In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Here's the recent geonews that haven't made it into full stories in batch mode.

Related to the Japan 2011 earthquake and tsunami:

• The NYT shared efficient slide-over satellite imagery of several sites over Japan
• In addition to what we shared last Friday, Google posted entries on post-earthquake imagery of Japan and another on assembling resources following the earthquake in Japan
• V1 links to the UN-SPIDER SpaceAid website for the Japan earthquake
• Here's the Wikipedia entry on Nuclear power by country, where we learn Japan gets 29% of its energy from that source

From the open source / open data front:

• MapServer now has a Studio version 0.5 to edit Mapfiles in a WYSIWYG editor
• OpenStreetMap offers a video on how to add a building in OpenStreetMap
• MapQuest is now supporting OpenAerialMap too
• Mapperz mentions the OpenEcoMaps initiative based on OSM data
• There's a new version of Spatial Operations & Editing Tools for uDig 1.2.1 with its tutorial
• There will be a new interactive label placement feature in QGIS 1.7, there's also a new QGIS roadgraph plugin, On the fly raster reprojection comes to QGIS and here's a tip on opening MS SQL Server 2008 spatial tables in QGIS
• By the way, we published the press release about FOSS4G's conference workshop lineup

From the ESRI front:

• For those interested, the Plenary Session Videos For The Esri Developer Summit 2011 are now available
• There's a ArcGIS 9.3.1 Service Pack 2 Quality Improvement patch
• The ArcGIS API For iOS 1.8 Public Beta is now available
• If you like testing ESRI beta software, the Esri Beta Community has been launched
• Still from geogeek, there's an ESRI whitepaper on Estimating the cost of a GIS in the Amazon Cloud
• and three entries about a new approach to metadata with ArcGIS 10
• There's a new ArcGIS Map Drupal module that just started

In the miscellaneous category:

• MapQuest announced the launch of MapQuest Map Builder Beta while a press release focused on MapQuest tools to help drivers save money
• The UN is looking for volunteers on the Crisis Map of Libya
• For those unsure if geospatial apps will ever take off on tablets (see are running poll on the right hand side), AutoCAD WS for iOS has been downloaded 1 million times
• Slashdot discussed a story named DraftSight 2D CAD For Linux Beta Available
• A topic we discussed last week, this time it's O'Reilly that offer an article named Are we too reliant on GPS?
• The FGT blog shares an informative update on LightSquared’s GPS-Jamming proposal
• The same source offers an article named wireless sensor networks can see and shape the world
• And still from O'Reilly, an entry named Why location data is a mess, and what can be done about it and another on named Location data could let retailers entice customers in new ways

In the maps category:

• GeoCurrents offers a map of the extreme disparities of state revenue, along with an entry named The CIA World Factbook Drops Dubious Revenue Data
• TMR mentions the upcoming 'Disease Maps: Epidemics on the Ground' book by Tom Koch
• SS has an entry named China Begins Campaign to Crack Down on Unlicensed Maps

Here's the recent geonews that haven't made it into an individual story in batch mode.

From the open source / open data front:

• While we mentioned it indirectly in the past, we never specifically mentioned the existence of OpenCycleMap.org, based, of course, on OpenStreetMap
• The "open" MapQuest maps now support worldwide pedestrian and bicycle routing along with transit routes
• An article in Scientific American is using OpenStreetMap data to map the local 'food desert'
• The OpenGeo Suite Enterprise Edition 2.4.0 has been released

From the ESRI front:

• ESRI released their ArcGIS API for JavaScript version 2.2
• A third entry on useful ArcGIS Explorer add-ins III

In the everything-else category:

