What skills do you need to be a successful GIS Analyst? Michalis Avraam put together the results of a discussion at the University of Washington that posed the question, “What are the essential skills to succeed as a GIS Analyst?” Avraam breaks down the critical skills into categories: general GIS, database management, programming, project management [...]
Now that Twitter has opened up the Geotagging API we can expect loads of cool new functionality from developers. Like what you might ask?? How about Geo Tagged Tweets sent from within ArcGIS Explorer for a start! Seems the ESRI development team has jumped on this…
I have blogged previously about the importance of data quality in the context of the smart grid and that the electric power regulator ANEEL in Brazil is getting serious about data quality.
In Argentina the power industry regulators have mandated a high level of data quality since the 1990's. Beginning with the Privatization Program in 1990 most state owned companies were transferred to the private sector including state telephone company, airlines, railroads, and electric power production and distribution. There are about 20 electric power distribution companies in Argentina, all of which were privatized at this time. After privatization, power distribution companies in Argentina were expected to be profitable. The national power Industry regulator Enre and the regulators in each of the states are responsible for overseeing the power industry. The regulators focussed on two areas, reliability and data quality, and these two factors effectively determine the rate of profitability that the power distribution companies can achieve.
The regulators require frequent reports from the power utilities, for example, equipment utilization reports are required daily, outage reports are required monthly, and so on. The regulators have their own call centers so that consumers unhappy with some aspect of electric power service can call the regulator to complain. Also the regulator does spot checks of electric service and conducts audits. The acceptable threshold for data quality is 98%. Companies not meeting this level of data quality may face fines of up to millions of US dollars and reduced rates.
I would like to thanks Alejandro Spiritoso for enlightening me about the importance of data quality in the Argentine power industry.
In the ‘Perspectives’ column this week — “Digital Terrain Models: GPS or Aerial-Satellite Sensing?”
Both GPS and aerial-satellite sensors are used to generate data suitable for creating a digital terrain model (DTM). In the case of GPS, a series of points are measured through triangulating signals originating from a series of GPS satellites. Alternatively, [...]
Adena Schutzberg interviewed Jay Tilley, Sanborn's Senior Vice President about why 3D data is important and how the industry is overcoming challenges such as cost, data fusion and the integration of real time data. Tilley also speaks to the future gr...Read more
Two things that are definitely high on my cool list – space stuff and Photosynth – have come together to allow you to take a virtual tour – inside and out – of the International Space Station. Microsoft and NASA have partnered on the synths of the space station on NASA’s website. It’s a great way to get to explore the space station’s modules using the Photosynth viewer, and you can even see the 3D point cloud of the station. There are also synths available for the Mars Rover and the Hubble telescope.
The only downside is that these synths aren’t embeddable, so I can’t give you a preview here. But definitely head over to the NASA ISS Photosynth page and check it out!
From cnet news : "Twitter has now launched the geotagging API, or application programming interface, that it announced in August.
Users now have the option to opt-in to geolocation by clicking a box in their settings menu, according to Twitter. For now, the company said, the impact of geotagging will be in third-party apps. Users won't see a difference to Twitter.com just yet."
Today is the last chance to win a copy of Field Assets for iPhone or a piece of VerySpatial SWAG from our shelf. Please keep in mind that you must have access to the US iTunes store to redeem the codes for Field Assets and that you have until 11:59PM PST to enter. Today we ask a question that there is no correct answer for, but I am curious:
What is your favorite thing about Geography?
No more submissions accepted at this time.
The winner’s from day 5 are:
Field Assets – Robert from San Fran
SWAG – Andrew from Meadville
I will be emailing you in the next couple of days with details.
Actually, it was MacWorld (both IDG pubs) that caught up with Nick Black, CloudMade founder, to explore why the company and OSM can change the world.
- Computerworld...Read more
With IE’s market share continuing its decline, Microsoft is working overtime to catch up to the current generation of browsers. If everything Microsoft showed with IE9 at their Professional Developers Conference comes to pass, they may be able to stem the bleeding.
