Category: GIS

The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has been working for over a year now to adjust the NAD83 datum with what is called the National Adjustment of 2011 or NA2011. How much adjustment are we talking about here? If you guessed only about two centimeters, you would be right on the money.

So why are the NGS geodesists working so hard for such a small change and is it worth the potential problems it could cause users of NAD83? It turns out the reasoning behind the adjustments are sound and will be a benefit to the future of surveying and GPS usage.

The main advantage of the NA2011 is that it will tie together and align passive(in ground monuments) and active(CORS) control stations throughout the United States. There are roughly 80,000 passive control marks that will be effectively brought into the modern system.

It is important to remember that this is not a new datum (that will be coming in about ten years); It is an adjustment of the current NAD83 datum. However, there will be a new geoid model (Geoid12) as a result of the changes. Of course this new hybrid geoid will not be developed until after the NA2011.

Fun stuff! The projected completion date for the adjustment is June 30, 2012 so it could be just around the corner. Of course they had originally planned on completing it before the end of 2011 but maybe this time they will be on schedule. If you want more information about the NA2011 you can visit the NGS web site.

I finally got around to playing with National Geographic’s MapMaker Interactive application on the organization’s education site. As a GIS analyst with two young boys I am always interested in tools that can help teach them about geography or GIS. The MapMaker tool helps teach both of these.

The interface is built on the ArcGIS framework using the ArcGIS API for flex. It features eight base maps to choose from including National Geographic view, satellite view, streets view and oceans view. There are also six themes (with related sub-themes) such as water, land, climate and population, that help users turn out handsome looking maps quickly.

The drawing tools are very user-friendly and include only six basic tools. In addition to these, there is a “markers” tab that provides 30 different symbols representing vegetation, structures and events. You choose between three different marker sizes then drag and drop the marker where you want the point to be located.

Other than looking at the prefabricated themes or measuring distances between locations there is really no analysis that can be done with this map. However, the tool is called MapMaker, not MapAnalyzer, and is geared toward kids so one really cannot complain.

While kids might be the target audience of the MapMaker, its simplicity lends itself to be used by adults who are not GIS savvy but might want to make a quick and authoritative looking map for a manager or client.

The National Geographic education site is still in Beta at the time of this post so there are still a few issues with the tools acting buggy. It would also be great to see a PDF export option and a way to retain measurement annotation as a permanent part fo the map. Those are just minor complaints though and the functionality may well change as the web site goes through and comes out of Beta.

Overall this is a great tool to use for basic mapping or teaching about geography and geographic information systems. Head over to the site and give it a try. You might find that you have another free tool that you can use to make a quick one-off presentation map or you can recommend it to a non-GIS user who wants to play cartographer.

There are nine core academic subjects in the No Child Left Behind Act. Of the nine, only geography doesn’t have its own federal funding stream. Since 2008, geography advocates have petitioned the federal government for just such a stream, in part by supporting what is called the Teaching Geography is Fundamental Act. There is a reason why this act has been introduced and subsequently died in two previous congresses – It is not good legislation.

Out of 15 potential uses for the funds identified within the Act, only a few reference clear, actionable uses. The rest consist of “promoting”, “strengthening”, “encouraging” or “supporting” vague notions including “academic standards”, applying GIS to teaching, and “research”. What does that actually mean?

The language of the Act creates a grant of $75,000,000 spread over five years but fails to designate concrete uses of that money. The Act basically throws money at an issue expecting the issue to then resolve itself. Of course, this should surprise no one since the government’s response to most problems is to appropriate funds. Educators should know better than to see this as a solution but it becomes difficult to see beyond the potential of receiving money, regardless of its dubious origins.

Activists could better spend their time trying to get rid of legislation like the No Child Left Behind Act so we can stop teaching based on federal mandates and standardized tests and go back to student based teaching.

It is rare that an industry today is not touched by some form of location based technology or GIS. It is this interplay between geospatial technology and the multitude ways of consuming and utilizing it that makes it so exciting.

If you work with international GIS data you know how important it is to have standards for place and region names. Many governments maintain stability in place names so they rarely change but there are always plenty of exceptions. Furthermore, spellings often have variations based on translations and dialect making it difficult to put an official name to a place, let alone have it be uniform across multiple applications.

Thankfully, there is the GEOnet Names Server (GNS) maintained by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).  The GNS contains over 5 million geo-located features and more than 8 million feature names. Updated weekly, the GNS database provides its data through several means including an OGC web map service graphical interface, a text-based interface and a data download page.

