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GIS Lounge - Geographic Information Systems

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GIS Day 2008

Posted: November 18th, 2008, 8:15pm CET by Caitlin

Tags: Community

GIS Day will be held on November 19ths this year and is celebrated as part of Geography Awareness Week each year. If you’re wondering what you can do in honor of GIS Day, there are plenty of sites you can visit to find a GIS Day event near you or to find virtual events and activities that you can participate [...]
Free ArcGIS Tips and Tricks Seminar

Posted: November 17th, 2008, 7:33pm CET by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

Those of you that work with ESRI’s ArcGIS desktop GIS software will be interested in the latest free online seminar offering to be held on November 20th: Redlands, California—November 17, 2008—Editing and updating data in a spatial database can often be time-consuming. This month’s ESRI live training seminar will offer several tips and tricks that will [...]
NY Times Election Mapping

Posted: November 5th, 2008, 2:39am CET by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

The New York Times, always a creative leader in portraying complex information in unique graphics and maps, has a fantastic election map. The application allows for three different ways to view data at both the state and county level. Click on a state to zoom in to see greater detail of precincts reporting at the [...]
uDig GIS and Quantum GIS

Posted: October 16th, 2008, 8:12pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Open Source

Linux Journal profiles uDIG, a Java-based open source GIS application (the acronym refers to User-friendly, Desktop, Internet, GIS). The article by James Gray reviews how to download uDIG, where to find GIS data and reviews the basic functionalities of loading data, symbolizing and selecting attributes. James Gray also has an earlier overview of Quantum GIS [...]
What Skills are Essential in GIS?

Posted: October 13th, 2008, 10:39pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Career

Gina Clemmer of New Urban Research is conducting a survey to understand what skills are essential for GIS professionals. Answer this quick ten question survey to add your input: GIS Skills Survey
First GIO Named for the Department of the Interior

Posted: October 8th, 2008, 9:39pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Career

Karen Siderelis has been named the first geographic information officer (GIO) for the Department of the Interior: “The appointment of Karen Siderelis to this new position underscores the importance of Interior’s role in guiding the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC),” said James Cason, associate deputy secretary of the Interior, in announcing the selection. “This committee coordinates [...]
Making a Mountain out of a Hill

Posted: September 20th, 2008, 5:37pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

It’s a case of life imitating the reverse of art. In 1995, Hugh Grant played a cartographer who tried to turn a Welsh mountain into a hill by remeasuring. The film “The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain” was set in 1917 in a small Welsh town. Fast forward to [...]
Essays on Geography and GIS

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 10:32pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Issues in gis

ESRI has a “GIS Best Practices” series that was launched last year to document successful case studies in a variety of industries. The series continues to be added and contains essays on a variety of subject matters including public safety, conservation, and logistics. The latest release is a compilation of past ArcNews articles entitled “Essays [...]
Interview with Iain MacDonald, Cartographer

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 6:01pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Career

The UK newspaper, the Independent, profiles Iain MacDonald, a cartographer in their “I Want Your Job” series. MacDonald works for Collins Geo which is a division of Harper Collins that produces maps and atlases. The skils he states for doing his job well: “You’ve got to be computer literate and logical, with excellent spatial [...]
Heidelberg-3D - Interactive 3D City Mapping Based on OGC Standards

Posted: September 10th, 2008, 10:06pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

Recently a first version of the interactive 3D city information system Heidelberg-3D.de was made available online. It can be used freely by anybody. The core of the system is one of the first implementations of the OpenGIS Web 3D Service (OGC W3DS) discussion paper. The system comes with a free 3D-Client called <XNavigator>. This client [...]
What are the Top GeoBlogs?