One of the most innovate features they’re working on is GPU acceleration. Right now [...]
""The woman requested that the deputies Google Earth her house and keep it on satellite surveillance overnight," [Sgt] Dawes said."
- A Lake Forest (CA) resident called local police to as for a watch on her house after she heard noises, as report...Read more
Welcome once again to our Friday’s Food for Thought post. Since we have been doing posts lately about the mapping of human behaviors (i.e., sins and corruption), we decided to make this week’s FFT post all about the mapping of human activity and the concept of the collective unconscious. We spend a considerable amount of time focusing on mapping and imagery of our globe for various GEOINT purposes. Perhaps it is time to use the same analytical thinking to map what makes us tick as human beings? Pretty heady stuff for sure, but it is Friday after all. Hope you enjoy.
The Human Genome Project: The Ultimate Map of our DNA
Perhaps the most famous mapping effort of human behavior is the world-renown Human Genome Project, which was an international scientific research project with a primary goal to determine the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA and to identify and map the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional standpoint. The sequence of the human DNA is stored in databases available to anyone on the Internet. The U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information house the gene sequence in a database known as GenBank here. Cool stuff, but it begs the age-old question: since we know so much about our DNA, why are we still in the dark about human behavior? The nature versus nurture battle will continue to live on…
Mapping Human Impacts on the Biosphere
One area of human behavior that is confounding is our ability to continue to wreak havoc on our environment — although admittedly there have been steps in the right direction lately. Fortunately, there are a number of efforts in place to map our impact on the globe. Specifically, we came across GLOBIO (Global Methodology for Mapping Human Impacts on the Biosphere), which is a consortium aims to develop a global model for exploring the impact of environmental change on biodiversity. GLOBIO’s mission is to present a clear visual overview of the cumulative impacts of increasing resource demands on humankind and the environment, based on the best available scientific evidence, in support of the global environmental assessments. Check out the web site here.
Mapping Human Behavior Through Mobile Phones
In an effort to build a comprehensive picture of human movements, last year, Nature Magazine published a study that tracked the whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users. It is not a surprise to see that the study concluded that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again. The results of the study could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic. But we think that it just proves one thing: we like our daily rituals and habits. Read more here.
Mapping the Mind; A Must Read
In the last decades of the 20th century, scientists have come to believe that the human brain is almost completely modular. Every bit of the brain does something in particular, and surprisingly specific abilities, memories, and responses are in localized areas. Journalist Rita Carter has drawn a map of what is known (and speculated) about the mind in a heavily illustrated field guide to the human brain. Carter and her scientific editor, neuropsychologist Christopher Frith, cover the state of the mind in a reasonably accurate, accessible way. They emphasize topics that are likely to be of some practical interest–such as Alzheimer’s or attention deficit disorder–but not so much as to give a distorted picture of the field. Now that you have read the Amazon.com editorial review of the book, you can purchase it here.
The Collective Unconscious and Human Behavior
Famed Psychologist Carl Jung believed that as a human race, we shared a collective unconscious mind that is the product of ancestral experience and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality. He believed that the collective unconscious is also known as “a reservoir of the experiences of our species.” Now, if this theory is true, imagine the power we could have in influencing our race — whether through political or military means. If we had the key to tap into this reservoir, surely marketing companies could also benefit. Oh, wait, isn’t that what Twitter is doing these days? The micro-blogging site provides a snapshot into the collective conversation happening with humans, well; at least with those who use Twitter.
Human Behavior
As we always try to tie in a music video that reinforces our weekly theme of this post, we had to post “Human Behavior” by Bjork. She is a confounding artist who scored big with this 1994 hit how human behavior looks from an outsider’s perspective. If you listen closely to the first, she actually say: “There is no map.” So, there you go…we actually succeeded in bringing this song back to mapping. Enjoy and happy Friday!
