The Geo-Revolution

Google Maps serving up parcel data

2009-10-08T18:50:00.003-05:00

I'm going to stray a bit from the open-source application topic today to discuss a new development in the area free data access. This certainly applies to my Geo-Revolution theme where the old days of difficult to access and use GIS applications and development are being readily and thankfully replaced with easy to use applications and free available data.

Parcel level data has traditionally been left to our local government GIS departments that would provide that data to their customers or citizens freely or at a cost depending upon the case. Now it appears Google has made at least some parcel data available. So far, I've only seen parcel level data in some areas of Colorado (Denver, Fort Collins).

A few of the blogs that I've read such as Spatial Sustain and James Fee seem to feel this will be a blow to private companies that had traditionally sold this data. I agree that there will no doubt be an impact to those companies should Google choose to start covering the entire US parcel map. Even so, I still think there is a market for the vendor that can add value to the data. As others had also mentioned, we don't know the accuracy or timeliness of the data, again opportunity for added value.

My opinion is that this is all to the good, at least from my perspective being a small GIS entrepreneur. I love free stuff! Who doesn't? Whether its open-source applications, a nice API, or free data I say bring it on!

PostgreSQL MacOSX

2009-09-03T19:36:00.005-05:00

Well gang, I made the mistake of saying how smooth my install went on both the PC and Mac. Well, it did, the problem is that I found out my version 8.4 PostgreSQL wasn't compatible with the PostGIS 1.4 extension which I needed to also install. This where things went bad. You would think that just uninstalling 8.4 and going back to the compatible version 8.3 would be easy, unfortunately it wasn't. There are two places to get binary packages of PostgreSQL/PostGIS for your Mac. One is really easy the other one is somewhat piecemeal and I wouldn't recommend it. They both work, its just that if you want an all-in-one easy install I suggest going to EnterpriseDB and downloading their PostgrePlus installer. It really works nicely and includes PostGIS. The other site that is recommended by the PostGIS website is KyngChaos and while he has all the stuff, you need to pick and choose which packages you want and install them in the proper order. Both install packages worked but the KyngChaos installer put it in a hidden usr directory which made finding the programs difficult so I uninstalled that and tried running the EnterpriseDB package. That was looking good but ultimately the install failed...Crap. Now what? Off to the User Forums...Thankfully it wasn't long, maybe 1 day for my answer. It seems that the prior install created a user that was lingering around, I just had to go into Terminal and delete the user. Now I ran the installer and viola, PostgreSQL and PostGIS up and running on my Macbook.

Now my task was to get some spatial data loaded using the SPIT (import shapefile to PostGIS) plugin in Quantum GIS. The plugin is easy to use, first a connection needs to established with the database, once that is made you simply browse to your shapefile(s) and the plugin will bring them in. One item worth mentioning is the SRID or spatial reference should be defined using the EPSG value for your projection and datum. After you have all that defined, the plugin will create your new tables in your PostgreSQL database as shown below.

Now the easy part of just bringing in my new PostGIS layer into my map, then I can start playing with some queries. My next installments will begin to look at GRASS and hopefully more on PostgreSQL and PostGIS.

PostgreSQL impressions

2009-08-22T11:00:00.010-05:00

Well, I've finally had some time to work with another open source tool that perhaps some of you have heard of already heard of, or worked with: PostgreSQL. My first question is how to pronounce it! Well you sort of break it into four parts: Post-Gres-Q-L. I'm a little worried at this point, if I don't know how to pronounce it, how am I going to install and run it, and what is it anyway? Well, its a full-blown relational database that uses SQL or structured query language. You've no doubt heard of Microsofts' SQL Server, so its the same type of database. It began back in 1977 at UC Berkeley and is touted as the most advanced open source RDBMS out there. And where does GIS fit in all this you may be wondering? Well, it just so happens that PostgreSQL is also spatially enabled via an extension called PostGIS. We'll get to that later, some fundamentals first.

I'll break my review into a few parts, and I may need to break the blog down accordingly. The installation was not too hard, as with other open-source programs unless you are really a wiz, I suggest you download the binary package with an installer. There are plenty of strong warnings to direct you to this option and it is exactly what I did. I've run the installation on both my desktop PC and Macbook and both times the install went smoothly. There are few things to know before downloading just to avoid any surprises particularly with the Mac, so check out the Installation Guide before you install.

