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12 février 2012
13:17
Viewing content changes in MaestroThe Map Guy(de)
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Ever wondered what the * on that tab actually represents?

With the next release of Maestro, now you can actually find out

The View Changes command lets you see the XML content changes of the currently edited resource

You also have the opportunity to view the XML diff when you try to close an editor tab with unsaved changes

Now those of you with a keen eye may notice some false positives in the first 2 lines.
- The XML prolog is missing the encoding attribute
- The root element has its attributes specified in a different order.
It means our XML serialization code is somewhat imperfect, something that I wouldn't have known without a tool like this. Nevertheless, this new tool will let you make a more informed decision when you need to save a modified resource.

Many thanks to Michael Potter for the public domain implementation of the .net diff engine and UI which is the backbone of this new feature.
4:20
We will be hosting Code Across America in PhiladelphiaAzavea Atlas
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Similar to last year, I’ve volunteered the Azavea office space for a Code for America hackathon at the end of February. This will coincide with a coordinated national event, a series of CityCamp hackathons that will also be known as Code Across America, on Saturday, Feb 25. Coffee and bagels will be served at 9am, festivities will begin around 9:30am and we will be working hard on civic apps all day. This will be part of a national week of civic innovation. We’ll build apps, liberate data, and develop the skills we need to create an ecosystem for civic engagement.

We hope you’ll join us. You can sign up at: [codeforamerica.ticketleap.com]
11 février 2012
15:58
URISA BC Event – Open Data, So What?AnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

An interesting event near Vancouver as URISA BC (British Columbia, Canada) is hosting an interesting full day event on Feb 16, 2012 in Burnaby BC titled Open Data, So What? About the event… In this upcoming seminar, we will explore how geospatial technologies are being leveraged through open data, and how they are introduced into [...]
15:45
LiDAR Workshop in Alberta CanadaLiDAR News
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

YES - the Young Earth Scientists Network Canada is hosting a 2 day seminar entitled, " Building a Sustainable Alberta through the Application of LiDAR Technologies. Continue reading →

Click Title to Continue Reading...
11:02
More maps R usAndrew Zolnai Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Continuing the ongoing (re)discovery of cool maps for the rest of us, here are two I found on Facebook from my friends Christophe Staff in Belgium and Aidos Malybayev in Kazakhstan.

templiers.org chronicles Templar lore throughout Europe and the Middle East. I helped fellow after-hours webster with a simple Google map, which Christophe embedded in his website. Another differentiator is the exhaustive directions for use, which made it helpful even for my octogenarian parents!

zoomed into the Middle East region

click image to enlarge

Former colleague Aidos posted a cool Google clone for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, all of which I visited and perhaps will yet again. I was curious about Tabolsk the old capital of W Siberia, and voilà! here it is, complete photo links and Google Chrome auto-translate. Now if I can just find time to refurbish my ancient webpics to flickr! or Yahoo!Map...

click image to enlarge

On a humouristic note, one may disregard the interpretation of Tabolsk as "tons of bolsk" - it did find Tobolsk after all! - do "corks" ("Пробки") mean plugs or plug-ins (help anyone)?

As I said before, this blog is dedicated to the weird and wonderful ways we find to display information from work through current affairs to the personal, quickly and easily on webmaps... and not unlikely after hours!
10 février 2012
21:00
Friday Career Tips – 10 HOT Geo Job OpportunitiesAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I love sharing and I really dig helping people. So, for some Friday fun I’ve elected to spend 20 minutes of my time putting together an awesome list of HOT Career opportunities for Geo/Tech professionals. Hopefully I can help bring together an employer and some talent – good luck! A number of companies are hiring Geo [...]
19:27
Canadian 2011 Census Data Freely AvailableSlashgeo.org
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Earlier this week, Statistics Canada started to make freely available data from the 2011 Canadian Census. Here are the release dates for the reminder of the data.

While this is excellent news, I invite you to read the informative DataLibre.ca article: "Upon playing with the data dissemination interface today, my concerns were re-affirmed. The data are free but not necessarily accessible, in the sense that the methods used to disseminate and discover these is complicated, unclear and there are some favourite geographies missing – most notably Dissemination Areas (DA) [editor's note: it's there, see at bottom of the full article] while others are hidden – Census Tracts (CTs). For example, if you go to the Census Profile and you want to look up 5 cities at once you cannot! You can only look up one city at a time, which also means you can only download one geography at a time. There are over 2000 cities in Canada and if you want to know who the top 30 are in terms of population, then its “Houston we have a problem!” sorta."
Google Plus One
17:45
President’s FY13 Budget Release Info Posted for DOE, NOAA, NSFGEODATA POLICY
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has posted FY13 Budget Release Information for DOE, NOAA, and NSF. The President’s Budget for FY 2013 will be released on February 13. As in prior years, we will be posting schedule information for agency budget briefings to the R&D Budget and Policy Program website. Initial information [...]
17:20
The Most Precise Post – Earthquake ImageLiDAR News
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

For this study, scientists from the United States, Mexico and China over a period of just three days scanned about 140 square miles effected by the the magnitude 7.2 tremor in northern Mexico in...

Click Title to Continue Reading...
14:31
Trimble and SmartBin Team on Sensor Network for RecyclingSpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

SmartBin, an Ireland-based sensor system that monitors the fill levels of recycling containers, and Trimble, a Calif.-based positioning technology company, have teamed to combine sensors and location for more efficient solutions for the environmental services and recycling markets. The bin sensors will be coupled with positioning technology, fleet management, asset management and other logistics and [...]
14:08
Emergency Management GIS Certificate and other Education GIS NewsAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

What's wrong with the geospatial workforce? Victor Valley College (California) adjunct professor Fon Allan Duke knows: There’s not a good enough pool of trained individuals to step up and work in these catastrophic events. And the problem you have in industry is either you have... Continue reading
14:00
Carnegie-Mellon Study Concludes Crowdsourcing has a Long-Term PayoffGEODATA POLICY
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

By Joe McKendrick, SmartPlanet, February 6, 2012 Summary: Is crowdsourcing a try-it-once fad, or a business idea that will stick over the long run? Typically, for those that have tried crowdsourcing, the number of ideas generated decline over time, and actual implementation rates for posted ideas end up being disappointingly low. But at this point [...]
13:25
Friday’s Food for Thought: College is Expensive … I Need to Score a Scholarshipgot geoint?
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Welcome to the Friday’s Food for Thought post from got geoint? For many young people coming up in the ranks, the prospect of paying for a college degree can be pretty daunting these days. President Obama recently announced his plan to make college more affordable by extending federal financial aid to students and encouraging schools to keep the cost of education low. While this is refreshing for many young people and their parents, the reality is that many students need to push hard to secure scholarship dollars. And, for those students interested in entering the GEOINT field, USGIF has donated $480,000 to promising students in the geospatial intelligence field since 2004. So, this week’s FFFT post is all about scholarships and pursuing your dreams through education. We hope you enjoy and happy Friday!

2012 USGIF Scholarship Deadline is April 20

In an effort to help further the advancement of the geospatial tradecraft, USGIF is dedicated to assist promising students interested in the geospatial sciences with scholarship awards. USGIF hopes to inspire students who are interested in all that GEOINT has to offer to invest their futures in this incredibly exciting and relevant field of study. Last year the Foundation awarded $94,000 to 20 recipients and plans to award equal or greater amounts for the 2012 program. Five Ph.D. candidates, eight master’s students, five undergraduates and two graduating high school seniors received scholarships from the 2011 program. High school recipients received $2,000 scholarships, and all others received $5,000 scholarships. If you are an aspiring GEOINTer, don’t miss out on this opportunity! The deadline to apply for a USGIF scholarship is April 20th.

Obama Demands Colleges Lower Tuition

President Obama last week announced his plan to make college more affordable by extending federal financial aid to students and encouraging schools to keep the cost of education low. The Obama administration is urging schools to lower costs by tying the amount of aid available to students on-campus to the affordability of the school. The administration is also requiring colleges and universities to create a summary sheet of their financial aid packages, as well as post-graduate earning and employment statistics in an easy-to-consume form. “So, let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down,” said Obama in his State of the Union address on Jan. 24. Check out the full article from Seattle University Spectator here.

The College Debt Bubble

For parents trying to save so their kids can go to college, Barack Obama’s latest State of the Union was the Emancipation Proclamation. Americans now owe more on their college loans than on their credit cards, and the price of a higher education is rising twice as fast as inflation. Going to a state college was once a middle-class entitlement, but now that degree is a luxury item. Students used to be able to pay their way through school with a part-time job. Now students are graduating with more debt than if they’d bought a new Mercedes Benz. Check out the full Huffington Post article here.

17 Bizarre Scholarships

Calling all Klingon speakers, duct-tape fashion designers, duck callers, ghost hunters and woolen garment makers: Thick wads of scholarship money are waiting for you. Endowment funds are waiting to be claimed by everyone from golf caddies to pagans. There’s cash for everyone. Would-be college kids with extremely specific skills, talents or qualifications can find scholar dollars, and it seems that the crazier your interest, the better chance you have! Check out more from BankRate.com here.

Timbuk 3: Future’s So Bright, I Got to Wear Shades

For anyone who wins a USGIF scholarship, clearly the future will be so bright that they will have to wear shades. Because doing all right and getting good grades, does mean a bright future. Here’s Timbuk 3′s alternative hit from the 1980s called “Future’s So Bright, I Got to Wear Shades.” We hope you enjoy and happy Friday!
13:16
Awesome 3D Building: The Evansville Central LibraryGoogle Earth Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

As Google Earth continues to get more realistic with improvements such as new imagery, new ocean bathymetry and 3D trees, 3D buildings remain a huge part of what makes Google Earth feel so real.

While it might not be exciting, the buildings around your town are what help bring it to life. The new 3D model for the Evansville Central Library (created by della) is a perfect example of that. It's a well constructed model with excellent textured images on every surface of the building.

Della even took the time to carve out the covered entrance area, which looks great!