Posted: September 10th, 2008, 6:45pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: GeoBlogs

Off the Map has triggered an interesting discussion in the blogging community after posting a list of “Top 25″ (amended to a list of 37 geospatial related blogs). The initial list was compiled based on authority ranking (both actual and estimated) as listed on Technorati and then amended to pull in additional blogging sites [...]
Twitter Election Buzz and More Maps from Google’s Election 08 Gallery

Posted: September 4th, 2008, 11:55pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

Google has a plethora of 2008 Presidential Election related maps in their Election 08 Gallery. There are many interesting maps showing electoral votes, locations of super delegates and the locations of Obama and McCain videos. More maps are sure to be added as we near the November election. The Fundrace map is interesting as it shows the the [...]
GIS Used to Help Find Lost Hiker

Posted: September 4th, 2008, 6:43pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

Government Technology has an story about how GIS was used in the effort to find Dean Christy, a retired educator, who became disoriented due to fog while hiking in the San Bernardino Mountains, California. The search and rescue effort benefited from San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s (SBSD) Mobile Mapping Unit which helped prepare maps pinpointing [...]
ArcGIS 9.3 Service Pack 1

Posted: September 4th, 2008, 7:40am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

An early heads up from ESRI which announced the future availability of Service Pack 1 for the recently released ArcGIS 9.3. The release date is anticipated for November. Read the PDF of the announcement for four pages of detail on issues that will be addressed by this release. Stay tuned to ESRI’s RSS feed for [...]
Quick Link - Gustav Maps and Models

Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 8:05pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Climatology

The Washington Post has compiled a list of links relating to hurricane Gustav. The top link is the an interactive tropical tracking map showing the hurricane’s current location, wind speed and projected path. Additional resources listed are for NHC and NOAA models and other related maps. Read more: Hurricane Gustav Maps and Models - Washington Post
Free Map Servers

Posted: September 1st, 2008, 5:50pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Free software

Want to launch maps over the internet but can’t afford commercial software? Check here for links to free map servers. ALOV Map Free, portable Java application for publication GIS data to Internet and interactive view on web browsers. Site contains live demos. GeoTools GeoTools is an open source, Java GIS toolkit for developing standards compliant solutions. It’s modular [...]
Online Mapping is Not the Death Knell for Maps

Posted: August 31st, 2008, 6:28am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

Mary Spence, the President of the British Cartographic Society, recently sent the geoblog world atwitter with her pronouncement that Internet mapping is responsible for removing broad strokes of history and local geography through the practice of what she referred to as ‘corporate blankwash‘: “Corporate cartographers are demolishing thousands of years of history – not to mention [...]
TypeBrewer - Font Tool for Cartography

Posted: August 29th, 2008, 6:53am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

TypeBrewer is a Flash application that “offers a quick and easy way to explore typographic alternatives and see the impact that various elements of type have on the overall look and feel of a map.“ The application allows your to play around with different fonts, sizes, label densities and font tracking to get a better [...]
Geographic data for Africa Lags

Posted: August 28th, 2008, 5:43am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Data Collection

A lack of comprehensive geographic data is an obstacle for effective land management for many countries in Africa according to the latest Map Africa conference. Derek Clarke, the chief director of the surveying and mapping unit at South Africa’s ministry of land affairs, states that only 45 percent of the populated areas of Africa are [...]
Welcome to the Age of Intelligent Maps

Posted: August 26th, 2008, 5:52am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

The Adobe Think Tank has an interesting article by Karzys Varnelis and Leah Meisterlin entitled “The invisible city: Design in the age of intelligent maps”. Citing the rise of GPS, online mapping and other digital formats for cartography, Varnelis and Meisterlin discuss the implications on design as they herald, ” Welcome to the age of [...]
As Dynamic as Paper Maps Get

Posted: August 23rd, 2008, 3:40am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

Urban Mapping, a small company based out of San Francisco has created the Panamap. The map is created using layered plastic sheets that, together, offer three different map views on the same page. Depending on the angle the map is viewed from, the user can see either a street map, subway map, or neighborhoods and [...]
Linux in GIS

Posted: August 22nd, 2008, 12:10am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Link Library

