James Fee GIS Blog

The real game changer is the release of TileMill for Windows.

She’s right, lots of great new options for Windows users.  As Brian Timoney says:

PSA for GIS grads: the industry is already full-up with folks with no Python, no Javascript & marginal database skills—
Brian Timoney (@briantimoney) February 03, 2012

Those are universal skills no matter if you are on Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.  Cross platform apps gives you the ability to use your skills everywhere, rather than scripting VBA Microsoft Access “databases”.

 

 

You got to love France.

A French commercial court has found Google guilty of abusing the dominant position of its Google Maps application and ordered it to pay a fine and damages to a French mapping company.
In a ruling Tuesday, the Paris court upheld an unfair competition complaint lodged by Bottin Cartographes against Google France and its parent company Google Inc. for providing free web mapping services to some businesses.
The court ordered Google to pay 500,000 euros ($660,000) in damages and interest to the plaintiff and a 15,000 euro fine.

Bottin Cartographes’ webpage is sparse on what actually they do that people want.  Rule number one of failing, sue the rich competitor when your own stuff  falls flat.  Clearly Europe has it’s eye on Google and I suspect we’ll see many more of these “judgements”.  And god forbid, don’t let Bottin find out about OpenStreetMap.  They dump just about anything on the market for free.

The French Judge in the case was quick to "pass" on the ruling.

TileMill has been out for about a year, but Windows users have had to run it on a Virtual Machine. Until now!

We’re excited to bring you TileMill 0.9.0. The latest release of our map design studio adds native Windows support, a new plugin system, and key core improvements. Whether you’ve been meaning to try TileMill or are a longtime user, expect a more powerful, accessible map design experience starting today.

There is a whole lot more than just a Windows release, plugins, tons of performance issues and some slick new UI features. As always, it is available at tilemill.com

And even more cool stuff from Development Seed, MapBox for iPad 1.8 is out.

Not much notice, but there will be a FOSS4G in North America this year.

On the heels of last year’s successful and well-attended international FOSS4G event in Colorado, many of us in the community of free and open source geospatial software developers, users, and advocates in North America recognized the need for a regular gathering in North America. So this year we have come together to plan the first ever FOSS4G North America conference, an event to take place April 10–12, 2012 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. FOSS4G-NA will bring together many public and private-sector stakeholders at the forefront of some of the world’s most innovative free and open source software to discuss and work on building tools to help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.

I can’t decide if I’m closer to China or Washington DC.   Remember nobody gets kicked off the plane for playing OSGeo with Friends.

The Microsoft/Nokia relationship gets a little confusing these days.  According to Pocket-Lint:

Nokia CEO, Stephen Elop, has told Pocket-lint that we shall soon be seeing the Nokia brand name within other devices and not just the company’s own phones.

“You’ll starting seeing the word ‘Nokia’ on a map that you get from Microsoft properties over a period of time,” Elop explained to Pocket-lint in an interview behind closed doors at CES in Las Vegas. “Even if you are on a BlackBerry device, who recently said they were going to start using Bing Maps.”

 Interesting isn’t it?  Nokia Maps on other devices.  Here is the kicker… “Part of the relationship we established with Microsoft is that we are clearly placing a bet on the Windows Phone platform. [In return] they are placing a bet on our location-based platform: mapping, navigation and so forth,” said Elop. Thus it appears, at least in Nokia’s mind, that Bing Maps might eventually be replaced with Nokia Maps.  Clearly Nokia believes that they bring navigation and location to the partnership.  I’m sure though, as with everything Microsoft related, this is going to be much more complicated than it should be.  In a perfect world, Microsoft and Nokia would agree that Bing Maps should be replaced by Nokia Maps and get it done quickly and with minimal fuss.  The reality is that there will probably be three mapping platforms.  The old Bing Maps, the old Nokia Maps and this new hybrid Nokia Maps (powered by Bing?) that blends the two services. Ugh, right?  Check with Pocket-link tomorrow to see the full interview with Elop and hopefully more detail into what this means.  Almost a year ago I talked a little bit about this scenario, maybe it is finally time.

I’m a sucker for these simple background base maps.

I am designing a new minimal OpenStreetMap base map in TileMill to use with MapBox hosting platform’s map builder. The goal for the design is a general OpenStreetMap layer that can be used as a light, very subtle background for compositing further data on top of. Here is an early look at the features and design aspects I have been working on for the map.

