In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

The recent geonews in batch mode, covering a larger timespan than usual.

On the open source front:

• The OSGeo presented an Open Letter to OGC on the GeoServices REST API standard, and it's pretty well documented and informative
• Here's an interesting entry on comparing OpenLayers and Leaflet
• The schedule for FOSS4G-CEE 2013 is now known
• Sean pointed me to  Tom MacWright's online GeoJSON editor
• In releases, there was GeoServer 2.3.2 released and GeoTools 9.2 Released
• Getting closer to QGIS 2.0, here's nice examples of the alpha channel in QGIS color ramps
• If you did not see the press release, OpenGeo is not non-profit anymore

On the Google front:

• The influx of Google Glass stories continues, now Facial Recognition Comes to Google Glass
• Here's Kurt's list of maps-related videos from the Google I/O 2013 conference

On the Esri front:

• ABP reminds us of Esri's Severe Weather Map, including tornadoes...
• An entry on why Esri is excited about the Android Location APIs
• Data updates, World Topographic Map updated with content for the Middle East, North Africa, and the United States
• along with other updates, including Additional DigitalGlobe and community imagery added to the World Imagery map
• Also updated, ArcGIS for Windows Phone and ArcGIS API for JavaScript v3.5 Released

In the everything-else category:

• MapBox tells us they got a huge satellite update, now cloudless and with aerial imagery, but also interesting are the OpenStreetMap updates making they way to MapBox maps in only 5 minutes
• Here's a Make article on mapping buildings with a Kinect
• Some of you might be interested by the GiT4NMD conference, Geo-information Technologies for Natural Disaster Management
• Space Daily share an article named World's major development banks look closer at Earth observation
• Here's links regarding the history of apostrophes in place names
• Via SL, an article named China's Drone Program Appears To Be Moving Into Overdrive
• Those interested in the exciting MapBox work may also want to read about vector tiles of MapBox Streets
• While CAD and GIS have come closer, they remain distinct, here's an entry named Integrating geospatial into construction: the challenge
• Geoff also shares two other interesting entries, one named Economic value of big geospatial data could reach $700 billion/yr by 2020 and the other Estimating the economic and financial impact of poor data quality

Slashdot discussed a few minor geo-related stories:

• One involving GPS named Researchers Are Developing Ad Hoc Networks For Car-To-Car Data Exchange
• Privacy stories goes on, UK's 4G Network Selling Subscriber Tracking Data To Police, Private Parties and this one Congress Demands Answers From Google Over Google Glass Privacy Concerns
• Along with new challenges to locating North itself, Global Warming Shifts the Earth's Poles

In the maps category:

• Here's The Best Geographic Visualization I’ve Seen In Ages according to VerySpatial, basically a circle centered in Asia where over half of the world's population resides
• In Paris? Apple Maps for iOS Adds 3D Flyover Coverage in Paris
• MapBox shares a Q&A of the City Guides by National Geographic mobile app

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode.

On the open source front:

• Both Leaflet and MapBox are current hot topics, today you get both in the same announcement: Announcing MapBox.js 1.0 with Leaflet
• With open data, there's no limit to new services... here's OpenSnowMap.org, leveraging OpenStreetMap and MODIS snow cover data (via OGD)
• GeoTools 9.1 has been released
• And GeoServer 2.3.1 too
• Here's the open source OSCAR-js javascript map API, which "extends OpenLayers and uses popular UI libraries (jQuery UI and YUI)"
• The FOSS4G CEE 2013 conference completed their Keynote Speakers lineup

On the Google front:

• The GEB informs us that Google Earth 7.1 has been released, with enhancements mostly for the Google Earth Pro 7.1 version
• Google is Celebrating the 50th country on Street View, with Hungary and Lesotho being the latest additions, with expansions in Poland and Romania
• For those interested, The Boston Marathon Manhunt in Google Earth
• If you prefer Ice Hockey, here's The world of Hockey in Google Earth
• Canadian Public Alerts are now included in Google Now, Google Search and Google Maps

