Capture on Hold in India
sur All Points Blog

Google has been barred from taking pictures of streets in India for its popular Street View service until it obtains approval from the federal government, police said Tuesday. T. Sunil Kumar, a senior police official in the technology hub of Bangalore, said the company would... Continue reading

12:41
All Points Blog: EC Plans for 24 Birds for Galileo and no Further Funding
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

European Commission spokesmen, alongside announcements of contracts covering ground control stations, have told media including Reuters that costs have been reduced and project chiefs now expect to put 24 satellites into space without requiring any further funds. Extra cash would have... Continue reading

12:41
EC Plans for 24 Birds for Galileo and no Further Funding
sur All Points Blog

European Commission spokesmen, alongside announcements of contracts covering ground control stations, have told media including Reuters that costs have been reduced and project chiefs now expect to put 24 satellites into space without requiring any further funds. Extra cash would have... Continue reading

12:30
Géographies du travail esclave au Brésil
sur Cybergeo

L’article analyse l’esclavage dans les campagnes brésiliennes en cartographiant les données disponibles sur les libérations de travailleurs esclaves et les dénonciations de cas d’esclavage. Il analyse la répartition du phénomène au Brésil, identifie les situations liées à l’esclavage des travailleurs et construit des indices synthétiques de probabilité de présence d’esclaves et de vulnérabilité au recrutement. Il espère ainsi contribuer à la lutte contre l’esclavage en milieu rural, facilite sa répression et sa prévention.

12:29
All Points Blog: LightSquared Update 6/24/11
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Yesterday's hearing (APB announcement of hearing) brought out a variety of Congressmen and others to say they opposed the granting of a license to LightSquared if its network would impact GPS. LightSquared maintained it would ensure safety. Among the statements: "In aviation there's no... Continue reading

12:29
LightSquared Update 6/24/11
sur All Points Blog

Yesterday's hearing (APB announcement of hearing) brought out a variety of Congressmen and others to say they opposed the granting of a license to LightSquared if its network would impact GPS. LightSquared maintained it would ensure safety. Among the statements: "In aviation there's no... Continue reading

11:16
Friday Fun with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Bill Guffey's Street View Paintings

Artist Bill Guffey paints scenes captured by the Google Maps Street View car. This scene from Jonesport, Maine has already been sold but if you like the look of his work Bill's website has many more of his paintings available for sale.

Street View by Tim Mincin
In this song comedian Tim Minchin takes a more negative look at Google Maps Street View.

Stealth Iconography: The Google Maps Pin

In this essay writer Rob Walker argues that the Google Maps marker has become an iconic design. He looks at how the Google Maps marker has been appropriated into unexpected settings, for example, into other designs and into many art projects.

_________________

10:00
All Points Blog: Local (City/County/State) GIS Tidbits – 6/24/11
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is kicking off a statewide bicycling initiative to encourage physical fitness and bicycle-based tourism. ... [He and a group of officials] introduced an interactive map of bike trails and routes across the state to help people plan their... Continue reading

10:00
Local (City/County/State) GIS Tidbits - 6/24/11
sur All Points Blog

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is kicking off a statewide bicycling initiative to encourage physical fitness and bicycle-based tourism. ... [He and a group of officials] introduced an interactive map of bike trails and routes across the state to help people plan their... Continue reading

10:00
All Points Blog: International GIS Tidbits – 6/24/11
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Kenya A new website launched today, Virtual Kenya, opens up a wealth of maps and spatial data about the country for citizens and students to use. The site is from Upande Ltd., a Nairobi-based technology start-up, and uses open source and other technologies. - WRI Hong... Continue reading

10:00
International GIS Tidbits - 6/24/11
sur All Points Blog

Kenya A new website launched today, Virtual Kenya, opens up a wealth of maps and spatial data about the country for citizens and students to use. The site is from Upande Ltd., a Nairobi-based technology start-up, and uses open source and other technologies. - WRI Hong... Continue reading

8:44
[La Minute GeoRezo] GeoRezo à la 25e conférence de l’Association Cartographique Internationale
sur GeoRezo.net - Géoblogs

Du 3 au 8 Juillet 2011 la France accueille la 25e conférence de l’Association Cartographique Internationale et fête à cette occasion les 50 ans de la première assemblée générale de l’association.

