The USGS Center for LIDAR Information Coordination and Knowledge, aka CLICK, will shut down its bulletin board May 9 due to securty mandates from the Deparment of Interior. You might remember CLICK had a near brush with death last fall (APB coverage).
- via LiDAR News
TerraServer, that great Microsoft Research Project to show off the power of SQL Server, has been shut down since its been overshadowed by Microsoft and other mapping services. As the annuncement makes clear, this service did a lot to move online mapping ahead:
The site was originally launched as Microsoft TerraServer on June 22, 1998 as a demonstration of the scalability of Microsoft SQL Server database product. At the time, it was the first web site to successfully host high resolution satellite and aerial data. Later we added USGS topographic maps (DRGs) and the USGS Urban Area
natural color imagery. In addition to imagery, Microsoft Research Maps pioneered the use of SOAP/XML to build a mapping web service and deployed an OpenGIS compliant mapping service.
I recall seeing it used via WMS in an open source implementation way back in my GIS Monitor days. And, I recall the first time I heard Microsoft invite local govenrments to host their imagery on its site. We've come a long way.
- Microsoft Research Maps via @howardbutler
by Adena Schutzberg on 05/01 at 12:43 PM |
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The work of actually mapping the state [of Alaska] will conclude this year, and after quality checks are conducted, the final product could be in production by 2013.
In addition to the remapping effort, the USGS is completing a project to release every map they have ever made in the same Geo PDF Format. DeMulder says this feature has quickly become very popular with the public, and has broad applications for a variety of uses.
So far 160,000 historic maps have been made available, and with 20,000 left to digitize and correct for scale, all existing historic maps of Alaska will be available online for free by September.
I'm curious how popular the geoPDFs are with readers. Have you downloaded one for work? For leisure?
For businesses and citizens who work with GIS (Geographic Information System) applications, there is a new reason to check out the City's [Rockville, MD] website. The City has recently added GIS data
downloads to the website for use by the public.
Three out of five Douglas County [NE] voters will be more than a half mile from their polling place under Election Commissioner Dave Phipps' sweeping overhaul of voting districts.
In the past it was two out of five. The Omaha World Herald make a thematic map (Google Fusion Table I think) to show that. One commenter noted that at .7 mile away he'd have to take out the car.
- Ohama.com
by Adena Schutzberg on 04/20 at 03:52 AM |
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From InformationWeek comes this article on "big data" and illustrates the problems facing several governement agencies including the U.S. Geological Survey:
The Obama Administration last week unveiled a "Big Data Research and Development Initiative" that will see at least six government agencies making $200 million in additional investments to "greatly improve the tools and techniques needed to access, organize, and glean discoveries from huge volumes of digital data."
Yes, the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, the Department of Defense, and the National Institute of Health are doing very different types of data-driven research and analyses, but they're all grappling with the use of unstructured data and large-scale machine data, they're all pushing the envelope on data mining, and they're all looking for better data visualization and reporting techniques.
by Joe Francica on 04/05 at 01:29 PM |
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Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO-05) has introduced a bill that would streamline federal bureaucracy dealing with map making. H.R 4233, Map it Once, Use it Many Times Act, would reform, consolidate, and reorganize federal geospatial activities.
Continue reading...
by Adena Schutzberg on 03/22 at 12:43 PM |
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Professor Nagarjuna G from the Gnowledge lab of the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education and hist team are mapping nine villages in Raigad district of Maharashtra Statea in India and adding the data to OpenStreetMap The project grew out of a "one laptop per child" effort in the remote villiages, areas G and his colleague regularly visit. But how to gain access to GPS devices?
It was a year ago that a team led by set out to map these villages in Khalapur taluka of the district bordering Mumbai. With some basic engineering, transparent spectacle cases were turned into Global Positioning System (GPS) devices at a cost of Rs 6,000 each; the contraptions are cheaper than GPS trackers available in the market at Rs 25,000 upwards.
Teachers are developing wikipages about their villages and students are recording stories told by parents and grandparents to document their hometowns.
- India Express
The Mapping Montana lecture series will take place in Helena at 6:30 p.m. on four Thursdays in January and February. Topics run from the historical to the current.
DAT/EM Systems International donated 16 licenses of their SUMMIT EVOLUTION Professional digital stereoplotter to the Geomatics Department in the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) School of Engineering. Valued at over $300,000, this gift forms part of DAT/EM’s on-going initiative to sponsor higher education through software, software support, student training and consultation to the faculty.
- press release
The Geospatial Information Research Center opened in Beijing in early December. It's a partnership between the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping and the U.K. University of Nottingham.
This new joint venture will promote innovation and technology transfer, leadership training, and staff and student exchange. It will explore funding opportunities and new project work, integrating resources to support long-term collaboration; and it will act as a world-leading incubation centre to realise beneficial combinations of research and development, production and commercialisation.
- press release
[Matthew] Huffine, 53, of Victorville [CA] has been teaching for 24 years, including nine years at Hesperia Junior High and the past 11 years at AAE, the Apple Valley charter school run by the Lewis Center for Educational Research. He has three children, ages 26, 22 and 14 — the youngest now an AAE student.
He started his career in the Forest Service and USGS and come to teaching later. Nows he's being honored as a local person who made a difference in 2011 and a great teacher who brings education beyond the walls. Among his students is one studying GIS at the University of Redlands. Lesson learned: we need GIS users to go into teaching to grow more GIS users.
- Victorville Daily Press
by Adena Schutzberg on 01/04 at 04:24 AM |
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