In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

AGSE 2012 - Applied Geoinformatics for Society and Environment
5th International Conference and Summer School

Conference Theme: "Geoinformation - Catalyst for planning, development and good governance "

Location: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Date: July 16 - 20, 2012

Conference Website: http://applied-geoinformatics.org

Email: [email protected]

Developer of the award-winning PDF Maps app accepts honour at global conference focusing on the Geospatial Industry & World Economy

TORONTO, (April 25, 2012) - Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher® cartographic software for Adobe® Illustrator® and Geographic Imager® geospatial tools for Adobe Photoshop®, celebrates its recognition as a mobile mapping leader at this year’s Geospatial World Forum in Amsterdam, Netherlands by winning the conference’s Geospatial World Innovation award for Mobile Mapping with its PDF Maps app and digital map store solution for the iOS platform. PDF Maps is an all-encompassing solution for the use, distribution, and sale of digital versions of paper maps to mobile devices. It includes both an app for consumers to use, discover, and purchase maps directly from and to their devices as well as a backend store to facilitate the transaction and delivery of the maps. Paired together with mobile devices that utilize GPS, such as an iPhone, the PDF Maps app provides constant access to geographic locations and points of interest without the risk of losing reception due to cell tower proximity.

Attended by more than 2,000 professionals representing government agencies, private industries, research, and academic institutions as well as developmental agencies from around the world, the Geospatial World Forum raises the awareness level of the increasing relevance of geospatial technology in everyday life. Its goal is to open the lines of communication amongst the end-users, geospatial technology experts, and policy makers in an effort to utilize spatial technologies productively in areas such as infrastructure, utilities, energy, land management, business enterprise, mining, and governance.

“Given the visibility of such a global conference, Avenza takes great honour in accepting the mobile mapping award for the technology utilized in our PDF Maps app,” said Ted Florence, president, Avenza. “Our history and expertise in developing tools for the cartographic industry along with the advances in navigation satellite systems and mobile devices have allowed us to realize our strengths and provide a navigation platform that can be used by consumers as well as private and public sectors in ways that have never been done before. We are ecstatic to be acknowledged by our peers and look forward to being part of the discussion of how geospatial technology can be further utilized in a meaningful manner.”

Competing against seven other notable products in its category from around the world, Avenza’s PDF Maps app secured the award for its revolutionary ability to acquire, display, and interact with digital maps on mobile devices and tablets. The innovative tool supports a growing database of maps featuring tens of thousands of maps authored, distributed or sold by individual cartographers, established map publishers, and government agencies. The PDF Maps app and Avenza Map Store offer a medium by which map content can be easily repurposed providing a valid revenue stream for map publishers in an era when the industry is losing its market to digital products with GPS functionality.

“Geospatial Media and Communications is dedicated to promoting application and use of geospatial technologies worldwide. In order to encourage innovative applications of geospatial technologies, the company through its publication division – Geospatial World, awards organisations from different parts of the world with the Geospatial World Excellence Awards on applications, technologies and policies,” said Sanjay Kumar of Geospatial Media. “This year, we are pleased to felicitate Avenza Systems Inc. for their innovative solution, ‘PDF Maps,’ an iOS application in the Mobile Mapping category. This innovative product is a promising solution bringing maps into mobile phones and tablet devices, and will result in better and easier usage of maps by every day users.”

To win its category, the PDF Maps app was judged on its innovativeness, practicality, social relevance of the tool in today’s world as well as the quality of documentation and availability.

Currently, Avenza’s vast PDF Maps app library covering maps for domestic and international travel and reference includes more than 55,000 USGS (United States Geological Survey) topographic maps organized by state and area. Some of the capabilities offered by the PDF Maps app:

• Quickly view, zoom, pan, and read geospatial PDF, GeoTIFF, and GeoPDF® maps
• Browse, preview, purchase and download professionally created maps from the Avenza Map Store from over 125 publishers and government agencies worldwide
• Access and load maps through iTunes File Sharing or over a Wi-Fi or cellular network. Saved maps can be used without the need for a live network connection (offline).
• View your location on the map using the built-in GPS or via Wi-Fi triangulation
• Find coordinates of any location in the map, including the ability to type in a coordinate to search
• Display coordinates as Lat/Long (WGS84), Lat/Long (Map Default), Northing/Easting, or Military Grid Reference System (MGRS/United States National Grid (USNG)
• Add waypoints and collect/record information about locations, including photos
• Export, import and share waypoints and associated data, including photos using iTunes, e-mail or Dropbox
• Overlay Google search results
• Measure distances and areas
• Change pin colors, position, and label names

PDF Maps is available now on the iTunes App Store free of charge for personal use. For more information about the app, visit the Avenza website at www.avenza.com/pdf-maps. Pricing of each map is set by the publisher and free maps can be downloaded at no cost through the PDF Maps in-app map store.

