Having last night watched the excellent “The Lives of Others” DVD last night, a film about the activities of the Stasi in East Germany, the suggestion that the Police should hack more is more than a little scary. So we can expect the police to be running around installing key-loggers and trojans to any one who might [...]

I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that Ubuntu GIS packages are tracking the Debian GIS project very closely. The one noteful regression I see is that QGIS is not packaged with either Debian or Ubuntu any more. DebianGIS/UbuntuGIS Package Thermometer Package stabletestingunstablebpojauntyintrepidhardygutsydapper avce00 (PTS,UP) 1.3.0-22.0.0-22.0.0-2 2.0.0-22.0.0-22.0.0-12.0.0-11.3.0-2 batik (PTS,UP) 1.6-31.6-41.6-4 1.7.dfsg-0ubuntu11.7.dfsg-0ubuntu11.6-31.6-31.6-2 beam (UP) beat (UP) buoy (PTS,UP) 1.6-21.9-11.9-1 1.9-11.9-11.8-11.6-2 cartoweb (UP) cgal (PTS,UP) 3.2.1-23.3.1-43.3.1-4 3.3.1-2ubuntu13.3.1-2ubuntu13.3.1-2ubuntu13.3-2 chameleon-gis (UP) deegree (UP) demeter (UP) drawmap (PTS,UP) 2.5-22.5-32.5-3 2.5-32.5-32.5-32.5-32.5-1.1 e00compr (PTS,UP) 1.0.0-61.0.0-71.0.0-7 1.0.0-71.0.0-71.0.0-61.0.0-61.0.0-2 earth3d (PTS,UP) 1.0.5-11.0.5-1.11.0.5-1.1 1.0.5-1.11.0.5-1.11.0.5-11.0.5-11.0.4-1 efoto (UP) fdo (UP) garmin-utils (UP) gdal (PTS,TODO,UP) 1.3.2-41.5.2-31.5.2-31.5.2-3~bpo40+11.5.2-31.5.2-21.4.4-1ubuntu31.4.1-6build11.2.6-1.3build1 geoinformatica (UP) geoip (PTS,UP) 1.3.17-1.11.4.4.dfsg-31.4.4.dfsg-31.4.4.dfsg-1~bpo40+11.4.4.dfsg-31.4.4.dfsg-21.4.4.dfsg-11.3.17-1.11.3.14-2 geojasper (UP) 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1.2.3-11.2.1-7ubuntu1 ogdi-dfsg (PTS,UP) 3.2.0~beta1-3.13.2.0~beta1-3.13.2.0~beta1-3~bpo.13.2.0~beta1-3.13.2.0~beta1-3.13.2.0~beta1-3ubuntu13.2.0~beta1-3ubuntu1 opencv (PTS,UP) 0.9.7-41.0.0-6.11.0.0-6.1 1.0.0-6.1build11.0.0-6.11.0.0-4ubuntu11.0.0-3ubuntu30.9.6-4.1build1 openev (WNPP,UP) openjump (PTS,UP) 1.0-21.0-31.0-3 1.0-31.0-31.0-31.0-2 openscenegraph (PTS,UP) 1.2.0-22.4.0-1.12.4.0-1.1 2.4.0-1.12.4.0-1.12.2.0-2ubuntu21.2.0-4build10.9.9-7ubuntu5 opticks (UP) orfeo (UP) osm2pgsql (PTS,UP) 0.52.20080408-20.52.20080408-20.52.20080408-2~bpo40+10.52.20080408-2build10.52.20080408-2build10.08.20071007-1 ossim (UP) paraview (PTS,UP) 3.2.2-13.2.3-4 3.2.3-4ubuntu13.2.2-1 postgis (PTS,UP) 1.1.6-21.3.3-31.3.3-3 1.3.3-31.3.3-31.3.3-11.2.1-21.0.0-1 primagis (UP) proj (PTS,TODO,UP) 4.4.9d-24.6.0-24.6.0-24.6.0-1~bpo40+14.6.0-24.6.0-14.6.0-14.5.0-24.4.9d-2 pygps (UP) python-pcl (UP) python-scientific (PTS,UP) 2.4.11-12.4.11-22.4.11-2 2.4.11-22.4.11-1.22.4.11-1ubuntu32.4.11-1ubuntu12.4.9-3ubuntu2 qgis (PTS,UP) 0.7.4-5 0.8.0-5ubuntu20.7.4-2ubuntu1 roadmap (WNPP,UP) roadnav (WNPP,UP) roadster (UP) savi (WNPP,UP) shapelib (PTS,UP) 1.2.10-31.2.10-4.11.2.10-4.1 1.2.10-4.11.2.10-41.2.10-31.2.10-31.2.10-3 thuban (PTS,UP) 1.0.1-1.21.2.0-2.11.2.0-2.1 1.2.0-2.1ubuntu11.2.0-2.1ubuntu11.2.0-2.1ubuntu11.2.0-21.0.0-1ubuntu5 udig (UP) viking (PTS,UP) 0.9.6-20.9.6-20.9.4-1~bpo40+10.9.6-20.9.6-20.9.3-2build1 worldwind (PTS,UP) 0.5.0-10.5.0-6 0.5.0-60.5.0-1 worldwind2d (WNPP,UP) Color legend Ubuntu version = Debian Ubuntu behind Debian unstable Not packaged Obsolete Status at: Mon Jan 5 10:35:39 2009 See also the DebianGis packages thermometer. Generated by a derivative of this GPL licensed perl script written by: Francesco P. Lovergine for DebianGis use.