Read the post, this is how you create a baseman you can actually use.  Stop putting your data on top of map services designed for navigation that end up clashing/competing with your story.  Oh and MapBox and TileMill are still very awesome!  Windows users should note that TileMill will be available on Windows any day.

CES is boring, all companies do is announce products that by the time they hit the shelves they are stale.  But this Ideum MT65 3D Display feels so right:

Engadget says it is available in either Windows 7 today or Linux by March, so you can totally be rolling with either your Esri or Open Source GIS tool of your choice.  It costs about $18,000 so start saving those pennies!

From RWW

The official blog of Open Street Map reports tonight that someone at a range of Google IP addresses in India has been editing the collaboratively made map of the world in some very unhelpful ways, like moving and deleting information and reversing the direction of one-way streets on the map.

I’m not going to bring up the don’t be evil quote, but clearly Google is beginning to lose control of their empire.  Rouge employees do what they think is best for the company, but cleaning house won’t change things.  It’s a culture of attack competitors and apologize later.  I’m sure Google will eventually “make right” what happened, but what about all those times they haven’t gotten caught?

Googlezilla is a dangerous beast. It comes out of the water and starts messing with your pretty little town.

Truthfully, this is a management problem.  The chair moisteners from Sector 7G are being either told to do this directly or indirectly by someone else.  Hopefully Google changes their management style to clamp down on these issues.

Update:  RWW has confirmation from Google that these were two people doing unauthorized edits on the company dime.  Again, clearly this is a management problem.

So there are a lot of companies leaving Google Maps for other services. But you read about others who can’t leave because their customers demand Google Maps. Quite a fluid situation isn’t it?

Someone asked me yesterday what should they do.  How can they plan for the inevitable changes they’ll be making to their web map services.  A good solution might be Mapstraction.  It’s a programming library that allows you to easily switch between web map providers without having to change much if any of your code.

Why Mapstraction?

By avoid dependency on any specific mapping provider (or versions within a provider) your code is easier to maintain.

A book I reviewed about a year ago, Map Scripting 101, is a great starter for those who want to read up on Mapstraction. I mentioned that Mapstraction might be a good choice for beginners, but I think with the uncertainty of licensing and costs with web mapping APIs, Mapstraction might be a good choice for anyone.

The crazy ride is over:

In order to deliver on this aggressive vision in the shortest amount of time possible, we need to focus our product development efforts. So, after lots of internal discussion and customer conversations, we will wind down the availability of the current versions of Places, Context, and Storage over the next few months. We will do everything we can to minimize the impact to customers as we look to end the availability of these services on March 31, 2012

And just like that, SimpleGeo API is headed out to the dead zone.

What a world! (side note: I didn't know the GeoMonkey could fly)

Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

We at StreetEasy decided to build our own maps using, among other tools, OpenStreetMap, TileMill, MapBox and Leaflet, instead of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to Google. And yes, the money pushed us into doing it, but we’re happier with the result because we now control the contents of our maps.

The free ride had to end for most companies.  But what is surprising is how easy it is to change your tile map service.  Plus see a theme here?  OpenStreetMap, TileMill, MapBox and Leaflet is a trend.  Giddy up!

In about a month, Google is going to release a game on Google+ based on Google Maps and built using WebGL (Sorry IE users).

…there’s a video preview of a new Google Maps for Google+ app – shown below – which uses WebGL and apparently user-location to collect points as you travel around floorplan maps. Full details haven’t been shared, but the game will apparently arrive in February.

Now the video doesn’t show much about the details for the game but navigating a 3d mapping world (using the Google Maps API) in a WebGL application in a browser is pretty awesome.  Plus going inside and outside the buildng?  Sign me up!

Looks like fun to me, but we'll have to wait a month.

It is a shame about WebGL support not being exactly cross-platform, but with a little work you can get it enabled on any browser.  Cools stuff is on the horizon with 3D web mapping applications.

Good news for users of GDAL/OGR:

The GDAL/OGR team is pleased to announce the release of GDAL/OGR 1.9.0.
This is a major new release including the following major new features:

* New GDAL drivers: ACE2, CTG, E00GRID, ECRGTOC, GRASSASCIIGrid,
GTA, NGSGEOID, SNODAS, WebP, ZMap
* New OGR drivers: ARCGEN, CouchDB, DWG, EDIGEO, ESRI FileGDB, Geomedia,
Google Fusion Tables, IDRISI, MDB, SEGUKOOA, SEGY, SVG, XLS
* Significantly improved drivers: NetCDF
* Encoding support for shapefile/dbf (#882)
* RFC 35: Delete, reorder and alter field definitions of OGR layers
* RFC 37: Add mechanism to provide user data to CPLErrorHandler (#4295)
* gdalsrsinfo: new supported utility to report SRS in various form
(supercedes testepsg)

Some nice new formats in there.  How does it all work?  Paolo Corti takes a look and says, “Brilliant!”.

