Open Source Update Friday

September 30, 2011 1 Comment

Everybody’s working for the weekend, especially on Friday.  But there is good news for those who like to install updates to software on their Friday; QGIS 1.7.1 and OpenLayers 2.11 are available.

  • QGIS 1.7.1 was released this week.  This is a bug fix release so there isn’t much new there other than cleaning up issues.  Check out those release notes to see what was updated.
  • OpenLayers 2.11 also was released this week.  Don’t let the .01 update fool you, this is huge.  Specifically “native” support for touch devices (you know, like that thing called an iPad) and some big performance updates.  Clearly this is an update all who are running OpenLayers 2.10 should look at very closely.
  • Esri Canvas Maps are now available in ArcGIS.com (er ArcGIS Online).  Now your paleo maps can have a little neo map flavor.  Everyone is a winner!  Yea that’s not really open source, but you can use it in OpenLayers so that’s a win for libre.

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Apple Uses Mapping Data — For Reals?

June 23, 2011 Leave a Comment

Apple iOS — Now with Mapping Data

Look, I totally get it. The big shiny object in the sky is Apple. Anything they do is “interesting”[ref]Disclaimer: I give every other paycheck to Steve Jobs for his new shiny objects[/ref]. I saw this news this morning about TomTom being in Apple’s Legal Doc[ref]The amount of GNP devoted to reading Apple’s tea leaves has to be bigger than most eastern european countries[/ref] and let out a big meh. Clearly as location becomes more integrated in smartphone workflows, companies will start adding additional data sources for their customers to use. Since Apple uses Google Maps as the default mapping app on the iOS, we probably won’t see any changes to that for quite some time (if ever). TomTom/TeleAtlas data is used by many companies for many things so the possibilities that Apple would use their data isn’t that far fetched[ref]I’m actually surprised that it wasn’t in there before, it is hard not to use TomTom or NAVTEQ these days[/ref].

Adena did a great job highlighting the companies that are now (or have been) part of Apple’s legal description. Let’s see… We’ve got parcel data, we’ve got neighborhood data, we’ve got routing data and we’ve traffic data. If I didn’t know any better, I’d be guessing Apple is trying to build a smartphone[ref]Side note, I’m very happy for Waze and Urban Mapping here. Great job guys![/ref].

The OpenStreetMap whining is already started with folks wondering why Apple didn’t use their data.  Clearly Apple is picking and choosing what they need here.  Apple is one of those companies that uses whatever makes best sense for them and their uses.  That is why they still use Google Maps, it really is still the best solution out there and they can afford to pay Google the licensing costs.  I still believe, as many of you do, it is only a matter of time for Apple to roll their own mapping solution.  This is a company that loves to control everything and to think they allow a competitor to have a mapping app on iOS by default has got to hurt them.   Of course how many years did Apple include Internet Explorer as the default browser on Mac OS X before rolling Safari.  Yea, only a matter of time.

Many don’t remember, but Mark Twain was a big user of iOS mapping applications and thus a user of mapping data.

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LBS and Fusion Tables and Vector Tiling, Oh My!

March 4, 2011 15 Comments

Another week has passed and we are all still alive and kicking. Humanity never fails to surprise me. Anyway, Geo[ref]That is “Geo” with a big “G” vs “geo” with a little “g”.[/ref] continues to roll on and keep us excited.

  • Skyhook Wireless and Sony are hooking up to give the next generation PSP some location capabilities.  Good news for Skyhook, but aren’t devices like the PSP and Nintendo DS on their way out?  I guess we’ll see this summer when everyone is playing the latest EA games on their iOS devices.
  • Work with R?  Check out RStudio!  IDEs are usually hit and miss with me but this has enough awesome to warrant a download. (HT: PHXGeo)
  • Protected Maps in Google Fusion Tables?  Yes please!  2011 may be the year of Google Fusion Tables[ref]oh and the iPad 2, right?[/ref]
  • Google Maps labels look better, but why?  Justin again analyses how Google does this and compares it to Bing and Yahoo!.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you’ve got to be following Justin’s blog!
  • IBM puts out a weird blog series on the “The Case Against Google Maps in IBM Cognos Reports” (parts two and three).  To me I’m left wondering where the content is on that case to use Esri map services.  They sum it up this way, “In solid Boolean logic: NOT Cognos BI AND Google Maps.”  Say whaaat?
  • Lastly, Matt Kenny brings us the awesome that is TileStache.  Seriously now, why are we still using WxS and Esri ArcGIS Services?[ref]Sure, you can give me thousands of edge cases where such overhead is needed, but rarely does one need such things.  We need to break out of our bad practices and embrace the future.[/ref].  Read Matt’s blog and get cracking.  Bonus points for rolling TileMill and TileStache together!