The model hasn't yet landed in the base 3D buildings layer in Google Earth, though I expect it will soon. In the meantime you can download the model from its page in the 3D Warehouse.

We love to share high-quality 3D buildings, so if you've built a great model that you'd like for us to show off, just contact us and let us know!

(via SketchUp Island)
13:02
GIS Algorithm Cup and other GIS Competition NewsAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

With the goal of encouraging innovation in a fun way, ACM SIGSPATIAL is hosting an algorithm contest with winners to be announced at the ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS conference in November 2012. Contest participants will submit original computer programs to be evaluated by the contest... Continue reading
9:34
MapGuide Instant Setup now supports IIS(7)The Map Guy(de)
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
When I first introduced the MapGuide Instant Setup utility, you could only set up a functional Apache Web Tier.

Well, I finally got motivation to add IIS (7.x) support to this utility, so here's what the IIS configuration screen looks like:

The setup configuration logic is exactly the same as the official installer (ie. It's a series of appcmd.exe calls). The key configuration bits are:
- The web site indicated by Web Site Name must already exist in IIS
- The Virtual Directory must not already exist in IIS
- The Application Pool must not already exist in IIS
- If the compiled binaries are 64-bit, you must check the This is a 64-bit instance of MapGuide checkbox as this will skip some appcmd.exe calls that apply to 32-bit installs. The Apache configuration does nothing with this field, checked or unchecked.
Will this utility support instant IIS6 or IIS5 configuration in the future? Probably not. Too much messing around with COM objects and metabases for the effort.
8:34
imagina 2012 Monaco: ELYX 3D Database Designed for Urban PlanningVector One
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Anne-Lise Poplausky spoke about a new 3D database called ELYX 3D. Representing the Le SIG 3D group in France, she said that the database was designed to provide usability that urban planners are most often interested in – a 3D database for urban planning. The group includes 120 people who are involved in local planning [...]
8:13
imagina 2012 Monaco: Bentley Extends 3D IntegrationVector One
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Speaking at imagina 2012 this week, Lionel Henry, south-east European and Balkans Director for Bentley Systems commented on what that company is doing in the realm of 3D. His primary take-away point was that data integration, through formats and standards within products was enabling higher levels of collaboration. “There are three important points to keep [...]
6:16
What's New in ArcGIS Online (February 2012)ArcGIS Online Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
The February 2012 ArcGIS Online update has just been released. This latest update includes additions and enhancements as described below, as well as a number of bug fixes and behind-the-scenes improvements.

(Please note that at the time of this post the help has not yet been completely deployed, and as result some of the help topic links in this post may be broken until approximately 3:00 a.m. PST).

Support for multiple languages

The ArcGIS.com website can now be viewed in different languages. New languages supported are:
- Arabic
- Chinese (Simplified Han)
- French
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Russian
- Spanish
The ArcGIS.com map viewer and Explorer Online can also be used in different languages.

Language support can be toggled via your browser or setting your preferences in your user profile. Language preferences control the user interface for ArcGIS Online as well as the way time, date, and numerical values are displayed. See Setting language and region for more information.

Regions

Regions control the featured maps on the home page, gallery content, and the default extent for new maps opened in the ArcGIS.com map viewer. The following regions are available: Australia, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and World. See Setting language and region for more information.

New and Enhanced App Templates

Several new app templates have been added to the ArcGIS.com map viewer template gallery, including map story templates, a multiviewer template, and an elevation profile template:

Existing templates have been updated to support� [HTTPS] and localization.

ArcGIS Online Subscriptions

A number of enhancements have been made for those participating in the beta program. See What's new in subscriptions for more information.

For more information on this release see the What's new? section of the help.

The ArcGIS Online Team hopes you enjoy the new features in this release, and appreciates your support!
5:36
Registration now open – 2012 Washington GIS ConferenceAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

GeoGeeks in the PacNW, take note of the date, May 7-9, 2012 for the 2012 Washington GIS Conference. This year’s event has a theme “Communicating Spatial Knowledge” and will take place in Tacoma, Washington. Deadline for proposals is March 26. Some details… WAURISA is seeking potential speakers to provide fresh, dynamic solutions to today’s challenges. [...]
5:23
Roma flood 2012 aerial photographyFrom High Above
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Roma has been hit hard by the latest floods in Southern Queensland and more than 400 homes have been damaged as the clean-up continues in the region. The following aerial photographs has been taken on Sunday 5th February over the town of Roma and surrounding aeras by one of our operators while conducting an extensive aerial [...]
5:01
Met Office Snow Depth MapMapperz - The Mapping News Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Met Office Snow Depth Map Discover snow depth (current and forecasted) from official met office sources with regularly updated reports with...

Map and GIS News finding blog. With so many Maps and GIS sites online now it is hard to find the good from the not so good. This blog tries to cut the cream and provide you with the newest, fastest, cleanest and most user friendly maps that are available online. News has location and it is mapped.
3:15
Bing Maps CRM System Scheduled Maintenance on February 10 Starting at 8pm PSTBing Maps Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Bing Maps CRM system is scheduled for maintenance on February 10, 2012, beginning at 8pm PST. The work is scheduled to be complete within 12 to 16 hours. During this time the Developer Portal (www.bingmapsportal.com) will be unavailable for tasks such as key creation, account management, reporting, and SDS via the Developer Portal. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.
0:39
Tracking The Our Far South Expeditiongeo.geek.nz
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

As part of Gareth Morgan’s Our Far South expedition to the Antarctic, Eagle Technology Group Ltd are serving up real time ArcGIS.com maps showing the expedition ship’s location, points of interest and blog related information. Gareth Morgan will be...
0:31
Using the Google Translate Function to Make Multilingual Maps in GeoCommonsGeoIQ Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

As I’ve been tracking the ongoing crisis in Syria I often felt I was only getting half the story not being able to read Arabic. This was especially frustrating when I’d check out all the rich data being generated by SyriaTracker. Citizens in Syria are reporting on the violence through social media and text messages creating a unique perspective. Ushahidi via Crowdmap does brilliant work powering the platform, but my lack of language skills limited what I could understand.

Fortunately Crowdmap has a great data download button – one of our favorite features of any platform. So, I downloaded the data and pushed it up into Google Spreadsheets. Turns out Google Spreadsheets has this brilliant feature that allows you to insert a translation function to a data cell. You just plug in:

=GoogleTranslate(“text”, “source language”,”target language”)

For the language you use the two letter ISO code for the language, and the Goog supports over 40. Since I wanted to translate from Arabic to English I plugged in:

=GoogleTranslate(A1, “ar”, “en”)

Then I just cut and paste the equation to all the cells I wanted translated. You can find the results at this URL. Then I grabbed the URL for the CSV link from the Google Spreadheet and loaded it into GeoCommons. For specifics on linking Google Spreadsheets to GeoCommons check out the post here. The end result was a dynamically linked dataset on GeoCommons that you can grab in a half dozen format or create maps/analysis with.

Can’t finish off without a custom map:

View map on GeoCommons
09 février 2012
23:07
Using Twitter To Land A Job – Tips, Tricks, and SuggestionsAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Like many of you, I’m sure you’re astounded by the number of your contacts, friends, and associates that have changed jobs recently. I receive regular updates via my LinkedIn service that tells me just how many of my contacts have changed their job and the number blows my mind! Finding a job is challenging indeed, [...]
22:53
More Camera Love! The Pentax K-01 Designed by Marc NewsonAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

More treats for you shutterbugs like me! Here’s a fun, new device announced this week by Pentax – the Pentax K-01. Some very cool news out of Pentax.When is a camera more than a photographer’s tool? The answer is when it’s an object designed by Marc Newson, one of the most acclaimed and influential contemporary [...]
21:32
Earth Observation Lab Produces Animated Look at Abu Dhabi’s EvolutionSpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Earth Observation and Environmental Remote Sensing (EO-ERS) laboratory of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) has developed an animated video that shows the urban expansion of Abu Dhabi from 1986 through 2010. The animation makes use of satellite data from NASA and the USGS. With MIST’s focus on advanced energy and sustainable [...]
20:54
System maintenance scheduled for Thursday, February 9ArcGIS Online Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The ArcGIS Online subscription task server (premiumtasks.arcgisonline.com) will undergo maintenance during a 12 hour window on Thursday, February 9, from 5 p.m. PDT until 5 a.m. PDT Friday, February 10. During this maintenance period, you may notice some disruption in accessing the services. Please post questions or feedback to our forum at [forums.arcgis.com] .
19:55
PENTAX Optio WG-2 and Optio WG-2 GPS with 1080p VideoAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

An interesting new rugged, waterproof, dustproof device from Pentax delivers strength, durability, GPS, and much more – perhaps an interesting option for anyone needing a fine camera for field work and jobs in rugged environments. Some major improvements in the latest Optio WG-2 models include:
High-resolution Full HD 1080p movie recording (1920 x 1080 pixels) at [...]
18:51
Wireless Lytro Focus-Later Camera Opens New Sensor PossibilitiesSpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

You’ve surely heard of the Lytro camera that let’s users focus the camera after taking the picture. While this new light field camera has the potential to radically change the way we take pictures, news today that the on-board sensor array also includes wireless and bluetooth capabilities means that it could also alter how we [...]
18:10
Algoma U to Offer Degree Program in GeographyAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

This one for GeoGeeks in Ontario, Canada as Algoma University has been approved to offer a four-year honours bachelor of arts in geography degree, starting in September 2012. Some details… The new program will be organized into four major thematic areas: physical geography, human geography, human-environmental studies, and geomatics. Students going into the geomatics stream will [...]
18:09
China’s Geographic Information Industry Takes the Lead GloballySpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Did that title get your attention? The same exact title appeared in a feature in today’s People’s Daily. The feature highlights major accomplishments, such as full countrywide mapping coverage at 1:50,000, digital urban model construction, Internet mapping sytems, precision measurement, and the real-time monitoring of changing geographic conditions. The launch of a high-resolution earth observation [...]
18:04
Congressional Hearing: DHS Monitoring of Social Networking and MediaGEODATA POLICY
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Subcommittee Hearing: DHS Monitoring of Social Networking and Media: Enhancing Intelligence Gathering and Ensuring Privacy Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence | 311 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 | Feb 16, 2012 10:00am On Thursday, February 16, 2012 the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will hold a hearing entitled “DHS [...]
18:00
Microsoft and IDV Solutions Present a Webcast on Visualizing Physical Security and Public Safety with Visual Command CenterBing Maps Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Join Microsoft Global Security and IDV Solutions for an informative presentation and demonstration of Visual Command Center - innovative software that is helping federal agencies and the armed forces protect people, property, and assets.

