In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Bloggage update: Let's explore global language distribution from World Mapper, then language usage on the internet as seen from Wikipedia. First take the map of world languages that posts the fabulous variety of languages. Then let's look at Wikipedia's table of languages used to post, edit and visit its crowd sourced information. The Economist says that whilst it's not a comprehensive sample, interesting conclusions can be drawn from the usage statistics. It also suggests Wikipedia points to a real resurgence of linguistic awareness and pride by the sheer proportion of articles posted when factored against population... This appears patently true on this map!

Bloggage update: I posted on my old website a number of Google Maps in v.2 API that I have not converted to v.3. I also used Google Fusion Tables a number of times - along comes a Google Fusion Tool that helps both on v.3 API and the new régime with simple Google Fusion Table templates - this may be my way forward against the day Google Map v.2 API is turned off. 

Bloggage update: So how does all this web mapping stack up @ home? Meaning: would my wife & daughter actually use it? I put this idea to the test when we planned a cross-Europe drive from my parents' in SW France to my cousins' in central Hungary via N Italy and Slovenia. I chronicle our evolution from Nat Geo atlas and pen&paper calculations, thru Google Maps and Via Michelin, to Lonely Planet and Google Earth. The result is that travel planning was made quick, plain and simple by combining various web maps with routing info and a bit of tinkering.

ANDREW ZOLNAI BLOG "turning stats into maps" update: I ran across these interesting web-mapping innovations:

- incredible detail helsp contrast cross-Europe travel taday vs, Roman times

- web data creation are contrasted for citizen weather stations and celestial measurements

   (as well as contrasting celestial measurements across 250 years time span)

- with Jubilee events in England a beautiful map of one of the many events under way 

Bloggage update: Continuing the ongoing (re)discovery of cools maps for the rest of us, here are two I found on Facebook from my friends Christophe Staff in Belgium and Aidos Malybayev in Kazakhstan. They show a map I helped with to post Templar sites on an embedded Google Map, and a localised derivative of same for  Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. As I said before, this blog is dedicated to the weird and wonderful ways we find to display information from work through current affairs to the personal, quickly and easily on web maps... and not unlikely after hours!

Bloggage update: Last week I reported Google Maps' released of multimodal transportation mapping in the greater London UK area. Not to be outdone, Transport for London released a brilliant road congestion mapper under Roads Live Travel News, also based on Google Maps! So again I couldn't resist reporting this somewhat peripheral topic to what I normally cover, but hey, "it's my bloggage and I'll write if I want to" (apologies to Lesley Gore).

Bloggage update: "Google multi-modal maps are so significant to greater London Area commuters that I cannot pass it up. Ed Parsons posted it on his blog and I immediately tried it: it's just the ticket (pun intended) living near Cambridge about an hour north of London and travelling around London only by public transit..."

Bloggage update: online spatial data validation (OVS).

Having transposed historic economic geographic data on shape files from the UK Ordnance Survey in my Medieval Fenlands project a couple of years ago, I can now test through socium.co.uk:
1) how good are vector data in East Anglia, as part of coi.guv.uk data feedback?
2) how well did I transpose attributes from Darby's map plates into shape files?
 

Using sets of rules on shape files, OVS is as simple as 1-2-3: 1) upload, 2) select the rules to test vector data integrity, 3a) view the report for free on line, or 3b) download it for one credit to get another shape file with "data busts" as points with descriptive attributes.

Having been in the geodata business for decades, I cannot see how data validation can be made any easier, while maintaining - indeed increasing - data integrity. This OVS  highlights two of the "holy grails" in matters geospatial:
1) GIS depict complex data in a simple yet effective way, by placing them in their local context 
2) web services offer two more opportunities:
   a) to post geo-processes on-line that are easy to reach
   b) to offer a flexible pricing plan that helps one and all
 

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.

This announcement may be interesting to the geonews community.  Earth Cube is a very ambitious initiative.  I did not see Open Source considerations explicitly mentioned.  Some experts should review the announcement and develop the story for presentation on slashgeo     ---Dale

From: National Science Foundation Update <[email protected]>
Date: Sep, Thu 29 2011 10:04 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Earth Cube Guidance for the Community

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Earth Cube Guidance for the Community

Available Formats:
PDF: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11085/nsf11085.pdf?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25&WT.mc_ev=click
 

[Editor's note: to provide a bit more context, here's a snippet of the pdf:
"EarthCube will be the transformative vehicle to address the scientific drivers in the GEO Vision document: 1) Understanding and forecasting the behavior of a complex and evolving Earth system; 2) Reducing vulnerability and sustaining life; and 3) Growing the geosciences workforce of the future.  EarthCube is inspired by the vision of a national cyberinfrastructure in CIF21."]