The EiS blog provides recent coverage of NASA World Wind, including mentioning GeoWind and Capcode: "Capcode is a free software able to retrieve data from the NMEA compatible equipments of your boat to be displayed on the PC screen after some computations. The main purpose is to provide a tool for regattas." From the GeoWind website: "GeoWind is an open source GIS platform that integrates OGC as implemented GeoTools within NASA's WorldWind. The vision of this effort is the creation of an open geospatial system that enables the scientific modeling process to be closer to a 'real world' experience. Some of the planned and anticipated use cases are querying and mapping available data for modeling problems using OGC web services, stepwise delineation of model parameter, embedded execution of an environmental model and its direct mapping of state variables into a world view, or simply the mapping of spatial/temporal model results in a realistic way that was never possible in the past." It's important to note that GeoWind is "in early development". Don't forget NWW got a new mission lately.Read more of this story at Slashgeo. 2009-01-05T18:56:00Z Satri

The OpenLayers blog announced the beginning of a list of OpenLayers case studies: "Currently, the number of case studies is small, but we’re working on growing these case studies so that for any particular application, there is an example of someone who has used OpenLayers to do something similar." Meanwhile, Spatially Adjusted discusses the integration of OpenLayers with ESRI's ArcGIS suite: "As more people start using OpenLayers with the ESRI ArcGIS Server we’ll hopefully get it integrated into the OpenLayer code. For now you can grab some of the code from the OpenLayer Wiki and start using OpenLayers with your ArcGIS Server applications. People are doing amazing things with OpenLayers including this example with ArcGIS Server (which doesn’t use the REST API, but it is still wonderful) from the Long Island Index." The latest was mentioned on Slashgeo a month ago. See also related stories below.Read more of this story at Slashgeo. 2009-01-05T18:07:00Z Satri

I have to blog this so the links are somewhere I can find them again! From Anselm Hook on Geowankers, links to the National Film Board of Canada 1968 short on GIS, “Data For Decision”, parts [1], [2] and [3].Beep, beep, boop, boop, boop! 

This video via way of Nokia Conversations Team shows the latest technology for Nokia Touch UI devices - the handwriting calculator (Beta Labs). This free application is supported to date by the Nokia... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 2009-01-05T16:29:57Z http://blog.gisuser.com/?p=3435 Glenn

Google recently announced a site for user-generated product ideas for Google Mobile. A nice feature of the site is the ability to view and rate the ideas of others, with the most popular ideas sorted to the top. Not surprisingly, many of the ideas are map related. “Whether you’ve got a great idea about Google Maps [...] 2009-01-05T16:19:43Z http://vector1media.com/spatialsustain/?p=1857 Matt Ball

Once again we’re into a new year and that means CES is just around the corner - this week actually! I was really close to going but had to bail as it simply came up too fast… perhaps next... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 2009-01-05T16:19:18Z http://blog.gisuser.com/?p=3430 Glenn

Japan is readying the launch of the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT), which is scheduled for launch on Jan. 21. The satellite will record greenhouse gas emissions around the globe in more than 56,000 locations, augmenting the roughly 280 current terrestrial observation points.The satellite has been nicknamed “Ibuki,” the Japanese word for breathe, because of [...] 2009-01-05T16:07:10Z http://vector1media.com/spatialsustain/?p=1852 Matt Ball

In an interview with ESRI’s Matt Artz just prior to his departure from ESRI, David Maguire speaks of an unfinished project at ESRI – a “science laboratory.” It looks like David was looking to transform (some of) GIS into a scientific tool that would do much of the scientists’ work for them. Unless I’m wrong, it also looks like David’s departure was (at least to some extent) precipitated by his inability to push through his pet project – the science lab. Can GIS ever become so scientifically sophisticated as to replace actual human scientists? Likewise, is it possible to build a CAD system so sophisticated that it will do the architects’ designing for them?I say no, and no. 2009-01-05T15:41:46Z Atanas Entchev