The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, SPAWAR, Army Corps of Engineers, and other agencies and commands are using Microsoft and IDV Solutions technology for a variety physical security and public safety missions such as:

• Incident Response

• Executive/Personnel Protection

• Asset Tracking

• Disaster Recovery

• Emergency Management

• Interagency Collaboration

• Border Protection

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 - 2:00 EST | Register Here

More About this Webcast

Security Experts from Microsoft Global Security

Security experts from Microsoft and IDV Solutions will be demonstrating how Microsoft Global Security empowers its security workers to respond quickly to incidents by consolidating security data in a solution built with IDV Solutions software. Microsoft Global Security is responsible for the safety and security of 700 offices and thousands of employees.

Visual Command Center

Visual Command Center helps agencies, public safety organizations, and others understand the threats that could impact people or assets by integrating real-time information from data feeds and multiple security systems within the context of location and time.

Visual Command Center works with existing security systems so that agencies and military commands can get the most out of current equipment and team. Feature rich, Visual Command Center gives security teams everything they need to visualize and interrogate the information that is most important to the team.

• Rapid Floor Plan Integration

• E-mail Alerts Based on Geography

• Security Data Pack

• Process Documentation Management

• Spatial and Temporal Querying

• Live Weather and Traffic Reports

• Built-in, Ready-to-Use Web Feeds

• Integrated, Mobile Access with Fetch!

Register here to attend today!
17:09
Autodesk Labs Ends Support for Feature and Shape ExtractionLiDAR News
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

"With regard to Point Cloud Feature Extraction and Shape Extraction, at this time we have no interest in extending these technology previews. Continue reading →

Click Title to Continue Reading...
15:49
Precision Agriculture Moves Toward Real-Time In-Field SensorsSpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Instead of the traditional precision agriculture method of making zone maps for the application of fertilizer, the technology is moving to in-field sensing where the health of the crop is being assessed just ahead of the tractor and the on-board computer varies the rate in real time. The in-field sensor uses two light beams of [...]
15:30
New CRS Report on Smart Meter Data: Privacy and CybersecurityGEODATA POLICY
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Congressional Research Service recently prepared for the Members and Committees of Congress a report titled, “Smart Meter Data: Privacy and Cybersecurity“ (R42338), published on February 3, 2012 by co-authors Bradon J. Murril, Edward C. Liu, and Richard M. Thompson II. Summary: Fueled by stimulus funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 [...]
15:11
PODCAST: Mike Campanelli, Sr. Systems Engineer, RadiantBlue Technologies, Discusses Value of Being a Young GEOINT Professionalgot geoint?
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

As the GEOINT community continues to grow, USGIF believes that it is important to increase the involvement of young people as they will become the future GEOINT leaders of our industry, government and academia. As such, in 2009, the USGIF Young Professionals Group (YPG) was formed to unite junior GEOINT professionals within the Defense and Intelligence communities. This group offers events and programs that parallel the Foundation’s mission of advancing the geospatial intelligence tradecraft. Today we are speaking Mike Campanelli, Sr. Systems Engineer, RadiantBlue Technologies about the value of being a YPG volunteer. And, be sure to check out the new YPG newsletter here!

Listen to internet radio with gotgeoint on Blog Talk Radio
14:49
Stay connected with Google Earth BlogGoogle Earth Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

We've just crossed the 10,000 "like" milestone on our Facebook page, so thanks to all of you that follow us there!

Of course, we try to make it easy to stay informed no matter how you prefer to connect.

If you're a Twitter fan, you can follow us @gearthblog. You can also follow Mickey (@mickmel), Frank (@franktaylor) or follow Frank's sailing adventures (@GoTahina). I've also created a list of other geo-related people to follow on Twitter that you might want to check out.

If Google+ is your thing, come connect with Google Earth Blog over there. You can also connect with Mickey, Frank, Tahina Expedition, the Official Google Earth page or check out this shared circle of other geo folks.

Of course, we also push out a daily email of new posts or you can grab our RSS feed.

However you prefer to stay in touch, we try to offer a solution for you. If you'd like to see our content available in other formats, just let us know!
14:28
Bill Requires Permission for Mobile Device Monitoring SoftwareGEODATA POLICY
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

by Aaron Brauer-Rieke, CDT, February 8, 2012 Against the backdrop of controversy surrounding the use of monitoring software pre-installed on mobile phones, Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) recently released a draft bill requiring clear disclosure and express consent before monitoring software is used. … Markey’s bill requires several kinds of companies to clearly disclose details about [...]
14:03
Geo-Wiki.org: Validating Global Land Cover with CrowdsourcingSlashgeo.org
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The AGISRS list made me aware of Geo-Wiki.org, a crowdsourcing effort aimed at validating global land cover.

From their main page: "The Geo-Wiki Project is a global network of volunteers who wish to help improve the quality of global land cover maps. Since large differences occur between existing global land cover maps, current ecosystem and land-use science lacks crucial accurate data (e.g. to determine the potential of additional agricultural land available to grow crops in Africa). Volunteers are asked to review hotspot maps of global land cover disagreement and determine, based on what they actually see in Google Earth and their local knowledge, if the land cover maps are correct or incorrect. Their input is recorded in a database, along with uploaded photos, to be used in the future for the creation of a new and improved global land cover map."
Google Plus One
13:57
TomTom Satnavs To Set Insurance PricesSlashgeo.org
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

We mentioned this type of possibility a few times in the past, and it's getting more and more real ; Slashdot it discussing a story named TomTom Satnavs To Set Insurance Prices.

Their summary: "TomTom has signed a deal with an insurance firm that will see its satnavs used to monitor drivers. Fair Pay Insurance, part of Motaquote, will use monitoring systems built into the TomTom PRO 3100 to watch for sharp braking and badly managed turns, rewarding 'good' drivers with lower premiums and warning less skilled motorists when they aren't driving as they should. 'We've dispensed with generalization's and said to our customers, if you believe you're a good driver, we'll believe you and we'll even give you the benefit up front,' said Nigel Lombard of Fair Pay Insurance."
Google Plus One
12:43
A roadmap update for MaestroThe Map Guy(de)
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Thought I might give an update about the state of play with the roadmap for MapGuide Maestro

Maestro 5.0

Maestro 5.0 will become the next major release. Here's a brief overview of what you can expect for this release:
- This will be the first release targeting .net Framework 4.0
- An addin for working with GeoREST
- An addin to provide scripting/automation capabilities to Maestro with the IronPython scripting engine.
- Trickling of assorted functionalities from FDO Toolbox
- And much more!
The Maestro 5.0 SDK will also hopefully improve your application development experience
- The Maestro API includes new interfaces for feature source manipulation (Insert, Update, Delete, Apply Schema). The LocalNative connection will have full support for these operations.
- The HTTP connection will have partial support for feature source manipulation (currently only Insert) if you include a new GeoREST url connection parameter (there is an implicit assumption here that the mapagent and GeoREST urls you are connecting to are both talking to the same MapGuide Server).
- LocalNative connections no longer wrap the official API through ugly hacks like assembly binding redirection. LocalNative connection providers will directly reference the official MapGuide .net assemblies.
- The Maestro SDK will include a new signing utility to automate the previously tedious process of signing the official MapGuide .net assemblies
- The Maestro SDK will include the source code of the LocalNative connection provider so you can "roll your own" connection provider against your specific version of MapGuide/AIMS
These features will be showcased on this blog as they become implemented and refined. No definite timeline for release, so don't ask :-)

Maestro 4.x maintenance branch

For those of you using the Maestro API, moving to .net Framework 4.0 could be a game changer as the 4.0 CLR may introduce different behaviour to your existing .net code and/or the .net libraries your code uses. The reason for the change is to be able to have LocalNative connection provider support for future releases of MapGuide/AIMS, whose .net assemblies will be targeting .net Framework 4.0.

Maestro, being a .net 2.0 application cannot reference or load assemblies of a newer framework version, so this migration to .net Framework 4.0 is one of necessity. Mono support for .net Framework 4.0 is already quite stable (and we don't venture too far from the well supported subset of WinForms + BCL), so nothing breaking on this front.

So as to not impose an overly breaking change to the existing Maestro API users out there, we will maintain a 4.x branch that will remain targeting .net Framework 2.0 and will only receive bugfixes and minor enhancements. The features I've outlined above will not make it to this branch. Such fixes and minor enhancements will only be made on this maintenance branch only if there is demand for it.
11:12
GeoTech Center Funding Ends in Aug 2012All Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Yesterday David DiBiase, in his role as as a "project advisor" with the GeoTech Center, shared the news on Facebook that National Science Foundation declined to provide the center with a second round of funding. The four years of funding ran 2008-2012 under award 0801893. (My colleague... Continue reading
10:00
Westport, CT’s new TaxMap App and other Government GIS NewsAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Westport, CT has a new Esri-based map viewer. The city is offering several 90 and 150 minute classes on using it. Good thing - since I oculd not get the help to work. The old intro page says you must use IE not AOL or another browser. Safari worked fine. - CT The Franklin County, AL... Continue reading
10:00
Linux Yuma and other Mobile GPS Data Capture NewsAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

...the latest news appears to be the Trimble Yuma, a rugged tablet from SDG Systems that now runs Ubuntu Linux. Targeting military and industrial applications requiring data collection, inspection, and reporting from the field, the Linux-powered Yuma can be used with geospatial... Continue reading
10:00
ERMA (at one time demo for Geoportal.gov) Basis for Arctic Response GISAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today they are partnering to enhance the Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA®) for the Arctic region by summer 2012. ERMA® is the same... Continue reading
9:18
The Appalachian Ohio Geospatial Data Partnership: Building Partnerships to Level the Playing FieldDirections Magazine - Top Stories
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Appalachian Ohio Geospatial Data Partnership (AOGDP) is a coalition of counties, regional and state agencies, and the private sector, formed to support the advancement of the use of GIS in southeastern Ohio. One of the founding partners, Thomas Fisher, who is also the Information Systems and Technology manager for the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District, describes how and why the partnership was formed.