GeoRezo sera présent, avec un stand permanent durant cette semaine riche, dont le thème principal, "Lumières sur la cartographie et les SIG" a été choisi par le Comité Français de Cartographie, organisateur de la manifestation.

Une nouvelle occasion d'afficher la place essentielle du portail GeoRezo dans le paysage géomatique francophone, voire international et, peut-être, d'élargir son audience...

L'équipe GeoRezo

8:29
Nathans QGIS and GIS blog: Another cool open source project – OSGeo-Live
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Enclosure: [download]
Another cool open source project that I have become a part of (as a QGIS packager and tester) is the OSGeo-Live project. The OSGeo-Live project is a live DVD/USB/Virtual Machine built on xUbuntu(striped down Ubuntu linux) that has a lot of cool open source geo spatial programs all set up and ready to use.

The OSGeo-Live project contains:
- Browser clients
- A small sample of crisis management software
- All the popular database engines (PostGIS, SpaitalLite etc)
- Pretty much all the open source desktop GIS apps (QGIS, uDig etc)
- Open Source GPS navigation apps and globes.
- A collection of handy spatial tools
- A ready to go web services ready to try in your browser or desktop GIS.
- Some sample data to get started with for each project
- And quick starts for each program.
The full list of software contained on the OSGeo-Live project can be found at [live.osgeo.org]

This is a good project if you want to get into the OSGeo tools and experiment but don’t want to install them on main machine until you know what you need.

As it is a live DVD/USB/Virtual Machine some apps will run slower than what they do on a native install but overall the speed is usable and good enough for testing.

Even better is that it was born in Australia :)

The project is also commercial supported by a Australian company http://lisasoft.com

So give it a try if you are interested in the OSGeo movement, which you should be if you are reading my blog :)

Filed under: Open Source, qgis Tagged: gdal, gis, mapping, Open Source, osgeo, osgeo-live, OSS, Quantum GIS

8:29
Nathan Woodrow: Another cool open source project – OSGeo-Live
sur Planet OSGeo
Another cool open source project that I have become a part of (as a QGIS packager and tester) is the OSGeo-Live project. The OSGeo-Live project is a live DVD/USB/Virtual Machine built on xUbuntu(striped down Ubuntu linux) that has a lot of cool open source geo spatial programs all set up and ready to use.

The OSGeo-Live project contains:
- Browser clients
- A small sample of crisis management software
- All the popular database engines (PostGIS, SpaitalLite etc)
- Pretty much all the open source desktop GIS apps (QGIS, uDig etc)
- Open Source GPS navigation apps and globes.
- A collection of handy spatial tools
- A ready to go web services ready to try in your browser or desktop GIS.
- Some sample data to get started with for each project
- And quick starts for each program.
The full list of software contained on the OSGeo-Live project can be found at [live.osgeo.org]

This is a good project if you want to get into the OSGeo tools and experiment but don’t want to install them on main machine until you know what you need.

As it is a live DVD/USB/Virtual Machine some apps will run slower than what they do on a native install but overall the speed is usable and good enough for testing.

Even better is that it was born in Australia :)

The project is also commercial supported by a Australian company http://lisasoft.com

So give it a try if you are interested in the OSGeo movement, which you should be if you are reading my blog :)

Filed under: Open Source, qgis Tagged: gdal, gis, mapping, Open Source, osgeo, osgeo-live, OSS, Quantum GIS

6:00
OGC workshops at the INSPIRE Conference 2011
sur OGC News Feed

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announced that OGC staff and members will be involved in three workshops at the INSPIRE Conference 2011 [inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu]
Workshop 1: What is Interoperability and How Do We Measure It? M...

2:24
VerySpatial: Multitouch Table on the Cheap
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Ok, maybe not ‘cheap’… but a lot less than the Microsoft Surface. Engadget reports about a new product by a company named Merel that has created a multitouch table for a bargain basement $3,995. That’s a steal! It’s got a 3.2ghz Quad Core processor, 720p 32 inch display, and a dedicated Radeon HD video card (a card which I personally find fairly nice).

If you ask me, this is possibly the first brick in tearing down the financial wall keeping surface-esque tables from reaching the house. The key to pushing these out to every home is finding the ‘magic app I can’t live without’.
1:38
LiDAR News: 3D Flash LiDAR Controls Mars Landing
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I found this product description from ASC of their Flash LIDAR unit to be fascinating. Continue reading →

Click Title to Continue Reading...

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Enclosure: [download]

Enclosure: [download]