Former Digg Chief Architect Joe Stump and Social Thing founder Matt Galligan are now offering a private beta of SimpleGeo, a "new infrastructure for location based services."
Per TechCrunch:
SimpleGeo is akin to an Amazon Web Services for locat...Read more
Over the course of the last few days at the Forum Forum in Saskatoon, Canada I have been listening to a number of presentations that, when connected together indicate a strong case for a 3D Digital Farm. Many agronomy professionals discuss on farm production through a series of processes. There are the root process, foliar [...]
When the former ER Mapper, Ltd (purchased in May 2007 by ERDAS) added support for JPEG2000 they noticed JPEG2000 specifications were very broad. As a result, JPEG2000’s speed would not approach ECW speeds for a decades, if ever. Think of it this way, JPEG2000 is a Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV or 4-wheel drive) and ECW is a Formula 1 Ferrari.
The geospatial industry deals with dozens to thousands of images at a time and speed is critical. While geospatial users need the Formula 1 Ferrari, they must drive on public roads (lowest common IT standards), and thus must use the SUV not the Formula 1.
How can SUV owners get more speed from their beast? By using ECW SDK’s J2I file. This ‘index’ file to the JPEG2000 file allows the customer to more rapidly access JPEG2000 data in a viewing technology that uses the ECW SDK to read ECW and JPEG2000 files. The J2I file will significantly improve your performance by fine tuning your existing engine.
The improvement depends on the encoding method. Some encoding methods mandated by less sophisticated IT departments are like pulling a loaded trailer behind the SUV. An engine tuning helps, but slow starts cannot be avoided.
You may ask, how do I create these on JPEG2000 J2I files in ERDAS IMAGINE 2010? For one images at a time, just touch the file with any ERDAS IMAGINE function, and like the aux file, it is automatically created.
For batch creation, use the Edit Image Metadata (aka Image Command Tool). Select one image needed, select ‘Batch’, the select all images needed in the batch tool.
You may be asking, why is there no check-box function for creation the I2G file on Edit Image Metadata? All you need to do is touch the file with any ERDAS IMAGINE function and it is created. Thus only touching the file in Batch Mode is needed.
And with IMAGINE Advantage 2010 batch mode, you can touch up to four at a time with each IMAGINE Advantage floating license you have available.
Back to our cars (file formats); I want a street version Ferrari (has a roof, stereo, leather seats, electric windows, air-conditioning, and of course GPS).
AOL which will be sprung from Time Warner at the beginning of next month laid off 1/3 of its workers and reports indicate it's putting its ICQ messaging service and perhaps MapQuest up for sale. Among the possible buyer suggested for the mapping biz:...Read more
Now Google offers a page for each real estate offerings. (Generic "Place Pages" were announced in Sept. [LatLong Blog].) Data is drawn from a variety of sources (multiple listings!), perhaps pushing Google more toward aggregator of than organizer of ...Read more
To go along with the nice imagery update yesterday, Google has done a few things to help improve the 3D models found in Google Earth
Update to SketchUp 7.1: This update consists entirely of bug fixes, with no new features present. It fixes some measurement and precision errors, among other things. Here are the full release notes if you're interested. SketchUp 7.1 added a lot of great features, so this update should make modelers very happy.
3D models with detailed facades: Using StreetView imagery, in a way similar to what you can do in SketchUp 7.1, Google has added high-res facades to buildings in five California cities: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Franciso, Berkeley and Stockton. By using StreetView imagery to detail the 3D models, zoomed in areas of the downtown streets look stunning. Here's a quick video showing some of these new buildings:.
I'd expect we'll see this technology find its way over to Building Maker eventually. Having that kind of imagery available in Building Maker would allow them to expand the available area for it much more rapidly.
In the meantime, enjoy the sharp looking cities in California. They're quite stunning and becoming more realistic all the time.