I would recommend following the default locations for installation unless you can happily use DOS commands to change directories, I'll get into that later. Also, if installing on the Mac, you need to be aware of a memory issue. It is mentioned in the directions and in the README of the download. The installer takes care of the adjustment to memory allocation, you do NOT have to do any scripting as instructed in the readme. You will need to reboot the machine after the installer makes the adjustment. After the reboot, just go back and start the installation again and the wizards will easily walk you through.

Once you've completed the install, you will have several icons added to your PostgreSQL folder: Application Stackbuilder, pgAdmin III, Reload Configuration, Restart Server, SQL Shell (psql), Start Server, Stop Server. Of these, the most useful for starting to work with your database is pgAdmin which gives you a nice GUI. Here you can add tables, run queries and administer users. I also highly recommend that you do get familiar with SQL Shell. For this I recommend some outside resources such as: Beginning Databases with PostgreSQL, Matthew and Stones; Practical PostgreSQL, O'Reily both of which are available at either Amazon or your local book store. The shell is great for running scripts and getting comfortable with SQL commands that you will need to be familiar with in pgAdmin anyway.

Here's a look at my new database in pgAdmin, note I have no tables yet. I'll go through building and populating tables in my next blog entry.

Open Source Trials and Tribulations...

2009-08-05T08:13:00.007-05:00

Awhile back I mentioned that I would be experimenting with some Open-source packages and now that I've done a bit more I thought now would be a good time to report my progress or in some cases lack thereof. As of right now several of the websites such as Q-GIS and GRASS are down, as soon as they are back I'll have links.

Quantum GIS aka Q-GIS. A great place to start. For installation you have the option of installing several other open-source apps as plugins which can really give you a full "GIS Suite" akin to the ESRI line. The packages include: GRASS (a high power analysis package), MapServer (web publishing) and uDig (web map publishing and mapping). First there is the Q-GIS package, the latest release is 1.0.2 which is the one I would install. I was working with 1.0.1 and had issues with installing other plugins (the "fetch plugins" tool wasn't available). I've had no issues with 1.0.2. If you do the full install you will also get some developer libraries (GDAL/OpenEV). All of this will be in a folder called OSGeo4W and within that folder you'll find your programs.

The user interface is really pretty nice but I do need to figure how to do a little more customization there because I'm running out of screen space, hopefully I can add some rows to stack my tools. If you know how to do this, please share. As for data access it seems to be very happy with with shapefiles and will also work with PostGIS layers but I haven't got to that yet. More on Post GIS and PostgreSQL in upcoming posts.

It also supposedly works with WFS but I'm having a terrible time finding any good WFS source. I tried a USGS WFS and Q-GIS recognized it and read the layers but wouldn't display...OK, another troubleshooting exercise. As for map production, I can only talk about 1.0.1, it was pretty lousy compared to what I've been accustomed to in the ESRI package. Maybe there have been improvements in 1.0.2 but that has some ways to go. Oh well, what do you expect for FREE. I'm still pretty happy with basic map production, just don't plan on doing much labeling.

As for working with data, I'm also having some issues here that need to be addressed. Again if you have any insights, please share. As of my writing the Q-GIS site is down, so I'm unable to get to the community forums for help. So what about documentation anyway? Well the Wiki and forums are pretty good. This is the first time I've seen that the site has been down so I'm hoping this is an anomaly. A buddy of mine just tweeted that the ESRI resources site was down too, so now I'm thinking we have a Evil GIS hacker in our midst! I did download the .pdf manual and that was very good for getting started, a good one to print out and put on your shelf. I also picked up a text, Desktop GIS that has been helpful. It covers several of the packages that are available at a high-level. Really good for getting started but don't expect it to get into much detail. For that we need our community forums.

So what about working with data you ask? Well my task is quite simple, I just need to join a spatial table with a non-spatial table. The tool to do this is a plugin called FTools. The Ftools interface is really easy to understand but unfortunately when I try to join my shapefile table to the .dbf of tabular data I get an error reporting there is a problem with with field data type, saying it wants a number or string and its a string, so join them already! I'm sure this is problem on my end, as soon as I get that one figured out I'll share the solution.

I'll briefly preview some upcoming posts to the blog. A review of PostgreSQL, PostGIS and UDig. Down the road I'm also looking to doing some work with GRASS which would be akin to ArcGIS Spatial Analyst.

