Esta parece uma  posicao interessante, para candidatos com um PhD em geografia quantitativa e um background em Geovisualizacao

https://applicationsw.unil.ch/adminpub/?MIval=PoIntHome&TypelC=811&PoId=2974

The good old OGC WMS has many advantages compared to tiled maps:

• Continious zoom levels
• Support for different projections
• Combination of multiple layers in one request
• Higher resolutions for printing
• Better labelling
• No maintenance needed when updating data

Well known disadvantages are scalability issues for high-traffic sites and a slower response time for complex maps.

The second point can be significantly improved by using a technique known from the progressive JPEG format. Before loading a map with full resolution, a map image with a lower resolution is requested from the server. This results in a better response time, because rendering and transmitting of the low resolution image is significantly faster. The biggest effect on rendering time is in combination with raster layers, but also for vector layers the improvement can be substantial.

High resolution:

Low resolution:

The technique can be easily applied to any WMS using this basic OpenLayers implementation.

There is much room for improvements. The low resolution layer could be tiled, limited to certain zoom levels or having a larger extend for smoother panning.

QGISCloud has this optimization built into the QGIS Web-Client viewer, which helps collecting experience with a wide range of datasets.

La versión 2.0 de gvSIG mejora el acceso ráster incorporando la posibilidad de teselar las fuentes de este tipo de dato, locales o remotas. El resultado es que las capas ráster se cargan sobre la vista de gvSIG en forma de pequeñas porciones o teselas que permite un renderizado progresivo de la capa. Las capas se dividen en niveles preestablecidos de distintas resoluciones y se generan estas teselas para cada nivel en tiempo de ejecución, es decir a medida que se van haciendo peticiones (zooms) de nuevas zonas se van generando las teselas o tiles.

Pero la mayor ventaja de este sistema es que podemos guardar en una caché todos los tiles. De esta forma, la información que se descarga desde los servidores no tiene que volver a pedirse una vez ya se ha hecho, ya que las siguientes peticiones se sirven desde los datos cacheados, con la consiguiente mejora de rendimiento.

De esta forma, la incorporación de nuevas fuentes de datos con este sistema de pirámides de resolución es fácil. Debido a esta posibilidad ha sido relativamente sencilla el desarrollo de un nuevo plugin para el acceso a las capas tileadas de servidores de OpenStreetMap, ya que, como es sabido, estos servidores sirven los datos de esta forma y es totalmente compatible con el sistema de caché incorporado en gvSIG.

Este plugin tiene un acceso básico a las capas de OpenStreetMap para visualización. Por defecto vienen configurado cuatro servidores que sirven las capas de Map Quest, Map Quest Open Aerial, Open cycle Map y Mapnik. En la propia interfaz de “Añadir capa” es posible agregar nuevos servidores, por lo que no nos limita a lo que viene preconfigurado. La interfaz para hacerlo es bastante intuitiva y requiere poca explicación. En mi opinión, este es un ejemplo de como, con poco esfuerzo se pueden aprovechar las posibilidades que de base ofrece gvSIG 2.0 para desarrollar funcionalidad.

Un problema que se presenta gvSIG con las capas de tiles de OSM es la proyección. Estas se sirven en EPSG:3785 y lamentablemente gvSIG no trae configurado de base esta proyección. Es posible crearla manualmente teniendo la cadena WKT, pero resulta algo engorroso. En este caso el plugin lo hará por nosotros. Cada vez que se arranca comprobará si existe este EPSG en la base de datos de gvSIG y si no está la creará como proyección de usuario. De esta forma ya podremos poner la vista en esta proyección para cargar la cartografía.

Otro inconveniente que podemos encontrarnos es que una vez la información está en la caché no se actualiza y si la información cambia en el servidor nosotros seguiremos cargando datos antiguos. Esto no es un problema para capas locales pero para capas remotas, como es el caso de OSM, pues si lo es. Esperemos poder disponer de mejoras que solucionen este problema.

