Spatially Adjusted

Blog

  • Map Projection Pages

    The Map Room posted about a great site this morning called Map Projection Pages. I spent much of my undergraduate work in Geography researching projections and I’ve always found them and their history very interesting. Ask any cartography and they’ll always be willing to argue which projection is the best. Anyway, Map Projection Pages is an introduction to cartography emphasizing map projections: their properties, applications and basic mathematics.

    What is my favorite projection? All things equal its Robinson, but usually I pick the projection that best matches what I am trying to emphasis.

  • Flash vs Ajax in Online Maps

    Michael Quetel was nice enough to email me a link to Flash Earth which uses flash to interface with Google Maps and Virtual Earth. I had seen this when it first came out but must have misplaced the link as I never mentioned it on this blog. What I like about it is how easy it is to navigate and manipulate the layers. There are many Flash based sites out there that are such a hassle, but when used correctly Flash is a great tool. Flash Earth is so simple that it works and that is all you can ask in a web based application.

    Flash earth

    I know ESRI demoed a Flash based viewer for ArcWeb 2005 at the User Conference that was quite impressive. I’m not sure what their other plans for Flash is/are, but could we be seeing Flash become a competitor for AJAX based mapping sites. I’m never big fan of requiring plugins to run content, but I think we can all assume that almost 100% of browsers have Flash installed.

  • Howard Butler’s Latest Podcast with Tyler Mitchell

    Link – An Interview with Tyler Mitchell

    Howard’s latest interview is with Tyler Mitchell who is the author of Web Mapping Illustrated and a contributor to many open source GIS projects.

  • National Geographic and Google Earth

    National Geographic has been one of the most prolific ESRI users out there, but they have begun to utilize Google Earth. Now appearing in the Google Earth layers are Features Articles and & Photograph, Sights & Sounds, African Megaflyover and Live Wildcam. The Map Machine has been using ESRI server software for years, but could we be seeing a change where companies are rushing to make sure their information is available inside Google Earth. Check out a couple screen shots below.

    Google Earth is becoming a GIS “browser” where you can find information from all over the world, perfect for the NGS.

    Ng ge 4

     

    Ng ge

     

    Ng ge 2

    Ng ge 3

  • Darren Cope calls me on ESRI being too important

    ESRI – Just how important are they?

    I’m not sure I agree 100% with this statement, although I do see its point. ESRI has been hugely influential in defining what GIS is, and how it operates. However, I’d hate to see folks like Roger Tomlinson and his work on the CGIS forgotten or ignored. I’m sure there are many others who deserve similar respect.

    OK so I was being a little dramatic, but my point was that ESRI is more influential in GIS than Microsoft is in general.

  • Export to KML Extension for ArcGIS 9.x

    Link – Export_to_KML_V10

    Export to KML is an extension developed for ArcGIS 9.x by the City of Portland, Bureau of Planning. The extension allows ArcGIS users to export any dataset in “keyhole markup language” [KML] format for viewing in the free Google Earth data viewer. Any point, polyline, or polygon features, in any defined projection, can be exported. Features can be “grouped” by an attribute for creating categorical symbology in Google Earth. Features can also be exported as 2-dimensional features, or “extruded” by an attribute (or, in the case of true 3D features, by z-value).

    Kevin Martin over at the City of Portland Bureau of Planning just uploaded a new extension to export any dataset to KML.

    Export2KML

    Structure height

    One problem with all these great tools for KML export is that they have all chosen to use the Google Earth icon on their toolbar. Kind of makes it hard to remember which one is which huh?

    Kml extensions

  • MSN Virtual Earth SDK is available

    Link – MSN Virtual Earth SDK is live!

    After all that waiting I feel no urge to download.

  • Blogging the Homeland Security GIS Summit

    I have not seen much on the ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit anywhere. I was hoping to go this year, but got sidetracked on other work. Anyone go and care to tell us about it?

    Update: Thanks to Adena for pointing me to an article over at Directions Magazine about the conference. After reading up on it, now I’m really sad I missed it. I’ll definitely be going next year.

  • ESRI is not the Microsoft of the GIS world, it is much more complex

    I’ve been getting emails from people asking about ESRI and many of them think of ESRI as the Microsoft of the GIS world. Since people like analogies, try this one on for size:

    ESRI is the Microsoft, Apple, Google, Sun, Lotus, Borland, Adobe, Oracle, IBM, and WordPerfect of the GIS world.

    That is how you measure their contributions to GIS.

  • Jeff Thurston thinks we are all too focused on the GIS viewer

    Link – Directions in Spatial Information

    It is interesting to read and learn about all the things that Google is up to with respect to maps. Like I said a while ago, here; it has opened the door to increasing mapping awareness, especially to, although not limited to younger folks ‘ move over MTV.

    Jeff pretty much says what I’ve been saying and what ESRI’s focus should be on. Tools to create GIS data are extremely important. Google isn’t a creator of this information, they are a consumer. Our GIS workflows are integrated into ESRI’s tools so for us to be successful, we need ESRI to continue to push the envelope. Our biggest problem though has been on the reader side of things. Jeff says ArcGlobe is ESRI’s “Google Earth”, but that requires you to have at least an ArcView license. Jeff does say why Google Earth has been successful and it is plainly the simplicity of the application. If you’ve ever used ArcGlobe you know you have total control over just about everything, but zooming and panning can get out of control (well maybe it is just I can’t work in a total 3d world).

    The key point of Jeff’s post is that we can’t get to the future without improved spatial tools and he is right on. But the problem today is consumers are beginning to want to consume GIS services and the tools to do so are limited and into that void falls Google Earth.