It went live yesterday (Twitter blog) and the Twittersphere was excited. The only challenge: it's an API so only developers, not end users, could do anything with it. Further, you can't take advantage of the API from the website, so, no cool locatio...Read more
In the latest round AT&T responds to Verizon's ads with its own ads. Most reviewers cast them as "lame" and "slapped together." I don't even know who Luke Wilson is, but he runs down a checklist of features (some say with errors) that the two carrie...Read more Continue reading "Update 5: AT&T Sues Verizon over "Map for That" Map Ads"
Macworld reviews four geotagging applications for the iPhone. Now the iPhone geotags its own photos — if you take a photo with the iPhone’s built-in camera, it can be automatically geotagged. But these applications turn the iPhone into a GPS logger: you shoot with your regular camera, and merge the time and location data from the iPhone application. A standalone GPS logger is cheaper than an iPhone with two- or three-year data plan, but if you already have an iPhone …
"Technology has changed a great deal since I went to college. We used to take measurements by hand. We now have GIS systems where you can map a boundary. A new person entering the field really needs to have those skills and the new course curriculum...Read more
There are ample rumors online that AOL will sell MapQuest as part of the Time Warner and AOL split that will take place in less than a month. You may recall that AOL paid $1 Billion for MapQuest back in 1999 as one of the early indications that Internet technologies meant big business, and a [...]
Google has announced that the source code for Chrome OS is fully open. Yesterday Google hosted an event about Chrome OS including demonstrations of Chrome OS. The presentations ran on machines running Chrome OS. According to Google, Chrome OS is about a year away from being released.
Google's perspective is that Netbooks are becoming increasingly popular, people are doing more things in their browser, and new types of devices like smart phones, e-readers, and web tablets like the new Nokia N900 are becoming widely used.
According to Google, every Chrome OS application will be a Web application, so you won't have to download and install applications. Chrome-based netbooks will be instant on. Turn on the power switch and the machine is on-line. Google is eliminating the boot loader and modifying the Linux kernel to minimize loading of services at startup. They also intend to use a verified boot process that detects whether web applications are legitimate.
Google will specify the hardware components for Chrome OS-optimized netbooks. For example, Chrome-OS optimized netbooks will have to use solid state drives. Chrome OS will run on both ARM and x86 processors. You won't be able to download Chrome OS onto an existing netbook.
For offline use, it looks like Google will implement something like Google Gears.
The European Union has agreed to a Directive that will see new buildings having to meet strict news guidelines for energy neutrality beginning 2020.
From Deutsche Welle - ” The future of the building industry looks a bit greener thanks to a directive that requires new buildings be energy neutral. Government representatives have praised the measure, [...]
Twitter geotagging is now officially available, though only through the API — which means that third-party applications can do things with it, but it won’t show up in the web interface. It’s off by default; users have to enable it. More information on Twitter’s support page. For developers, this page talks about best practices for implementing the geotagging API.
Some of the areas that have been updated are various locations in the United States (including Florida and California), a few locations in Brazil, northern India, northern New Zealand and a variety of other locations around the world.
Share your finds: As with previous updates, they're encouraging you to Tweet about interesting things that you find in the new imagery using the #GEarthIMG hashtag. You could also drop a link to your interesting discoveries in our comments, or submit them to the database over at Google Earth Hacks.
A group at the Stevens Institute of Technology has developed a 3D mobile mapping system for less than $20k.
ROAMS uses a 2D scanner on a rotating and pivoting platform to obtain 3D coverage.
This kind of innovation is going to rapidly expand the laser scanning market.
A group at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey has developed a 3D mobile mapping system using a 2D laser scanner. Instead of using multiple 3D scanners to build a system costing $100,000+, this group is using a 2D scanner that costs $6,000. The entire robotic system was built from off the shelf parts for between $15 and $20,000. This is both impressive and exciting.