NGA’s Name server viewer

So, whether you are designing and building an international geodatabase or you are just interested in place names, the GNS is the authoritative place to go. Bear in mind that the GEOnet Names Server is only for locations outside the United States. For official names within the United States see the US Board on Geographic Names.

I recently saw a tweet highlighting a Youtube video showing 2011 earthquakes as a dynamic time lapse map. You can watch it on Youtube.

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StumbleUpon is a great site for finding web sites and blogs you might not otherwise come across. Of course many well known sites are there as well.

In my perusals I came across the following five mapping/GIS sites that I thought were interesting.

FlashEarth – Here is a nifty little satellite imagery viewing application. Flash Earth is refreshing because it does not look like Google Earth. Yes, it is flash based and it pulls its imagery data from Microsoft and Yahoo.

Wikimapia – Yep, it’s a Google Map powered wiki. Launched in 2006 there are over 15,000,000 places already marked. You can use the site for free and anyone can upload information without registering.

Maps Of War – Another flash based map site Maps of War is a collection of maps having to do with wars and war related subjects.

IRIS Seismic Monitor – The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology is a consortium of universities that aquire, manage and distribute seismological data. The Seismic Monitor is the geospatial mapping application they use for the distribution. The application is not perfect. You can only zoom to a small scale view of an area but the information is interesting. Play around with it and see what you think.

It never ceases to amaze me how many GIS professionals feel the need to brand themselves “The Map Guy”. If you could collect a business card from everyone at a GIS conference you would find maybe a quarter of them with “The Map Guy!” printed below their name. It’s not a bad tag line for someone who makes maps but for goodness sake, it’s been done.

Of course it does no good to complain about something unless you can come up with an alternative. Here are a few business card ready tags you can use to show yourself to be a unique member of the GIS community:

• The Ace of Maps
• The Map Ninja
• The CartoWarrior
• The GeoGiant
• Not To Scale
• The Carto Kid
• The Human Projection
• Thematic and Proud
• The Mad Mapper
• CartoManiac
• And my favorite – The Original Geographer

There, see? Now there are no more excuses for following the crowd. Now go out and be someone different, and no, “The Map Man” Doesn’t count.

Our current economy, however, has impacted even the biggest budgets like that of the Federal government and most state and local ones too. Private companies have not been immune either.

 

1. Ask your software vendor for an upgrade. Most software companies work to constantly improve their products. When they compile enough changes they will release a new version. Find out if your current maintenance schedule already includes new versions. Even if your maintenance agreement has expired or you never had one, you might be entitled to an upgrade to the next version after the one you bought.
2. Learn scripting to automate your processes. They say time is money. If this is true then learning a relevant scripting language can be worth its weight in gold. One useful and popular language in the GIS world is Python. Python can be used not only for scripting but for full blown product development. It is easy to learn and there are plenty of resources out there to help you utilize it. ArcGIS 10 is probably the most widely used GIS platform supporting Python but the free and open source Quantum GIS does as well.
3. Speaking of free and open source…. If your organization is open to open source software and free products on their network, you should definitely look into it. If you can only afford to maintain a few paid seats of ArcGIS you could augment your holdings with the previously mentioned free and open source Quantum GIS (QGIS). QGIS can read and write Shapefiles and PostGIS data, both of which can be utilized in ArcGIS. Products such as Google Earth, MapQuest, and Open Street Map can also be powerful geospatial tools and can either augment your current software or in some cases replace it. Some of these software products even provide development APIs to create your own custom tools. It all depends on what your mission is.
4. Ask your local college for help. Do you need to be freed up to pursue important projects that have been languishing? Utilize your local GIS students for digitizing, GPS location and more. Talk to the head of your local college GIS program about hiring students as interns. You can typically pay them a lot less than a regular hire but still get great results. They get the benefit of experience; you get the benefit of accomplishing more in budget.
5. Mine the internet for free data. There is always the fear that data from the internet is inaccurate or outdated. That is certainly true in some cases but there is plenty of quality low cost or free data to be had. A few examples of quality (usually) data providers include federal, state, county and city governments, special districts such as utilities and university data repositories. Check to see if the data has associated metadata available. This will tell you if you are working with quality or if you should be looking elsewhere for your needs.
6. Buy used equipment. If you are in need of new data collection equipment (GPS receivers or survey equipment), data manipulation equipment (computers), or data output equipment (plotters and printers) eBaycould be your answer. The online auction site is still going strong and offers just about anything imaginable. Try creating a custom search for the items you are looking for and keeping watch for great deals. You can determine the price you are able to spend and then start bidding. This might take a little longer than traditional purchasing methods but the cost savings can be worth it.