As some of you might know, we are working on large hydrologic model that is going to be put into JGrass following the openmi standards.One of the issues we found is that to have a good feeling of the spatial distribution of data over the studied basin. With raster data that has never been an issue (in fact the issue is the space taken by the rasters :)), but how to be quick when you have resulting values placed in the baricenter of a basin?Usually you get a nice matricx of values that you then have to somehow push into the attributes table of a shapefile in order to have some visual result of your calculus. But what if the values are temporal???Copy and paste the result of every timestep into a shapefile? Hmmm.... no way!We now have a module in JGrass that is called v.addattributes and I'm gonna show you an example of it.Assume I have a file that contains a line for every timestep of my model and that line is formatted like the following: idbasin1, value11, value12, idbasin2, value21, value22,... idbasinN, valueN1, valueN2The values could be any numeric thing, we could have 1, 2, ...n values.In my example I have a file with interpolated rainvalues in the baricenters of these basins:The file looks like:1739.0 0.0 1535.0 0.0 1655.0 0.0 2157.0 0.0 1930.0 0.0 1801.0 0.0 1460.0 0.0 632.0 3.684153909618608 906.0 ...1739.0 0.4793081233266918 1535.0 0.048572411261128046 1655.0 0.6070006443236106 2157.0 0.44196721516998566   ...1739.0 0.0532564581474102 1535.0 0.0 1655.0 0.042013300835839144 2157.0 0.04910746835222063 1930.0 0.0909374550600321   ...1739.0 0.5304998409078074 1535.0 1.0377122085218624 1655.0 0.7508780110017237 2157.0 0.6222435955068898 1930.0   ...i.e. idbasin1, rainvalue1, idbasin2, rainvalue2... and so onWith the following script I am now able to merge the two informations, based on the basin ids. jgrass { v.addattributes --iflayer-infeatures "bacini_bz_idlikedb0" --itscalar-attributes "C:\\zcontainer\\TMP\\THEBIGTEST\\rain-allbasin.csv" --oshapefile-outfeatures "C:\\zcontainer\\TMP\\THEBIGTEST\\testoutput\\test" --joinfield "NETNUM"} The field used to join the informations has to be defined as a parameter, in this case NETNUM.The result is a shapefile for every time step that the model runs for. The shapefile will have a new field (by deafult called new_0, new_1...) containing the information. In this case it is just one field containing the rain values, but could be as well more fields as forexample the temperature in different elevation bands for every basin.The result is quite nice, can you see the strom moving in the following three screenshots?Timestep 1:Timestep 2:Timestep 3:

Both Microsoft and Google offer new imagery since late December. From the Virtual Earth blog: "As a result, a small blog post to let you know of a HUGE refresh / release (48TB worth) of all tile sets where vector information is included – Road, Hybrid Aerial, and Hybrid Bird’s Eye." From the GEB entry: "There were some other notable additions made on or around December 17th to the Google Earth 3D Buildings layer. Some of the biggest additions were non-textured "gray" buildings. You can view the locations of the new 3D cities in this EarthSwoop collection, but you'll need to follow the "View in Google Earth" links for those cities with "gray" buildings because that layer is only visible inside Google Earth."Read more of this story at Slashgeo. 2009-01-05T15:08:00Z Satri

Ethan Zuckerman at Worldchanging Blog discovers the power, usefulness and beauty of maps. “I love the questions the maps raise: why is there a direct flight on Air Canada from Halifax to Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta?” he asks. It is always interesting to see the excitement and realisations that maps and spatial information generate. [...] 2009-01-05T14:55:30Z http://vector1media.com/vectorone/?p=1772 Vector One

An anonymous voxel writes "An animation showing edits to the OpenStreetMap.org project during 2008. All edits are shown as white flashes on the globe and you can clearly see the extent and intensity of work during the year, as well as the bulk imports of data." A search will reveal the numerous previous stories about OpenStreetMap.Read more of this story at Slashgeo. 2009-01-05T14:26:00Z Satri