Currently applications and resources geared towards running GIS software on Linux operating systems. fmaps GIS/RS application for Linux and Gnome platforms. Open source code is available for downloading from this site. FreeGIS FreeGIS CD 1.0.4 for GNU/Linux. This CD contains GRASS, a GIS software application as well as server software for web-based, interactive mapping and programming libraries [...]
Google Investigating Photoshopped Area on Google Maps

Posted: August 21st, 2008, 6:09am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google maps

An area in the Netherlands showing cloned trees that was the subject of speculation for some bloggers last week is being investigated by Google Maps. Where there are areas that Google Maps won’t show due to security or sensitivity reasons, these areas are blurred out or pixelated and no attempt is made to camouflage them. [...]
Personalizing Tourist Maps

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 2:20am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

Floraine Grable presented her work on automating tourists maps at last week’s SIGGRAPH conference. While street level imagery as Google’s Street View and Microsoft’s Pictometry data are popular, Grable found that providing too much information isn’t helpful for tourist maps, stating, “When the maps show every building, every street, it’s very difficult to find specific [...]
Lonely Planet Guides Available on Nokia

Posted: August 20th, 2008, 1:52am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Location Based Services

Now that Nokia has aquired Navteq, the phone maker will be selling maps and travel guides for download. Nokia Maps 2.0 provides vector data supplied by Navteq and TeleAtlas. Geographic data for over 200 countries are available, 70 of those countries have navigable data. Travel data will be supplied by Lonely Planet and will give [...]
Georgia Online

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 6:05pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

The recent conflict in the country of Georgia has led to the question of “where’s Georgia?” on Google Maps. Some sources claimed that Google removed its data for Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia soon after the fighting began in South Ossetia. A screen shot of Google Maps showing the countries of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan with [...]
MAPPS Members Prefer Senator McCain

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 5:37pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Trends in gis

MAPPS, a United States non-profit group comprised of GIS commercial interests, posted the results of their recent poll which surveyed the political preference of their members. Polling restricted to the members of MAPPS showed a preference for Senator John McCain over Senator Barack Obama by 76% to 24. The polling was conducted during the MAPPS [...]
Flickr goes with OpenStreetMap

Posted: August 14th, 2008, 2:19am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: gis News

Flickr has announced the ability to display geotagged photos using OpenStreetMap as the base map with the goal of providing better street level geographic data than what was previously available. To kick off the change, Flickr posted before and after pictures of street level data for Beijing in honor of the 2008 Olympics: Thanks to the [...]
INLET

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 7:11pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Emergency Management

Chris Pendelton highlights INLET using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth using a disaster scenario hypothetically occurring in Santa Clarita. INLET stands for Internet-based Loss Estimation Tool and is a “web-based loss estimation and transportation modeling platform used to evaluate whether Information Technology (IT) solutions can reduce the impacts of disasters on transportation systems.“ The application was developed by ImageCat, Inc. based [...]
How to Use Yahoo! Maps in Flex

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 3:06am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Yahoo maps

The FLEX{er} site provides a quick post covering how to integrate Yahoo! Maps using Flex Builder 3.
How Maps Shape Information and News

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 2:12am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Issues in gis

Leslie Rule from the MediaShift Idea Lab (PBS.org) tackles the issue of “How Maps Shape Information and News”. Her post was triggered by a video created bty Alisa Miller on “Global News 2.0″ which looked at “How the news shapes the way we see the world, and why Americans seem to know less and less [...]
Profiling Dave Imus, Cartographer

Posted: August 11th, 2008, 1:48am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

The Eugene Register-Guard profiles an Oregonian cartographer by the name of Dave Imus. Imus has produced maps of Oregon and local jurisdictions in Oregon and won a “Best of Show” award from the American Congress on Surveying & Mapping. The article has some great quotes from Imus and others that were interviewed relating [...]
Component GIS Software

Posted: August 10th, 2008, 6:22pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Link Library