During the last weeks several posts about the gvSIG Desktop novelties have been published at the gvSIG Blog. With them we try to make known all these novelties with more details. Until now, the posts that have been publisher are:

• Scripting, exploit your gvSIG (III): Generate a polygon from a course
• Symbols library “OSM”
• “Google” symbols library
• Scripting, exploit your gvSIG (II). Creating a buffer
• Mirrors for downloads
• Add-ons manager
• How to create symbol libraries (II)
• Raster data tile cache and WMTS
• gvSIG 2.0 on 64 bits or Java 1.7 systems
• Additional feature for managing CRS
• gvSIG 2.0: Scripting, exploit your gvSIG
• How to create symbol libraries (I)

In the last weeks new posts will be published, as well as the translation of the last ones in Spanish. Some of them will be related to the new add-ons that will be available for this version. They will be able to be installed from the Add-ons Manager.

Google Plus One

• DPI
• Display Width
• Display Height
• View Center
• View Scale

NetCDF is a data format oriented to scientific data in a multidimensional arrays way. That is, a list of variables with a concrete meaning (pressure, temperature, position…). It’s commonly said that it’s a data container of any type and auto-descriptive. It means that its contents is described in its header.

As generic container it has the advantage of storing raster as well as vector data, and they can be specified for different moments over time. It’s useful for storing on site data that are obtained from sensors where the information collection is periodic and the collected data are varied.

Two plugins have been developed for gvSIG 2.0, that offer support for NetCDF. Its integration in gvSIG has been made from the point of view of the same application, separating the support in two different data providers: raster and vector. It’s because its graphical representation in gvSIG is totally different. With the incorporation of this format, gvSIG can load and export data with time information.

But the time information requires a special treatment in any Geographic Information System, now that the user should be able to filter the information to be shown in a specific moment or in a temporary interval. Besides the user should be able to process the data taking the moment into account or even to be able to make animations throughout time. In this sense gvSIG has improved in an important way, because it incorporates this functionality (data filter by time and short animations). At this moment this tool has to be improved to make geoprocessing on layers with time information, besides integrating time support on the raster part. We hope to improve this issues in the future versions, although these plugins are available now.

This week at FOSS4G-North America 2013 in Minneapolis, we are excited to announce a full public beta of our new product. What we’ve previously referred to as “The Enterprise Console,” is now Mapmeter, a full administration and management tool for analyzing GeoServer systems.

Mapmeter enables organizations to monitor the health of production deployments, optimize applications during development and diagnose critical issues. With these details, administrators and managers can better — and more cost effectively — make decisions about their geospatial deployments. With Mapmeter, spatial monitoring and reporting become a primary component in your spatial IT workflow.

You may have heard us talk about this product in recent months. We started with an announcement at FedGeo, then Alyssa Wright showed a live demo with James Fee, and some of you were able to get in on a private beta. With the help and feedback of our early testers, we are now able to open up the software to all.

If you want to learn more or see a demo, please join us for the Mapmeter launch at Sponsor Day at FOSS4G-North America at 9 a.m. Friday, May 24 (look for the OpenGeo room). Sponsor Day is free, but you need to register. We’ll also be holding office hours at our FOSS4G North America booth today (5/22/2013) from 2:00pm to 3:00pm.

If you won’t be able to join us in Minneapolis, head over to http://mapmeter.com to learn more about these exciting new features, connect with the development team and join us for this beta program.

We hope you’re as excited as we are about Mapmeter! If you have questions, please contact us. You can also contact the Mapmeter team directly for personalized help with the public beta.

Uno de los ámbitos en los que gvSIG se está utilizando cada vez más es en el de gestión de emergencias, tanto a nivel urbano como de catástrofes naturales. Sin duda, es más que significativo el aporte que el análisis espacial puede suponer para la gestión de emergencias y campos relacionados como el análisis delictual.

Orientada a estos usuarios hemos realizado una nueva biblioteca de símbolos. Como es habitual disponible desde el “Administrador de complementos”.

Para los símbolos puntuales (marcadores) hemos partido de un conjunto de símbolos denominado “EMS.The Emergency Mapping Symbology”, realizado por el Departamento de Recursos Naturales de Canadá  que tal y como indican es de libre uso. La forma de importarlos ha sido la habitual, descrita en este post.

