Google Earth is a 3D globe program that allows you to easily access GIS information from your home or office PC. If you are interested in downloading the program, please visit:
Make sure you check out the rest of the site before you go.
http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com
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Link – Geocoding With SQL Server
With the release of the Google Maps API, I wanted to try out some mapping. This ended up being the fairfaxinfo.com project. As nice as the Google API is, it does nothing to help with the hardest part of mapping: getting addresses translated into longitude/latitude. The only free service I could find was www.geocoder.us, but I didn’t want to rely on it being up/free forever. The code is available in PERL with a Berkley DB, but I would much rather chew on tinfoil than try and read someone else’s perl code. So, after much headscratching, fist pounding, key banging, debugging, eye wateringly boring (but thorough) census documentation, and in general driving everyone around me crazy, I have finally managed to use the Tiger/Line census data and SQL Server to geocode addresses.
I found this during a totally unrelated search for Oracle database backup (kind of makes you wonder how Google works sometimes). Anyway it is a pretty good method of geocoding addresses using Tiger/Line census data and SQL Server.
Link – Google, ESRI and FUD: Comments
The discussion continues to roll on about the role of ESRI and Google in the future GIS world.
Link – Mapdex.org
Like it or not ESRI is a major player in web mapping. One of the projects (www.mapdex.org) I have been involved with has indexed over 1650 ArcIMS servers, serving nearly 30,000 map services, containing over 400,000 GIS layers. There is so much more out there’
Jeremy Bartley wrote that in the comments of Google, ESRI and FUD (15th reply). Most of the GIS web server sites we’ve created with ESRI server software have been behind firewalls and not available to the public. You’d have to just assume that ESRI’s total market penetration is so much higher than even GIS professionals assume. Mapdex is a really interesting project and if you really want to see what kind of web based GIS is available on the Internet, this is the place to start (outside of the Geography Network). As many Google Earthers are discovering, the information is out there, finding it is the problem. Mapdex could be the best way do find them out.
Jeremy also has a weblog, Mapdex Blog, that many should bookmark to follow more of this Internet web mapping phenomenon.
Link – State of Ajax: Progress, Challenges, and Implications for SOAs
Because Ajax is a sincerely compelling synthesis of the ubiquitous features found in the most popular Internet browsers is why. Practitioners of Ajax get high-intensity user interaction (end-user productivity), asynchronicity (efficient backround processing), web browser access to web services (web service access, reuse, and interoperability, as well as SOA integration), platform neutrality (browser and operating system agnosticity), and the Ajax feature set can be delivered as a framework you don’t have to create yourself (developer productivity).
You’ve seen us talk about Ajax on our GIS blogs and you know that Google uses it, but you are still not sure what Ajax is all about? Check out this great article Dion Hinchcliffe on the State of Ajax.
People always compare ESRI to Microsoft and while there are similarities, I’ve always thought of ESRI more like Adobe. Both have professional products that focus on a section of the marketplace and both are very secretive about what goes on inside the company. Well either Hell has frozen over or pigs are flying because Adobe is now blogging. Looking at the comments you can see how happy people are to finally see some news coming out of the product development groups.
If a company such as Adobe can do it, what is holding ESRI back? Take a chance guys, your customers will love you for it.
Link – Geo Coding
In the comments on the ROK Developer Blog, Jason posted a link to a GIS blog I hadn’t seen before. Geo Coding seems focused on using AJAX with ArcIMS and ArcGIS Server. I’ve added it to my blogroll and my RSS aggregator. Cool stuff!
Link – VerySpatial
While driving from Phoenix to Las Vegas I ended up listening to a couple VerySpatial Podcasts on my iPod. I have a degree in Geography so the kind of discussions that happen on this podcast are really interesting to me. If you’ve been looking for a regular GIS/Geography podcast, you might want to subscribe to the VerySpatial podcast. I subscribe via iTunes, but they also have an RSS feed that you can use. Great job guys…
Update – right after I posted this I listened to the latest podcast and they mentioned Spatially Adjusted on it in their “Blog Corner” segment. Pretty cool!
Link – ArcIMS & AJAX
Well, now that everyone and their mother has seen Googlemaps, all I keep hear from my clients is “can you make it pan like googlemaps?”. To be honest, I had thought about doing something exactly like it several years back, but dismissed the idea thinking no one would really want that anyway. Boy, was I wrong.
Jason over at ROK Technologies wants to know if anyone is currently using AJAX with ArcIMS (or ArcGIS Server). We’ve started moving that way with our latest ArcIMS project using AJAX.NET, but we haven’t really progressed far (a little MapObjects project took up some time over the past month). I’m also not really interested in spending too much time developing my own AJAX ArcIMS site since the new ADF with 9.2 should make this all much simpler.
Well I’m officially back from vacation, though I’m taking today and tomorrow off also. We all had a great time in Las Vegas and we almost broke even after a horrible start (I am officially the worst poker player in the history of Vegas). We were so busy in the Casino that I never took a look outside my hotel room window until the day we left. Too bad because it was quite the view from the Aladdin toward the Bellagio.