More about: geographic data, geospatial technology, local government, surveying
7:51
imagina 2012 Monaco: Survey Says -”France and 3D Are like?”Vector One
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Yves Meo is a member of AITF, the French association for professional engineers. He presented the results of recent survey conducted by that group within France to the 4500 members of the 75 year old AITF with 15 regional programs. The survey was focused on the use and application of 3D tools and technologies, and [...]
4:48
Kata Tjuta / The Olgas 3D animation generated from aerial photogrammetryFrom High Above
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Olgas or Kata Tjuta are situated 25km east of Uluru.The highest point of these amazing bornhardts is Mt Olga rising at 546m from the sandy ground and1,066 m above sea level. A 15cm orthophotos mosaic drapped over a 80cm digital surface model have been used to produce this 3D model of Kata Tjuta. [...]
4:39
Data Fusion ContestVerySpatial
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The 2012 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest is up and running and something that you should think about participating in. While with ever increasing spatial and spectral resolutions in the variety of imagery and elevation data available now-a-days has reduced the need for certain data fusion products, it is also creating new opportunities to fuse the new data options. This year’s contest is based on data made available by Astrium, Digital Globe, and the USGS CLICK.

The Data Fusion Contest is designed to investigate the potential of multi-modal/multi-temporal fusion of very high spatial resolution imagery. This year, participants will download three different sets of images (optical, SAR, and LIDAR) over the downtown of San Francisco and each participant will get to choose their own research topic to work with.

The contest is open to everyone and the deadline for submission (of the paper) is May 1, 2012. The entry details and prize list are available on the contest website.

Good Luck!
3:49
Learn How To Use HTML5 With ArcGISgeo.geek.nz
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The web is evolving quickly and so is the way we develop interactive websites. Newer technologies are changing the way websites and applications are developed and keeping up with them can sometimes be a challenge. To help with this, a …...
2:58
Sucking a little less at Software and Open SourceNathans QGIS and GIS blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Recently I have started reading two books, well one book and one collection of stories, on open source software and interaction design. This is all in an attempt to suck a little less at working on software, open source in particular i.e become a better person, programmer, and open source contributor.
The Books About Face 3
The first book I started reading was About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. In my opinion this is a must read for anyone building software, or at least those who work with the UI and users.

One design principle the book covers is not leaking the Implementation Model into the UI. The Implementation Model is when the UI is designed around how the code works in the background, rather then the users mental model of the task. Most users don’t understand complex structures, or nested hierarchy, but yet we see it a lot within UI design due to it fitting the code design and the programmers view of the world perfectly well. Try explaining the branching, merging, and rebasing model of a Git tree to a non programmer and you will see what I mean.

That one design principle alone echoes strong with me, as lets be honest, most programmers are not UI designers and tend to do a pretty bad job at it, even me. When working on a feature the UI tends to be the last thing that is thought of and is just a quick interface for the code underneath.

Loss of orientation is another big thing. And what is the quickest way to get lost in a program? Dialog boxes! They popup, get in your face, most of the time have to be dismissed before you can see the results. Generally just a bad idea and people tend to get lost quick once you have more then one on the screen.

Those two principles alone are not going to make you a good UI designer but at least they give you something to ask yourself when working on a UI:
- Do I really need that button. Can’t I just do it for the user.
- Is there a reason this needs to be shown as a nested tree. Why not just a flat list. Can I do the same action with a different control.
- Do I really need a another dialog here. (This applies to annoying the user when something happens e.g non-fatal warnings or errors)
Open Advice
The second (free) book was brought to my attention by Brian on my Google+ feed, entitled Open Advice. Open Adivice is a collection of stories from people with differencing experience working on open source projects telling their stories on what they learnt and what they wish they had known when they started. The book aims to cover the answers to “”What would you have liked to know when you started contributing?”, which it does quite well.

It’s not heavy reading, but the story telling works well to bring home some of the things that everyone working on open source. Some of the stories cover things like; getting your first patch rejected; having a bad first IRC experience; writing good documentation; how to be a better community.

The book covers a range of topics so it’s a good read for everyone, regardless of your experience or knowledge area.

Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it
Summary
So they are my two books for the start of 2012, hopefully they are a good read for you. I think in order to be good at anything you should strive, every year, to suck a little less at everything you do, even just a little bit. My role model in the software world is Scott Hanselman, generally a pretty cool dude, and has echoed a lot on his podcast this notion of learning sometime new every year to just get a little better at what you do, to become a better person and programmer.

So even if your not into learning or reading a lot, just reading these two books I can almost guarantee you will come out a better person for it.

Filed under: Open Source
2:24
Is Google Drone View in Our Future? US Airspace Opened for Commercial and Private DronesGEODATA POLICY
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Congress Welcomes the Drones by Kashmir Hill, Forbes, February 7, 2012 The Senate passed a $63 billion bill Monday to provide four years of funding for the Federal Aviation Administration. … The FAA is also required under the bill to provide military, commercial and privately-owned drones with expanded access to U.S. airspace currently reserved for [...]
1:40
India Geospatial Forum: Urban transport in India will require over $500 billion in the next two decadesBetween the Poles
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Yesterday at the India Geospatial Forum 2012 conference in Delhi, B.I. Singal of the Institute of Urban Transport, gave a fascinating and informed overview of the past, present and future of urban transport in India.

The challenge that India is facing is that the use of desirable modes of transport; walking, bicycle and public transit is declning, and the undesirable modes, car and motorbikes, are increasing. The result is that congestion is increasing, mobility is being reduced, and accidents, pollution and the use of fossil fuels is increasing. Some people are predicting gridlock if something is not done soon, and based on what I experienced with traffic in my four days in Delhi this may not be that far in the future,

Historical and Present

One of the reasons for the present situation is that urban transport has been neglected in India for many years. It wasn't until 30 years after independence that urban transport was recognized as a problem in the Fifth Five Year Plan. It was only in the Eighth Five Year Plan (1992-97) that a plan was outlined for a coordinated approach to urban transport, although nothing was done at that time. But it was the Ninth Five Year Plan that was revolutionary because it recognized that national institutions for urban transport were required and introduced the idea of a "National Urban Transport Fund".

During this period Indian National Railways attempted to develop metro rail projects in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi. The Delhi Metro Rail project was sanctioned in 1997 as a joint project of the Central and Delhi Governments. It became an unqualified success and now six other Indian muncipalities are developing metro rail projects.

A third area of urban transport acitvity was the development of urban bus services in 65 cities. This has been problematic because in most cities bus services are not financially self-sustaining and require subsidies from governments who are cash-strapped as it is. But some cities have found away to fund bus services through public-private partnerships (PPP) programs.

Pedestrian, bicycle and bicycle rickshaw modes of getting around India's cities have long been neglected, but recently some cities are making an effort to enable pedestrian movement including a 1.3 km skywalk in Mumbai and a walking area in the historical centre of Hyderabad.

Projected energy consumption and emissions

The Energy and Resources Institute has forecast India's commercial energy demand and emissions will increase by more than seven times from current levels by 2031/32 under a "business as usual" scenario in which nothing is done beyond existing policies.

Projected future investment required

It has been estimated that in the next few decades some 275 million people will migrate from rural areas to India's cities. In the Mumbai Delhi corridor there are already plans for a new road link (DMIC), freight rail link (DFCC), and seven new cities each with several millions of population.

A recent report (March 2011) commissioned by the Ministry of Urban Development estimated a total expenditure of Rs 39 lakh crores ($800 billion) on Indian urban infrastructure and services by 2031. The expenditure on urban transport is more than half of this, an estimated Rs 23 lakh crores ($500 billion). The Mckinsey Global Institute has estimated that Indian cities will require $1.2 trillion in capital investment over the next 20 years in municipal infrastructure to enable cities to drive Indian economic development. Of this about $600 billion in capex will be required for urban transport and roads.

The Opportunity

According to a McKinsey Global Institute report, urbanization can provide major benefits to the Indian economy. It is projected that 70 % of net new jobs between now and 2030, 70 percent of the Indian GDP, and a nearly fourfold increase in per capita incomes could result from India’s urban population increasing from from 340 million in 2008 to 590 million by 2030.

But to achieve this will require between 700 to 900 million square meters of new residential and commercial space, 350 to 400 kilometers of metros and subways, and 19,000 to 25,000 kilometers of new road lanes to be built every year. To do this will require an investment of $1.2 trillion in capital expenditure in cities over the next 20 years.
1:30
Looking for a web developer for Ubisense myWorldgeothought
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

My previous post was also about a job ... am definitely going to start doing more posts shortly on a variety of other topics including some of the cool new things we've been working on in terms of products at Ubisense! But anyway, we are looking for a senior developer and software architect to join the Ubisense myWorld product team. If you read this blog you're probably familiar with myWorld,
1:15
MapServer and TinyOWS Releases at the Islandwood OSGeo SprintGeo Gears, Nuts & Bolts
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

This week, 21 developers are getting together for a code sprint in the wonderful venue of Islandwood to work on the advancement of their respective OSGeo projects. Thanks to Michael Gerlek for organizing and to our sponsors for their support.

I am happy to report that TinyOWS version 1.0 has just been released. Congratulations to Olivier Courtin for leading the project to this important milestone!

Last summer it was decided that TinyOWS (RFC-70) and MapCache (RFC-71) would join the MapServer project. This means that with the upcoming MapServer 6.2 release, we will also release the MapServer Suite which includes "mapserv" (the CGI/FastCGI), MapScript, MapCache and TinyOWS. The long term plan is to provide a more seamless integration of the tools under this MapServer Suite umbrella, while still allowing the use of each component independently or with other non-MapServer packages for those who wish to do so.

