The GIS Guy

An article about LandXplorer by someone else

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:01:00 MST

Grand designs: digital cities Written by Martyn Day There is a widespread industry move to adopt Building Information Modelling and intelligent 3D design. But, if the advantages are so clear, why stop with just the one building? Why not model the whole city? Martyn Day looks at the bigger picture. N...

LBXJournal: The Promise of 3D

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:56:00 MST

The Promise of 3D By Chris Andrews, Autodesk | PublishedSeptember 18, 2009 Figure 1. Architects using information-rich BIM models are able to show customers completed projects long before lighting is installed or paint is applied. Image courtesy of Tocci Building Companies. For over two decades, 3D visualization technology has teased engineers, urban designers, architects and their customers by promising one day to put all of the asset information for vast geographic areas int...

Digital Cities Interview

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:55:00 MST

They didn't even publish the part where Isaid Iwas Brazilian! Interview: Chris Andrews Urban Design Product Manager at Autodesk InfoGEO:How Digital Cities can help in the global warming and climate change? Chris Andrews:A digital city is a collaborative environment created around a detailed 3D model that allows stakeholders from the public, city government, construction, andbusinesscommunities to work together in a way that is both engaging and meaningful to understand how pol...

Salzburg Digital Cities Article

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:16:00 MST

Salzburg Is Hands-On in 'Digital Cities' Project Autodesk tests emerging technologies and software capabilities with future users to garner feedback. Feb 18, 2009 By:Chris Andrews When Google introduced an online 3D world into which anyone could insert models of buildings and physical structu...

"Simple" Centroid Calculation

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:43:00 MST

1. Select any vertex and use it as a vertex for the n-2 triangles that are produced when this vertex is connected to each of the other vertexes. 2. Calculate the coordinates of the centroid for each of the triangles produced using this formula: XC = (X(1) + X(2) + X(3))/3 YC = (Y(1) + Y(2) + Y(3))/3 > 3. Calculate the area of each triangle produced using this formula:
[(X(2) - (X(1)) * (Y(3) - Y(1)] - [(X(3) - X(1)) * (Y(2) - Y(1))]/2 (areas may negative! ... for reas...

Art of Illusion

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:55:00 MST

Hmm... poked around for an open source SVG editing tool and found Art of Illusion. I'll have to check it out. The capabilities looked pretty great....

No SVG support for IE 7 and beyond

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:48:00 MST

I've seen several homemade and open source GIS demos that rely on SVG output for vector display in a web browser. Firefox and Opera support SVG natively, but until now, Internet Explorer users have relied on a plugin from Adobe. At this point it's old news, but Adobe is discontinuing support for their plugin which isn't really supported on Vista, either... so there's no SVG support in IE 7. From blogs, it looks like the product team is trying to figure out if they're going...

deCarta AJAX API

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:09:00 MST

I signed upforthe deCarta developer program today to try out their AJAX and Web services APIs. Looking around, it appears that their technology may be behind some of the bigger names in Web-based Location Based Services. Pretty cool. The API looks nice and straightforward, though it may be a little light. It's pretty new from the look of it. I like the map styling capability. I could imagine that some RPG/movie/console gamingfolks would go nuts with that. Create a look-and-feel that fit H...

Article on GIS and Accessibiliy

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:24:00 MST

Today, Directions published an article of mine on GIS and Accessibility for blind and visually impaired users. It's an off-mainstream topic, but given the ageing workforce issues that the computer industry at large is encountering, it's relevant....

Google Traffic data

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:45:00 MST

Directions reports this week that Google Maps and Google Mobile Maps now have traffic data layers for some major cities. There is much speculation over how they are doing it... I imagine they are getting some webservice traffic data from these major metro areas, but I could conceive of them using news/accident feeds or other tools to approximate the conditions, as well. What will they do next? Try this link for San Francisco traffic: http://maps.google.com/?z=10&ll=37.779399,-122.4192...

