In+ersec+ion for Spatial People

[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!

In my latest blog post Be your own weatherman I fine-tuned my banner map to create a simple yet effective map and presentation - two for the price of one! - using embedded ArcGIS Explorer. Easy, huh?

Bern, 01.09.2011 - The Swiss Confederation’s geo-data portal is very popular: the Map Viewer alone attracts up to 10,000 users a day at map.geo.admin.ch. It also recently became possible to use the high quality data on mobile equipment such as smartphones. The web-based solution ‘mobile.map.geo.admin’ works on both Android devices and iPhones and iPads.

For about a year, citizens have had access to an abundance of geo-information about the most important areas of life via the Confederation's geo-portal www.geo.admin.ch. With Mapviewer the geo-data can be viewed, printed, ordered and correlated. With around 10,000 users a day the Map Viewer is particularly popular and a definite need has been highlighted: more and more people also want to be able to use this service on mobile devices such as smartphones.

 Easy and uncomplicated access
Up to 80% of all decisions affecting the citizen are linked to geographical information.The Confederation developed the basic principles of mobile.map.geo.admin.ch and the availability of the service on mobile devices in cooperation with cantons, towns, universities and private individuals. A web-based solution was established which works on Android devices as well as on iPhones and iPads. Users of mobile.map.geo.admin.ch do not need to download any additional software nor do they need a log-in or password. With this service, the Federal government fulfils its mandate to make geo-data accessible to the general public, as required by the geo-information law. Mobile.map.geo.admin is available immediately: by inputting the URL into a mobile device the mobile version of the Map Viewer opens up automatically.

On-the-spot practical information
For the most part, Federal geo-data have official status and are of high quality, as evidenced by the "Swiss Confederation" seal of approval. Historic cartographic data are also available, so that users can obtain information on the spot to find out if they are on a historic route, for example, or to call up details about historic buildings that they come across. They can search for details about communities, locations, bodies of water or mountains ("Which mountain is that?"). Information on Danger Zones ("Am I in a Danger Zone?") and nature reserves ("Is this an amphibian spawning area?") is also available as well as information on how towns and villages have developed ("What did it look like here 100 years ago?").

Additionally, the following functions can be accessed:

• Address search (current address and buildings under construction)
• Search by place or field name
• Feedback function for proposing corrections to data content (e.g. hiking trails whose routes are not as shown, or the wrong address of buildings where the correct address can be supplied)

Long-term and advertising-free availability
The mobile version of Map Viewer is also run by the Confederation. Third parties have no access to the data and the future long-term availability is assured. The service carries no advertising and is only available online. Data cannot be saved locally as this would otherwise incur costs for copyright and technical reasons. The use of mobile.map.geo.admin is free of charge (apart from the Internet connection).At the same time an API program interface has also been made available free of charge for developers and firms, for example, who want to use the data for their own purposes.

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Examples

Map Viewer

Geoportal Bund 

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Byron Como has released a new map of the City of Baghdad, Iraq for the
Android tablet platform on the Amazon.com app store. The map is
published in five parts.

http://www.amazon.com/Travelers-Encyclopedic-City-Baghdad-Iraq/dp/B00540...

A Traveler's Encyclopedic Map To the City of Baghdad, Iraq is an
up-to-date map of Baghdad. This app was created with modern, open-source
software. The map shows detailed representation of streets, mosques,
shopping areas, and government centers. Car repair shops and gas
stations are also represented. The map features vibrant colors and
descriptive icons with a detailed legend. A handy series of distance
rings shows the scale. The app comes complete with a north arrow and
Mecca direction finder.

Looks like Nokia is getting in on the Google Earth action while Microsoft's getting out. Found on engadget : 

"Still searching for today's internet time sink? Then look no further than Nokia's just launched beta version of Ovi Maps 3D. Thanks to a little help from Navteq's maps and some software wizardry, it's now able to display cities in a new 3D view that you're able to zoom in and around to your heart's content. You can also do the same thing in Google Earth's 3D view, of course, but Nokia just might have a leg up in some respects. Unfortunately, it's still staying mum on exactly how it all works, but you can dive right in and start exploring for yourself at the link below."

First impression, navigation is a little quirky, coverage isn't all there however 3d model quality where available is best in class. Highly impressed with the texture detail that went into the models. The models were also very fast to load on my machine. Overall, pretty good for a first release.

Here's the articles publish last month over Directions Magazine that I wanted to share with our users.

• An informative article named NoSQL Databases:  What Geospatial Users Need to Know. If you never heard of NoSQL, now is the time to learn about it.
• An article on "GISCI's Executive Director Sheila Wilson writes about the addition of an exam to the GISP certification process. She addresses "the history of the debate, where we stand now, and the options being discussed by the GIS Certification Institute (GISCI).""
• An article on the economics and ROI of DEM data in the case of the recent Australian floods: "David Hocking, chief executive officer of the Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA) in Australia, looks at the government’s position of slow investment in developing a nationwide digital elevation model (DEM) despite the financial impact of the floods."
• An informative aggregation of reactions to the U.S. Nationwide Broadband Map. There's also and Q&A with Connected Nation, a non-profit organization that is promoting broader adoption of broadband access.
• An article on Loc8 Codes, a system to tackle the problems of addresses in Ireland.

This is not a freshly released dataset, but we never mentioned it before: the MODIS 500-m global map of urban extent.

From the official site: "The goal of this project was generate a current, consistent, and seamless circa 2001-2002 map of urban, built-up and settled areas for the Earth’s land surface. This work builds on previous mapping efforts using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data at 1-km spatial resolution (Schneider et al., 2003; 2005), which was included as part of the MODIS Collection 4 (C4) Global Land Cover Product (Friedl et al., 2002). Here we addressed weaknesses in the first map as well as several limitations of contemporary global urban maps by developing a methodology that relies solely on newly released Collection 5 (C5) MODIS 500-m resolution data."

Does anyone knows how this dataset compares to GlobCover 2009's urban class?

This is not newly available datasets, but they recently came to my attention and since we never mentioned them before, they might be of interest to some of our users: the Gridded Population of the World, version 3 (GPWv3) and the Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP) datasets.

From the official page: "GPWv3 depicts the distribution of human population across the globe.  It is the most detailed
version of GPW to date with more than three times the amount of data as version 2, and includes population estimates to 2015. GRUMP builds on GPWv3 by incorporating urban and rural information, allowing new insights into urban population
distribution and the global extents of human settlements."

A colleague sent me the link to Wired's article named Google Maps Mashup Documents Libyan Protests. Here's a direct link to the map. Libya was also one of the countries getting an high resolution imagery update in Google Maps a month ago.

From the map's information: "This map has been created by compiling reports from trusted accounts on Twitter. Nonetheless, these reports are in general unconfirmed. This information should be considered in the context of there being absolutely no independent media in Libya at this time. This map is not automatically produced. Each posting is considered before it is mapped. These considerations have evolved over time as conditions on the ground have changed."