More about Avenza Systems Inc.

Avenza Systems Inc. is an award-winning, privately held corporation that provides cartographers and GIS professionals with powerful software tools for making better maps. In addition to software offerings for Mac and Windows users, Avenza offers value-added data sets, product training, and consulting services. For more information visit www.avenza.com.

For further information contact:
Tel: 416-487-5116
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.avenza.com

It's Easter and I find myself aggregating geonews for you - don't you see how much I love you ;-) Expect less news this week since I'll be participating to the FOSS4G-NA conference. So here's the latest geonews in batch mode.

In the open source and open data front:

• Slashdot discusses a story named Wikipedia Mobile Apps Switch To OpenStreetMap, away from Google Maps, related, James Fee links to a NY Times article on bypassing Google Maps with OpenStreetMap
• and via @teller another article is named Microsoft backing OpenStreetMap, creating Google Maps competitor
• Numerous sources mentioned the beautiful watercolor OpenStreetMap style from Stamen and here's how they were created (via Wes)
• An entry discusses the differences between the Portable GIS and OSGeo Live tools
• There was a few entries on QGIS; one on the qNote plugin, detailed instructions for installing QGIS Server on Windows 7 and on Ubuntu, the custom form feature to streamline data entry, and an entry on the enhanced MS SQLServer 2008 support
• With PostGIS 2.0 recently released, here's an entry on validating vector features
• Here's a discussion on OpenStreetMap should be more like Facebook

In the miscellaneous category:

• The Landsat 5 mission is officially suspended after 28 years, we mentioned its recent problems
• Kurt shares four entries on vertical datums
• APB shares an Esri Developer Summit 2012 RoundUp
• APB also shares an entry named Doctor’s Offices and Access to primary health care - Esri Map Story
• The GEB mentions GraphEarth, a 25$ tool to generate charts for Google Earth
• Several blogs participated to the raw data vs API discussion
• This infographic will inform you on the current state of MapQuest, MapQuest also have a new section to explore U.S. National Parks
• WebMapSolutions offers two entries whether we should retire the term GIS - my take is that GIS is useful since it refers to something specific and unique
• Somewhat related, Very Spatial shares entry on the new GIS end-user: "These users know how to navigate and interact with consumer maps and expect all their interactions with spatial technology to be this simple. They don’t, in any way, want to “see” GIS or have to learn a new vocabulary of terms like vectors, georeference, buffer, and shapefile." No pain no gain?
• APB mentions a U.S. Congressman Introduces “Map It Once, Use it Many Times Act”
• O'Reilly shares an entry on the do's and don'ts of geo marketing
• Spatial Sustain has an informative entry named Let the Drone Mapping Race Begin
• Unsurprisingly, Slashdot discusses a story named Many Police Departments Engage in Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking
• The recent Direction Mag articles I found interesting:
  • One named HTML5 Canvas: An Open Standard for High Performing GIS Map Visualization in Web Browsers
  • Ten Things to Know about the Geospatial Technology Competency Model
  • And finally The Top 10 Reasons Why You Need to Know About the U.S. GeoTech Center

In the maps category:

• O'Reilly discusses a Facebook app to map your Facebook network
• Many sources shared the beautiful WebGL U.S. wind map also discussed over Slashdot
• TMR shares a nice short video visualizing the world's ocean currents on the globe

Avenza Releases Geographic Imager 3.5 for Adobe Photoshop

- Includes new import and export formats for spatial imagery -

Toronto, ON, April 2, 2012 - Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher® cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator® and PDF Maps for Apple iOS, is pleased to announce the release of Geographic Imager 3.5 for Adobe Photoshop. This release is encompasses new support for import and export of spatial imagery formats.

"We're delighted to release Geographic Imager 3.5 with even more format support,” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza. “We've included several new formats to import and export that our users will find very useful. We've also added some priority fixes based on user requests and feedback,” he added.

