Author: James

I’ve been behind today, but seeing an ESRI press release (yes I was happy to see a PR) about an out of print book being released as a new edition is exciting.

A new edition of renowned Swiss cartographer Eduard Imhof’s classic Cartographic Relief Presentation will be released by ESRI Press in June, showcasing the skillful draftsmanship, artistry, and science that went into his relief maps.

Last published 25 years ago and difficult to find since going out of print, this book will continue to instruct and inspire cartographers, geographers, geographic information system (GIS) mapmakers and cartographic scholars and students in the 21st century.

…

The 1982 edition of Cartographic Relief Presentation was expensive and had a limited press run that made it a rare find in recent years, leaving cartographers and other map aficionados scouring bookstores and checking Internet sites to try to locate copies of a book they consider a masterpiece.

The new volume is affordable, and faithful to the original editions. ESRI Press retained Imhof’s valuable insights and teachings, only editing the text for clarity and consistency and making minor wording and punctuation changes. The color and black and white graphics were reproduced as they appeared in the 1982 English language edition, which was translated from Imhof’s 1965 German language version, Kartographische Gel?ndedarstellung.

I’ve never seen the book personally, but I know many a conversation over lunch that someone has mentioned reading the book before. Now it won’t be out until late June (even after the UC), but I’m buying my copy right now. I looked into buying a used copy for a friend and they were going for over $300 at the time (I can’t even find a copy for sale right now).

Mark Laudon is keeping track of all the interesting Google Street Views. My personal favorite is here. What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas if Google takes your picture.

I won’t deny that the ESRI/Northrop-Grumman Touch Table is about the most impressive thing I’ve seen in the last couple years. Its big issue is that it is so expensive. Well Microsoft is going to push their own touch table out called Microsoft Surface. Rather than being just a one trick pony, this table will allow you to interact with many more applications. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen it in person, but the video I’ve seen just knocks my socks off. I can only assume the price point will be much more affordable for those who want to use this kind of collaborative tool. I’m now very disappointed I’m stuck in Tempe today.

re: Google Street View”

via Guia buscadores blog

If you receive the email subscription to Planet Geospatial, you’ll need to update your email again. I’ve tried to work with FeedBurner to recover the email subscription list, but they can’t do that.

So, if you want to renew your Planet Geospatial email subscription (there were about 400 of you), you’ll need to sign up again.

Subscribe to Planet Geospatial by Email

Note: You won’t have to update your email subscription to my blog as that didn’t get “deleted”, just the Planet Geospatial email list.

No sooner than I posted the screenshots of MetaCarta on a stick, did I get an email from an ArcGIS user asking how they heck do they get to “install” and play with such a tool. Well as luck would have it, ESRI took care of the hardest part of running MetaCarta Labs on a stick on windows, installing Python. Plus, you don’t have to install a thing so if your IT staff has you workstation locked down tight, you can still play with the tools. The 5 step process is below:

Grab your USB memory stick (you’ll need about 10 megs free)

Then download the zip version of MetaCarta Labs on a stick and extract it on to your USB stick (or anywhere on your hard drive if you wish).

Navigate to the “labs-on-a-stick-0.5” folder and find the “http_server.py” file and double click on it

After a couple seconds you should see the http server come up inside your command window.

Next all you have to do is follow the directions and navigate to http://localhost:8080/ and view the demos and watch any of the videos.

And of course you can check out FeatureServer, running right there on your USB memory stick.

As Lefty points out, thank ESRI for installing Python for you.

Something has happened at Feedburner and the PlanetGS RSS feed has been deleted. They are working at bringing it back, but I’m not too hopeful that they’ll get it straitened out. The smart thing to do is just use the native Atom feed below.

http://www.planetgs.com/atom.xml

What can I say, pretty sweet! Running it is simple as pie.

Sure, LiveCDs are fun, but running applications on a flash usb memory stick is where its at.

MetaCarta Labs has assembled a collection of demos which can be run with no external dependancies. With a MetaCarta Labs USB stick, you simply insert the USB drive into the USB port, and double click the ‘run’ script for your platform to start up a local web server.

The web server is Python-based, and Python is included for Windows, where it is not typically installed by default.

Not a bad way to check out the new FeatureServer without having to install anything. Of course you’ll have to build it yourself, but that’s half the fun isn’t it? A preliminary download is available on the page.

A couple folks asked if I was going to the UC this year so I figured I’d post my plans.

I’m not planning on going; I’ve got my complementary pass, but I’m June is the worst time for me between workload and moving into the new house (not to mention a wedding I have to attend in Laguna Niguel, CA the week before). So you’ll have to enjoy the festival without me. I’ll just watch from my couch. The Dev Summit is better anyway…