Another outcome of the sprint is that the TinyOWS documentation has been integrated in the development tree here. Thanks to David and Hal, for their work on this and their other contributions.

On the MapServer front, we just announced the release of version 6.0.2 and 5.6.8. There are no new features in those releases, only fixes, and they do include a fix for a security vulnerability that was found in the handling of WFS Filters inside SLDs, so you are encouraged to upgrade your installation. More details in the announcement here.

Finally, one of our next goals is to work out a plan for a MapServer 6.2 feature freeze and release this spring.
08 février 2012
23:32
National Highway Authority of India's Road Information SystemBetween the Poles
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I blogged previously about the Road Information System (RIS) developed to assist in monitoring and managing information about the highway system known as the Golden Quadrialteral connecting Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is an autonomous organization responsible not only for the development, but also the management and maintenance of national highways in India. RIS was developed for the NHAI by CES Technologies.

Road Information System

NHAI's Road Information System (RIS) is a web-based geospatially-enabled system that integrates a linear referencing system for tracking the condition of pavement and geospatial data and analysis. RIS contains data about the highways included in the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), North-South (NS) and East-West (EW) corridors of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) which was initiated in 1998. RIS is a comprehensive highway management system which included linear referencing, asset management, pavement management, traffic information, bridge monitoring, environmental information, toll management, document management, accident infomration, contract database, and HDM-4, an industry standard economic analysis package. HDM-4 provides tools for estimating funding requirements, budget allocations, predicting road network performance, and assessing policy impacts.

Decision making

RIS includes tools for decision making including Impact of available budget on highways performance that allows the NHAI to estimate the trade-off between maintenance and "roughness" or road condition. The decision support tools also assist the NHAI in allocating funds to sub networks, optimzing multi-year work programs, and various budget reporting including breakdowns by work type and State and CMU.
23:10
Down with Podal!OpenGeo
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Are you anti-podal? So are many geographic edges!

Actually, not many, but it feels like a common first test case people try when they start playing with the geography type. “How far is it between 0,0 and 180,0?”

There’s a big problem with anti-podal edges though: they don’t have a determinate path. That is, to get from (0,0) to (180,0) it doesn’t matter what direction you travel, just start moving. Any other pairing of points generates a single great circle describing the shortest path joining them. So anti-podal points make very bad components of geometry: they don’t define a path, and they can’t bound an area, because only the end points have a determinate location.

Which brings me to my problem. How do I handle geography objects in PostGIS that include anti-podal segments? On the one hand, since they are impossible to do calculations against, I should just disallow them in all cases, and throw an error. On the other hand, people think they have meaning and stick them into functions all the time. There are also a few functions (like ST_Length) where it’s actually possible to calculate a valid answer given an antipodal input (because we know that antipodal points are exactly one half-circumference apart, even if we don’t know what direction someone might travel between them).

What do you think? Is there a best answer? Comments most welcome!
21:26
Trimble Juno 3: Delivers Value with Improvements and UpgradesThe GEO-Jobe Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Tweet
The new Trimble Juno Series handheld has delivered on customer requests by giving it a longer battery life, more memory, an improved screen, a high resolution 5 mp camera, and a rugged shell. The evolution of this unit is familiar to the upgrades in Trimble’s Mapping Grade flagship product, the GeoExplorer 6000 Series handheld. The Juno is now an all in one mobile solution that increases collaboration between the field and office through real-time data transfer. The unit runs on windows mobile and can run TerraSync, ArcPad, or ArcMobile software for GPS data collection. Contact your local Trimble dealer for questions and orders!

Click on the links below to receive more information and downloadable brochures about the Juno 3B and Juno 3D. •www.trimble.com/juno •FAQs •Datasheet •User guides (See documentation) •Warranty information (See FAQs) •Support and training resources (See FAQs) •Compatible software/hardware _____________________________________________________
20:43
imagina 2012 Monaco: Esri CityEngine Connects 3D to GeoDesignVector One
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Many presenters during the last few days have commented on the issue of iterative changes during the design process and topics related to design in 3D as they relate to adapting designs during all planning, design, construction and operation phases of building information management (BIM). Creating a model is not necessarily the major issue for [...]
19:10
The Next 20 Years of GIS EducationEsri Insider
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

This is part 2 of my interview with David DiBiase, Director of Education at Esri, about the opportunities and challenges ahead with GIS in education. [You can read part 1 here]

Have we yet reached a sort of “critical mass” where more educators know about geospatial technologies than don’t know about the technology?

Maps and mapping are certainly part of more people’s day to day lives than ever before. For example, we know that mapping applications are among the most popular apps for smartphones. However, map awareness doesn’t equate with GIS awareness. Relatively few educators, researchers, administrators, and students know how GIS can support learning, help produce research insights, realize efficiencies and better decisions, and provide an edge in the job market. Furthermore, despite the mass market appeal of web mapping, resistance to incorporating GIS assignments in curricula in disciplines like business, economics, education, engineering, political science, and others, persists.

Charlie Fitzpatrick

How is the economy affecting the ability or willingness of institutions to incorporate GIS or spatial thinking into their curriculum?

As budgets contract, and pressures to serve larger enrollments intensify, educators are increasingly squeezed for time. Many educators who teach about GIS delay upgrades to current versions of ArcGIS because of the time and effort required to update lessons. Others put off developing curricula around Esri’s advanced technologies—such as ArcGIS Server—because of effort involved in mastering the tool as well as inadequate IT support. Meanwhile, many educators who teach with GIS favor simple web mapping tools because professional-grade GIS seems harder to learn and teach. We’re confident that ArcGIS Online, Esri Community Analyst, and other new generation tools will provide compelling solutions for many educators.

How do we move from teaching GIS to teaching spatial thinking?

We need to do both. The geospatial industry needs educators to continue teaching about GIS and related technologies. In addition, however, we need to convince many more educators, students, and parents that spatial thinking is a valuable ability for all learners. Several obstacles need to be overcome before we accomplish that. First, there is still not a critical mass of educational research that demonstrates convincingly that spatial thinking is as valuable as, say, mathematical reasoning or reading. Nor is there scientific consensus about the belief that GIS enables spatial thinking. Compelling, unequivocal research results are needed to convince policy makers that all students need spatial thinking skills. Neither anecdotal evidence nor the National Research Council’s advocacy are enough.

Once we have policy makers’ attention, we need to convince them to insist that schools include spatial thinking in their curricula. Recently I addressed a United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development about the role of GIS in education. I urged delegates to include spatial thinking as a priority objective in their national curriculum standards. I argued that the digital divide is no excuse for ignoring geography, since spatial thinking skills can be developed using non-computerized map overlays, just as Ian McHarg did in the 1960s and 1970s for the projects described in the landmark work Design With Nature. Unfortunately, it will be hard to effect this kind of mandate in the U.S., where local control of primary and secondary education persists.

20 years from now, as Esri’s Education Team is celebrating 40 years, what will the next generation of GIS education look like?

David: Well, here’s the vision that the Education Team laid out in our most recent strategic plan:

1. Every student will have the opportunity to learn with ArcGIS. The entire spectrum of Esri tools will be fully integrated across primary, secondary, higher, and informal education curricula and programs worldwide. Learners of all ages, within any discipline, will be able to acquire the geospatial awareness, knowledge, and thinking skills needed to participate effectively as global citizens and stewards. Esri’s educational site licenses will be ubiquitous in the U.S. and common overseas. Millions of learners worldwide will regularly complete meaningful assignments in ArcGIS Online.

David DiBiase

2. Opportunities to prepare for geospatial careers will be widely available: Public awareness of geospatial and related STEM career opportunities will be sufficiently high to create a large pool of talented young aspirants. A sufficient number of specialized, high quality academic and professional programs will satisfy the workforce needs of the growing geospatial industry. Career-oriented curricula will be closely aligned with workplace requirements. ArcGIS will continue to be the indispensable tool that nearly all aspiring and continuing professionals learn and use.

3. ArcGIS’ potential for campus administration is fulfilled: GIS will be fully deployed throughout the education enterprise to administer facilities, manage assets, and plan sustainable futures. ArcGIS will be synonymous with educational facilities management in schools, colleges, universities, libraries, and museums.

4. Esri’s leading role in GIS education is sustained: Esri will be uniquely regarded as a generous and abiding friend of education, as a provider of affordable, high-quality tools and free educational resources, and as a trusted thought leader and champion of educational quality and innovation.

What challenges lie ahead?

David: The task is monumental. The education enterprise involves nearly 2 million education professionals and approximately 70 million students in the U.S. alone. Our Education Team consists of fewer than 10 people (though most of them do the work of two or three). Making GIS meaningful and accessible to a much broader audience is a worthy challenge for us, and for Esri as a whole.

So how do we get started?

David: The release of ArcGIS 10.1 and ArcGIS Online for Organizations subscriptions later this year will be a milestone. These technologies promise to be the cornerstones of the next generation of GIS education.

Thanks David!

David: My pleasure.

By Matt Artz
18:38
Hexagon Year-End Report Highlights Global PerformanceSpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Hexagon year-end report for 2011 just came out, and there is a recorded webinar with slides and an overview from Ola Rollen, president and CEO, that is available online. Rollen’s commentary highlighted many different areas of performance and business change, including: The blended Intergraph (software) and Hexagon (hardware) business has a favorable effect on [...]
17:56
GPS Workshop for "Citizen Scientists" at Whitegrass Ski Touring CenterAmericaView Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

By Rick Landenberger, AmericaView Executive Director
"Citizen science" can be broadly defined as science undertaken by non-scientists. According to internet lore, the term was coined by Rick Bonney at the Cornell Ornithology Lab when writing a National Science Foundation proposal.