So out of the blue, this just rolls out:

 Autodesk, Inc., a world leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software, and Pitney Bowes Software, Inc., a global leader in customer data, location intelligence, analytics and communication software and services, today announced they have entered into a strategic alliance agreement. The new agreement will serve as a framework for both companies to provide resources, services and solutions to help infrastructure owners and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) organizations make more informed decisions and drive greater efficiencies across the plan, design, build, manage lifecycle of infrastructure.

As with others, I’m not sure what this means for the geospatial space moving forward.  As Joe Francica points out, unless both companies have “skin in the game”, there is no real incentive to work together.  What is clear though is both companies are going on the offensive which might make 2012 very interesting.  Hopefully both companies will spell out in greater detail what this means in the next month so we can all figure out where we might want to align our efforts moving forward.

Wonder Twin powers activate! Shape of ????!!!! Form of ????!!!!

All joking aside, this is great news for the project.

Nestoria is one of those companies that was told it would have to start paying real money for Google Maps. When Google couldn’t tell it exactly how much, Nestoria kicked Mountain View to the curb and switched to OpenStreetMap, a free, collaborative effort to map the globe.

A couple of thoughts about this article and OSM/Google Maps.

1.  Google has to tell people how much they are going to charge for their maps sooner rather than later.  No one can run a company without a clear idea of costs (well at least run a company for longer than 6 months).  While Nestoria could have done better due diligence before banking on Google, clearly it is easy enough to move platforms.  Lock-in is something that online mapping APIs do not have.

2.  Freyfogle is completely wrong:

… Freyfogle says, and they must render what Google wants them render — a criticism Google did not address when we asked the company for clarification. “You can make your maps look however you want. Rivers can be red instead of blue if you wanted…. With Google you’re not getting any data. You just get a map on your page.”

You can make the Google Maps look anyway you want dynamically.  That’s pretty awesome because you don’t have to create your own tiles.  He says Google didn’t respond to his questions, but I would assume someone using an API would know what it does (seriously, how can you not research an API that is critical to your app?).

3.  Steve Coast is still alive.  Hey Steve!

4.  OpenStreetMap is growing and will continue grow if Google fails to address the customer service aspects of the Google Maps API.  Leaflet is the key to gaining control over your applications (Nestoria uses it).  Learn it, use it, love it.

One by one, the Gorillas are choosing OSM.

In all fairness to my previous post, I want to share some GeoDesign links. The feedback I’m getting from those who attended is that it has become an education type initiative, rather than working toward changing how we actually do work. I guess bottom up change works sometimes, but these kids graduating with “GeoDesign emphasis” have no chance at changing how established companies are doing business. So here you go if you want to try to figure out what was discussed:

• Will GeoDesign help design tools get out of the way of workflows?
• GeoDesign Summit Illustrates Breadth of Projects

The GeoDesign Little Red Book is ready to teach a generation of students what won't work in the commercial sector.

So the Esri GeoDesign Summit is in full session, or at least we know it is because at least two people showed up.  Matt (one of the lucky two) showcases the latest Esri initiatives being demonstrated at Esri’s shindig.

Bernie Szukalski, product strategist and technical evangelist at Esri, spoke today at the GeoDesign Summit about ArcGIS Online initiatives and coming capabilities. Web mapping has morphed from sharing maps and geospatial information to a geospatial content management system that supports collaboration. The new iteration allows for the publication and sharing with others, as well as the access to rich global base data through cloud services.

So yea, da cloud roxxorz!  We’ve all tried to figure out what ArcGIS Online is (beyond the kitchen sink of Esri’s cloud), but this week it’s content management.

Maps can be shared with others by making them publicly available, sharing a link or embedding in a website or blog. Additional content can be found via the gallery where maps are vetted by the community, with ratings and comments. These maps contain documentation with details regarding the source, providing metadata that allows you to understand how they were created. There is also flexibility in how these intelligent maps can be accessed, with options to open in your desktop, open in Explorer Online, and in the map viewer.

If you dropped off the turnip truck, you probably like most of the paragraph.  Sounds like a nice open shared world, where everyone wins.  But the last sentence leads to the truth about ArcGIS Online and their vision of content management.  Flexibility in the sense that if you’ve standardized on Esri’s suite of ArcGIS products, you can share their proprietary formats.  Things like ArcGIS Server, File Geodatabases, Layer files and the rest are not formats we can share with the world.