Component GIS software enable developers to create custom GIS applications. Find resources relating to Component GIS in this category. GIS Software Components In the focus towards custom GIS applications, software components and open source are hot items. Article by Marco Morais. FME Objects Safe Software’s FME Objects components for embedding data reading, writing and processing functionality into any [...]
Map of ESRI Attendees

Posted: August 7th, 2008, 6:41pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

ESRI has posted a map of attendees at the ESRI International User Conference (seen via All Points Blog). The maps plots out the location of the over 13,000 attendees from 123 countries around the world. Zoom in close and rubberband a location to get a tabuler count of attendees by city - you have to zoom [...]
Job Hunting Tips for Women in Tech

Posted: August 7th, 2008, 3:39am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Career

For women who are currently looking for a job, this online panel next week should be of interest: I just wanted to let you know that the WomenTech Talk Yahoo! Group [groups.yahoo.com] is holding their August online panel, “Job-Hunting Tips for Women in Trades and Technology” next week, Monday the 11th through Friday the 15th. Whether [...]
Early Tidbits from the ESRI User Conference

Posted: August 4th, 2008, 10:25pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

An announcement first made at ESRI’s Senior Executive Summit and then repeated during his talk this morning by Dirk Kempthorne (U.S. Secretary of the Interior) is the availability of later this year of over 35 years worth of Landsat data to the public. Directions Magazine’s Joe Francica has posted an interview with Kempthorne about this. There [...]
ArcGIS Desktop: 9.3 Top Ten Improvements

Posted: August 4th, 2008, 9:36pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ArcGIS Desktop

As part of this morning’s segment of the Plenary Session at the ESRI User Conference was a well received (at least judging by the level of applause after each item on the list was announced), “top ten” improvements for ArcGIS 9.3. As a precursor to the list being unveiled, Jack Dangermond stressed that the foundation [...]
Web GIS in Practice

Posted: August 3rd, 2008, 6:24am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: public Health

The International Journal of Health Geographics has a series of tutorials and educational articles relating to the use of Web GIS. The Web GIS in Practice series includes: Web GIS in practice VI: a demo playlist of geo-mashups for public health neogeographers Web GIS in practice V: 3-D interactive and real-time mapping in Second Live Web GIS in practice IV: publishing your [...]
Radiohead’s LiDAR Video Explored

Posted: August 3rd, 2008, 6:16am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

If you’ve been intrigued by the making of Radiohead’s music video, which was developed entirely using LiDAR to render 3D imagery, then you might find Timothy O’Brien’s series of interviews on O’Reilly.com fascinating. Over the next couple of weeks, O’Brien will post interviews of four individuals that remixed the Radiohead content to produce their own [...]
Open Source GIS Applications

Posted: August 3rd, 2008, 5:40am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Link Library

Open Source programs are applications of which you can access the source code. Listed here are available open source GIS-based applications you can download written for a variety of platforms and in various languages. State of Open Source GIS Intensive survey by Paul Ramsey published in September of 2007 that reviews open source GIS grouped by [...]
What is the GeoCloud?

Posted: August 3rd, 2008, 5:00am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

A new geospatial term has been popping up on the Internet lately: the GeoCloud. Carl Reed, Chief Technology Officer in the July 2008 OGC newsletter (Chief Technology Officer’s Message: The Cloud) defines cloud computing: The term “cloud” comes from the fact that we have all used the cloud symbol to represent the internet/web. Cloud computing therefore refers to [...]
Yahoo! Map Updates

Posted: August 2nd, 2008, 4:32am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Yahoo maps

The Yahoo! Geo Technologies group has announced new updates to Yahoo! Maps. Gus Maldonado, Sr. Product Manager posted about the new upgrades which include: Improved Local Search integration that utilizes the Search/Direct Display Index More user-friendly Driving Directions - a more user-friendly left rail that’s both wider and more legible (larger text), for easier reading of driving [...]
OneGeology Update