Como en casos anteriores hemos utilizado pyRenamer -una herramienta de renombrado masivo de archivos-, ya que el nombre que gvSIG da a cada símbolo es el nombre del fichero. El objetivo del renombrado es facilitar la identificación de símbolos.Estos símbolos están diseñados para utilizarse con un tamaño de 32 píxeles -con el objetivo de resaltar su importancia en el mapa- por lo que los hemos importado a ese tamaño. Reduciéndolo a tamaños inferiores también se visualizan correctamente.

Mediante GIMP hemos generado los distintos símbolos de selección. En este caso, al haber símbolos con tonalidades de amarillo, hemos decidido que los símbolos de selección se representen en escala de grises. Con la opción de GIMP Imagen/Modo/Escala de grises hemos convertido los símbolos a escala de grises, añadiendo “_sel” al nombre del fichero para que gvSIG lo interprete automáticamente como símbolo de selección.

Además de símbolos puntuales, queríamos que esta biblioteca contuviera un conjunto de símbolos de líneas y relleno útiles para los mapas de emergencias, delitos,etc.

Hemos generado tanto símbolos lineales:Como símbolos de relleno, inspirados en el documento Biosecurity Emergency Management – Mapping Symbology:Ya sólo nos queda crear el paquete tal y como explicamos en este post.

Este paquete lo tenéis disponible desde el administrador de complementos (seleccionando la URL http://downloads.gvsig.org/download/gvsig-desktop/ y buscando por “Tipos/symbols”)o directamente descargándolo desde aquí.

anybody has a hint?

The recent geonews in batch mode, covering a larger timespan than usual.

On the open source front:

• The OSGeo presented an Open Letter to OGC on the GeoServices REST API standard, and it's pretty well documented and informative
• Here's an interesting entry on comparing OpenLayers and Leaflet
• The schedule for FOSS4G-CEE 2013 is now known
• Sean pointed me to  Tom MacWright's online GeoJSON editor
• In releases, there was GeoServer 2.3.2 released and GeoTools 9.2 Released
• Getting closer to QGIS 2.0, here's nice examples of the alpha channel in QGIS color ramps
• If you did not see the press release, OpenGeo is not non-profit anymore

On the Google front:

• The influx of Google Glass stories continues, now Facial Recognition Comes to Google Glass
• Here's Kurt's list of maps-related videos from the Google I/O 2013 conference

On the Esri front:

• ABP reminds us of Esri's Severe Weather Map, including tornadoes...
• An entry on why Esri is excited about the Android Location APIs
• Data updates, World Topographic Map updated with content for the Middle East, North Africa, and the United States
• along with other updates, including Additional DigitalGlobe and community imagery added to the World Imagery map
• Also updated, ArcGIS for Windows Phone and ArcGIS API for JavaScript v3.5 Released

In the everything-else category:

• MapBox tells us they got a huge satellite update, now cloudless and with aerial imagery, but also interesting are the OpenStreetMap updates making they way to MapBox maps in only 5 minutes
• Here's a Make article on mapping buildings with a Kinect
• Some of you might be interested by the GiT4NMD conference, Geo-information Technologies for Natural Disaster Management
• Space Daily share an article named World's major development banks look closer at Earth observation
• Here's links regarding the history of apostrophes in place names
• Via SL, an article named China's Drone Program Appears To Be Moving Into Overdrive
• Those interested in the exciting MapBox work may also want to read about vector tiles of MapBox Streets
• While CAD and GIS have come closer, they remain distinct, here's an entry named Integrating geospatial into construction: the challenge
• Geoff also shares two other interesting entries, one named Economic value of big geospatial data could reach $700 billion/yr by 2020 and the other Estimating the economic and financial impact of poor data quality

Slashdot discussed a few minor geo-related stories:

• One involving GPS named Researchers Are Developing Ad Hoc Networks For Car-To-Car Data Exchange
• Privacy stories goes on, UK's 4G Network Selling Subscriber Tracking Data To Police, Private Parties and this one Congress Demands Answers From Google Over Google Glass Privacy Concerns
• Along with new challenges to locating North itself, Global Warming Shifts the Earth's Poles

In the maps category:

• Here's The Best Geographic Visualization I’ve Seen In Ages according to VerySpatial, basically a circle centered in Asia where over half of the world's population resides
• In Paris? Apple Maps for iOS Adds 3D Flyover Coverage in Paris
• MapBox shares a Q&A of the City Guides by National Geographic mobile app

Google Plus One

Some time ago a friend of the project, Gustavo Agüero, published a post on his blog in which he explained how gvSIG generate a polygon from a bearing (or route or course). We found a very interesting exercise and with its help we implemented a script to undertake the same steps in gvSIG 2.0. The result is explained in this post.

We want to clarify that all the merit of this exercise is to Gustavo and the errors are because of our ignorance and for not properly follow his instructions. If you see some error, please, comment it and we will correct it

We start with a bearing or course that presents the data to the following structure LINE, AZIMUT, DISTANCE, being AZIMUT the angle direction in the sense counted clockwise from the geographic north (download rumbo.jpg).

The first thing to do is to save this file to a format that would be able to read from a script, this file we have created is a csv file that we named rumbo.csv (download rumbo.csv).

Once we have our file we have to think what we need to get its content into a shapefile. Obviously we’ll need a shapefile where to save the results and we’ll need to create the features to represent the data for including them on the shapefile. To create these features we’ll need to transform the polar coordinates (azimuth, distance) in rectangular coordinates (X, Y).

Some comments on that: Gustavo in his post recommend to make a representation of the data. This was very helpful to us.

In the script we will create a LINE shapefile and another one for POLYGONS. In the LINE type, we will keep heading data, data from coordinates transformation, and the resulting coordinates. In the POLYGONS shapefile will keep an identifier of the feature and a text field.

We start from a desktop gvSIG 2.0 (in my case I’ve used is build 2060 RC1) with the latest version of the scripting extension installed (currently the number 36).

Once we open the script editor (menu bar Tools / Scripting / Scripting Composer) we create a new script and start to write our script.

The first thing we’re going to do is to create the output layers using the function createShape from the gvsig module. The syntax of this function tells us that you need a data definition for the features, a route that is the place where to store the shapefile we are acreating, the projection of the shapefile, and the type of geometry that will contain. The definition of the data will be created using the function createSchema from the same gvsig module.

The source code, including comment would be:

import gvsig
import geom

def main():

'''
Create a polygon layer with the following data model:
    - 'ID', Integer
    - 'OBSERVACIONES', string
    - 'GEOMETRY', Geometry

Create a line layer with the following data model:
    - "ID", Integer
    - "LINEA", string
    - "GRADOS", long
    - "MINUTOS",long
    - "DISTANCIA", double
    - "RADIAN", double
    - "X", double
    - "Y", double
    - "GEOMETRY", Geometry            
'''

#Set up the projection, it is the same for both layers
CRS="EPSG:32617"

#Create the object that represent the data model for the polygonal shapefile
schema_poligonos = gvsig.createSchema() 

#Insert the filed from the data model
schema_poligonos.append('ID','INTEGER', size=7, default=0) 
schema_poligonos.append('OBSERVACIONES','STRING', size=200, default='Sin modificar') 
schema_poligonos.append('GEOMETRY', 'GEOMETRY')

#Set up the layer path. Remember changing it!!!
ruta='/tmp/rumbo-poligonos.shp'

#Create the shapefile
shape_poligonos = gvsig.createShape(
        schema_poligonos, 
        ruta,
        CRS=CRS,
        geometryType=geom.SURFACE
    )

#Create the line shapefile

#Create the object that represent the data model for the line shapefile
schema_lineas = gvsig.createSchema() 

