GIS Doesn’t Go Inside Buildings Guys
Clearly, Google doesn’t understand anything about Professional GIS. 30 years ago, GIS and CAD came to a conclusion. GIS would work outside the building shell and CAD would handle the inside. This has been respected for a generation of GISPs.
But in typical Google fashion, they ignore the truce and now their GIS system (yes I’m not crazy) supports inside the building queries.
Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available. The familiar blue dot icon indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on. All this is achieved by using an approach similar to that of My Location for outdoor spaces, but fine tuned for indoors.
So it is a stupid Android app and nothing more, for now. But clearly, there is an API in there just waiting to be used. Of course, New Yorker’s fear being tracked on their cell phones so it remains to be seen if Google will feel any backlash for tracking your cell phone (cue the old “opt-in” defense).
Now I’m not sure how stupid Google thinks users are though. Is “Find my Favorite Coffee Shop” still something that people need help with?
GIS Cloud Removes Beta From their Logo
Two months ago, GIS Cloud released a HTML5 client that was very slick. My thoughts at the time:
The latest company to release a HTML5 client is GISCloud. While other visualization companies offer JavaScript maps as an option, GISCloud has made them default. By using the HTML5 Canvas element, GISCloud is rendering vector data right inside of the browser, with no plugin. Oh and you don’t need to use some sort of weird API to get it to work on iPhones or iPads. It just works, browsing 2 million features on my iPad in Safari without a native app. Crazy!
Well for those who view the Beta tag as something to avoid, GIS Cloud has now gone full production on their code.
GIS Cloud Logo
Today’s GIS Cloud differs quite a lot from when it was first created, and so does the team as well. We have both grown and improved a lot; learned how to provide GIS users with what they need. GIS Cloud got:
- redesigned
- much simpler to use and more intuitive
- more focused on the map and data visualization
- reborn with the HTML5 map engine
- moved to Amazon Cloud
- its very own platform for creating geo applications
There are some great demo’s on GIS Cloud’s website that really showcase how far HTML5 has come in supporting millions of features in a browser. Plus they work on iPad without needing to download a client app. Now that I love!
MapQuest Map API Transactions Are Now Free
So Google did the right thing by actually charging for their API. We all expected other APIs to jump in and show the world how they are either cheaper or better. Well MapQuest jumped in with free with no transaction limits for their “Open Data” Map API.
MapQuest is excited to announce a change to our limits, which includes no preset limit on maps within our free Community Edition license!
Ah, but what about their licensed map versions?
In addition, we are setting higher limits on our other service calls (the highest in the industry), with 5,000 geocodes, 5,000 routes and 5,000 search calls allowed per day.
If you click over to their blog post, you can see a chart that outlines all the features of the different options. What is interesting is the Community Edition/Open Data tier allows free on Private and/or Paid Commercial Web Apps and Mobile Apps. I can’t think of any apps that use MapQuest offhand now, but I suspect these new changes will at least get people to look.
Tight Spot
Esri Says They Have Your APIs Covered
So Silverlight, Flash and Flex are dead. Or maybe not. Honestly we’ll probably see all three around for years. Enterprises love to hold onto outdated or deprecated software (er IE6) so they’ll probably continue using these three until the development tools are dead. Given how many VB6 and VBA apps I still see out there, it will probably be years before they are gone from our browsers.
The big question of course is what will Esri do with those APIs? Well don’t fear, they are totally committed to you writing apps in libraries that have no future.
We’re committed to providing the best technology for GIS developers and giving choices from the most widely used developer platforms in the market. By offering many options, we enable developers to address different customer needs and expectations. Our commitment is not based on a specific technology, but based on supporting the GIS developer regardless of the platform chosen. Each of these areas: JavaScript/HTML 5, Flex, Silverlight, and native application code, gain significant improvements in the upcoming ArcGIS 10.1 release.
See? No worries. Plus you can use their JavaScript (notice they now append HTML5 to the end?) API to stay “current”. Of course you have to use Dojo which gives you just enough bloat to call that a nice Enterprise API. Plus you can still use the ArcGIS for SharePoint to fulfill all your Enterprise API coding needs.
Seriously, if I was Esri… I’d totally get Leaflet working natively with Esri APIs out of the box and use that. Lightweight and fun. Something Esri’s heavy APIs lack.
Esri Says They Have Your APIs Covered
So Silverlight, Flash and Flex are dead. Or maybe not. Honestly we’ll probably see all three around for years. Enterprises love to hold onto outdated or deprecated software (er IE6) so they’ll probably continue using these three until the development tools are dead. Given how many VB6 and VBA apps I still see out there, it will probably be years before they are gone from our browsers.
The big question of course is what will Esri do with those APIs? Well don’t fear, they are totally committed to you writing apps in libraries that have no future.
We’re committed to providing the best technology for GIS developers and giving choices from the most widely used developer platforms in the market. By offering many options, we enable developers to address different customer needs and expectations. Our commitment is not based on a specific technology, but based on supporting the GIS developer regardless of the platform chosen. Each of these areas: JavaScript/HTML 5, Flex, Silverlight, and native application code, gain significant improvements in the upcoming ArcGIS 10.1 release.
See? No worries. Plus you can use their JavaScript (notice they now append HTML5 to the end?) API to stay “current”. Of course you have to use Dojo which gives you just enough bloat to call that a nice Enterprise API. Plus you can still use the ArcGIS for SharePoint to fulfill all your Enterprise API coding needs.
Seriously, if I was Esri… I’d totally get Leaflet working natively with Esri APIs out of the box and use that. Lightweight and fun. Something Esri’s heavy APIs lack.
Merry GIS Day 2011
Who knew that way back when the great communicator was President and signed a proclamation, we’d be having a celebration around the world for GIS.
Geography Week
Later that week, Reagan told Gobry to tear down that wall.
I’m just wondering when we’ll have Geography Month. I can’t get out all my 3D Globes in time to pull them right back down the day after. Will Obama sign the Geography Month proclamation so we can have the time we deserve. November is a lost month between Halloween and Christmas, we might as well celebrate something (I’m all for Thanksgiving, but even the Canadian’s won’t celebrate that with us).
Am I the only one who has GIS Day sneak up on them? I didn’t get a chance to head down to the card store to buy Paul anything.