• GeoCurrents offers an informative serie of entries on Libyan maps: Libya’s Tribal Divisions and the Nation-State, Libya’s Geographical Divisions and the Challenge to National Unity, Libya’s Fezzan: A Bulwark of the Gaddafi Regime
  , Gaddafi’s Saharan Farming Schemes and Libyan Agricultural Hexagons. On the same topic, TMR shares an entry on the Libya Crisis Map
• Rememer that GPS positioning in the U.S. is in danger because of LightSquared? APB shares a followup including the mention of the 'Coalition to Save Our GPS'
• Following the earthquake in New Zealand, there's fresh imagery of Christchurch
• Google and Microsoft have teamed together to sue a patent troll who sued 397 companies over a geotagging patent
• Microsoft offers an entry on modular design and client side clustering with Bing Maps V7
• O'Reilly offers an article on location privacy named Privacy law needs a reboot
• A followup on a previous story, Slashdot discusses a student suing the FBI for planting a GPS tracker on his car. On this topic, SpatialLaw offers an entry named Government's Use of Tracking Technology: More Than A Constitutional Issue?
• It seems the FAA now allows iPad as an alternative to aviation charts
• TMR links to a review of Casio's geotagging camera
• APB mentions that Turtles Use Earth’s Magnetic Field to Determine Longitude
• In a perspective entry, SS asks Is it time for an impartial auditing board on spatial data accuracy?

In the maps category:

• TMR shares a map of the index of potential unrest, on this topic, some claims Google Earth as a Factor in Middle East Unrest
• TMR shares a map of internal U.S. migration flows

Earlier this week the FOSS4G 2011 organizers announced that registration is now open. Being hosted in Denver, Colorado, in September 12-16, 2011, it's expected to be the largest FOSS4G conference ever and clearly be one of the geospatial conferences to put on the agenda.

From the main FOSS4G 2011 website: "Recent years have seen substantial changes in the geospatial industry. One of those changes has been the growth in maturity and adoption of free and open source solutions. In many cases organizations are using a mixture of open and closed source solutions. With the growth in interest in open source solutions, combined with the fact that FOSS4G has not been in North America since 2007, we anticipate a great audience for FOSS4G 2011, around 1000 people."

The call for speakers was released last week. The workshops and initial tutorials were also announced. Of note, OpenStreetMap's State of the Map conference will take place immediately before the FOSS4G Conference.

Slashgeo has been a media partner to the FOSS4G conference in 2009 and 2010. We're in talks to again provide coverage on-site this year. You'll find our previous coverage with a search.

Here's the Friday geonews in batch mode.

From the open source / open data front:

• There was a recent OpenLayers Mobile Code Sprint
• The Map Room shares an interesting entry on the suboptimal state of OpenStreetMap in Canada
• OpenStreetMap now has over 30 Million building outlines worldwide
• Here's an entry on generating contour lines in QGIS

From the ESRI front:

• I'm amonst the many that got the email that informs us that ArcGIS Online map services are available at no cost regardless of use
• geogeek shares a short list of the ArcGIS Server Virtualisation … The Do’s And Don’ts
• The FGT blog has teo entries named useful ArcGIS Explorer Add-Ins I and useful ArcGIS Explorer Desktop Add-Ins II

In the miscellaneous category:

• James Fee links to a discussion on whether WMS is dying or not
• APB mentions that Samsung's planning to Use Earth’s Magnetic Field for indoor Device Locating
• MapQuest unveiled their free Android app
• The Blackberry Playbook tablet will be getting this geospatial app: Mobile OpenScales GIS
• Here's a generic presentation on neo-geopolitics
• Using Bing, there's a new Celebrity Places web map
• Mapperz made me aware of the 'Rain alarm map', to give you alerts of incoming rain or snow
• The free GeoTrans Coordinate Converter is now at version 3.1

In the maps category:

• TMR links to a map of world alcohol consumption
• Here's a link to an updated International Marine Piracy Map 2011
• SS share an entry on Mapping Threatened Coral Reefs

Here's recent geonews in batch mode. I will be away the reminder of the week, so expect less stories, but we'll take care of your submitted content.

From the Google front:

• Here's Google Maps JavaScript API: A Year in Retrospect
• A third official entry, this time on how to Monetize your Maps API v3 application with AdSense for Maps
• The GEB mentions a collection of hearts in Google Earth
• There was new imagery published to Google Earth last Friday
• The GEB explains the 6 markers in Building Maker
• Here's an entry on planning new roads with Google Earth

From the ESRI front:

• Two entries on the File Geodatabase API: Esri releases the File Geodatabase API Beta 2 and the File Geodatabase API is now available on Linux
• The ArcGIS API for Android Public Beta is now available
• Here's a review of a new Estri book named GIS Tutorial for Humanitarian Assistance, by Firoz Verjee

From the open source / open data front:

• There's new 3D OpenGL-based OpenStreetMap rendering, for more on 3D OSM, head to the wiki
• Here's an entry on Harvard's WorldMap, an open source tool to support academic collaboration. Expect more news once the tool become Beta next month
• Here's an entry on cross layer filtering directly in GeoServer
• An entry on web based printing with QGIS server and a nice comparison of MapInfo to QGIS Styling

From the Microsoft front:

• Certainly major news in the smartphone arena, Nokia and Microsoft signed an important alliance, APB summarizes the tidbits related to their location and mapping business
• Microsoft also shared an entry named Next Gen Spatial Search Comes to the Bing API

In the miscellaneous category:

• MapQuest Introduces Walking and Transit Directions
• Here's O'Reilly on IssueMap.org, a U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tool to convert "open data into information that people can distill into knowledge and insight."
• TMR provide links related to Canon and Pentax cameras with GPS and another entry on the Casio Exilim EX-H20G Geotagging Camera
• SS shares a short entry named The Cloud Gains Favor as GIS Storage Solution
• Wikileaks informs us that the U.S. and Australia signed a secret geospatial intelligence deal in 2008

In the maps category:

• Via the OSGeo mailing list, here's a map of U.S. copyright treaties
• Here's a new approach to mapping the digital divide
• Here's a new map of global obesity
• The U.S. Census Bureau launched an interactive map

 Here's recent FOSS4G and open geodata related news in batch mode.

• What can't be missed is the Open Source Geospatial Foundation fifth birthday. There's also a cake and various ideas for celebrations. I vividly remember OSGeo's initial press release, which I helped translate at the time. The highlights shared by Daniel (first link):
  • OSGeo went from 8 founding projects in 2006 to 20 software projects today (including 6 in incubation)
  • OSGeo's annual FOSS4G conference turned into a truly international event, visiting 4 continents over 5 years
  • Over 20 local chapters are active around the world, promoting OSGeo's software and mission in their local language and communities.
  • Daniel also reminds us that GRASS GIS, the open source desktop GIS, goes abck to 1982, MapServer around 1995 and GDAL/OGR in 1998.
• If you have interest in OGC Cataloging Services and metadata, there's a new open source CSW server in Python project named "pycsw"
• Here's an entry on Web based printing with QGIS server and another one named importing a DBF containing X-Y Values into QGIS
• Via this weekly summary, I learned about Maps4Mac open source app to get OpenStreetMap data in MacOS X

Regarding open data:

• MapQuest announced extented use of OpenStreetMap data in their entry named MapQuest Opens Up The Americas, Completes World Routing, Adds New Open Services, there also is an entry specific to MapQuest's introduction of alternate routes.
• MapQuest imagery and OpenStreetMap tiles were added to the open source GeoExplorer
• While I found little information about it I learned about OpenTouchMap, based on OpenStreetMap data, here's the OpenTouchMap.org website
• Natural Earth vectors are now available in the cloud, we mentioned NE data now being public domain last December

 Here's Friday geonews in batch mode. Exceptionally, the last two weeks are covered.

From the Google front:

• Google now offers 'Follow Your World', an alert system to let you know when new imagery is available for your area of interest
• The official entry on this week's imagery update
• Google discontinues the real estate feature in Google Maps
• The California Bay Area is now in 3D and the GEB discusses the nice 3D models of Belgrade

From the open source / open data front:

• MapQuest is providing an update on their increasing use of OpenStreetMap data, 8 new countries is now using OSM data, MapQuest also continues to financially support OpenStreetMap. There's even a new MapQuest Directions API based on OSM.
• It seems SPRING GIS is now open source software (GPL) [post in Spanish]
• Fortius One announced their new tool called Acetate, "a brand-new custom styled map that is designed for visualizing data and reintroduces the idea of a multi-layered basemap". Here's their technical introduction to Acetate, and the software they've used is open source.
• The city of Paris now offers open data and Finland's Land Survey opened its data too
• Ushahidi will be using the open source GeoDict free form geocoder. GeoDict is described as "a simple Python library/tool for pulling location information from unstructured text"

From the ESRI front:

• The Geodatabase Toolset for ArcCatalog 10 is now available

From the Microsoft front:

• Microsoft released a new Bing Maps Drupal module

In the miscellaneous category:

• Here's an entry named playing with the HTML5 Geolocation API
• O'Reilly offers an article named Social data and geospatial mapping join the crisis response toolset, another one on Urban Mapping's Mapfluence and two articles on health and location: New geolocation app connects citizen first responders to heart attack victims and Healthier living through mobile location data
• Via TMR, MacWorld offers an article named Apps with Maps: 11 iPhone GPS apps compared
• The FGT blog mentions iCMTGIS, a free field GIS data acquisition tool for the iPad
• ESA's budget rises to $4 billion, with 14 nations boosting contributions. And the GALILEO program is on track. And guess what, a Wikileaks cable forced a GALILEO head to step down.
• TMR also mentions U.S. Defense Department testing may affect GPS signals in Southeastern U.S. until Feruary 22nd
• TMR also note that the book "Map Projections: A Working Manual" published in 1987 by John P. Snyder is now available online.
• NAVTEQ is still selling more and more data

In the maps category:

• Here's a discussion on a map of worldwide suicide statistics, let's hope you don't live in Mari El
• Here's a map of scientific collaboration

This is not a real review, it's rather my personal notes on OffMaps 2, an iOS app to browse OpenStreetMap maps, after discussing directly with its developer Felix Lamouroux. I learned about the new version from this entry on the OpenGeoData blog, OffMaps 2 now rendering vector OSM data directly, which provides some advantages.

First, the basic features of version 2 are:

• Offline maps (OpenStreetMap) with search
• Wikipedia articles & images
• Public transport overlays
• toptable restaurant recommendations
• Thousands of destinations
• Regularly updated map data

But why this entry? Mainly to discuss the changes between version 1 and version 2. In version 1, for a very cheap price one could download any OpenStreetMap data for offline use. Tourism 'guides' for specific cities were optional. Now in version 2, only specific 'Guides' can be downloaded. 'Guides' being OSM maps of a specific area, such as a city. These maps of specific areas don't cover the whole world yet, but they will in the relatively near future. You must purchase each of those 'Guides' separately. That's not a problem at all if you are only interested in a few urban areas, but if, like me, you are interested in many, if not all, areas, you need to purchase the $6 'flatrate' bundle and then you get access to all OffMaps 2 guides and their updates. More expensive than version 1, but still a reasonable price.

The good news is OffMaps 1 will continue to work and the underlying OpenStreetMap data used by version 1 of the app will continue to be updated. OffMaps 2 offers new features and will continue to be developed. In general, one can expect OffMaps 2 to be a better travel companion than OffMaps 1. On the bad news side, I will miss the ability to just "browse the world via the map", now being forced to manually select a single "Guide" instead to just zooming to anywhere I feel to.

I take the occasion to mention my recurring surprise when I read reviews of apps that offer OpenStreetMap data. Way too often, people are unhappy about the coverage and quality of the maps data over their area of interest, but fail to understand that the app itself is not to blame, it's OpenStreetMap data. It's very easy to verify if a map suits you before acquiring such an app, simply head to openstreetmap.org to find out if the data you want is there. If you're out of luck, tell yourself that OpenStreetMap data is getting updated and improved frequently and that you can easily contribute yourself! An iOS app to contribute to OpenStreetMap is OSMTrack, but I never tried it myself.

Any experience with those tools? There are better apps than these ones for OpenStreetMap? Don't hesitate to share your comments!

Maperitive is a free desktop application for drawing maps based on OpenStreetMap and GPS data. It is a simple to use alternative to renderers like Mapnik. It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac.

One of the more powerful features is scripting support which enables automating various map rendering processes, like generating Web tiles and uploading them to an FTP server.

Features include:

• text-based stylesheets
• generates relief contours
• hillshading and slopeshading
• elevation coloring
• GPX support
• OSM web maps browsing
• export to PNG, JPG & others
• OziExplorer and Google Earth support
• export to SVG (Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator)
• web tiles generator
• data query language
• automatic scripting support

The official MapQuest blog introduces open.mapquest.com.

From the announcement: "After the successful launches of 10 open-sourced maps in Europe and Asia in partnership with OpenStreetMap (OSM), MapQuest is proud to launch its U.S. site located at Open.Mapquest.com. [...] Open.Mapquest.com provides the same features as our 10 sites in Europe and Asia, and also debuts a new error-reporting tool (which has been added to all of MapQuest’s open sites).  For many, this tool may be their first step in becoming OSM contributors."