Expanding the GIS Universe through Open APIs

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:59:00 MST

Today's Directions Mag will feature another article I wrote on the changes in the GIS industry driven by the Open API tool kits being offered by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. I tried to stay away from the negatives regarding the traditional GIS companies and where they are headed, but I will add this: If ESRI, MapInfo, AutoDesk and others don't start offeringusable free data along with their Web mapping products, they will continue to lose market share to the GYM types. Even t...

GeoMedia Free Version

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:05:00 MST

Seems like Intergraph's GeoMedia has improved greatly in the last few years, but I wish they would put a time limited version out there so that people like me could actually test drive it. I'm not sure why the major vendors are making it harder to test drivetheir software.Given the grassroots growth in the GIS industry driven by the open API and opensource GIS software, you would think thatthe Intergraphs and ESRIs would give out more software to try to hold onto their marketshare....

Types of Testing for Requirements

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 11:44:00 MST

Software and system requirements should be testable. The four types of tests that can be used to validate a requirement are analysis, demonstration, inspection, and testing. Any one requirement may be validated according to any of these four methods. Analysis - ...

Brief Survey of Online Mapping Blogs

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:40:00 MST

Adena at Directions Magazine published a good, quick survey of some of the online mapping blogs. It will be interesting to see where this stuff goes....

Geospatial directory websites

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:43:00 MST

As the number of public websites that use Open API's increases, we'll see more directory websites that operate as passthroughs to those sites. The important thing will be for people to be able to distinguish between sites that operate merely as portals for click-through revenue and sites that are honest catalogs of information for the geospatially curious. > YakJive has been listed in the

Another Article Published Today

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:13:00 MST
I had another article published today. Just fun to see that it's not all vanity publication, like this site! This article was on using Open Source GIS as an alternative to proprietary GIS tools. I think the ESRI suite has gotten so complicated that it's going to eventually collapse under it's own weight. Frankly, they're too focused on license sales and not enough on actually satisfying their consumer base. The OSS alternatives are sure to eventually step in and take over. C&...

GPS File Format Converter

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 05:44:00 MST
Poking around in the GPS space this week, I noticed that there are 100's of GPS file formats out there. Kind of unbelievable. While I'm going to convert YakJive to allow people to upload and display GPX and possibly KML files, I can't do everything. Fortunately, this nice guy named Robert Lipe has taken it upon himself to build a free GPS file format converter called GPSBabel. I'll definitely be recommending it to YakJive users....

A Google Maps Convert

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:06:00 MST
As a longtime GIS person, I was, like everyone else who was stuck in the ESRI-dominated GIS mindset, highly skeptical of Google Maps and Google Earth. Now I'm a convert. Just check out what I've been able to do with this YakJive thing. It was easy to add mapping capability to the service and to allow anyone on the web the ability to plot their articles on a map. How cool? Just for fun I'll locate this article at one of my favorite places on the planet. How can you beat it?...

Cool Satellite image of the Luxor

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:55:00 MST
I stayed at the Luxor this week in Las Vegas for a conference. Check out this cool, reflective photo of it on Google Maps. ...

Welcome!

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:48:00 MST
Welcome to a hobby site dedicated to mapping, GIS, and anything else technical that interests me. You'll find here some of the articles that I've published (with links back to the original, of course) and a variety of cool tools and sites that I've found. Along the way I'll also post some articles related to different places on the Earth so that I can show some cool YakJive functionality....

Open Source Software: Opening the GIS Market From The Foundation Up

Fri, 01 Jul 2005 21:38:00 MST
For system integration projects, open source software (OSS) is essential. Developers compile source code with tools such as Ant and Maven from the Apache Software Foundation, a pioneering organization devoted to building reliable, useful OSS development tools. Project teams on many software development efforts use a free tool called XPlanner for tracking tasks and recording time. Knowledge management, software modeling, image manipulation, and many other vertical technologies benefit from OSS d...

The Extensible Markup Language (XML): Hype and Reality

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 21:36:00 MST
In the years that I have been a consultant I have encountered technical managers who wish to implement the Extensible Markup Language (XML) to solve problems ranging from application integration to poor project management. Next to the term "Web," XML is probably the most overused buzzword that I have encountered inside the geospatial industry and out of it. Even experienced developers sometimes abandon reason and tout XML as the solution to problems that require thought and not hype. ...