Perhaps, over the holidays, you read about the unspoiled forest "discovered" using Google Earth by researchers from Kew Garden, London, who subsequently found a range of new species when they travelled there. Given that the press speaking points (and hence the news articles) put such an emphasis on the role of Google Earth in the narrative, you'd expect that the media would perhaps show the forest on a Google Map alongside the web versions of their articles. No such luck. Ogle Earth to the rescue, then: According to the media stories, the forest lies on the slopes of Mount Mabu. Geonames.org has "Serra Mabu/Monte Mabu" in its exhaustive database, and there is indeed a large patch of bright unruffled green right around there... View Larger Map Geonames continues to amaze me with how it always has a location for any place name you care to throw at it. One of my most used tools in Google Earth is in fact the network link to Google Earth that Geonames provides after you search its database. The network link does a location-based search of its database for your field of view every time you stop moving — and as such it is great for browsing remote places. Just save that link in My Places and turn it on anytime you want to know the name of that strange feature you've found at in the middle of the Sahara, Siberia, or north-central Mozambique. A slightly more whimsical thought: Notice how the newly discovered forest is defined by a dearth of named features in Geonames's database? Perhaps it might be possible to devise an algorithm to find other such "holes" and then seeing which of those are unspoiled biomes (as opposed to lakes or mountain ranges. (Panoramio, Google Earth Community, Wikipedia and every other base layer in Google Earth all come up empty-handed for this particular spot — yet another hint.)Comments (0) 2009-01-05T14:21:47Zhttp://www.ogleearth.com/2009/01/mount_mabu_unve.html Ogle Earth stefan.geens@gmail.com

Martin Feuchtwanger writes "Copan is a functional and easy-to-use, free-of-charge, geomatics engineering tool for computing and managing plane survey coordinates. It does numerous coordinate geometry (COGO) calculations, processes and adjusts raw field survey data, computes and adjusts map traverse data, performs map checks, calculates areas and perimeters, performs coordinate transformations, and imports/exports Ascii files. It supports quadrant and whole-circle bearings, and gons (or grads) as well as degrees. It is available for Windows and two mobile platforms, PalmOS and PocketPC. The Windows version also supports south- as well as north-based bearings. The mobile versions also calculate curves and have GPS positioning and navigation functions. Designed for land surveyors, geodetic engineers, professionals and students, Copan is available for download, free of charge from http://www.underhill.ca/Software/ugl_software.php. Note: A valid email address is required for a password and for news of updates." The other entry I found on the geoblogs was TFGT blog, which includes screenshots. See also related stories below.Read more of this story at Slashgeo. 2009-01-05T14:07:00Z Satri

Sometimes the satellite images Google acquires happen to capture some really unique sight. This one is really awesome for those of us who try to find planes captured in flight in Google Earth: A U-2 Spyplane flying over Kuwait! This one was found by plane aficionado 'Delta102' of the Google Earth Community. He's found many other planes in Google Earth, but this is one of the best. NOTE: the orange colored 'shadow' to the upper left is actually an artifact of the satellite cameras which is caused by the plane's motion. You see this in GE with planes and cars (the further away, the faster the object). Other unique planes captured in flight: KC-135 Refueling C-5 Galaxy in Mid-Air Lancaster Bomber in Flight Two old planes close up Identifying planes in flight All planes in flight in Google Earth database 2009-01-05T13:31:41Z http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2009/01/u2_spyplane_caught_in_flight_in_goo.html Frank Taylor of Google Earth Blog

A map released by the European Commission and the World Bank models the accessibility (and isolation) of various parts of the world. It's a heat map that shows the travel time to major cities (here defined as 50,000 or... 2009-01-05T13:25:49Z Jonathan Crowe

Catholicgauze has a (very brief) interview with the (unnamed) cartographer behind the Atlas of True Names, which I told you about last month. Of particular interest is the following statement on future products: "We continue quite soon with the French,... 2009-01-05T13:13:20Z Jonathan Crowe

The daily crime e-mail had been sent out by the D.C. police to the public via e-mail. It included all crimes in each of the department's districts, broken down by Police Service Area. The e-mails have been dropped per Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes because they often included information that may have jeopardized police work. Instead, the DC police offer a map built on the acclaimed DC Atlas. That app is quite complex, allowing search near an address, searching on a specific crime, etc. GIS may love it but some, like the Georgetown Metropolitan Blog (GMT) finds it wanting compared to the sleek text listing. (Full review from the blog including what are suggested as better alternatives: below is a summary.) ...it’s terrible. It’s based on inferior mapping software, it’s difficult to use, and it doesn’t allow you to actually find out any information on each crime. For crime maps, there are better options out there. But a crime map is not a satisfactory replacement for a daily list. MPD has offered the crime map for years, why does it all of the sudden think that it’s a better option than daily blotters? The response of both NBC and GMT sounds rational: find a way not to include the information that shouldn't be included and keep the e-mails coming! - NBC Washington