In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

With 3D GIS in the news, here's an ongoing series working though a public 3D subsurface petrodata set from desktop modelling to web broadcasting. While BIM and geodesign have been grabbing the 3D GIS headlines, subsurface datasets for fluid flow are explore here. They will become increasingly important not only in petroleum but also in, say, water resources and underground contamination monitoring, or underground  fault and earthquake tracking.

MXD2map is a free converter for the generation of UMN MapServer-compatible Map files from ESRI ArcGIS MXD files. This program offers the possibility making the map design as usual in the ArcGIS Desktop GIS. A configuration file for UMN MapServer can be generated at the touch of a button. UMN MapServer provides the MXD project as an OGC-compliant WMS or WFS service. This provides a simple yet cost-effective way to publish existing spatial data including design requirements as WMS / WFS service.

"The realization of such a tool helps us tremendously in creation of OGC-compliant WMS services based on UMN MapServer. The usual work on the desktop with ArcGIS remains unaffected and the benefits of the fast UMN MapServer can be used easily for intranet/internet representation.", explains Jörg Gerdes, Head of IT of the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) in Hamburg/Germany. The BSH has been ordered the initial development of MXD2map from Intevation GmbH.

The BSH is an agency within the German Federal Ministry for Transport, Building and Urban Affairs with offices in Hamburg and Rostock. The BSH is an important maritime service provider of the federal government and provides the maritime geodata center for digital and analog (sea) map products.

Intevation is an independent IT service provider, which is consistently based on Free Software. The company consists of experts with the experience to develop cost-effective IT solutions and maintain it. For this purpose Free Software (also called "Open Source") is used and all results and all the necessary knowledge, including the source code, is passed to the client.

MXD2map is Free Software. It was released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL) version 3.

A Windows installer and the source code are available on the website for download.

Further information can be found on the official website: http://www.mxd2map.org

Contact at Intevation GmbH

Stephan Holl
Neuer Graben 17
49074 Osnabrück / Germany
[email protected]
+49 (0)541 33508 3663 

[Online-Version of this text: http://www.intevation.de/news.en.html#MXD2map1.0]

First, I'm sorry for not publishing the "batch mode" version of the geonews for the last two weeks - along with several other responsibilities, taking care of two young daughters at home is certainly fun, but engulfs all available time. In this batch mode edition, there are certainly a few geonews that could deserve their own entry - click on what interests you to learn more!

From the Google front:

• In my previous Google entry earlier today, I forgot to mention the GEB entry detailing even more major improvements of Xavier Tassin's Google Earth Flight Simulator, now at version 0.7
• This one via APB, Google Maps rolls out business interiors in Street View

From the Esri front:

• Via VerySpatial, ArcGIS for Android 1.0 has been released
• Two weeks ago, mandown informed us that the ArcGIS 10 Service Pack 3 Now Available For Download

From the miscellaneous category:

• GeoIQ launched GeoIQ Social, "the first and only product that provides self-service analysis of social media data by time and location"
• On the OGC blog, there's an interesting short entry on "Big Data" vs SDI in geospatial
• Clearly, WebGL is en vogue, mapperz mentiones the new Nokia Maps 3D WebGL, and Nokia is readying LiveView, which blends maps and augmented reality for their upcoming Windows Phone
• Apple expanded iPhone 4S GPS capabilities with GLONASS support and Apple Siri's support for maps and local search is coming to international customers in 2012
• MapQuest refreshed their Developer Network
• The name Atanas Entchev ring a bell to you? He's an active member of the geospatial community and he needs our help, he's facing deportation from the U.S.

In the maps category:

• Mapperz mentions the UK car crash map
• Ok, not exactly a map, but trying to find what are the Wall Street protestors are so angry about, here's a breakdown of income inequality, the Gini coefficient, by countries

Guns & Roses, or: 3D GIS anyone? behind the colorful history of Teapot Dome in Wyoming, US and its current incarnation that released a comprehensive 3D petroleum dataset, lies this challenge: how is GIS approaching comprehensive 3D treatment (truly with overhangs and multi-Z's per XY, not 2.5D extrusion however useful that may be), with the increasing availability of robust 3D tools some for free (recent slashgeo post). To help with that I posted said dataset on arcgis.com and started revamping my geoscience classes also coming soon to a screen near you.

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode. Some of those news seem important enough to deserve their own entries, but I dare share them in a single one. Yes, that's another unusually long post. Normal posting frequency should resume next February!

