In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

Via the OSGeo-Discuss list, I learned about the open source software named 'Total Open Station' (TOPS), for downloading and processing data from total station devices. TOPS is currently at version 0.3.

Here's why TOPS is different:

• it is free software released under the GNU GPLv3 license;
• it works on any operating system, including mobile platforms like OpenMoko;
• it is designed to support as many devices and formats as possible, all within the same program, opposed to having one program per device.

​Also in the surveying and field measurement and monitoring category, V1 mentions a Datalogger Web Services API.

Here's the recent open source and open data geonews in batch mode.

• Statistics Canada, aka StatCan, will offer a lot (but not all) of its data under an open data license beginning February 2012
• OpenStreetMap now has nothing less than 500,000 registered users, here's new tile sets for the Transport Layer and the MapQuest Open layer, and V1 discusses the idea of OpenFarmMap
• Here's an interactive QGIS tutorial by Harvard's Lex Berman, a detailed entry on the creation of Map Books in QGIS via the EasyPrint plugin, a first glimpse at the pgRouting layer for QGIS, and more on the fusion of QGIS Desktop with web technologies
• Mike at OpenGeo discusses the Esri white paper about using an hybrid approach; using both open source and proprietary GIS software
• A few sources mentioned the 'Public Mapping Project' which develops the open source 'District Builder' redistricting software, this was also discussed over Slashdot
• PostGIS gets GeoJSON support and here's an entry on Topology cleaning with PostGIS
• If you're into Python, here's Kurt lecture on writing KML and SQLite with Python
• We just shared with you the new global GMTED2010 dataset, here's how to seamlessly access to remote Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 with GDAL
• GeoSolutions shared an entry named Serving Meteo data with GeoServer, GeoBatch and GeoNetwork: the LaMMA use case 
• DM shares an article from a Slashgeo editor, named Open Source Software and OGC Web Services: Life-saving Components in Québec’s Emergency and Disaster Management
• Geopaparazzi 2.5.0 has been released

This is major news for anyone using DEM datasets. Here's about a new elevation dataset named Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 - GMTED2010. Here's the USGS report about GMTED2010 and the description and download site on USGS's EROS.

From the article: "The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) have released an updated and more accurate global elevation model that pulls data from Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED®) from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM); Canadian elevation data; SPOT 5 Reference 3D data; data from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat); and updated Antarctica and Greenland terrain models. This new elevation data called Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010),  replaces the thirty year old GTOPO30 terrain model.

GMTED2010 is a suite of seven raster data products: minimum elevation, maximum elevation, mean elevation, median elevation, standard deviation of elevation, systematic subsample, and breakline emphasis. The spatial resolution of GMTED2010 ranges from 30, 15 and 7.5 arc-seconds (approximately 1 kilometer, 500 meters and 250 meters, respectively)."

You might be interested in the ASTER GDEM and the SRTM-DEM CGIAR-CSI v4 datasets, amongst other DEMs.

Lately there was a not much surprising news about Google products and services. Among other things Google has changed the Google Maps API use policy and will charge to those users that exceed some download limits.

It is well known that Google Maps is one of the most (or the most) famous mapping service used around the net and it starts the web GIS revolution some years ago but hopefully it is not the only API we can use. Bing and the discontinued Yahoo Maps, are great competitors but there are great and open alternatives to use.

I wrote this post to summarize the most important JavaScript API alternatives to Google Maps.

[Editor's note: this anonymous submission mainly discusses OpenLayers, Polymaps and Leaflet]

Via O'Reilly two days ago and yesterday with an article, I learned about the 1.0 release of the ThinkUp App.

O'Reilly describes it as a tool that "enables users to archive, search and export their Twitter, Facebook and Google+ history — both posts and post replies. It also allows users to see their network activity, including new followers, and to map that information. Originally created by Gina Trapani, ThinkUp is free and open source, and will run on a user's own web server."

​Here's how it's introduced on the official ThinkUp site: "ThinkUp is a free, open source web application that captures all your activity on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+. With ThinkUp, you can store your social activity in a database that you control, making it easy to search, sort, analyze, publish and display activity from your network. All you need is a web server that can run a PHP application."

Installation and configuration will probably require at least 30 minutes and you need minimal knowledge to configure the web server. In other words, it's not a tool that anyone can set up. But it's certainly valuable to anyone interested in understanding, mining the data, and mapping your social network activities. In bonus, you get an archive of your data. For a version 1.0, ThinkUp already does a lot. Here's the 5-minutes video that explains what is ThinkUp.

Here's the recent geospatial open source and open data news.

