Category: Thoughts

OK, I’ve lived in Southern California and Arizona all my life so I’m like a fish out of water right now. Global warming has caused ice to form on the streets of Tempe, AZ (I have that right I think, I saw The Day After Tomorrow). I almost fell over trying to get to someplace to each lunch. Its 2:30pm and there is still ice on the sidewalks (though it is melting fast). I know someone is going to die when their head cracks open after they fall (or pull their groin).

photo: Carlos Chavez/The Arizona Republic

A couple of people have asked and I’ve finally been able to do it. You can now subscribe to a daily email of all Planet Geospatial posts. Everything that is in the RSS feed for that day will be included. Just follow the link on the right side of Planet Geospatial or click the link below.

Subscribe to Planet Geospatial by Email

Fill out the form and confirm your email. You can easily unsubscribe anytime you want.

It seems that the Wikipedia nuts police have begun to attack World Wind now.

A Wikipedia editor recently changed the NASA World Wind page, removing all references to it being ‘free’, so what exactly is ‘free’ in Open Source land?

Just more proof that Wikipedia has failed. The simple fact that someone citing a source has more pull than experts just baffles me. Reminds me of an issue last summer when a lead engineer for Mac OS 9 was edited out because he didn’t cite his sources.

I say, it’s not true. So, I clicked on the little edit button, and deleted it. Done! Truth has prevailed; now 10th graders have a reliable source they can crib stuff from when they do their reports.

Then, someone put it back. “reverted an unsourced claim” is the reason; apparently I, a mere Mac OS 9.1 Technical Lead, don’t count as a “source” for something. Rumor site; yes. Someone who was actually at Apple doing stuff; no.

Won’t someone rescue Wikipedia from the police Snidely Whiplash?

Chad and I have been wondering the same thing. How will this new deal with GlobeXplorer impact NASA World Wind (and other applications).

Now, I am just wondering if this is going to have any affect on World Wind users viewing VE imagery. Will Digital Globe honor the deals that Microsoft has made or will the same line that Google pulls be suddenly used by Microsoft?

Microsoft have been very open with people using their imagery, compared to Google and their deal with DigitalGlobe. One has to wonder though will this deal change things and how will DigitalGlobe impact Microsoft.

Looks like Don pulled his post on ArcGIS for Autocad. If the ESRI salesman doesn’t get to announce something they get a little pissed about it.

It looks like Microsoft and GlobeXplorer have reached and agreement to supply new imagery to Virtual Earth.

As part of the deal, more than 400,000 square miles of U.S. aerial imagery will be enhanced with high-resolution coverage. Microsoft and GlobeXplorer plan to integrate the new imagery into Virtual Earth over the next several months.

Finally I will be able to see Tempe, AZ in color imagery! I didn’t see any mention of world imagery so I’m not sure if that is included. I’m sure we’ll hear more over the next few days.

I will admit the implementation that Apple and Google came up with for the iPhone and Google Maps is quite impressive, but my wife’s Blackberry has had Google Maps access for just about a year now (the scroll wheel actually works pretty well if you ask me). Heck no need to wait until June to try it out either on your own mobile phone.

I love the Apple Kool-aid as much as the next guy, but many bloggers seem to have a very short memory here or at least just weren’t paying attention before Apple came along.

**Update: **Looks like Sean is underwhelmed also. My thoughts exactly, Cingular? What a joke.

I see that Don Kuehne has an interesting announcement on his blog. ESRI has announced ArcGIS for Autocad.

ArcGIS for AutoCAD is a no-cost ESRI application that works on top of AutoCAD 2007 and gives me the ability to add one or more ESRI map service view(s) to my AutoCAD drafting environment. With this new ESRI technology I have direct access to every GIS data format without conversion and without translation inside AutoCAD. I as an AutoCAD user see what the GIS professional sees; finished high quality cartographic representations of complex GIS data structures thay may be stored in a wide variety raster, network, image and vector formats.

I guess this is ArcCAD reborn huh (well ArcCAD on steroids)? I’ll be honest, I’ve never liked the ArcSDE CAD Client. I hope this will make it much easier to leverage ArcSDE with AutoCAD.

It will be free and available “later this year”.

Frankly I see no upside to this. As a consumer of aerial photography I just see this as one less option out there. Frankly I’m glad I have at least one independent choice in Aerials Express.

Spin this however you wish, but this is bad for consumers.

Go ahead and grab what might be the last release candidate before World Wind 1.4 goes final. Daniel Baker created a “What’s new in 1.4” so you can see all the new features and eye candy that NASA World Wind 1.4 has in store.

Chad says NASA World Wind 1.3.6 has been indefinitely delayed. The result is that if you want to use the latest WW features, you’ll have to take the plunge and upgrade to .NET 2.0. I suspect those who can’t go that route will just use WW Java.