Geospatial Portals: Broadening the Boundaries of Portal Technology

Sun, 01 May 2005 21:34:00 MST
Every geospatial professional believes fundamentally that one of the best features that geographic information system (GIS) software offers is the friendly, intuitive map interface that allows users to quickly visualize and access data. We also know through trial and error that there is a huge difference between adequate map interfaces and excellent map interfaces. The best interfaces allow users to access data and maps without realizing, or caring, that they are using GIS at all. The worst map...

Grid: Seamless Computing for Maximum Power

Fri, 01 Apr 2005 21:30:00 MST
In the last two articles, I introduced two concepts that help standardize software architecture complexity and interoperability. Web services standards allow developers to build software components that interact with other components in a predictable manner. Services-oriented architectures provide a standardized framework within which components may interact and be combined into workflows. Distributed computing is the next step in complexity and capability. Distributed computing describes netwo...

Services-Oriented Architectures: Goodbye Glue and Rubber Bands

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 21:24:00 MST
The term 'software architecture' describes the fluid infrastructure that merges hardware and function-specific software applications for the purpose of collecting, processing, and storing data. Historically, many companies started off with software applications for focused purposes, never imagining that employee payroll software could someday be connected to a satellite tasking application, for example. As companies grew and looked for new efficiencies, analysts saw that error and time ...

Web Services: The OGC Perspective

Wed, 01 Dec 2004 21:21:00 MST
Ten years ago, in response to the proliferation of competing, incompatible geospatial data and software solutions, a group of industry leading organizations formed the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc., (OGC). OGC intended to establish publicly useable standards for the communication of geospatial information with the intended purpose of enabling the connectivity of diverse geographic software tools over networks. OGC began developing several pioneering standards, sometimes following new informa...

Models for Growth: A Look at Applied Modeling in the Geospatial Community

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 21:20:00 MST
Models can represent the physical state of an object or they can describe the behavior and interrelationship of objects in a system. In the geospatial technical world, a model is most commonly thought of as a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) or a map projection. DEMs are digital depictions of topography on a part of the globe. Map projections allow three-dimensional features on the Earth to be described, or modeled, on a two-dimensional surface. Fields that use geospatial data routinely employ mor...

Not-So-Remote Anymore: The Evolution of Localized Precision Sensing

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 21:18:00 MST
Since the earliest days of strategizing and information gathering, scientists and decision-makers have relied upon field observations to support map making. The introduction of aircraft and satellites enabled cartographers to reliably observe visual details of a region from afar. However, precise local observation of an area was not possible until three major technological developments converged. First, the increased accuracy and variety of detection equipment allowed the collection of more and...

Spatial Databases: Not Just for Data Anymore

Sun, 01 Aug 2004 21:16:00 MST
Imagine a business process that compares an area of interest (AOI) throughout the day against thousands of project boundaries to alert a user when new projects fall within the AOI. One solution for this problem stores spatial data in a function-poor repository, possibly a database or flat files. This solution uses an application to extract data from the repository and to perform spatial intersections. An alternative solution proposes storage of the spatial data in a database and uses databas...

Java: Why GIS People Should Care

Tue, 01 Jun 2004 21:15:00 MST
In the past 10 years, geographic information systems (GIS) exploded from a highly specialized, esoteric discipline into a broad horizontal technology that encompasses hardware development, map making, data generation, and complex software integration. Along the way, GIS technology changed as GIS grew to interact with a variety of hardware interfaces, data storage tools, and programming languages. Despite this diversity in GIS implementation, many GIS professionals fail to educate themselves abo...

Justice Department Report about my application

Sat, 01 Jan 2000 21:20:00 MST
I found this attached report that was published back around 2000 and included a section on the Jacksonville Sherriff's Department application that Iwrote, JRAMS.Cool so see that kind of thing! ...