More Broadband Maps

2009-07-18T12:37:00.002-05:00

Still doing some research on Broadband and came across two sites that were interesting. The first is Connected Nation. They are a non-profit that has mapped several states. I checked out the Connect Minnesota link and tested my download speed, pretty neat tool. The map looks like they are using ArcGIS Server with the standard .net ADF. The other is a national map showing wireless and broadband coverage for Cricket. This map is based on Google and does a good job but is of course limited to the Cricket provider.

Broadband Mapping in Wisconsin

2009-07-16T13:38:00.003-05:00

There has been a fair amount of discussion regarding broadband mapping with Government set to spend $350M on a national project that is nicely summarized by Public Knowledge. The state of Wisconsin has just posted an RFP for a State Broadband Mapping project. Recently a colleague of mine posted a good question to a LinkedIN group of which I'm a member. He was responding to a blog post of Sean Gorman that suggested the project could be done for a great deal less than $350M. His question was could the project be "crowdsourced" or local government sourced. Unfortunately, his question didn't generate a great deal of discussion but perhaps now that an RFP has been put forth, there will be more interested parties. I know that I certainly am!

GIS Professional Certification

2009-07-09T15:01:00.002-05:00

I just got off a conference call as a member of the GIS Certification Committee. We have been discussing the application process and structure of the application. Since I'm new to the committee and a newly minted GISP myself, I don't have much of the history that is behind the group.

The Institute is looking to hire a new executive director by Sept. 1 and that is when there will be some new things for members to benefit from. The "Grandfather-clause" see news release time period expired in December 2008 which is how I got "in". This allowed me to be certified on experience alone. I must admit that part of the reason I dragged my feet on the certification was that I didn't think it was that important. My thinking was that my experience alone would be enough to prove my worth in the profession. Now that I have volunteered to be part of the committee, I'm beginning to better understand its value and that it really will help us GIS'ers in gaining more respect in our profession, educating others, and differentiate those that maybe a casual user of the technology to those that have made it a career.

Great Park, Poor Maps

2009-06-30T14:25:00.010-05:00

Today we visited our local Heritage Park in Appleton, WI. It's a park that commemorates the Fox River's industrial past with a nice walking path and interpretive signs. As we strolled along, my wife and mother in-law called back for me to take a look at a map on one of the signs.

If you look closely, you will see that the cartographer mis-labeled the Great Lake which forms Wisconsin's eastern boundary as Lake Superior. These are really BIG lakes and it's akin to confusing the Pacific with the Atlantic. OK, so we'll grant our fellow cartographer one mistake this time. But now we started critically looking at all of the maps and it didn't take long to notice that they were all improperly oriented as well!

For the "perspective" maps to be useful, they should be oriented to the reader's position. In the map shown below, the mapper disregarded the viewer's standpoint, forcing the map reader to rotate the view by 180 degrees. Not an easy concept for most people! My hope is that the person or persons that created these maps were not cartographers and were graphic designers which might explain some of the problems in their maps. Even so, its hard to believe the park management didn't catch these errors in the review process.

If you find any map mistakes in your travels this summer please pass them along!

Compiling data and Public Participation Part I

2009-06-27T08:12:00.005-05:00

A few posts back I mentioned some of the work I was doing for a local citizen advocacy group interested in safe bicycle routes in Appleton and Grand Chute WI. I also alluded to the fact that we were using several different maps at different scales and that it made the whole process a bit confusing and at a minimum less efficient. With that experience behind me, I set out to get a consolidated data set and make it easily accessible.

My first step was to get bike route data from both local jurisdictions and combine them. I did this using Quantum GIS Project. I found out that Q-GIS doesn't have the local Outagamie County projection so my choice was to create a new CRS or ask the friendly local GIS department to reproject their data to WGS 84 which is what my base data was in. After reviewing the Q-GIS discussion on Proj.4 in UNIX, I decided to give the nice folks at Appleton and Grand Chute a call. Thanks to Jessica and Leno, you saved me alot of work and frustration! With the data now in WGS 84, I could get the data overlayed into my Q-GIS map.

After the low-tech meeting I decided it was time to use Google Maps to try some Public Participation GIS. Google's "My Maps"is an easy way to provide the local bike committee known as North STARS a means to collaborate and create their proposed routes. I did have the mark-ups from the earlier meeting on hard-copy, but I wanted to try this method as well. At least one of the committee members took a leap into Google Maps and started adding her proposed routes and landmarks. She had never done any kind of online map editing before, but it didn't take her long to get the hang of it and create a really great base for me to start my edits.