New and updated software:

• In case you don't follow our press release section, Geopaparazzi 2.4 has been released, a reminder: "Geopaparazzi is a tool developed to do very fast qualitative engineering/geologic surveys."
• And so was MXD2Map version 1.0, "MXD2map is a free converter for the generation of UMN MapServer-compatible Map files from ESRI ArcGIS MXD files."
• degree 3.1 web services have been released
• ImageI/O-Ext 1.1.2 has been released
• Here's about POIProxy, "a service that handles requests to any public POI service providing a well defined REST API"

Other open source software-related news:

• SS shares an entry on InSTEDD GeoChat - not be to confused with Esri's GeoChat or the other open source MapChat - InSTEDD's open source GeoChat "is a collaboration tool that allows anyone to chat, report and get alerts on their phone"
• All the talk videos of FOSS4G 2011 and State of the Map 2011 are now available
• Here's an entry on QGIS's pie charts for symbols

In the open data category:

• Montréal, Canada, joined the increasing number of cities opening their geospatial data to the public [French press release]
• V1 mentions the Alberta Oilsands map-based portal, which he qualifies as open and transparent
• Mapperz discusses Openptmap, an OpenStreetMap-related effort to show public transport lines

Via email I learned that the open source OSM2NetworkDataset version 1.1 is now available, it readies OpenStreetMap data for ArcGIS's Network Analyst extension.

From the announcement: "Version 1.1 now supports ArcGIS 10.0, as well as ArcGIS 9.3.1. New features include restrictions for tracktype, smoothness, surface, and maxwidth.

The Java application OSM2NetworkDataset converts OpenStreetMap (OSM) data so it can be used for network analyses in the ArcGIS extension Network Analyst. It is designed to generate transportation networks for any mode of transportation and any region. The generated networks are based on OSM attributes, such as restrictions, one-way roads, turn restrictions, point barriers, and maximum speed. The path can be chosen according to the shortest distance or the shortest time with user defined average speed settings."

While we mentioned it once before, it never got its full story, until now.

I haven't found much about it on the popular geoblogs, but I recently learned about the existence of Autodesk's free 123D 3D modeling software. It's at the 'beta 6' stage and available only for Windows. It clearly sounds like Google SketchUp competition from Autodesk. This reminds me of Project Butterfly, which got launched as AutoCAD WS, another free tool from Autodesk.

From the 123D about page: "123D is a free solid modeling software program based on the same Autodesk technology used by millions of designers and engineers worldwide. Not an engineer? No problem, with Autodesk 123D you can design precise and makeable objects using smart tools that let you start with simple shapes and then edit and then tweak them into more complex shapes."

Here's recent geospatial open source software releases. All minor but welcomed updates.

• QGIS 1.7.1 released, to be honest, I only recently started using QGIS for real work, and I've been impressed by the advanced features that worked flawlessly (but I wasn't impressed by the user documentation though) 
• GeoServer 2.1.2 released, mostly a bugfix release, here's previous recent GeoServer news
• GEOS 3.3.1 released, GEOS is the C port of the JTS and incorporated into many other geospatial open source projects, see this previous story
• GeoTools 2.7.3 released, that too, a maintenance release

Here's the recent open source geospatial news in batch mode, which includes everything about FOSS4G 2011 on the geoblogs that we haven't mentioned yet.

On the FOSS4G 2011 Conference front:

• Interesting numbers, "By 2011 there are now 19,471 unique subscribers to OSGeo, more than 400 mailing lists, and more than 15 million lines of code, with 740 contributors, and 269 that have contributed for more than 12 months."
• Slashgeo editor Nicolas summarized Brian Timoney's excellent talk at FOSS4G 2011, and if you want to hear it yourself, here is that 14-minutes impassioned talk on the state of the geospatial industry, Brian demonstrate how much better we could do
• Here's the slides of Paul Ramsey's keynote
• Here's Jody Garnett's updated slides on the WPS Shootout
• Here's the entry to read about Open Source and Open Data at the U.K. Ordnance Survey
• If you haven't read too much about it already, here's an entry on the case study of the U.S. FCC National Broadband Map based on open source geospatial software
• Here's the what's coming to PostGIS 2.0 slides [pdf]
• I heard comments that 30-minutes talks at FOSS4G 2011 was too short for the presenters to dive into their subjects, would you agree? If you're interested in what could be improved see this recap of FOSS4G 2011 by OSGeo's president
• Here's Directions Mag complete wrap up of the conference

In other news:

• I was surprised to read that Tyler Mitchell won't be the OSGeo Executive Director anymore
• GWT-OpenLayers version 0.6 has been released, that's the wrapper library for using OpenLayers in Google Web Toolkit applications
• MapFish is now an official OSGeo project
• This entry reminds us of the comprehensive list of web mapping toolkits (there's too much of them!)
• SS mentioned GrassrootsMapping.org, which is a crowdsourcing aerial image project with goals similar to OpenAerialMap.org