Posted: August 1st, 2008, 6:39pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Data Collection

In a little more than a year, scientists collaborating around the world have assembled geologic data for a significant portion of the earth. The project, entitled OneGeology, has pulled together geologic data provided by over 15,000 scientists from 79 countres. The results of the project will be presented at the 33rd International Geological Congress (IGC) [...]
gvSIG News

Posted: July 28th, 2008, 5:24pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: software

From the gvSIG Virtual Office News: We would like to inform you that gvSIG source code repository SVN has been freed for public use (read only). From the gvSIG project, we hope that it makes working easier to the developers community, and to stimulate developing software for gvSIG application more and more. - The URL of the repository [...]
Mashup Training from ESRI

Posted: July 28th, 2008, 4:04am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: education

ESRI will be presenting a free seminar on July 31st to teach ArcGIS users “how to use the new ArcGIS JavaScript APIs to build high-performance, easy-to-use online mapping applications.“ The seminar will air at 9am, 11am and 3pm Pacific Standard time. The topics covered in the seminar are: The concept of a mashup The ArcGIS JavaScript API The [...]
Using Location Intelligence, Office Max Grows Business and Improves Operations

Posted: July 27th, 2008, 4:04am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

Mapinfo has provided a case study on location intelligence in the retail sector with this article on OfficeMax’s use of MapInfo Location Intelligence in their recent expansion. As a leader in both business-to-business office products, solutions and retail office products, OfficeMax, Incorporated serves enterprise-level, mid-size and small businesses, as well as individual consumers. The company was [...]
The Jekyll and Hyde of Google Maps

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 6:25am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google maps

CNET poses the question, “Are Google Maps good or evil?” in reaction to receiving two different press releases touting both the benefits and negative aspects of Google Maps: The first was from an outfit called Stop Child Predators, which launched a campaign to tell parents about the potential ills of Google Maps’ Street View, which shows [...]
News from the Online Map World

Posted: July 23rd, 2008, 4:25am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google maps

A couple of announcements of note from the Online Mapping world: Google Maps is now offering walking directions for their maps. From the Lat Long Blog: Starting today, you can tell Google Maps that you want walking directions, and we’ll try to find you a route that’s direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when we know about [...]
Printing Free on Mapquest

Posted: July 22nd, 2008, 12:32am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Internet Mapping

The Mapquest Developer Network announced that printing maps (from developer applications) is now free. According to the post the conditions are as follows: You can print up to 5000 copies of a map per run/publication The printed map can be up to a maximum of 8.5″ x 11″ inches printed It has to be a free publication (flyer, [...]
The Many Names of Crowdsourcing GIS

Posted: July 21st, 2008, 3:43am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

The advent of tools that invite and encourage even non-GIS trained users to provide geographic data and mapping in a collaborative, wiki-like environment has both fans and naysayers. The debate about this growing effort aside, even coming up with a universally accepted name has been elusive. There are certainly many competitors seeking to be [...]
Why ArcView 3.x is Still in Use

Posted: July 21st, 2008, 2:44am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

Despite the introduction of the ArcGIS platform at the 2000 ESRI International User Conference, some GIS shops either partially or exclusively still use ArcView 3.x as a means by which to do GIS. The original ArcView was introduced in the early 1990s as a graphical interface to view geographic data. ArcInfo, at the time, was [...]
Getting the Most out of the ESRI User Conference

Posted: July 20th, 2008, 5:12pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Community

Whether it’s your first time or tenth time attending ESRI’s Annual User Conference in San Diego, this annual get together is always a fantastic opportunity for users and developers of ESRI software to enhance their skills and to network with other GIS professionals from around the world. Starting August 4th this year’s event marks the [...]
ArcGIS 9.3 Seminar Series

Posted: July 17th, 2008, 1:17am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

