Sites Anglophones

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

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

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 What's wrong with the geospatial workforce? Victor Valley College (California) adjunct professor Fon Allan Duke  knows: There’s not a good enough pool of trained individuals to step up and work in these catastrophic events. And the problem you have in industry is either you have... Continue reading

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

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

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

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

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

(via SketchUp Island)

With the goal of encouraging innovation in a fun way, ACM SIGSPATIAL is hosting an algorithm contest with winners to be announced at the ACM SIGSPATIAL GIS conference in November 2012. Contest participants will submit original computer programs to be evaluated by the contest... Continue reading

As part of Gareth Morgan’s Our Far South expedition to the Antarctic, Eagle Technology Group Ltd are serving up real time ArcGIS.com maps showing the expedition ship’s location, points of interest and blog related information. Gareth Morgan will be...

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

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

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

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

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

However you prefer to stay in touch, we try to offer a solution for you. If you'd like to see our content available in other formats, just let us know!

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

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

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

Their summary: "TomTom has signed a deal with an insurance firm that will see its satnavs used to monitor drivers. Fair Pay Insurance, part of Motaquote, will use monitoring systems built into the TomTom PRO 3100 to watch for sharp braking and badly managed turns, rewarding 'good' drivers with lower premiums and warning less skilled motorists when they aren't driving as they should. 'We've dispensed with generalization's and said to our customers, if you believe you're a good driver, we'll believe you and we'll even give you the benefit up front,' said Nigel Lombard of Fair Pay Insurance."

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Yesterday David DiBiase, in his role as as a "project advisor" with the GeoTech Center, shared the news on Facebook that National Science Foundation declined to provide the center with a second round of funding. The four years of funding ran 2008-2012 under award 0801893. (My colleague... Continue reading

Westport, CT has a new Esri-based map viewer. The city is offering several 90 and 150 minute classes on using it. Good thing  - since I oculd not get the help to work. The old intro page says you must use IE not AOL or another browser. Safari worked fine. - CT The Franklin County, AL... Continue reading

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today they are partnering to enhance the Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA®) for the Arctic region by summer 2012. ERMA® is the same... Continue reading

...the latest news appears to be the Trimble Yuma, a rugged tablet from SDG Systems that now runs Ubuntu Linux. Targeting military and industrial applications requiring data collection, inspection, and reporting from the field, the Linux-powered Yuma can be used with geospatial... Continue reading

The web is evolving quickly and so is the way we develop interactive websites. Newer technologies are changing the way websites and applications are developed and keeping up with them can sometimes be a challenge. To help with this, a …...

Over on The Awl, Victoria Johnson has an essay about maps of fictional places, which of course is relevant to my interests. Johnson has chosen some very unique and distinctive maps to discuss -- Winnie-the-Pooh, The Phantom Toolbooth and The Princess Bride among them -- rather than the sort of standard fantasy maps you get in standard fantasy (which, I suppose, aren't worth discussing unless you like the fantasy world being mapped; certainly not as maps). Via Boing Boing (which sends a link in this direction).

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

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

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

• The general conversation between ship and harbour master and times is from here.
• The specific conversation between the captain and coastguard is here. (his version is slightly abridged)
• Some of the timeline is from here.
•The AIS track data is from here.
• The list of dead and missing came from here, which is now a dead link, as well as here.
•The chaotic way the lifeboats departed is from here.
• The helicopter is an exact replica of the real one used in the rescue - call sign VF-57. It is an Agusta Bell ab412SP Air Ambulance, based on the Bell 412. It was manufactured under license by Agusta for the Italian Rescue Service. The photo at the end just before the list of names shows the actual helicopter hovering over the ship. The general line of Bell helicopters of the family, including the Agusta's is here.
• The Bell 412, with size specifications, is here.
• The shape of the helicopter is here.
• The actual VF-57 helicopter is here.
• A video of an identical model (call sign VF-67) is here.