Additional Geographic Imager 3.5 features

New import support for MrSID/MG4 LiDAR (*.sid) format [raster and LiDAR data (as DTM)].
New export support for ERDAS IMAGINE (*.img) raster format.
Channel management dialog box for easy control of channel mapping and assignment of color roles for false-composite multiband imagery.

More about Geographic Imager for Adobe Photoshop

Geographic Imager is powerful software for working with spatial imagery in Adobe Photoshop that leverages the superior image editing capabilities of this raster-based image-editing software and transforms it into a powerful spatial imagery editing tool. Work with satellite imagery, aerial photography, orthophotos, and DEMs in GeoTIFF and other major GIS image formats using Adobe Photoshop features such as transparencies, filters, and image adjustments while maintaining georeferencing and support for hundreds of coordinate systems and projections.

Geographic Imager 3.5 is available immediately free of charge to all Geographic Imager Maintenance Program members and at prices starting at US$319 for non-maintenance members. Academic and volume license pricing are also available.

More about Avenza Systems Inc.

Avenza Systems Inc. is an award-winning, privately held corporation that provides cartographers and GIS professionals with powerful software tools for making better maps. In addition to software offerings for Mac, Windows and Apple mobile device users, Avenza offers value-added data sets, product training and consulting services. Visit www.avenza.com for more details.

For further information contact:
Tel: 416-487-5116
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.avenza.com

London - Zagreb, March 20 2012- GIS Cloud has announced they are re-shaping their service to better fit their users’ needs. GIS Cloud will be even easier to use, more cost efficient, provide more flexibility with a focus on solving particular users’ challenges. New solutions will be provided for organizations, governments, consultants and system integrators.

GIS Cloud says they are closely collaborating with their users to be able to better understand their needs and deliver better services. Having a modular and flexible service at their hand helps their users to:

• Cut unnecessary GIS software and IT costs
• Integrate GIS Cloud easily into existing work-flows and software setups
• Improve data exchange and management
• Reduce time to projects delivery

The new GIS Cloud offer is focused on reducing pain for many GIS professionals. This is mostly related to publishing data online, but also providing users with more cloud based geo applications and solutions.

The innovative HTML5 mapping engine released a few months ago has opened up new horizons and provided new ways of visualizing spatial data online. Publishing big data maps with several millions of features, rendered on the fly on a client, has opened up new possibilities.

For full information on the upcoming solutions take a look at GIS Cloud blog post.

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About GIS Cloud

GIS Cloud is a leading cloud platform delivering simple and easy to use geo applications and solutions. Company is focused on providing geo services for visualizing and publishing spatial data through its innovative HTML5 mapping technology.

The mission of GIS Cloud is not only to supplement desktop solutions, but to extend and enrich their capabilities through the potential cloud computing provides.

With a strong focus on using latest web and cloud technologies, company believes in moving traditional GIS industry into to the world of modern software.

Contact:

Dino Ravnic, co-founder and CEO
[email protected]
London - Zagreb

Directions Mag shares a product review of the open source desktop GIS software uDig. We mentioned uDig frequently in the past. uDig is somewhat a competitor to QGIS, another popular open source desktop GIS.

From the review: "uDig hits a rather powerful punch, including support for local data, databases and Internet data. From the start (way back in 2004), it was designed as a general purpose development platform. And it continues that tradition today. uDig is a nice spatial data viewer and editor, with special emphasis on the OpenGIS standards for Internet GIS, the Web Map Server (WMS) Service and Web Feature Server (WFS) Service standards. [...] For the professional, uDig offers the ability to create and add new functionality using the Eclipse rich client platform (RCP), an industry-standard extension framework.  With Eclipse RCP, users can create feature-rich, stand-alone application plug-ins.  uDig also includes a substantial toolkit of Java functionality, upon which developers can build."

I wrote a previous post about ArcGIS server performance part1 where I focused on the development reasons of why ArcGIS Server Performance is degrading. In this post though I'm going to list a quick methods I usually use to boost the performance.

Here I compile 6 ways to optimize ArcGIS Server

Optimizing ArcGIS Server
In my experience, ArcGIS Server performance degrade is mostly due to the "bad" customization of the product and adding some tools that just don't work in harmony with ArcGIS Server's black boxes. I already talked about this in the first post.