Regardless of where the term originated, most of us have probably heard about citizen science projects - GLOBE, SETI@Home, and ELOKA, all come to mind. These are examples of citizen science
initiatives that engage 'ordinary' people, including children, in the process of scientific investigation, assessment, and monitoring. These and similar projects leverage the breadth and expertise of non-scientists to help with large projects, typically to help the pros resolve a perplexing problem that requires a geographically distributed network of sensors, dispersed data collection protocols (dispersed in either space or time), or computing power.
I've been leading what I'll call "citizen science" workshops at Whitegrass Ski Touring Center in Canaan Valley West Virginia for the past decade or so. Whitegrass uses the USFWS-managed Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge for some of its trail system, thus is required to provide natural history and/or scientific education and outreach workshops as part of their special use permit. My recent sessions have focused on GPS for mapping the landscape, and I've had a very rewarding experience 'training' people of various backgrounds in the use of GPS technology to map a wide variety of resources and features that exist at Whitegrass and on the Refuge. These include hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), now threatened by the exotic invasive Hemlock Wolly Adelgid, and red spruce (Picea rubens). Both spruce and hemlock have seen extensive reductions in their former distribution due to early 20th century logging and fires, and both of which are great for slowing runoff due to heavy precip and snow-melt, reducing flooding. Other features of interest include watershed boundaries (challenging to map in Canaan Valley), springs and seeps (areas for amphibian restoration projects), trails, and other scientific and cultural features.

This past weekend I had 10 'attendees', despite the poor weather and lack of snow (we usually either ski or snowshoe around the area, gathering waypoints, mapping boundaries, etc.). Several were Brooks Bird Club volunteers, genuine citizen scientists (the Audubon Society has been doing similar citizen science work for 100 years). They were interested in mapping bird locations that they contribute annually to the breeding bird survey on the refuge and around WV. Others were interesting in mapping trails that they'd found on their cross-country hikes. One young man, Andre, a student at a local elementary school, had been learning about latitude and longitude, and wanted to do some actual hands-on mapping to reinforce his text book lessons. There's nothing like a hands-on experience to reinforce and strengthen understanding of what might otherwise be a fuzzy concept.
As most of you know, passing on basic knowledge is a very rewarding experience. Doing so to those who will be using their new knowledge to benefit society is even more rewarding. It is great to see that citizens and scientists share so much in common, and that we can learn from each other so easily and effortlessly.
Thanks to Todd Ensign, Director of the Educator Resource Center at the the NASA IV &V Facility in Fairmont, WV, for the GPS units. Todd is a citizen scientist trainer of the highest caliber.
17:38
GeoDigital Recognizes LiDAR As Art Via Innovative CompetitionAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I’m loving this one and couldn’t agree more that LiDAR and other imagery products indeed make wonderful pieces of art! Recently, at the ILMF event in Denver, CO, GeoDigital recognized this idea through a contest that they hosted – LiDAR as Art. Here’s the concept… The contestants who receive the top 3 vote totals in [...]
17:13
10 New, Must-Read GIS user Articles of InterestAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

A number of fun, educational, and interesting articles and blogs have hit GISuser recently. In case you missed out, here’s a quick list of 10 hand-picked, must-read Geo Tech stories… enjoy!
Geospatial Technologies and GIS to model predictive behavior and meth lab locations in Colorado 5 Ways to Make Sure Your Press Release Doesn’t Suck Location-Aware Instagram-Like Photo [...]
16:40
Unmanned Aircraft Systems to Enter U.S. Airspace by 2015Spatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

An FAA bill that calls for the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the national airspace system now goes to the president for his signature. The rapid technological advancements brought on by widespread military use have elevated the technology to a safety level that make it an attractive option for a variety of tasks [...]
16:36
Speaking of the 84%…geoMusings
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

HT to Sophia Parafina for the 84%. UPDATE: The NSIS script at utility batch file discussed here is now on github at [https:] I’ll post a readme in the next day or so. A few months ago, I asked the … Continue reading →
15:42
Japan Purchases LiDAR Mine Detection SystemsLiDAR News
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems, which are around nine feet in length, feature a pulsed laser and streak tube receivers to detect, classify and localize sea mines Continue reading...

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15:33
Geospatial Predictive Analysis Helps Law Enforcement Shut Down Meth Labs and Moregot geoint?
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The concept of geospatial predictive analysis is coming to life and will play a major role in making our world safer. According to a recent Fast Company article, experts are now using these cutting-edge algorithms and data analysis techniques to do everything from predicting terrorist activity, preventing auto theft and even anticipating where meth labs will open up.

Here’s an excerpt from that article about one member of academia who is truly breaking boundaries when it comes to geospatial predictive analysis:

Max Lu, a professor at Kansas State University, developed a novel method of finding meth labs through geospatial predictive analytics. In the 2009 book Geography and Drug Addiction, Lu and partner Jessica Burnum applied spatial data analysis tools to compiled information on the informal meth industry in Colorado Springs and rural Kansas. Burnum and Lu examined data collected from 2002 to 2005 on seized meth lab equipment and where rogue chemists dumped the toxic by-products of methamphetamine manufacture. Using the data, the pair were able to successfully prove meth manufacture was creeping slowly through more and more middle-class neighborhoods in Colorado Springs. Map data analyzed over time successfully demonstrated the spread of meth labs throughout a metropolitan area–and even predicted where they would pop up next.

In addition, law enforcement is already using geospatial predictive analysis for fighting crime in general. For example, the Smart Policing Initiative integrates geospatial predictive analysis into all levels of crime fighting. Police departments in Lowell, Massachussetts, and New Haven, Connecticut, are using similar methods for finding blocks likely to host drug activity. And, USGIF member company GeoEye was featured in the article for its ability to use predictive analysis to find gang recruitment areas. Esri was also highlighted because of police departments worldwide using its specialized map intelligence software.

You can check out the full Fast Company article here.
15:16
imagina 2012 Monaco: RTKL Extending the BIM Process Through Lessons LearnedVector One
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

We all have heard about building information modeling (BIM), and most of us have tried to nail down a process – something not very easy to do because of the unique nature of most projects. Daniel C. White is vice president at RTKL, a global company developing BIM projects around the world. Speaking at the [...]
14:53
The Costa Concordia 3D tour is now stunningly realisticGoogle Earth Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

A few weeks ago we showed you Peter Olsen's 3D tour of the Costa Concordia. It was a very impressive file, showing a 3D model of the ship as it progressed through its fateful voyage.

Peter has been hard at work since then, and we simply had to show you the file with his latest updates. He has rebuilt the ship model from scratch, added much more data to the timeline, built 3D lifeboats (which slowly descend into the water), and even a 3D helicopter to show how the rescue operation unfolded!

As you may recall from Peter's work on Stone Mountain and the MLK Memorial, his attention to detail is incredibly high. If you're curious where he got some of the data used in this animation, here is a list:

• The general conversation between ship and harbour master and times is from here.

• The specific conversation between the captain and coastguard is here. (his version is slightly abridged)

• Some of the timeline is from here.

•The AIS track data is from here.

• The list of dead and missing came from here, which is now a dead link, as well as here.

•The chaotic way the lifeboats departed is from here.

• The helicopter is an exact replica of the real one used in the rescue - call sign VF-57. It is an Agusta Bell ab412SP Air Ambulance, based on the Bell 412. It was manufactured under license by Agusta for the Italian Rescue Service. The photo at the end just before the list of names shows the actual helicopter hovering over the ship. The general line of Bell helicopters of the family, including the Agusta's is here.

• The Bell 412, with size specifications, is here.

• The shape of the helicopter is here.

• The actual VF-57 helicopter is here.

• A video of an identical model (call sign VF-67) is here.

To see it for yourself, you can download the file from the 3D warehouse or watch the video below:
14:31
Batch Geonews: 3D OpenLayers, MapQuest APIs for Android and iOS, Pitney Bowes' Geosk, and much moreSlashgeo.org
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

From the open source and open data front:
- BrainOff shares a few examples of capabilities offered only by OpenStreetMap because of its open nature
- V1 mentions ReadyMap, using OpenLayers to render 3D models directly in the browser
- Here's a way to enhance raster contrast with gdal_lightner, with may makes its way as a QGIS Plugin
- Sean made me aware of pygp, a python geoprocessing package
- Here's a short but interesting article named The GeoWeb, Citizen Science and Open Data
- Harvard's WorldMap reached version 1.0 and they're looking for participants, we mentioned WorldMap in the past
In the everything-else category:
- MapQuest Releases Native Mobile Mapping APIs for Android and Apple iOS, and yes, you can use OpenStreetMap data with it
- And there's now live traffic cameras in MapQuest too
- SS shares a nicely done 2-minutes video of the OGC on the value of geospatial and standards
- DM shares more information on Pitney Bowes's Geosk geodata platform, we mentioned Geosk last december. From the article: "Geosk is a platform for finding and using geospatial data. It combines a data as a service (DaaS) offering with a data management product. At its heart, Geosk is a completely scalable data management system that allows our customers to share their data with any user they choose, including their customers. Around this data management system we wrap an e-commerce engine to help our customers buy and sell premium geospatial data."
- Slashdot discussed Canada's Massive Public Traffic Surveillance System, which involves license plate reading, a topic covered a few times already
- DM offers an article on socio-demographic structures in Germany
- SS informs us a 3D model of Bangkok is now publicly available
- SS also informs us of Ericsson's Geo Location Messaging API, I wonder how it relates to GeoSMS
- In two entries, V1 explore to potential synergies between music interfaces and controllers and geospatial
In the maps category:
- O'Reilly shares a map of Mexico's drug war
- WunderMap now has historical weather maps for you
- Here's a map of the U.S. showing terrain by using only the roads
- SS shares an entry named Energy Use Data for all of New York City Released in Map Form
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14:02
Statistics Canada Census Geography Data Released Today!DARREN COPE » GIS
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

StatsCan Data Release Dates

Hi Everyone!

Just a quick reminder that the Statistics Canada Census Geography data should be released today for free! I don’t see it there yet, but I’ll keep checking!

EDIT (9:05am): It looks like the data is now available!
13:41
Google Geonews: New Bathymetry and Seafloor in Google Earth, new 45deg imagery, StreetView in Botswana Coming, and moreSlashgeo.org
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Here's the recent Google-related geonews in batch mode.