From the open source / open data front:

• SS shares an entry named MIT Releases Smartphone Data Tracking Tools as Open Source Software, it's called Funf
• There's now an OpenStreetMap Inspector, a quality evaluation service to help improve OSM data
• Here's a short entry on using OpenStreetMap data, tidbit: the entire database is 250GB
• Here's an entry on generating contours using GDAL (via shell or QGIS)
• Paul explains Indexed Nearest Neighbour Search in PostGIS
• Here's the FOSS4G 2011 WMS Performance Shootout 2011 slides, and I haven't shared this yet, James Fee's Guide to what was important at FOSS4G 2011

From the Esri front:

• Mandown reports that Esri updated their deprecation plans for ArcGIS 10 and 10.1
• SS indicates Esri Releases a Map Story on Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions

From the Google front:

• Finally, single-language labels made their way to Google Maps, that's making it much less confusing
• Here's in simple words why Google offers Google Maps / Earth
• Ogle Earth shares an entry on using Google Earth to hunt illegal mining in Goa, India

From the Microsoft front:

• Bing Maps added detailed airport maps, 42 U.S. airports so far 

In the miscellaneous category:

• SS reports that TomTom Launched a Geospatial Platform with Oracle: "The service will offer geocoding, vehicle routing and mapping information, all hosted on Oracle’s 11g database."
• V1 writes about INTERGEO, the German geospatial conference that attracted 17,000 attendees, making it one of the largest geoconferences in the world (the largest?)
• James Fee linked to the U.S. and Canadian top 10 largest cities GIS web maps
• We mentioned it before, but here's another article on the completion of the ERS satellite missions after 20 years
• O'Reilly shares an entry named Why indoor navigation is so hard and another entry on the state and future of local news
• If you have interest in the GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification), here's data model diagrams
• MapQuest launched a Mobile Flash Maps API
• VerySpatial mentioned the National Geographic Challenge game for the PS3, XBox360 and Wii
• On a more serious topic, VS shares an entry on The Geography of the Death Penalty

Slashdot discussed a few geospatial-related stories:

• Don't you wish you were a student again, Put On Your 3D Glasses — Class Is About To Start
• Not the first time we hear such news (from any OS phone), HTC Android Backdoor Leaks Private User Data, including GPS locations
• US Military Seeks Non-Cooperative Biometric Tracking Technology
• A story named California Governor Vetoes Ban On Warrantless Phone Searches, including GPS logs
• An on the same theme, a Senator Goes After 'Brazen' OnStar Privacy Shift
• With a search, you'll find plenty of similar stories, German Researchers Crack Mifare RFID Encryption, in other words, RFID can be of great use, but can't be considered secure 
• There's also a story about using stereo-vision mapping to visualize the oldest submerged city

In the maps category:

• TMR shares a few map books for Fall 2011
• Here's the first global map of ocean salinity
• Here's the Japanese tsunami mapped in detail for the first time

In the coming days, I'll be at Géomatique 2011, the major geospatial event in the province of Québec. Slashgeo is a media partner of the event.

Outage issues from service providers and differing strategies in response to that are the subject of this latest blogpost. A very brief overview on how to store, edit and protect your data online from my own experience, echoes slashgeo's poll on Google vs. Esri web pre-eminence - there likely will be a dichotomy of open and custom solutions.

Thanks to Andrew who found out that the poll engine was strangely behaving, it gave me an excuse to offer you a new poll on 'cloud GIS'.

The previous poll on Esri ArcGIS Online vs Google Earth Builder generated 213 votes. 42% of users anticipate that both will be successes in their own way, and funnily enough, two distinct groups made of 24% of users believe that one will prevail on the other. For what's left, 7% think neither will gain momentum and there's even 2% of users that wish that Bing Maps will prevail over the two front runners.

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

On the open source front:

• Wonder where GeoTools is? Here's the Status of GeoTools presentation from FOSS4G 2011
• Here's about Metatools, a metadata management plugin for QGIS, now at version 0.2
• Here's the GeoServer Aggregating DataStore, enabling the republication from several data sources, including remote ones
• The slides and videos of OpenStreetMap's State of the Map 2011 conference are now available
• Sean Gillis' at it again, he started a new project called Fiona, an OGR API which wants to be "a clear alternative to the complex layers and cursors and fussy geometry objects of OGR and ArcPy"
• Ok, not directly geospatial, but Gource is the nicest tool to visualize source code changes I've seen yet (works with Git, SVN and others), and here it is showing the changes in QGIS from version 1.6 to 1.7

On the Esri front:

• ArcGIS Explorer Build 1750 is now available
• Mandown summarizes what’s new on ArcGIS Online for September 2011
• There's also an ArcGIS API for iOS 2.01 update for those developing with iOS 5 and another one for ArcGIS API For JavaScript 2.5
• Here's the Best Practices For Using Custom State Highway Shields In ArcGIS

In the everything-else category:

• Here's another entry on the New KML features in Google Earth 6.1
• Iran is releasing Basir, a Google Earth competitor, to counter Google's cultural aggression 
• Microsoft has an entry on the recent updates to Bing Maps: REST API, AJAX Control v7, and Account Center
• We mentioned a few times vertical datums, via Kurt, now NOAA is releasing VDatum, "designed to vertically transform geospatial data among a variety of tidal, orthometric and ellipsoidal vertical datums"
• That's how far sensors can go, millions of geolocated seismic sensors wirelessly connected for oil and gas exploration by Shell and HP
• V1 mentions a comprehensive guide on 3D spatial relationships
• Here's a Maperitive tutorial for Generating OSM Map For Adobe Illustrator
• In the neverending series of cellphone tracking, Slashdot discusses a story named Surveillance Case May Reveal FBI Cellphone Tracking Techniques
• And regarding car tracking Slashdot offers another story named Canberra Police Want Drones To Track Cars
• In the trivia category, Slashdot discusses a story named Swedish Daycare Tracks Kids With GPS Devices

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly mentions the Global Adaptation Index map, which "rates a given country's vulnerability to environmental shifts precipitated by climate change, its readiness to adapt to such changes, and its ability to utilize investment capital that would address the state of those vulnerabilities"
• V1 shares a map of the gas infrastructures in Europe

That's probably our biggest "geonews in batch mode" issue ever. That's the price I have to pay for three weeks of holidays! ;-) I tried to keep only the most pertinent geonews. After reading this unusually long entry, you and I are back to being up to date in terms of geonews.

On the Google front:

• Here's a Google Earth mashup of Fukushima and Chernobyl meltdowns side-by-side
• Google added a Regional Expert Reviewer Program to Google Map Maker
• The tool Shaderlight to create awesome SketchUp models is now at version 2
• Google purchased Zagat Survey, a firm offering local ratings of restaurants and much more  
• And there's new imagery in Google Earth released on September 7

On the ESRI front:

• ArcGIS 10.0 SP3 is coming next month
• Spatially Adjusted has an entry seemingly confirming You Can’t Edit Spatial RDBMS with ArcGIS for Desktop without SDS
• V1 reviews the Esri Map Book, volume 26

On the open source front:

• Via no solo I read this informative QGIS and gvSIG comparison, useful to understand the differences between what are probably the two most mature open source desktop GIS packages available
• The FOSS4G 2012 conference will take place in Beijing, China
• We did mention them before, but only indirectly - here's osmdroid, OpenStreetMap tools for Android (maybe that's what missing for iOS?)
• In case you don't read our geospatial press releases, the OSGeo-Live 5.0 DVD has been released
• If you're interested in Brazilian topography, see this entry on TOPODATA's version of SRTM-DEM for Brazil

In GPS news:

• North Korea forced a US reconnaissance plane to land by jamming GPS signals
• Via Spatial Law, Bangladesh Mandates Use of GPS in Vehicles

In Apple news:

• Autodesk released the 'Lite' version of AutoCAD for MacOS X, in addition to the full version available since a year
• For their iOS devices, Apple is exploring enhancing maps with augmented reality
• APB mentioend Apple's patent application on crowdsourcing data for local searches
• The class-action lawsuit against Apple in South Korea over location data collection has started 

In Microsoft news:

• Streetside is now available for parts of London
• Microsoft shares an entry on the Bing Maps v7 Module CodePlex Project
• Even if Virtual Earth 3D is discontinued, Microsoft posted details to enable you to use it longer
• Microsoft released the Bing Maps 'Windows Presentation Foundation' (WPF) Control
• Here's an entry on the Wall Street Journal using Bing Maps in their hurricane tracking tool

In transportation news:

• SignalGuru system that change your route to avoid red lights
• Regarding tracking and privacy, the NYC mayor wants traffic cameras at every corner

In remote sensing news:

• A critical milestone has been reached for Landsat's LCDM mission in 2012, aka "Landsat 8"
• Both NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X remote sensing satellites have been launched successfully
• The ERS-2 mission is completed, its last image has been taken
• Can you believe that over 700 government satellites will launch in the next 10 years? Obviously not all for remote sensing purposes
• The bankrupted RapidEye has been purchased

In the miscellaneous category:

• It seems UniStrong has 40% of GIS marketshare in China
• V1 shares a perspective named Where Did All the Talk About Spatial Data Quality Go?
• The data provider Infochimps have a new GEO API
• Slashdot discusses a story named Judge Nixes Warrantless Cell Phone Location Data
• Of course I'm a bit too late, but here's a recap of mapping and mobile data for Hurricane Irene
• Here's an entry named Everything you wanted to know about UK Coordinate Systems
• It's confirmed, Kansas is flatter than a pancake
• Do we need another map building website? There's the new Build-A-Map site in Beta
• APB mentions 'Location Aware', a free location-aware task management app for Android

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly shared a map of U.S. job losses
• Here's the U.S. National Parks as seen from space
• Tthe USGS launched their Historical Topo Map Collection

In my latest blog post Be your own weatherman I fine-tuned my banner map to create a simple yet effective map and presentation - two for the price of one! - using embedded ArcGIS Explorer. Easy, huh?