C'mon people now, Smile on your brother; Ev'rybody get together, Try and love Esri right now

Lets look at it this way, SharePoint is Microsoft’s Content Management System.  Imagine if Microsoft only allowed you to upload Microsoft file formats.  Crazy right?  But that is what ArcGIS Online is.  Sure you can upload shapefiles, but those really are so limited you can’t really store data in them.  There is a reason why nobody uses DBF anymore.  No, you have to use Layer Packages, MXDs, etc to get any “value” out of ArcGIS Online.  It is a little better on the server-side, Esri supports WMS (probably so they can check off OGC support in some contracts), but nothing else.  ArcGIS Online is what it is, an Esri Content Management System that lets you share Esri files with other Esri users.

I don’t fault Esri for creating such a product, they feel there is money to be made doing this.  But let’s not pretend it is a GIS content management system because it just doesn’t support open standards let alone other formats such as TAB, DWG or whatever Intergraph is doing these days.  It is an Esri Content Management System.

But what does that really mean?  Basically Esri’s ArcGIS Online is Google My Maps, but with $10,000 client software.  Creating a map to share with Esri’s online APIs doesn’t make it content management.  There is no geneology of data, no lifecycle to the product.  Just some simple polygons or pushpins on a map that at its core isn’t what customers want.  The biggest reason why Esri is pushing ArcGIS Online so much is that Google Earth Builder is a direct play toward some vision that Esri has to where GIS may go in 2012/2013.

The problem with both solutions is that they don’t actually manage your data that goes into your products (the pushpin maps you share during GIS Day 2012).  The important data is still strewn across hard drives and servers in your organization just hoping that it will never get lost.   That doesn’t sound like progress to me and the focus is not on workflows but some mythical federal contract that the big boys are fighting over.

Cutting edge maps have pushpins on them.

 

UPDATE: Looks like I missed Sean McGinnis’ take on ArcGIS.com a couple weeks ago.

Being self-aware is always best.  From the announcement of the New Bing Maps Routing Engine:

Did you happen to notice the new routing engine we implemented on Bing Maps? No?

Yea, I can’t recall the last time I used Bing Maps.  I’m just so used to using Google’s services, it feels unnatural to not type google.com into my browser.  Also I’ve chosen to use Waze for navigation on my iPhone leaving them to handle routing and navigation while I’m out and about. So yea, its been some time since I’ve used Bing Maps.  But I guess that’s water under the bridge.

Coupled with the bizarre patent that tells you not to go down a dark street alone without a shotgun, Microsoft seems interested in mapping again after what seems like years of not caring about Bing Maps.  I suppose Windows Mobile devices use Bing Maps for routing, but who else uses them these days?  It does sound like Microsoft has a cool algorithm going on the backend and I wish them the best of luck.

How many versions of Microsoft Maps will it take for them to be successful?

When was the last time you referred to the Internet as the “Information Superhighway”?  Probably not since you upgraded from GEnie to AOL back in the early 90′s and saw there was this HTML world out there.  Early on you figured out calling the Internet the Information Superhighway stupid and the world thanks you for it.

In 2012, lets stop using the term “the Cloud” to refer to some arbitrary hosted service.  It’s like nails on a chalkboard.  Just think about this statement in a year:

The Cloud roxxorz my proprietary GIS Server!

It’s like that picture of you wearing that Members Only Jacket to your Senior prom.  You so want that picture to go away, but Mom keeps showing it to your friends.

Same here, don’t be that guy who uses “the Cloud”.  It’s a marketing term for newspaper writers who learned how the Internet works from Ted Stevens.  In a year you’ll be on to the next Gartner Hype Cycle fetish (I hear the self driving Google car is right around the corner) anyway so call it what it is,  hosted services.

So last year I said this:

Remember AML fondly if you must, but today with Python you have tools that run circles around what AML gave you. I find myself opening up a command window and running python commands to manipulate data over starting up ArcCatalog these days and I love it.

No more excuses to not use Python.

‘Twas a very good year for Python.  Seems like we’ve finally gotten out of proprietary scripting languages and picked a winner in Python.  Personally, WeoGeo couldn’t do what we do on our back end without Python and I know many other companies can say the same thing.  I’ll go out on a limb and say 2012 will also be a very good year for Python.  *cough*

There are snakes on this GIS!