With the release of ArcGIS 9.3 comes plenty of opportunities offered by ESRI to explore the new upgrade. You can visit their “What’s New in ArcGIS 9.3” page to find out the new enhancements and view demos of 9.3 functionality. Announced today is the ArcGIS 9.3 Seminar Series which will start in September and be [...]
GIS Volunteers for Obama

Posted: July 14th, 2008, 5:17am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

The Obama Campaign is looking for volunteers to help out with their GIS skills: GIS for Change Political campaigns rely heavily on location based data and with the November election rapidly approaching we are looking for Obama supporters in the GIS professional community to step forward and help win November! Anything from 5 hours [...]
Crime Mapping - Step by Step

Posted: July 14th, 2008, 2:51am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

Here’s a step by step accounting of the manual process by which one local paper maps out their crime. What’s interesting is that the process to get the crime locations takes up a grand total of two steps and the process to get the maps so they can be printed is eight steps. Not surprisingly, [...]
Collaborative mapping for disasters

Posted: July 9th, 2008, 2:35am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Community Geography

BusinessWeek takes a very superficial look at the use of community driven mapping efforts during emergencies. While the article doesn’t go much in depth on the different types of mapping efforts that kick in during emergencies, it does look at two sides of the collaborative mapping issue. On one side of the issue are efforts like [...]
GIS in Action Contest

Posted: July 5th, 2008, 7:09pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

ESRI is looking for your little slice of GIS life on a video: Do you think your use of GIS is too common to be interesting? Think again. You would be amazed by the many uses of ESRI’s ArcGIS software, which is a good deal of what makes the ESRI UC so inspirational. So, have a [...]
Street View on the Move in the UK

Posted: July 5th, 2008, 6:31pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google maps

Despite the potential to be referred to the Information Commissioner, Google apparently has started gathering the street level imagery needed to launch Street View in the United Kingdom. According to the BBC, Privacy International, a British rights group, believes that Google’s technology breaks privacy laws in that country: “In our view they need a person’s consent [...]
Voice Input for Google Maps Available in Beta for Blackberry Pearl Users

Posted: July 4th, 2008, 8:19am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google maps

Google is testing voice search technology for Google Maps and it has announced the availability for Blackberry Pearl users. The experimental technology allows Pearl users to use Googles Maps, obtain directions and located business by issuing voice commands. According to Betanews: Pearl owners can go to m.google.com/maps, press 0 to center the view of the map, [...]
Ask.com now using Microsoft

Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 6:24pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

Rather than continue to try and compete with the mapping services provided by other Internet search engines, Ask.com is now using Microsoft’s Virtual Earth to providing mapping services. Read more: Ask Maps Now Using Virtual Earth - Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
Google Partners with TeleAtlas

Posted: July 2nd, 2008, 6:07am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Data Collection

Google has signed a five-year agreement with TeleAtlas which means the geographic data provider will be supplying Google with data covering over 200 countries for Google Maps, Google Earth and other applications that need geographic data. What is interesting is that the agreement allows TeleAtlas access to the community edits: Bill Henry, CEO of Tele Atlas: [...]
K-12 Education in GIS

Posted: July 1st, 2008, 11:57pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: education

Collection of references and tutorials on how to teach GIS to K-12 level students. Find lesson plans, user groups and more in the category. ArcLessons GIS lesson plans for K-12 level. Excellent source of basic step-by-step lessons to introduce GIS to the classroom. You can also upload your own lesson plans to share with others. ArcVoyager Special [...]
Getting Ahead of Crime Using GIS

Posted: July 1st, 2008, 1:17am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Crime Mapping

Sara Barbour from Miller/McCune magazine writes a summary article on the use of GIS to predict criminal behavior. The start of the article reviews a crime case in which spatial analysis was used to pinpoint and subsequently arrest a sex offender in Toronto. Manny San Pedro, an officer with that police force is quoted as saying [...]
Google’s Street View Car Adventures

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 4:36am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Silly but Fun

