Geospatial Data and Content Management for School Projects

August 19, 2011 Leave a Comment

It has been a long time since I was matriculating at my [alma mater](http://www.asu.edu) but clearly I can tell that school is starting up for a lot of people. My inbox is full of emails from students asking where they can find data for their projects[ref]I like students who are proactive and not reactive to their school work[/ref].

[WeoGeo](http://www.weogeo.com) has over 8 terabytes of free and inexpensive data available in the [WeoGeo Market](http://market.weogeo.com/#/regional_navigation) for inclusion in your analysis. Just this week we uploaded some great data from the State of Hawaii on [Hawaiian Natural Areas](http://blog.weogeo.com/2011/08/17/data-blog-hawaiian-natural-areas/) and data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention on [U.S. Diabetes and Risk Factor Prevalence](http://blog.weogeo.com/2011/08/10/data-blog-us-diabetes-and-risk-factor-prevalence/).

![Hawaiian Natural Areas](http://images.spatiallyadjusted.com/HawaiianNaturalAreas-WeoGeo.png “Hawaiian Natural Areas”)

We’ve also have the complete [USGS National Hydragraphy Dataset](http://blog.weogeo.com/2011/04/04/data-blog-usgs-national-hydrography-dataset/) and [USGS Earthquake, Fault and Seismic Hazard](http://blog.weogeo.com/2011/07/11/data-blog-earthquakes-faults-and-seismic-hazard-us/) data [available for customization](http://wiki.weogeo.com/index.php/Order_data_on_WeoGeo_Market#Customize). Bonus points for using the [WeoGeo Tools for ArcGIS](http://www.zekiah.com/index.php?q=weogeo) to import these datasets into your ArcMap projects.

Another great option for students is our [WeoGeo Library](http://www.weogeo.com/library_info). Generally after the end of the school year, students need to archive off their projects to some personal stoarge device. Students using WeoGeo Library know their projects are available semester after semester no matter where they are. Since WeoGeo Library is a system of record, you’ll always have them at hand. My masters thesis was stored on a Brother Word Processor which meant that the minute I lost access to that hardware device, I lost all my hard work[ref]At least I remember it as hard work, ’twas a long time ago[/ref]. That’s why a real geospatial content management system like WeoGeo is the best way to manage your school work. Plus you can [get started today](http://www.weogeo.com/signup), for free.

![Browsing WeoGeo](http://images.spatiallyadjusted.com/WeoGeo-BrowseMarket.jpg “Browsing WeoGeo Market”)

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Augmented Reality – Only for Social Media?

August 27, 2009 10 Comments

I can’t but help try out the Yelp app for the iPhone and not be amazed.  We’ve all been lucky enough to see augmented reality in the geospatial world for the last couple of years, but not at the consumer level.  For most of us, the closest we got to augmented reality was when we road in a Lincoln Town Car that projected the digital speedometer on the windshield.  Clearly though we are much further along than that considering that my iPhone can find Margaritas while I blog by just holding up my iPhone.

Now if I could only order that margarita as well...

But really has my head spinning is what if there was such an app like Yelp that helped you discover spatial data? WeoGeo uses maps to help you find spatial data, but what if you just used your smartphone in the field and walked around seeing what datasets where available?

Now tell me that wouldn’t be useful!

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Using OGR to Visualize Data

December 28, 2007 10 Comments

The biggest excuse I hear time and time again for not using open source geospatial tools is that they are too confusing to use. Take GDAL/OGR for example, the webpage probably scares off most users because of the lack of examples of how to use both toolsets. But the tools themselves are so easy to use this shouldn’t scare anyone off. In fact, if you’ve used ArcInfo to convert a coverage to a shapefile in your past, you have all the skills needed to use both GDAL and OGR.

That said Tom Kralidis has a great example of using OGR to convert a Microsoft Excel file to KML. GDAL/OGR is integral to so many GIS applications (even ESRI uses it) that any GIS professional should have at least a basic understanding to how it works. Look at Tom’s example, download FWTools and get cracking on using GDAL/OGR.


Fans of the Waffle House wait for open source geospatial tool users to create GeoRSS feed of store locations

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