From official sources:
- Google released a major update to the bathymetry and seafloor display in Google Earth
- There's new 45 degrees imagery available for 24 cities:
  - "US: Charleston-Folly Beach, SC; Lee’s Summit, KS; Lexington, SC; Magna (Salt Lake City), UT; North Charleston, SC; Pine Island Center, FL; Plymouth, MN; Salinas CA; Santa Rosa, CA; Shawnee, KS; South Hill, WA; Spanish Springs, NV; Killeen, TX; Decatur, AL
  - Europe: Torrelavega, Spain; Pamplona, Spain; San Sebastian, Spain; Bailen, Spain; Rolle, Switzerland; Ponferrada, Spain; Wachtberg, Germany; Weinheim, Germany
  - South America: Buenos Aires, Argentina"
- There's a new biking directions legend in Google Maps
- Ed Parsons mentions the coming of Street View in Botswana
From other sources:
- The GEB shares a 3D tour of the Costa Concordia recent ship wreck
- While there's apparently no new data involved, the GEB shares an entry on the city lights of Earth at night in Google Earth
- The GEB also shares an entry on the Monster Milktruck game in Google Earth and an entry on a new book named Google SketchUp for Game Design
- To end with a funny note, APB shares a quote regarding the "removal" of Atlantis from the Google Earth seafloor by manually cleaning the data
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13:00
Do You Know Where Your Nearest AED Is? There is an App for This!Azavea Atlas
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) are everywhere around us, in airports, schools, gyms, and workplaces. It has been proven time and time again that these devices can save lives as they deliver electric shocks to victims of cardiac arrests. Such shocks are most effective in the first minutes after someone collapses. Yet, there is no comprehensive map of such devices available to the public. As a result, AEDs are often not used when they are most needed either because witnesses of a cardiac arrest incident do not know there might be an AED close by or that they should be looking for one.

A team of doctors and researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine set out to address this issue and create awareness for AEDs by creating a comprehensive national database of AEDs that could be searched geographically on a map based on someone’s location at any given time. They initiated MyHeartMap Challenge, a pilot project that will hopefully be taken nation-wide.

MyHeartMap Challenge is a crowd-sourcing contest to locate, photograph, and map out as many AEDs in the Philadelphia region as possible. It is modeled after the DARPA Network Challenge, a crowd-sourcing experiment in which social media users raced to be the first to submit the locations of 10 moored, 8-foot, red, weather balloons at 10 fixed locations throughout the United States. The MyHeartMap Challenge team is inviting the public to gather as much information as possible about AEDs around them. The individual or team that finds the most AEDs will win $10,000 while other participants will win $50 if they are the first to identify one of the designated ‘golden devices’.

To this end, Azavea built three applications: two mobile apps — one for the iPhone, the other for the Android — and a web application. With a free registration, contest participants can geocode their photos and register information about the AEDs such as manufacturer and condition of the device. The data can be sent to the MyHeartMap Challenge team via the mobile apps themselves or the challenge’s website: [philly.myheartmap.org] The data collected will be used to create an updated database of locations of all public AEDs in the Philadelphia region with a person’s GPS coordinates to help them locate the nearest AED during an emergency.

Bennet Huber, one of the software developers who worked on this project, explains the development process:

In order to avoid having to create essentially the same app on three different platforms (web, Android, iOS), we decided to use PhoneGap so we could build our mobile apps in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This meant we would essentially be creating two separate, yet intimately related, web apps: one for the web site and one as the core of the mobile apps. We recognized early on that we would probably want to be able to share JavaScript code between the two, so we elected to use a JavaScript module loader. The one we settled on was RequireJS , which implements the AMD API. We chose it because it solved many of the problems we foresaw arising:
- The AMD API it implements provides a good way for modularizing JavaScript and defining file dependencies, something that is notoriously difficult to do without mixing up dependencies in HTML tags
- jQuery Mobile – the UX framework we used for our mobile apps – does some rather weird things for the sake of performance, one of which is never actually changing pages after the app starts but instead modifying the DOM and dynamically inserting page contents on the fly. Since page loading is so different, it is difficult to specify page specific JavaScript dependencies in the HTML files themselves. The normal method of working around this when using JQM is to simply place all one’s JavaScript in a single file and load it when the app starts, but due to the complexity of this project we wanted to avoid this if at all possible, and a lazy loader for JavaScript files, which RequireJS provides, was a good solution.
- RequireJS supports virtual names for files through its package system. This made it easy for us to create a common JS library between the mobile and web apps that could be easily referenced without worrying about physical file paths, and therefore made file management much easier (no symlinks or git submodules required!). It also makes refactoring much easier, should one decide to rename or relocate files.
- It supports loading HTML files as JS strings, making templates a breeze.
- It has an integrated build system, which allowed us to create minified, optimized builds of our files for the entire app when we were done with minimal additional effort.
It took us a few tries before we came up with a good way of using RequireJS effectively since we had never used the AMD API and the RequireJS API actually changed during our project’s development. It was worth the effort, though, because our resulting paradigm is simple, powerful, generic, and should be a useful base for future projects. It consists of a class inheritance structure that allowed us to easily create page specific JavaScript modules dependent upon numerous other modules in different places, which are either loaded separately and lazily during development or minified together at release time. All this is accomplished entirely within our JavaScript files and with minimal extra configuration.

Unfortunately, the details are too complicated to go into here (perhaps in a future Labs blog post!), but suffice it to say we’re very happy with the way our JavaScript architecture turned out with RequireJS and will likely continue using it in the future.

The MyHeartMap Challenge project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Physio Control; the Medtronic Foundation; the HeartRescue Project; Zoll; Cardiac Science; Philips and intramural Penn funding. Follow the project on Twitter at @myheartmap

And now, we hope you go out into the wild streets of Philadelphia and start mapping some AEDs. Who knows, you might even win $10,000 in the process.
11:27
Contrast and cartography – gdal_lightnerLinfiniti Geo Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

If you work with raster data in GIS you straddle a kind of wierd world where you deal with imagery but you cannot really manipulate the imagery as you would say with the GIMP or Photoshop. Conversely, if you ever tried to open a large GIS raster dataset with the GIMP you may have noticed [...]
10:40
Grids are goodWeb Map Design
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Excuse the use of map inserts rather than screenshots, I haven't got much time at the moment.

Look at an old Ordnance survey map of the uk and you'll see it's covered by a thin, blue lined grid. On recent map systems such as Google Maps and OSM there is no grid. My discussion today argues that we should bring the grids back.

Grids No Longer Necessary? To locate yourself on an old map such as OS a grid allowed you to use grid references. Web maps produce points at the right place without such a grid so because a grid adds to the visual clutter of a map, we're best rid of them?

Nope.

Landmarks and Scale: A grid is helpful because it gives a sense of scale to the map. If you're looking at part of the antarctic

View Larger Map

you have no sense of the size of what you're looking at. Fix a grid of 1km spacing over the top and you can immediately judge distances.

Point Landmarks. To locate yourself on a map your brain looks for known features and fixes your position in relation to this point. Here in London that means that Londoners often describe an area in relation to underground (=metro) stations because that's how most of us get around. The problem with this is that in tests it's found that people tend to position points that they remember by a landmark too close to the landmark. So if my house was 1 mile away from Clapham South underground station if I was tested I'd tend to draw it closer, say 3/4 of a mile.

Line Landmarks Another way we locate points is in relation to line features such as a major road or coastline. This has problems too. Consider the question, which is further west of these UK cities: Glasgow or Cardiff?

View Larger Map

Glasgow is towards top of map in Scotland. Cardiff is due west of London and Bristol, you may have to zoom out or in a little

Without looking at a map most Brits think that Cardiff is further west. That's because they have a mental map in which the East coast of the UK runs north south whereas it actually runs NNW-SSE and they warp space to accomodate this misconception.

Grid Solution Because a grid runs exactly north-south and east-west it gets over the Glasgow-Cardiff problem. Also, it minimises the underground station problem as it represents a continuous set of landmarks rather than discrete points (although this point is worthy of more testing to prove this is the case). So a grid can deliver both a sense of scale and a landmark system which allows people to fix positions on a map and remember their positions correctly.

When to use Grids: I suspect that its more useful to use a grid in an area without a strong set of landmarks (desert, tundra) rather than somewhere with good landmarks, if you put a grid over US cities with their right angled street systems I imagine users would ignore the map grid because the street system provides such a good system of landmarks already.
10:00
Sundosoft Brings GIS to Korea and other International GIS NewsAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Korea Times has a feature on Yoon Jay-joon (Jay Yoon), CEO of Sundosoft, a large GIS player in the country. One of the graphics is of a box of ArcGIS 9. I guess 10 is not yet out there. - Korea Times Panasonic's new GPS enabled cameras may not work quite right in China. How and... Continue reading
10:00
Girl Scout Teaches Geography and other Education GIS NewsAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Danielle Feoranzo, a student at Westwood Regional High School in the Township of Washington, recently earned her Girl Scout Gold Award by painting a map of the United States on the playground at the Jessie F. George Elementary School. I've read lots of stories about maps being... Continue reading
10:00
Rhiza renames, relaunches core product: Rhiza UpshotAll Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

I learned about Rhiza Labs during the bird flu pandemic of 2009 (APB coverage). The company provided the backend mapping for a crowdsourced effort to gather infection and other data as the disease moved across the world and in the United States. Last week I recieved an e-mail from the... Continue reading
9:05
New GfK Study Reveals Socio-demographic Structures in GermanyDirections Magazine - Top Stories
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

GfK GeoMarketing annually releases the "GfK Demographics" study, which calculates the regional distribution of household types, income brackets and accommodation types in Germany. According to the 2011 data, Berlin has the largest share of young people among Germany's federal states, while Baden-Württemberg has the most families with children. One- to two-family houses are most common in Saarland.