Apparently one of Google’s Street View car drivers decided that an up close and personal tour of Microsoft’s Campus was in order. According to Gizmodo (the site refers to it as the GooCar): The GooCar…wasn’t just covering regular roads, they were going in-between buildings and getting as many angles as they could of the campus….the Google [...]
GIS for Kids

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 1:44am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

Summer’s here! School will be out and the time abounds when many kids take on new learning experiences. Have you ever wanted your child to understand what it is you do all day long? It’s difficult enough to elucidate to an adult layperson what Geographic Information Systems are; knowing where to start explaining GIS to [...]
MapTube

Posted: June 27th, 2008, 6:52pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Community Geography

A new map sharing site was launched last month by the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London. As the introductory blog post states: Put simply it is a place to share, mix and mash maps with a nod towards professional map makers rather than the more widely seen ‘MyMaps’ type applications. What [...]
Map Makers of the World

Posted: June 27th, 2008, 6:12pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Cartography

The Maps of World site has a categorized listing of some of the most notable mapmakers in history and in contemporary times. From Anaximander who lived around 600 B.C. to Mike Reagon, a cartographer who has done work for National Geographic, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the site has short biographies [...]
British Cartographers

Posted: June 27th, 2008, 6:04pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Career

The Times has short profiles on two British cartographers. The first looks at Jon Ford, a cartographer with the British Geological Survey who splits his time between field surveying and developing 2D and 3D models of his fieldwork. The second profile is on Edward Mainwaring who works for the Ordnance Survey. Mainwaring became interested in [...]
What Say You about GML?

Posted: June 26th, 2008, 6:59am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: gis News

The Open Geospatial Consortium wants to know what you have to say about GML: The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) is inviting the public to offer change requests for consideration by the OGC Technical Committee on a revision of the OpenGIS® Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard. GML defines a data encoding in XML for geographic [...]
ESRI Releases

Posted: June 26th, 2008, 6:55am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

Two press releases of note issued by ESRI today announced both a new version of ArcGIS Explorer for download and the long awaited shipping of ArcGIS 9.3. New Version of ArcGIS Explorer Offers More Data Support and Better Map Displays ArcGIS 9.3 Improves Your Entire GIS Workflow
Community Geography à la Google

Posted: June 24th, 2008, 6:09pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google maps

Google stepped into the community geography ring by announcing Google Map Maker, a new tool from Google that allows users to contribute and edit geographic data used by the popular Google Maps and Earth applications. This is a step beyond the My Maps tools (that allowed users to create and share geographic data) in that [...]
Virtual Earth and Government Aerials

Posted: June 24th, 2008, 8:09am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Current Events

Information about Microsoft’s GoVE imagery acquisition program has been posted on Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog. The program is looking for governments to submit their aerial imagery to Microsoft for publication onto Virtual Earth. We’re just starting a new program called “GoVE” which enables municipalities, state and local governments, aerial photographers, carrier pigeons, whoever, to share [...]
Making Sense

Posted: June 23rd, 2008, 6:22am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

The NY Times (registration required) has a profile on Sense Networks, a company that mines millions of location data points using a tool called Macrosense. This tool mines data using complex statistical algorithms in order to predict human movement. The article quotes Tony Jebara, one of the co-founds of Sense who says: “We can predict [...]
PolicyMap

Posted: June 23rd, 2008, 6:09am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Internet Mapping

PolicyMap offers over 4,000 different indicators covering demographics, economics, housing and mortgage information, crime and other neighborhood level datasets. There is a free registration option that gets you access to a great deal of the functionality offered on the site. If you need access to current year or 5-year projected data then the site offers [...]
COGO/Parcel Maintenance Survey

Posted: June 19th, 2008, 7:05pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: ESRI

If you maintain land records and use ArcGIS software then ESRI wants to hear from you: ESRI is committed to providing you with the best software tools possible, and you can help us achieve that goal. Please take a few minutes to tell us about your use of GIS land record and parcel maintenance tools. Your [...]
The Re-birth of Pen and Paper in Mobile GIS