#Insert the field from the data model
schema_lineas.append('ID','INTEGER', size=7, default=0) 
schema_lineas.append('LINEA','STRING',size=50,default='')
schema_lineas.append('GRADOS','LONG', size=7, default=0) 
schema_lineas.append('MINUTOS','LONG', size=7, default=0)
schema_lineas.append('SEGUNDOS','LONG', size=7, default=0) 
schema_lineas.append('DISTANCIA','DOUBLE', size=20, default=0.0, precision=6) 
schema_lineas.append('RADIAN','DOUBLE', size=20, default=0.0, precision=6) 
schema_lineas.append('X','DOUBLE', size=20, default=0.0, precision=6) 
schema_lineas.append('Y','DOUBLE', size=20, default=0.0, precision=6) 
schema_lineas.append('GEOMETRY', 'GEOMETRY')

#Set up the layer path. Remember changing it!!
ruta='/tmp/rumbo-lineas.shp'

#Create the shapefile
shape_line = gvsig.createShape(
    schema_lineas, 
    ruta,
    CRS=CRS,
    geometryType=geom.MULTILINE
)

Ok, we already have our output layers, now we are going to see how to get the data from csv file we created. Python has a module that allows csv csv file handling very comfortable ( python csv ). The source code for reading the csv file would be:

import csv
import os.path

#Set up the layer path for the CSV file. Remember changing it!!!
csv_file = '/tmp/rumbo.csv'

#Check that the file exists on the provided path
if not os.path.exists(csv_file):
  print "Error, el archivo no existe"
  return

#Open the file on read only mode
input = open(csv_file,'r')

#Create a reader object from the CSV module
reader = csv.reader(input)

#Read the file
for row in reader:
    #Print the line
    print ', '.join(row)

We already know how to create shapefiles and read csv files, the next step would be to create the features, so we must transform the polar coordinates to rectangular and it is at this point that for me things get a little dark so forgive the errors that you can find.
To make the coordinate transformation we’ll convert the decimal angle in radian angle. Gustavo in his post how to generate a polygonal (in Spanish) between the files to download you can find a PDF that provides an explanation of the calculations he made, if anybody has doubts I recommend to read it. I only want to clarify that we ‘ll use the python module python math to use math functions sine and cosine, needed to perform the transformation. In addition, our course uses relative coordinates, so we need a starting point and the code to calculate the new coordinates from the above ones. Our starting point is ( X= 361820.959424, Y = 1107908.627000). The source code would be:

"""
Convert decimal degrees, minutes, seconds to radian
"""
import math
#Define the “pi” value
PI = 3.1415926

x_ant = 361820.959424
y_ant = 1107908.627000

#Apply the equation and obtain the angle in radians
angulo = (degrees+(minutes/60.0)+(seconds/3600.0))*PI/180.0

#Convert the polar coordinates into rectangular ones

x_new = radio * math.sin(angulo)
y_new = radio * math.cos(angulo)

#Add relative coordinates values to get the next coordinate
x = x_new + x_ant
y = y_new + y_ant

The last piece of our puzzle is to learn how to create the features and their geometries. The layers that we created earlier shape_line and shape_polygons have a method called append that allows us to add the features to the layer. This method accepts a dictionary,
python dict that uses as key fields the ones we defined in the data structure of the layer (defined when we created it). The values are the ones that should have the feature. The geometries will be created using the geometric module geom from the scripting extension, in particular the createGeometry function, that needs the type of geometry to be created and the dimensions of the geometry. The code that we could use is:

geometry_multiline = geom.createGeometry(MULTILINE, D2)

values = dict()
values["ID"] = id #Calculated field for the registered number
values["LINEA"] = linea_id #First data of the course
values["GRADOS"] = grados #decimal degrees from the course
values["MINUTOS"] = minutos #decimal minutes from the course
values["SEGUNDOS"] = segundos #decimal seconds from the course
values["DISTANCIA"] = radio #Distance from the course
values["RADIAN"] = angulo #Radian angle calculated
values["X"] = x #X coordinate calculated
values["Y"] = y #Y coordinate calculated

shape_line.append(values)

At this point we have seen everything needed to get what we want from our original course, we only need to assemble the puzzle and the final result would be this:

Polygon generated from the course

The final source code can be downloaded from here .