In the everything-else category:

• Here's the U.S. New Strategy for Earth Observations, directly from the White House: "The new Strategy outlines a process for evaluating and prioritizing Earth-observation investments according to their value to society in critical areas such as agriculture, global change, disasters, water resources, and weather."
• The Spatial Law blog offers a summary on Privacy of geolocation: the new European and American law
• Indications that Facebook and Google Would Like Apple to Feature Them More Prominently on iOS
• An interesting entry on crisis cartography
• Discussed over Slashdot, Should California Have Banned Checking Smartphone Maps While Driving?
• Also discussed by the same site, Why Local Is So Damn Hard For Startups: Foursquare Borrows $41M To Try Again
• On standards, interesting read the consequences of the GeoJSON 1.0 axis order policy (via James)
• Also on standards, in this OGC blog entry, you'll learn about the efforts related OGC OpenPOIs Registry: "A database of points of interest information containing names and point locations for millions of businesses and civic places across the globe"
• The GEB tells us about the new Geo3D Market website, a place to buy and sell 3D models
• APB informs us that Microsoft Updates Maps App in Windows 8
• From the same source, a definition of geoblocking: "Geoblocking is the system used to limit your access to the internet, based on your geographic location."

In the maps category:

• APB links to a Greenpeace Map of the Arctic, nicely wrapped I must admit
• In Vietnam, you may get a 2,400$ fine for National Map violations
• A New chart shows the entire topography of the Antarctic seafloor in detail for the first time
• Via APB, an article named Can quality of life be mapped?

[this story was submitted by a user as a press release (thanks!), I'm republishing it as a story too since it's a pertinent major release]

The GeoTools community is pleased to announce the availability of GeoTools 9.0 for download from sourceforge:

• geotools-9.0-bin.zip
• geotools-9.0-doc.zip
• geotools-9.0-userguide.zip
• geotools-9.0-project.zip

This release is also deployed to our OSGeo Maven Repository.

This is the first stable release of the 9.x series made in conjunction with the GeoServer 2.3.0 release. This release represents the successful transition of the project to a six month timed release cycle.

This release contains mostly bug fixes since 9.0-RC1. Please see the change log for more details.

Here is a summary of the major news in the 9.x series:

• Feature Collection Clean up: we have retired several methods from FeatureCollection that were only applicable for in memory feature collections. A Quality Assurance review was performed on all FeatureCollection implementations resulting in a great improvement on consistency. Thanks to Jody Garnett and Andrea Aime for this work.
• The Vector Grid module has graduated from the "unsupported" staging area and is now included as an extension. Thanks to Micheal Bedward for championing this work.
• General support for complex features has been factored out into the gt-complex module for reuse.
• FeatureCollection, FeatureIteartor and FeatureReader are Java 7 ready with support for try-with-resource syntax.
• Partial 3D data support has been added with direct support for PostGIS, Oracle, and Property DataStore. Thanks to Andrea Aime for the initial implementation, with a follow-up funded by NTLIS for Oracle support.
• Thanks to Niels Charlier for putting together ReferenceEnvelope3D allowing us to query three-dimensional datasets.
• WMS client support has greatly improved with WMS 1.3.0 now enabled by default during version negotiation. Thanks to LISAsoft and the OGC for supporting this work.
• New OGC models have been added for WCS 2.0 and OWS 2.0 along with XML support.
• Updated to use the latest ImageIO-Ext 1.1.6 and JTS 1.13 releases

The GeoTools 9.0 series contains API changes. Developers are encouraged to review the upgrade instructions prior to use.

If you missed the previous milestones, betas and RCs you can have a look at the complete set of improvements provided by the 9.0 series here:

• GeoTools 9.0 Release Notes
• GeoTools 9.0-RC1 Release Notes
• GeoTools 9.0-beta1 Release Notes
• GeoTools 9.0-M0 Release Notes

Thanks for using GeoTools!