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 7:22pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

By Ken Schneider, CEO and President of Adapx Field data collection is vital to the work of many enterprises and government agencies driving important decisions that ultimately affect the bottom line. Many of the current methods and technologies are inconvenient, error-prone, and time-consuming. Whether in engineering, construction, utilities, military, security, law enforcement, or in any industry [...]
Geostatistics

Posted: June 15th, 2008, 11:16pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: gis Techniques

Geostatistics is a brand of statistics that deals specifically with spatial relationships. Find information about this branch of mathematics, software and tie-ins to GIS. Geostatistics Glossary Geostatistics terminology. Maintained by Donald Myers of the University of Arizona. Ai-Geostats Mailing list dedicated to issues relating to spatial statistics. Sign up or search the archives from this site. Find courses, [...]
Kvisu - searching with cartographic results

Posted: June 12th, 2008, 6:37pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Features

Kvisu.com is an interesting search engine that places a surface map of the results alongside the traditional text based results set. Available in both English and French, KartOOvisu creates a visualization of the key words surrounding the search term entered. Instead of having to research the results by adding keywords, the user can navigate through [...]
GPS Your Way to Cheaper Gas

Posted: June 11th, 2008, 8:16pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: gps

A couple of GPS companies are offering services to help drivers find the cheapest local gas available. Garmin has teamed up with MSN direct to alert drivers where the cheapest gas is on some of their GPS models. TomTom offers a $14.95 yearly subscription that pulls gas rates from their website and provides directions to the cheapest [...]
Mapping: the Next “Big Web Thing”

Posted: June 11th, 2008, 6:23am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Data Collection

The Financial Times published an analysis piece that looks at the investment by companies such as Nokia, Google, and Microsoft to amass huge amounts of data mapping out the world: “Our goal is to make a kind of mirror world, a replica world,” declares John Hanke, head of its Google Earth unit. Way to go? Mapping looks [...]
KML Validators

Posted: June 5th, 2008, 11:03pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google Earth

The use of KML is becoming ever more common as a file format for displaying geographic data on the web. In April, KML was accepted as an OGC standard. Given the increasing use of KML, ensuring that your KML code is compliant is important. Galdos Systems recently announced the availability of a KML validator via their site [...]
Five Steps to More “Interoperable” CADD Data

Posted: June 4th, 2008, 4:56am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Data

Paul Bartsch of the Spatial Tips site shares some tips on working with CADD data to make it more “GIS friendly”. The transition between CADD and GIS can be difficult but if you follow these five simple steps, it shouldn’t be very painful. Use Polylines instead of discontinuous lines. For example, when drawing a waterline, don’t break [...]
Making Navteq Maps

Posted: June 3rd, 2008, 7:36pm CEST by Caitlin

Tags: Data Collection

PocketGPSWorld has an inside look at how Navteq’s survey teams update their street maps. The article looks at how their cars are outfitted with GPS and camera equipment as they travel around the UK updating their geographic data. Included is a video of the process. The making of Navteq Maps: Onboard with the survey team
New Geospatial Coalition

Posted: June 3rd, 2008, 3:18am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: gis News

A new press release of note is one released by URISA announcing the formation of the Coalition of Geospatial Organizations (COGO). The coalition is currently made up of ten geospatial organizations for the purpose of: COGO was developed to provide a forum for organizations concerned with national geospatial issues that will 1) improve communications among the member [...]
Street View Not Welcome in North Oaks

Posted: June 2nd, 2008, 6:08am CEST by Caitlin

Tags: google maps

The St. Paul suburb of Minnesota is likely the first U.S. jurisdiction to demand that Google remove all imagery of the community of North Oaks from their online database. Apparently the entire city of 4,500 lives on privately owned roads. A letter demanding the removal of the imagery was sent in January and was [...]

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