by Matt Ball on February 3, 2012
This may be a perennial question, as certainly the rise and promise of universal 3D geovisualization keeps coming in waves that are similar to the promise of location-based services. With each wave, we all ride the crest, and perhaps a few move toward the ongoing capture and visualization of our geographies beyond just a project [...]
by Matt Ball on December 19, 2011
GeoSur, the open access geospatial data sharing site for Latin America and the Caribbean, was discussed as a case model at the Eye on Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi last week. The site has proved a useful tool for GIS users in the region that want to perform spatial analysis, and it has also assisted [...]
by Matt Ball on December 14, 2011
The Eye on Earth Summit that took place in Abu Dhabi this week provided a forum for discussion of the importance of environmental information, and the need for better policy decisions. The event, sponsored by UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was pulled together to offer concrete recommendations for the next Earth Summit, [...]
by Matt Ball on October 12, 2011
The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is being terminated as of Jan. 15, 2012, due to a $3.8 million budget cut. As a result, all resources, databases, tools, and applications within the website terminated and no longer available. The site’s blog has already been terminated as of last week, and will be removed completely as [...]
by Matt Ball on September 15, 2011
Peter Ter Haar, director or products at Ordnance Survey, gave the opening keynote this morning at the FOSS4G event. The organization is responsible for the most accurate and up-to-date map in the world, with half a billion data points, making five thousand changes every day, with 99.9% of real world changes represented in the database. [...]
by Matt Ball on September 9, 2011
Coleman McCormick from SpatialNetworks spoke to the viability of OpenStreetMap (OSM) data for commercial use this morning at the State of the Map conference. He related that data used to be a heavy effort that took a great deal of time to find, but now with OSM quality increasing, it’s become an easier problem to [...]
by Matt Ball on September 9, 2011
Richard Weait gave the opening keynote this morning for the State of the Map Conference in Denver. He congratulated the attendees for their commitment and asserted that the only way that we can create an updated map is through crowdsourcing, because commercial entities and governments can’t do it as the economics aren’t feasible. Getting everyone [...]
by Matt Ball on July 14, 2011
The Esri International User Conference provides an ideal opportunity to see the best foot forward of most geospatial companies, taking away nuances in how products and services are marketed in order to differentiate offerings and expand business. The street data providers NAVTEQ and TomTom (formerly TeleAtlas) were among the most interesting for their divergent paths [...]
by Matt Ball on July 12, 2011
In the executive session on Spatial Data Infrastructure at the Esri International User Conference there rose a discussion of what SDI means in reaction to Jack Dangermond’s comment that he’d love to move beyond discussion of SDI and rather call it National GIS. A spatial data infrastructure is a bit different than a National GIS [...]
by Matt Ball on June 20, 2011
The National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) met June 8-9, in Washington, D.C. On the agenda were discussions on transportation for the nation, Census address and road features and parcels, and parcel data on tribal lands. There was also concern about the impact on lidar mapping technologies from new Federal Aviation Administration regulations that ban the [...]