Stay tuned for Part II where I'll discuss the compiled data and converting the shapefile to KML and mashing-up with Google Maps API.

Geospatial Revolution Wants Input!

2009-06-22T14:45:00.003-05:00

The Geospatial Revolution Project is seeking input for ideas and even filming locations for their project. It is pretty amazing the amount of online collaboration that is happening these days, whether it is Nokia asking for ideas for a new product or a University project the search for the next best idea has clearly gone global if not viral.

One of the questions they ask is where will we (GIS technology) be in the future? I think the big thing will be transportation. I believe you will see a huge increase in the amount of intelligent highway systems, every car having GPS displays, probably some sort of congestion based pricing that is tied to location and built-in sensors to avoid accidents.

Win Cash for your LBS ideas

2009-06-17T21:19:00.003-05:00

Today I stumbled across a contest for the best new ideas in mobile mapping for Nokia products based on a service they call Ovi Maps. Hurry because you only have until June 30 to get your ideas in. I submitted mine! NAVTEQ had a similar contest that ran last year with a much bigger prize available, hopefully they will run another this year. Here's an interesting iPhone app called Are You Safe? it uses location but doesn't use a map to provide the information. It tells you if you are in a high crime area by using a Threat Meter, pretty cool.

I also came across what looks like a great tool for quickly creating some powerful and great looking mashups. Its called Visual Fusion. I've requested info from them, I'll be curious to find out how much it costs. This product looks like it can take the "mashup" to a whole new level. While I do love mashups, and I've only created a few, I find that as with most other GIS projects finding the right data in the right format tends to be the biggest obstacle. Granted, we are light-years ahead of the things we used to have to do to acquire data and make it work, but still there are short-comings that I run across every now and then.

Bing, Bang, Bust?

2009-06-13T13:34:00.002-05:00

Microsoft has launched what it is touting as a decision engine as opposed to a search engine. Now I know this isn't directly related to GIS technology but they do have a web map component which I'll get to in a minute. My first test of Bing as a search engine was to of course first look for my company and myself. Unfortunately my company didn't appear in even the first 5 pages whereas my company is the top site in Google. Maybe the Bing-Bot hasn't found me yet. I know my site probably isn't fully optimized but I'll keep an eye on my webstats.

As for the mapping, it has has a nice interface and basic "google-type" options. The Bird's eye option is pretty sweet and the imagery in general is excellent. They don't seem to be offering any way for users to create their own maps yet or offering any API. I would imagine they will eventually. As for sharing maps they only seem to be offering a email or blog option right now. I can't really see myself changing to Bing as a "decision" or search engine. If I'm missing anything really cool on Bing, please drop a note.

GIS and Public Participation

2009-06-10T09:42:00.002-05:00

I recently facilitated a meeting with a citizen advocacy group seeking more alternative transportation (bike/ped) trails and local government officials here in the Fox Cities area of Wisconsin. The meeting included a variety of planning, engineering, trail, and private citizens to discuss local and regional trail connectivity and planning processes.

View Larger Map

It's really interesting because I did a similar project about 10 years ago for my Master's thesis and I found many of the same obstacles in data access and information sharing. Since I'm purely a volunteer on this project my time is limited but I found that while everyone was very willing to participate and cooperate there are still gaps in data access and sharing between communities and agencies. My own little goal in this project is to provide an easy web accessible map for public dissemination of the trail planning process. For this meeting I used 3 or 4 maps all at different scales and not one consistent with the other. Needless to say it was a bit frustrating for the participants and a glaring reminder that we are generally focused on our own local data and not necessarily how it relates to the larger region.

My hope is that one web map that can printed or viewed during the subsequent meetings can a more useful tool in the regional planning process.

WLIA Conference Follow-up

2009-06-06T10:06:00.002-05:00

The conference was held in Sheboygan at the Blue Harbor Resort. It's a really great hotel/resort, the design reminds me of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. Since I'm new to WI, I relied on my Garmin Nuvi to get me there and let's just say while I'm usually loving my GPS, on this trip, I wasn't. First, it routed me North on 41 to exit off of 172 which is closed. I think NAVTEQ offers a paid subscription for updated construction, I may need to look into that. Then, once I got re-routed, it put me along a bunch of old cobblestone roads that were for the most part abandoned roads through Sheboygan. Oh yeah I forgot, there was more construction detours. I'll get to the conference, I just need to rant a bit more...If you haven't seen the traffic circle right near the conference center, you really need to. It isn't so much a traffic circle as a traffic pentagon or trapezoid, most if not all traffic circles are designed on 4 way intersections, not this one, its really interesting, it has like 5 or 6 roadways intersecting. I should have taken a photo of the sign delineating the roads. Generally I'm a fan of roundabouts, this one was a horrible mistake. OK, now for the conference.