Roams - the Remotely Operated and Autonomous Mapping System was funded by the US Army. The resolution of the system is lower than the sophisticated mobile 3D mapping systems coming on the market, but for many applications it is “close enough” – a phrase which used to have real meaning in the surveying profession. It was the survey party chief’s job to decide what was close enough. I believe the concept is still there with laser scanning, but it’s not the same level of decision making.
The 2D scanner is mounted on a pivoting and rotating framework that provides the 3D coverage. The vehicle is guided from a command vehicle which can be up to a mile away. The system also includes a number of digital cameras that can be remotely controlled.
This is innovation at its best and it can only lead to much more widespread use of laser scanning.
Are you a Foursquare user? If not, chances are really good that in the near future you will be! A blog posting on LaughingSquid got my attention today as the author reveals details of a recent meetup at the foursquare office and reports on 50 newly…
A few months ago, Twitter let it be known that it was working on a geo-tagging API. It has allowed this semi-official announcement to create some buzz and hype, and some of us wondered when it would ever be released. The wait is over, and Twitter have announced that the geo-tagging API is now live for all users.
The announcement can be found here. Twitter have also published best practices such as opt-in and full disclosure.
In a few weeks, we shall be revisiting the API with a technical overview and how-to.
MoonChildCY writes "After a GIS event day that saw participation from industry, government and freelance authors, I wrote up the essential skills a GIS Professional should have today to be able to get a job. Of course this is not a definitive list, and not exhaustive, but a good start for most people. Feel free to chime in, either here or on the blog article itself."
Unfortunately I had to miss the recently held Ignite Fort Collins 3 event but no worries, the great team (@IgniteFC) that organizes the event has made all the presentations available online… thanks! I’d like to share this funny presentation from a Twitter colleague of mine…
ISC just released the first in a series of new case studies highlighting the great solutions that companies have built with MapDotNet UX. This first case study is focused on using MapDotNet UX within an Intelligent Transportation System and features the solution built by Econolite called Centracs.
Excerpt from the Case Study:
In March, Econolite released Centracs, an Advanced Transportation Management System (ATMS) that harnesses the power of Microsoft® Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and MapDotNet UX. Econolite chose WPF and MapDotNet UX for their next-generation system because of the rich, intuitive interfaces that could be built for the maps, graphs and windows in the application. Combining those technologies with SQL Server 2008, allowed Econolite developers to rapidly build the new Centracs system that allows traffic engineers to visualize, analyze and interact with spatial information.
Manage, configure and monitor field assets like traffic signals, CCTV cameras, or other ITS components
On to the next chance to win a copy of Field Assets for iPhone or a piece of VerySpatial SWAG from our shelf. For those of you just joining us please keep in mind that you must have access to the US iTunes store to redeem the codes for Field Assets and that each day we start anew tossing out all entries from the previous day(s). Today we take look to landscape planning:
What famous park in NY City did Fredrick Law Olmstead help to design?
No more submissions accepted at this time.
The winner’s from day 4 are:
Field Assets – Rafa from Portland
SWAG – Sriharsha from Fairfax
I will be emailing you in the next couple of days with details.
Our reader may recall that we did a post a while back on the mapping of America’s sins. And, as expected, our nation was full of sinners. Now, we have come across study from Transparency International who has created a corruption index and map for gauging the corruption level of every nation. The big surprise is that the U.S. did not fare as well as other first world nations including Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Australia and Ireland. According to Wired Magazines coverage of this index, the U.S. rated below these countries because of the influence of lobbying on our lawmaking and the ongoing controversy over how we’ve prosecuted the war on terror. You can read the Wired article here, as well as see the actual index here.
Here in Fort Collins, Colorado we are treated each week to a casual, social media training session organized by Nick Armstrong of WTF Marketing (@imnickarmstrong) in what’s known as the Digital Gunslingers meet-up. This past week we were treated to a session organized by nick…
Welcome once again to our Friday’s Food for Thought post. Since we have been doing posts lately about the mapping of human behaviors (i.e.,
, or 
Our reader may recall that we did 