More about: business gis, demographic data, demographics, geographic data, germany, location intelligence, location technology
5:17
Connecting many placesSean Gillies Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Things you find in Pleiades that you don't find in a typical geographic information system include relationships between places that are expressed in the data itself. I blogged about this last summer (accompanying figure reprised below) and talked about it at the 2011 Digital Humanities conference (our poster here).

Until today, connections between places have been a little sparse. Loading 200+ milecastles and turrets with connection to Hadrian's Wall changes the situation at least in Britannia. The representation of Hadrian's Wall in Pleiades doesn't have a published spatial extent of its own, but gets one by virtue of its connections to these other small places. Here is a screenshot from Google Maps.

Here's a closeup near Brampton. The lone placemark at the bottom represents an old quarry that supplied nearby milecastles with rock. For the moment at least, we're asserting that the quarry was connected to the fortifications.

The remains of Hadrian's Wall are a popular hiking itinerary today. The connected places in the maps above don't quite describe the itinerary because they aren't chained to each other, but I can't stop thinking that we should be making it possible to represent ancient itineraries like the Antonine using places from Pleiades.
3:43
UAV to Assess Offshore Wind PotentialLiDAR News
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The RAVEN will be used to acquire horizontal and vertical wind and turbulence profiles at a low altitude. These will be compared to data from MET towers and wind LiDARs. Continue reading →

Click Title to Continue Reading...
1:14
Intern Opportunity with the USDAMy Georamblings...
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

As I announced in class tonight, the USDA/NRCS is offering a webinar Feb 6th, 7th & 8th from 3p to 4.30p EST on intern and employment opportunities this summer.

Details can be found here
07 février 2012
22:31
How To Use Python To Download A File And Import This Into ArcGIS Server On A Regular Basisgeo.geek.nz
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Python provides a very powerful means of accessing ArcGIS related functionality easily allowing you to encapsulate a workflow into a process. ArcGIS 10 introduced Python throughout the system allowing you to execute commands directly from ArcGIS....
22:25
imagina 2012 Monaco: Squint / Opera Architectural Visual CommunicationsVector One
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Nick Taylor of Squint / Opera, an architectural visualisation firm based in the UK, presented some of the work conducted by that company at imagina 2012 today. The company contains architects, film makers, artists, visual communication specialists among others and has evolved over to present numerous projects. Printing and branding are also part of the [...]
22:01
imagina 2012 Monaco: BIM To Get StandardsVector One
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Building Information Modeling (BIM) was front and center for many of the presentations today at imagina 2012. Architects, construction firms and visualisations specialists in design were all discussing different perspectives about BIM. Trino Beltran, Director of Research and Development for Bouyges Batiment International said, “the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) would be [...]
21:38
Landsat Thermal Sensor Will Aid Water ManagementSpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission's (LDCM) thermal infrared sensor (TIRS) has been completed and shipped to Orbital Sciences for integration into the rest of the satellite. This TIRS sensor will measure and monitor water evaporation and transpiration over Earth's land surface by measuring radiation emitted in two thermal bands. The sensor resolution is 100 meters, [...]
21:07
LightSquared Update - LS Requests FCC Write Specs for GPS - 2/7/12All Points Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

With Tuesday's filing, LightSquared asked the FCC to enact new rules to require special design standards for GPS devices. In the filing, the company argued that GPS receivers could be fixed using filters or other technical modifications. LightSquared acknowledges such a change may... Continue reading
19:59
Building on the Chain, Gang.OpenGeo
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Programming languages haven’t changed much over the years: the latest languages to take over large swathes of the industry (Java and C#) are unashamed about being cleaned-up versions of C++, which itself was a melding of C with object concepts. What has changed immensely recently is the state of the art in how large programs are built and tested, the “build chain”.

We don’t talk about this much because it isn’t very client-facing, but thanks to the efforts of Justin Deoliveira and Tim Schaub, OpenGeo has a quite robust build environment. Early on in the development on the OpenGeo Suite we found that the number of steps necessary to move from a particular version of the code to an installable and testable artifact was very high—so high that cycles of test/fix/re-test were just too long.

So we automated this chain, and not just the build. Our software is now automatically built out from source code all the way to installers (for Mac OS X and Windows) and packages (for Ubuntu Linux and CentOS Linux) and machine images (for Amazon AWS) every hour. The industry term for what we’re doing is called “continuous integration“.

The complexity of a system that builds multiple components (GeoServer, PostGIS, PostgreSQL, GeoExt, etc.) in multiple languages (C, Java, JavaScript) on multiple operating systems (Linux, OS X, Windows) is quite substantial, but it is all worth it to be able to incorporate a bug fix into a new installer in short order without human intervention. As we have many clients who are depending on our software for their deployments, this reliable turnaround is critical.

Our system has grown so large that we are now devoting a full-time engineer (welcome, Michael Weisman) just to maintaining and improving it. In time, we plan to add even more components and functions into the mix, such as continuous builds of GDAL and continuous unit testing of all components against multiple databases. The benefits in flexibility, quality, and development speed is well worth the investment.

So if you’re looking for us, you’ll find us building on the chain.
19:24
GeoNode 1.1 ReleasedSlashgeo.org
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com
We first mentioned it two years ago, and now the open source GeoNode 1.1 has been released.

What GeoNode is? "GeoNode is an open source platform that facilitates the creation, sharing, and collaborative use of geospatial data. The project aims to surpass existing spatial data infrastructure solutions by integrating robust social and cartographic tools. At its core, the GeoNode has a stack based on GeoServer, Django, and GeoExt that provides a platform for sophisticated web browser spatial visualization and analysis. Atop this stack, the project has built a map composer and viewer, tools for analysis, and reporting tools."

And what version 1.1 has for us: "
- Improved documentation
- Support for GeoServer 2.1, including:
  - GeoWebCache integration
  - direct Shapefile-to-PostGIS import from the GeoNode upload form (thanks to Matt Bertrand)
  - speed improvements to the way GeoNode manages GeoServer configuration
- Support for GeoNetwork 2.6
- Various UI improvements, including:
  - a new user profile page listing the user’s layers and maps
  - a “Get feature info” tool to identify feature attributes when viewing maps
  - improved map transitions and performance
- Increased coverage in GeoNode’s automated test suite
- Better feedback from admin tools (thanks to Ariel Núñez)
- Installer for Ubuntu (thanks to Ariel Núñez)
- Numerous bug fixes thanks to support from partners at last year’s roadmapping summit
- Translations in…"
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19:07
Get Organized With The 2012 Esri DevSummit Online AgendaAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Are you planning on attending the annual Esri DevSummit this March in Palm Springs CA? If so you can start planning your week as the online agenda planner and schedule ...
18:11
Ericsson Labs Offers Geo Location Messaging APISpatial Sustain
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Ericsson Labs has recently released a Geo Location Messaging API for quick and simple location-based content delivery. The API can be used to push content to clients in a selected location or to alert clients about data. Users can subscribe to information channels or services in order to receive these pushed messages. While the API [...]
18:00
Another Bing Maps Government Solution: Microsoft Single View PlatformBing Maps Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

In today’s hectic and digital world, workers are overloaded by information management. The Microsoft Single View Platform (SVP) helps decision makers take action quicker on information that is relevant and often time sensitive by simplifying complex data and information into an easy-to-use system for all types of government workers and roles. Using a broad suite of Microsoft products, this solution is easy to implement and cost-effective, and will fit nicely into the software investments many government agencies already license today.

With so much data having a location component, Microsoft Bing Maps adds the critical visualization layer to SVP resulting in increased situational awareness for employees and more informed decision making and reporting. With Single View Platform, workers can easily see the information that matters to them in a simple-to-consume visual way.

To learn more, read case studies, and watch demos, visit Microsoft Single View Platform.
16:44
WunderMap Historical WeatherMapperz - The Mapping News Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Weather Underground's WunderMap includes historical weather records back to 1st January 2001. "A calendar control above the map allows the user to select a...

Map and GIS News finding blog. With so many Maps and GIS sites online now it is hard to find the good from the not so good. This blog tries to cut the cream and provide you with the newest, fastest, cleanest and most user friendly maps that are available online. News has location and it is mapped.
16:17
GIS to model predictive behavior and meth lab locations in Colorado SpringsAnyGeo - GIS, Maps, Mobile and Social Location Technology
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

An interesting read on Geospatial technologies and predictive behavior analysis in mapping meth labs in Colorado Springs. Most of us in the industry realize that GIS and Geospatial technologies in ...
15:22
PODCAST: Panel of Geospatial Experts Discuss Viability of Commercial Imagery and EnhancedViewgot geoint?
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Recently a number of geospatial experts have authored articles that highlight the viability of commercial imagery – in the face of the proposed U.S. defense budget cuts, which could potentially have a significant impact on the commercial remote sensing industry. We were fortunate enough to have gathered three of these experts on one podcast today. Today, we are speaking with Kevin Pomfret, Executive Director of the Centre for Spatial Law and Policy; Josh Hartman, Principal at the Center for Strategic Space Studies and the CEO of the Horizon Strategies Group; and Dennis Jones, President of the Jones Consulting Group.

Listen to internet radio with gotgeoint on Blog Talk Radio
Be sure to check out these experts’ recent articles here:

- Directions Magazine

- Space News

- Imaging Notes
13:44
The tales of the Arctic Tern and the Sea GrapesGoogle Earth Blog
sur Planet Geospatial - http://planetgs.com

Last fall we showed you a great file from the people at Encyclopedia of Life that tracked Bluefin Tuna across the Atlantic. They're back with a few new files that show how a type of sea algae (known as "sea grapes") and Arctic Terns travel across the world as part of their annual migrations.

Ari Daniel Shapiro has worked with others, including Marie Studer and Eduardo Garcia Milagros, to put together some remarkable new tours. Ari's background is in radio, so the audio narrative on the tours is excellent. Combine that with the images, video and Google Earth content and you've got a very engrossing and educational result.

The tours are available below, both in KMZ format and also as embedded YouTube videos for you to enjoy:

Sea Grapes Tour | KMZ

Arctic Tern Tour | KMZ

For more, you can view all of their tours on the Encyclopedia of Life site.

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