Attendance was down to about 65 people, budget constraints no doubt the big factor here. In general the sessions and panels were quite good. There wasn't much offered in a technical sense but there were some good policy discussion. One of the best technical sessions was a Benefit/Cost Analysis to evaluate public transportation and trucking investments in GIS. One of my favorite classes in college was an infrastructure planning course and we did alot of B/C analysis, I don't think we see or hear enough about it. Kudos to Dr. Jessica Guo of UW Madison on this thoughtful study.

Another good discussion from a panel came from the issue of Broadband access. Ken Schlager Ph.D. P.E. offered some great insight into the drawbacks of current thought on the technology and some new ideas that his company is putting forward. One of the big issues is rural access to Broadband, the old way of thinking particularly in wireless applications is to find the highest point and put up a tower, Ken suggests linear networks that follow existing road networks, great idea! His company is HierComm.

Finally in a follow-up to my earlier post where I was contemplating the seeming abundance of GIS related associations/groups in WI. This came up at the WIGICC session when a WLIA member in the audience asked the presenter and I'm paraphrasing, "Why do we need WIGICC? WLIA is already doing the things that you propose WIGICC is about to do" The presenter said that WIGICC had a broader role and he felt that WIGICC was complementary to WLIA. Another audience member had a very good comment stating that the formation of the council was actually a result of a state-wide GIS Plan that WLIA supported, so I guess in effect WLIA helped to create WIGICC. Again, since I'm new to WI and both organizations I may not have the total picture but it does appear that there is overlap. I do see where WIGICC can have a broader reach, since it seems to me WLIA is really focused on parcel based data and as we well know that is only a small part of what GIS can capture and manage.

Open Source GIS Web Publishing

2009-06-03T15:06:00.003-05:00

I'm currently volunteering as a facilitator for a local citizen committee interested in developing bicycle and multi-use paths in Northeastern Wisconsin. Right now I'm going very low-tech with paper maps and sharpies, but I'm thinking that I really should be using some form of GIS in our meeting. The GeoServer product looks great, so I'm going to install that and see what I can do. If I don't get that far, I can at least either use the existing web site that the Outagamie County is posting or just have my local Q-GIS running. If you have any experience with other open source web publishing GIS tools, please leave a comment!

Also, please take my poll for choosing your favorite open-source GIS app for publishing to the web. GeoWeb Publishing Poll

Open Source GIS trials

2009-05-29T11:07:00.002-05:00

Well I spent a few hours yesterday working with Q-GIS. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Q-GIS, it is one of several free open source GIS software packages available. My first impression is that it is quite user friendly, its easy to get installed and there is a good user manual as well. The GUI is uncomplicated and easy to navigate. Since I've primarily used ESRI products for the past decade, I'm of course frustrated as I hunt for tools that may or may not be available. My biggest disappointment thus far has been in the labeling ability. I guess I can't complain too much since this is free and it really does have some good tools and it hasn't crashed once on me yet. I would definitely recommend the software for anyone that is one a budget and looking for an alternative to ESRI products. There are many plugins available to expand the power and capability such as adding PostGIS layers. That is another open source package that I will be testing as well. I have more testing and experimenting to do, and I will share those in the days ahead.

Some upcoming webinars

2009-05-20T07:32:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd share a couple of upcoming webinars that might be of interest to you. The first is about some new national high resolution DEM data. The webinar is hosted by Intermap tomorrow , so if you want in, act now! I'll be curious to see how much they will be charging for the data. While the 30M resolution put out by the USGS isn't the greatest, free is always nice.

The other webinar that got my interest is one being put together by NAVTEQ and ESRI called Desktop to Dashboard: Efficient Routing with ArcLogistics and NAVTEQ. That one is May 27 3pm CDT.

NAVTEQ also has a developer area so I'll be checking that out too, hopefully there will be some good samples to work with.

Wisconsin GIS Associations

2009-05-18T11:47:00.002-05:00

As usual I was trying to get over a case of blogger's block and was checking a few of my favorite sites when I found yet another Wisconsin GIS Association. Being new to Wisconsin from the neighboring UP of Michigan I knew it would take me some time to get "connected" in the GIS community in Wisconsin, but I had no idea just how many geospatial associations there were. Here's a few for starters:

WGUG This is an AutoDesk oriented group focussing on the government community.