I would try these tips to increase the performance

1. Clear logs
The larger the log file get the more time it requires to update, so cleaning it from time to time slightly increase the performance. Remember those files don't contain errors only they contain every single context releasing and creation story.

2. Schedule a service to restart the SOM
Create a batch file to restart the Server Object Manager service every 4 hours or so to release any hanging server contexts.

3. Use IPs instead of DNS for the SOC machines configurations
When you add SOC machines to the SOM, its is a always better to use the Network IP directly instead of the hostname. Locating the host name takes fraction of second each time a request is needed. Sum that up and you have an acceptable performance.

4. Server Object Parameters
This is the sexy part, those parameters are so important that If tweaked properly, they can tremendously increase your performance.
I loved this guide from ESRI site.

5. Minimize Number of "ON" layers
If you're creating your Server object from an MXD document make sure that you turn off all the layers by default and make only the major fast-loading layer on (if your client is ok with that).
Lets say you have 5 layers Water Distribution, Water Transmission, Electric Distribution, Electric Transmission and Landbase. I would turn all the layers off and enable the Landbase layer only, then save the MXD.

This will load the your document much faster.
5. Layer file Scale Dependency
It is really important to set the scalability of your layer files correctly, because this will tremendously boost your performance of your Web app. Just make the busy layers with a smaller scale so they will appear as you zoom in.

6. Enterprise SDE Optimization
If your MXD document is reading data from an enterprise SDE geodatabase, make sure that the SDE server name is saved with the IP instead of the hostname. SOC machines will suffer trying to resolve the hostname to an IP each time they want to connect to the SDE.

Hope those were useful.

Bloggage update: Two year review of a personal project that shows what free map data to hang sketch maps on, and a little tinkering to add historic wealth data, can achieve to illustrate almost 1000 yrs of geo-economics. Three key elements are: a) a geographic unit that stays constant, b) people who indefatigably document and update such important information, and c) ground truthing i.e. knowing & QCíng the data in order to put information in context.

At a flooding conference in the Danish Parliament on February 3 the Danish Minister for the Environment launched a new nation-wide online interactive tool that maps the risk of flooding in Denmark due to rising sea-levels. The tool visualizes the flooded area for a (user-) given sea-level rise, and is part of the national climate change adaptation portal (klimatilpasning.dk/en-us) available to government specialist, as well as ordinary citizens. It is made possible by a computation performed by SCALGO on a very accurate 1.6 meter resolution raster terrain model for the entire country of Denmark. The detailed and thus massive model contains more than 20 billion cells. It was vital for the accuracy of the sea-level rise flooding tool that such a high quality model was used, since it ensured that dikes and other important features with small spatial extent were taken into account.

The SCALGO technology for processing massive terrain data on normal desktop computers was essential for the computation behind the sea-level rise flooding tool. Using the SCALGO Hydrology software package the computation can be performed on the entire model of Denmark (without thinning or tiling) in approximately a day and a half on a normal desktop computer with 4GB of main memory. Apart from a module for the sea-level rise flood mapping, the package also includes modules for computing flow accumulation, watersheds, and bluespots (maximal depressions). SCALGO also offers more advanced hydrological analysis computation services using in-house software, including the SCALGO Flash Flood Mapping product, which estimates the risk of flooding during extreme rain events. The mapping shows how much rain has to fall before any given cell of a detailed raster terrain is below water, and thus it also shows what part of the terrain is below water after a given amount of rain.

Information about SCALGO technology, products and services can be found at http://scalgo.com.
Future information about SCALGO products and services can be received directly by signing up to the mailing list a http://scalgo.com/mailing_list.php.

Scalable Algorithmics (SCALGO) was founded in 2009 with the mission to bring cutting-edge massive terrain data processing technology to market. The SCALGO technology is based on more than two decades of basic and applied research on I/O-efficient and geometric algorithms at Center for Massive Data Algorithmics (MADALGO) at Aarhus University in Denmark and at Duke University in the US, in collaboration with industry LiDAR and environmental GIS application experts. Software based on the technology can handle much larger terrain data sets on a normal desktop than most current software and thus it eliminates the need for accuracy-decreasing data thinning. The use of novel mathematical and algorithmic techniques also means that the software works provably efficient on all input data sets, delivering a completely specified output without the use of cumbersome work-flows such as those introduced by data tiling.