To see it for yourself, you can download the file from the 3D warehouse or watch the video below:

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

From the open source and open data front:

• BrainOff shares a few examples of capabilities offered only by OpenStreetMap because of its open nature
• V1 mentions ReadyMap, using OpenLayers to render 3D models directly in the browser
• Here's a way to enhance raster contrast with gdal_lightner, with may makes its way as a QGIS Plugin
• Sean made me aware of pygp, a python geoprocessing package
• Here's a short but interesting article named  The GeoWeb, Citizen Science and Open Data
• Harvard's WorldMap reached version 1.0 and they're looking for participants, we mentioned WorldMap in the past

In the everything-else category:

• MapQuest Releases Native Mobile Mapping APIs for Android and Apple iOS, and yes, you can use OpenStreetMap data with it

• And there's now live traffic cameras in MapQuest too

• SS shares a nicely done 2-minutes video of the OGC on the value of geospatial and standards

• DM shares more information on Pitney Bowes's Geosk geodata platform, we mentioned Geosk last december. From the article: "Geosk is a platform for finding and using geospatial data. It combines a data as a service (DaaS) offering with a data management product. At its heart, Geosk is a completely scalable data management system that allows our customers to share their data with any user they choose, including their customers. Around this data management system we wrap an e-commerce engine to help our customers buy and sell premium geospatial data."

• Slashdot discussed Canada's Massive Public Traffic Surveillance System, which involves license plate reading, a topic covered a few times already
• DM offers an article on socio-demographic structures in Germany
• SS informs us a 3D model of Bangkok is now publicly available
• SS also informs us of Ericsson's Geo Location Messaging API, I wonder how it relates to GeoSMS
• In two entries, V1 explore to potential synergies between music interfaces and controllers and geospatial

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly shares a map of Mexico's drug war
• WunderMap now has historical weather maps for you
• Here's a map of the U.S. showing terrain by using only the roads
• SS shares an entry named Energy Use Data for all of New York City Released in Map Form

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Here's the recent Google-related geonews in batch mode.

From official sources:

• Google released a major update to the bathymetry and seafloor display in Google Earth
• There's new 45 degrees imagery available for 24 cities:
  • "US: Charleston-Folly Beach, SC; Lee’s Summit, KS; Lexington, SC; Magna (Salt Lake City), UT; North Charleston, SC; Pine Island Center, FL; Plymouth, MN; Salinas CA; Santa Rosa, CA; Shawnee, KS; South Hill, WA; Spanish Springs, NV; Killeen, TX; Decatur, AL
  • Europe: Torrelavega, Spain; Pamplona, Spain; San Sebastian, Spain; Bailen, Spain; Rolle, Switzerland; Ponferrada, Spain; Wachtberg, Germany; Weinheim, Germany
  • South America: Buenos Aires, Argentina"
• There's a new biking directions legend in Google Maps
• Ed Parsons mentions the coming of Street View in Botswana

From other sources:

• The GEB shares a 3D tour of the Costa Concordia recent ship wreck
• While there's apparently no new data involved, the GEB shares an entry on the city lights of Earth at night in Google Earth
• The GEB also shares an entry on the Monster Milktruck game in Google Earth and an entry on a new book named Google SketchUp for Game Design
• To end with a funny note, APB shares a quote regarding the "removal" of Atlantis from the Google Earth seafloor by manually cleaning the data 

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The Korea Times has a feature on Yoon Jay-joon (Jay Yoon), CEO of Sundosoft, a large GIS player in the country. One of the graphics is of a box of ArcGIS 9. I guess 10 is not yet out there. - Korea Times Panasonic's new GPS enabled cameras may not work quite right in China. How and... Continue reading

Danielle Feoranzo, a student at Westwood Regional High School in the Township of Washington, recently earned her Girl Scout Gold Award by painting a map of the United States on the playground at the Jessie F. George Elementary School.  I've read lots of stories about maps being... Continue reading

I learned about Rhiza Labs during the bird flu pandemic of 2009 (APB coverage). The company provided the backend mapping for a crowdsourced effort to gather infection and other data as the disease moved across the world and in the United States. Last week I recieved an e-mail from the... Continue reading