WGICC They are a newly formed coordinating council for geographic information.

EWUG Wisconsin ESRI User Group

WLIA Statewide group primarily interested in land record modernization.

There is also the Fox Valley User Group, but I couldn't find a website, just a LinkedIN group. This makes me wonder if there is also a Wisconsin Facebook group? I'll have to check on that.

Of course there are also the national associations which cover more general topics such as the Association of American Geographers which of course pre-dates GIS technology. I wonder if there are any geographers out there that resent the overwhelming popularity of GIS compared to plain-old geography?? Hmmm. that's one for another post I guess.

As for our Wisconsin specific entities, I've joined a number of them already and I'll be curious to see how much duplication of effort is happening or if they really do work on different issues. I imagine those vendor-specific groups don't overlap too much but I wonder about the state-level groups. Since I'm new, I'd like to hear from those who have participated or if you know of any other groups that I may have missed.

If I find any new groups or decide to start my own, I will keep you posted!

New edition of my Favorite Map Reference Book

2009-05-13T11:06:00.003-05:00

They've just released the 6th ed. of my favorite map reference Map Use: Reading and Analysis book. It was the text my undergrad mapping class used. No doubt it was selected because the author attended Northern Michigan University where I did my undergrad. Over the years I've found it to be a very handy reference. The great thing is that anyone can use it, and it really has relevance as we see more and more of the Geoweb and mashup influence. I get the feeling that some of these "mashers" don't necessarily understand mapping concepts. In a social mapping environment, it probably isn't that important. However if you are trying to communicate a particular message with your map and you aren't sure how to do it, I would highly recommend this excellent primer on map use.

GIS Careers

2009-05-08T12:25:00.003-05:00

I guess the economy is forcing people to start looking at career options which is why I found myself chatting with 3 people this week seeking advice on a careers in GIS. One was a fresh graduate of a Masters' program, another was a Bar-owner, and another was a former GIS person that left the field and is looking to come back. Quite a wide range!

Our profession really has blossomed and we are no longer just glorified CADD techs (trust me, I respect all those CADD folks!). There is actually a professional certification offered from GIS Certification Institute and I've recently been "grandfathered" in by way of my experience and education. Remember, one couldn't get a GIS Degree 10 years ago!

I think this all very positive for the GIS field and it will no-doubt attract alot of folks who have been forced to look at other careers because of the changes in our economy. I'm sure also that there will be many that will change their mind once they realize it means more than just "making a map".

Now why didn't I think of that!

2009-05-05T15:27:00.002-05:00

This is one I wish I thought of since I'm an avid cyclist. It's a community of cyclists that share their rides via a web map. Very cool and useful. It's called MapMyRide. Again a very helpful tool that is adding to GIS database that is built by users that may or may not know what the technology is that they are using. Plus the site has all kinds of goodies for tracking your training program.

Episode 1 Geospatial Revolution Project

2009-05-04T09:21:00.005-05:00

I'd say Penn State has done a nice job in introducing the technology. Since the purpose of the Geospatial Revolution Project is to introduce the general public to the field of geospatial information, I'd say they are off to a good start. It really reflects my very first post on this blog. How many of you need to define what it means to be in GIS to people? Usually they will confuse GIS with GPS or CADD but now thanks to Google Maps, they have "some" idea. Unfortunately, that is only a partial picture of what we do, limiting their perception of us as "computer mappers" which completely leaves out database design, predictive modeling, 3D visualization, and temporal analysis. Hopefully, the Penn State project will add these little droplets of information to their project as they move along in the series.

The Geospatial Revolution Project

2009-05-02T07:53:00.000-05:00

I started this blog awhile back and was waiting for the right time to begin posting. Like most things in life, particularly revolutions, timing and location is everything. Now that Penn State has started a really nice educational series about GIS or geospatial technology called Geospatial Revolution Project, I'm going to jump in and add my commentary as well as any new things that I find along the way.

Vive la GIS!

GIS in your pocket

2009-01-09T08:22:00.000-06:00

GIS technology has finally become mainstream and the best part is most don't even know they are using it! I don't know how many times I tell people I'm in GIS and I get a blank stare. All I have to do is say "You know Google Maps or Map Quest and all of a sudden they will begin talking about their GPS!" I love it.