The GeoTools community is pleased to announce the availability of GeoTools 9.0 for download from sourceforge:

• geotools-9.0-bin.zip
• geotools-9.0-doc.zip
• geotools-9.0-userguide.zip
• geotools-9.0-project.zip

This release is also deployed to our OSGeo Maven Repository.

This is the first stable release of the 9.x series made in conjunction with the GeoServer 2.3.0 release. This release represents the successful transition of the project to a six month timed release cycle.

This release contains mostly bug fixes since 9.0-RC1. Please see the change log for more details.

Here is a summary of the major news in the 9.x series:

• Feature Collection Clean up: we have retired several methods from FeatureCollection that were only applicable for in memory feature collections. A Quality Assurance review was performed on all FeatureCollection implementations resulting in a great improvement on consistency. Thanks to Jody Garnett and Andrea Aime for this work.
• The Vector Grid module has graduated from the "unsupported" staging area and is now included as an extension. Thanks to Micheal Bedward for championing this work.
• General support for complex features has been factored out into the gt-complex module for reuse.
• FeatureCollection, FeatureIteartor and FeatureReader are Java 7 ready with support for try-with-resource syntax.
• Partial 3D data support has been added with direct support for PostGIS, Oracle, and Property DataStore. Thanks to Andrea Aime for the initial implementation, with a follow-up funded by NTLIS for Oracle support.
• Thanks to Niels Charlier for putting together ReferenceEnvelope3D allowing us to query three-dimensional datasets.
• WMS client support has greatly improved with WMS 1.3.0 now enabled by default during version negotiation. Thanks to LISAsoft and the OGC for supporting this work.
• New OGC models have been added for WCS 2.0 and OWS 2.0 along with XML support.
• Updated to use the latest ImageIO-Ext 1.1.6 and JTS 1.13 releases

The GeoTools 9.0 series contains API changes. Developers are encouraged to review the upgrade instructions prior to use.

If you missed the previous milestones, betas and RCs you can have a look at the complete set of improvements provided by the 9.0 series here:

• GeoTools 9.0 Release Notes
• GeoTools 9.0-RC1 Release Notes
• GeoTools 9.0-beta1 Release Notes
• GeoTools 9.0-M0 Release Notes

Thanks for using GeoTools!

Still catching up, here's the recent open source geospatial news.

New software:

• VIa OGD, an easy to use website, OSM2GIS to directly download OpenStreetMap data in GIS formats such as shapefiles and kml
• MapTiler.org (mentioned in 2009), which is an open source map overlay generator for Google Maps / Earth and a GUI for GDAL2Tiles, now has a free Mac App Store version

Software updates front:

• Version 6.5 of the OSGeo-Live GIS software collection has been released, including 50 quality geospatial open source applications installed and pre-configured
• There's Leaflet.draw 0.2 released, and as you can guess it's for drawing/editing vectors in Leaflet
• Via UD, the color advice for cartography, ColorBrewer 2.0 has a no-flash version now
• Updated, MapStore 1.1.0 released
• Also available, GeoServer 2.2.5 released
• And so is GeoTools 8.7 Released
• Another one, ImageI/O-Ext 1.1.6 Released

Everything else:

• Here's an entry on the OSGeo Board priorities
• Related, a nice graph of the Moments in the History of OpenStreetMap
• Hyper-local data and news tool Everyblock closed, and it's open source code will continue as the OpenBlock Project, related, DM shared an article named OpenBlock Rural Finds Three Key Audiences for Open Data
• We love numbers right? At the beginning of last month was a user test between JTS Union VS ArcGIS Dissolve, result: 25 seconds vs 1.5 second in favor of the open source JTS
• Probably of interest to some of you, an entry on Optimizing OpenLayers for Mobile Applications
• DM shares an article named [U.S.] FedGeoDay: Advocating for Open Source, the summary: "FedGeoDay, held in Washington, D.C. this past week, can best be described as an advocacy forum for open source geospatial technology and data. Some of the leading organizations, government agencies and companies invested in open source tech sponsored the conference."
• Another article from the same source, The Arches Project: Turning Open Source GIS into a Heritage Inventory and Management System
• And a last article from DM, Palantir: An Open Source Development Success Story, which is really about leveraging PostGIS, the summary: "In late 2007 Palantir launched Gotham, a new geospatial and comprehensive analytics platform designed to meet the challenges of their vast array of customers. This article provides more information on Gotham that enables data integration, search and discovery, knowledge management, secure collaboration, and algorithmic analysis across a wide variety of data sources."