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iExtMap for iOS

August 19, 2010 5 Comments

I reviewed ArcGIS for iOS a couple weeks back and liked what I saw.  One of my biggest disappointments was the lack of OGC support.  ESRI says it is coming, but in the meantime I took it upon myself to try out other iOS mapping clients.  One that has caught my eye is iExtMap.  You may recall Alper Dincer from the 2009 ESRI Dev Summit Challenge where his ExtMap took first place.  While not built upon ExtMap, Alper has released iExtMap for iOS.

So what does iExtMap bring to the table?

  • Google Maps Base Maps
  • Blank Base Map for your own base map
  • Displaying ArcGIS Server Dynamic and Tiled Services
  • Displaying WMS as Tiles
  • Displaying KML/GeoRSS files
  • Displaying static tiles (for Arc2Earth users)
  • Bookmarking
  • Geolocation
  • Identify (in next release)
  • Query (in next release)
  • Measurement (in next release)
  • Open Street Maps (in next release)
  • WMS improments (in next release)

So let us look at iExtMap in detail.

The iExtMap Splash Screen

The first screen you see when you start up iExtMap is the Maps window.  From here you can navigate whatever maps you have added to iExtMap.  Google is the default background map and in the Base Maps screen you can see how you can choose which “base map” you wish to have in your background.


The Map Tab on iExtMap

Choose your Base Map

After choosing your background base map, you go to the Layers tab to add layers.  The first thing I tried to add was a KML out of WeoGeo Market.  This was easy to add and actually looked pretty good on the iExtMap screen on my iPhone.  Just grab the URL to the KML and like that it is added.  Adding ArcGIS Server services and WMS is also as easy as copying a URL and pasting.  The only issue I ran into was that WMS needs to be in EPSG:900913 making your choice of WMS smaller than it should be.  This is a know issue and an update is planned in the future to address it.

Adding a KML to iExtMap is very simple.

After adding the layer, put a check next to each one you want to view on your iExtMap Map.

And here is that KML - viewed on the iExtMap Map.

The bookmarks are very strait-forward.  You either bookmark a view on the Map or manually input the coordinates.

Manually creating a bookmark in iExtMap

The Bookmarks tab in iExtMap

One actually fatal issue of iExtMap is that you can get caught in an info box and have no way to break back out.  Make sure when you are on the Map tab, not to click on the links at the bottom of the view (I’m assuming these are the credit links).  If you do you get stuck on the “about Google Maps” page with no way to get back to the map unless you exit the app.  Hopefully this flaw will be fixed very quickly.

DO NOT CLICK!

Don't get me wrong, the about page is very nice. You are just stuck on it if you get here - yikes!

Overall though, I think there is a ton to like about iExtMap.  Out of the box you have OGC support (KML and WMS) which I really think is critically important.  Support for ArcGIS.com (ArcGIS Online) layers is there as well so you have an iOS app that can work across OGC and proprietary services.  Alper should be commended on his efforts and I can see myself using this quite a bit to work with OGC services.

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Rolling Your Mapping Apps on the iPad (or the iPhone)

January 27, 2010 17 Comments

One thing that has become crystal clear is the preferred method of having a mapping application on the iPhone and by extension the new iPad is to create a native iPhone/iPad app.  That said, the noise sometimes causes people to miss some great web mapping app (as native web apps).  I’ve looked into using SVG and even OpenLayers in the past for mapping in the iPhone, but who is rolling their own web apps out there to accomplish what until 2 years ago required a browser on a laptop or desktop? I know there will most likely be a session at the ESRI DevSummit using OpenLayers, but is there a framework people are working with?

Can anyone find me some mobile web mapping applications to love?

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