The GeoTools community is pleased to announce the availability of GeoTools 8.6 for download from source forge:

• geotools-8.6-bin.zip
• geotools-8.6-doc.zip
• geotools-8.6-userguide.zip
• geotools-8.6-project.zip

This release is also deployed to the OSGeo Maven Repository. For more information on setting up your project with Maven consult the Quickstart.

About GeoTools 8.6
This is a bug fix release containing fixes and improvements, including:

• Several fixes in the WFS client, making it work against TinyOWS and ArcGIS WFS server
• Improvements in usage of filter fuctions from SLD (some functions did not properly convert their arguments from string to numeric)
• Removed tiling artifacts when rendering oversampled grid coverages
• Sped up the usage of FIDFilter objects in map rendering

Full details are available in Jira's release notes.

Upgrading from GeoTools 2.7

For those migrating from GeoTools 2.7, upgrade instructions are available. No additional GeoTools 2.7 released are scheduled. Thanks for using GeoTools, and Enjoy!
The GeoTools Community
http://geotools.org

The GeoTools community is pleased to announce the availability of GeoTools 8.5 for download from source forge: 

• geotools-8.5-bin.zip
• geotools-8.5-doc.zip
• geotools-8.5-userguide.zip
• geotools-8.5-project.zip

This release is also deployed to the OSGeo Maven Repository. For more information on setting up your project with Maven consult the Quickstart.

About GeoTools 8.5

This is a bug fix release containing a number of fixes and improvements, including:

• several fixes to rendering transformations allowing several transformations to be chained together  in the same rendering request (e.g., interpolate values from discrete points and then also extract isolines from it)
• fixes to date/time handling in CQL
• spotted and fixed a deadlock in the rendering subsystem happening if the renderer gets abruptly stopped while working against a very fast data source (or a very slow Graphics2D implementation)
• a new PullParser class allowing for better streaming parsing of large amounts of XML (e.g., GML, KML)
• better handling of raster "no data" during reprojection, avoiding border artifacts in the results
• a new Oracle specific filter function exposing Oracle spatials's K nearest neighbor search

Full details are available in Jira's release notes.

Upgrading from GeoTools 2.7

For those migrating from GeoTools 2.7, upgrade instructions are available. No additional GeoTools 2.7 released are scheduled. 

Thanks for using GeoTools, and Enjoy!

The GeoTools Community 

http://geotools.org

Here's the recent FOSS4G geonews.

In open source software updates:

• GEOS, the Geometry Engine Open Source, got to version 3.3.6
• The popular GeoServer got to version 2.2.2
• Another bug fix release is the OpenGeo Suite version 3.0.1
• It's not the end, GeoTools 8.4 was released

In the everything else category:

• Here's an entry on the GeoServer CSS module, that presents itself as an alternative and improvement over the SLD (Style Layer Descriptor) OGC standard: "GeoServer CSS is inspired by the web—and by great tools like Carto, Cascadenik, and MapCSS. Like these tools it provides a concise styling syntax modeled on CSS but differs in that it’s goal is to improve the experience relative to SLD while preserving CSS concepts like cascading. While we ultimately aspire to a common CSS-like styling language for web cartography, we hope that GeoServer CSS is much easier than SLD and will be familiar enough for web designers to use."
• Arnulf links to the SplashMaps Kickstarter project that uses open data, "real outdoors maps; based on open data, on light, weather friendly fabric" (image below)
• Geoff shares an entry on the Cesium open source WebGL virtual globe and mapping Javascript library, we mentioned Cesium before
• You can now connect ArcGIS to the open source TileMill with Arc2Earth Sync
• I learned a new term today, here's an entry named Improving Population Density Maps Using Dasymetric Mapping
• Here's a Money Journey map that visualize transactions with the Open Bank Project data
• Here's an update on the Geometry Clipping Contest, and QGIS beats ArcGIS
• You heard of it already, but here's again on the topic, Why are we building OpenLayers 3?

Here's the recent open source geonews.

• Geoff anticipates the next step in the evolution of open source geospatial software will be corporate engagement
• MapBox offers you to learn CartoCSS and compositing by customizing Geography Class and the open source TileMill
• We more about why the need for OpenLayers 3.0 to be developed
• Many of you will probably be interested by the State of GeoServer 2012 and State of GeoTools 2012 presentations, related, GeoTools 8.3 has been released
• Here's some partial results on the ArcGIS vs QGIS etc Clipping Contest Rematch revisited
• Via this upcoming introductory course for accessing it using open source software, I learned about WELD, USGS's Web-Enabled Landsat Data products
• You can open MODIS tiles directly in QGIS
• Here's how to add layers to GeoServer using the REST API
• If you have anything to do with New Zealand, head to this mapping New Zealand summary, which extensively uses open source
• This year, the Sol Katz Award has been attributed to Prof. Venkatesh Raghavan

Here's the recent geonews in batch mode, covering a way too long time-span.

On the open source / open data front:

• GeoWeb Guru reviews the OpenLayers Cookbook by Antonio Santiago Perez: "The book is formatted as a series of 60 'recipes' that demonstrate how to perform various tasks." And here's another review on the same book.
• Some Province of Quebec open geodata and public WMS layers (in French)
• There was some OSGeo-Incubators announcements, the ZOO-Project, Opticks, OGC TEAM Engine and the Marble Virtual Globe are all part of the OSGeo incubation now
• The Cartaro CMS in now available as beta
• GeoTools 8.2 has been released
• Here's how to create a nice seafloor map using shaded relief and open source software

On the Esri front:

• Several sources pointed to the ArcGIS Online Service Credits Estimator

On the Microsoft front:

• For those interested, Bing Maps SDKs for Windows Store Apps Now Available

Geo-related stories discussed over Slashdot:

• Nokia Keeps Quietly Mapping The World
• The Case That Apple Should Buy Nokia
• 3D input device: Microsoft's Hand-Gesture Sensor Bracelet
• And Microsoft Patents 1826 Choropleth Map Technique
• Image classification crowdsourcing: ForestWatchers Lets Anyone Monitor A Patch of Forest
• LightSquared Wants To Share Weather-Balloon Frequencies for LTE
• An academic Android trojan that take pictures of your home and more, PlaceRaider Builds a Model of Your World With Smartphone Photos
• Can Foursquare Data Predict Where You Live?
• That candy bar that tracks you, Nestle's GPS Tracking Candy Campaign

More on Apple Maps from MacRumors and APB:

• Apple's 3D Maps and Imagery See Incremental Improvements
• Apple Turning to Select Retail Store Employees to Help Improve Maps for iOS 6
• Insiders Detail Steve Jobs' Role in Apple's Mapping Effort
• APB tells us Why is the Press Still Talking About Apple Maps

In the miscellaneous category:

• O'Reilly warns us of drones for warfare
• Yes, Wearable LIDAR Sensors for Mapping (via OR)
• APB informs us of MyDigitalGlobe cloud service to make DigitalGlobe imagery more discoverable with OGC catalog services (CWS): "A unique feature of the service is that alerts can be set to notify a user when a new image is added to the library of a specific area of interest."
• For those in hydrography, look at the U.S. National Hydrography Dataset Plus Version 2

In the maps category:

• It's worth taking a look at the Information is Beautiful Awards Winners, it's not all maps, but still pretty
• Via Mapperz, here's the CEC North American Environmental Atlas which is actually pretty interesting
• A Google Maps of Ancient Rome, via OR
• Here's a map of the The World’s Most Expensive Cities