We hope you enjoy that exercise as much as I do.

See you next time!

very geeky but I have to post this:

D/Qt (27512): src/python/qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp: 188: (runString) COMAND OK: import sys
D/Qt (27512): src/python/qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp: 188: (runString) COMAND OK: import os
D/Qt (27512): src/python/qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp: 188: (runString) COMAND OK: sys.path = ["/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files/share/python","/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files//python","/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files//python" + "/plugins","/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files/share/python/plugins"] + sys.path
D/Qt (27512): src/python/qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp: 91: (initPython) newpaths: "/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files/share/python","/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files//python","/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files//python" + "/plugins","/data/data/org.qgis.qgis/files/share/python/plugins"
D/Qt (27512): src/python/qgspythonutilsimpl.cpp: 188: (runString) COMAND OK: from sip import wrapinstance, unwrapinstance
D/Qt (27512): src/core/qgsmessagelog.cpp: 45: (logMessage) 2013-05-21T01:57:20 [0] Python support ENABLED


OpenGeo is looking for talented people to join our team. We offer interesting technical work, competitive salaries, great benefits, and a fantastic working environment. Most importantly we challenge our employees to build the best open source and interoperable tools for spatial data on the web. We added a few new posts this week, if any look like a fit for you, please apply!

Here’s the full list, please apply and/or spread the word!

Never been so close,  but it took the heck out of me… now lets see if after 4 days of continuous fiddling around I manage to tame the snake

Today, I updated my QGIS Time Manager plugin to version 0.8. It now works with the QGIS 2.0 API and that means that we can take advantage of all the cool new features in our animations. The following quick example uses the “multiply” blend mode with the tweet sample data which is provided by default when you install the plugin:

(The video here is a little small. Watch it on Youtube to see the details.)

Here is a preview of a new cool feature coming in QGIS 2.0. Alpha channel in colour ramps.

Fancy!

The best part is it even works on raster layers.

How bloody awesome is that!

Mathieu Pellerin made a cool made showing of this new feature on our flickr map group

Uno de los ámbitos habituales de uso de los SIG es el forestal. Orientada a esos casos de uso hemos realizado una nueva biblioteca de símbolos. Y como es habitual disponible desde el “Administrador de complementos”.

Veamos como hemos realizado esta biblioteca, de modo que sirva como un nuevo ejemplo a los usuarios para crearse las suyas propias.

Para los símbolos puntuales (marcadores) hemos partido de dos fuentes distintas:

- Por un lado la colección de símbolos utilizada por el NPS (U.S. National Park Service). Una excelente colección de símbolos de dominio público.

- Por otro lado hemos utilizado la fuente Trees & Shrubs realizada por Jim Mossman, también de dominio público.

Para añadir los símbolos de NPS, hemos seguido lo indicado en este post. Para facilitar la identificación de símbolos, hemos utilizado una herramienta de renombrado masivo de archivos, ya que el nombre que gvSIG da a cada símbolo es el nombre del fichero; en nuestro caso hemos utilizado pyRenamer. Mediante Inkscape hemos generado los distintos símbolos de selección (coloreando de amarillo cada símbolo y añadiendo la terminación “_sel” al nombre del fichero).

Todo preparado para utilizar el importador de símbolos de gvSIG. Importamos los símbolos a “Forestry/NPS”. De forma automática se crea la nueva biblioteca con el conjunto de símbolos puntuales importados.

A partir de lo indicado en este otro post generamos los distintos ficheros SVG que representan un conjunto de árboles y arbustos. Utilizamos el importador de símbolos, almacenándolos en Forestry/Trees & Shrubs.

Además de símbolos puntuales, queríamos que esta biblioteca contuviera un conjunto de símbolos de líneas y de relleno habituales en los mapas forestales.

Hemos generado tanto símbolos lineales:Como símbolos de relleno:

Ya sólo nos queda crear el paquete tal y como explicamos en este post.

Este paquete lo tenéis disponible desde el administrador de complementos (seleccionando la URL http://downloads.gvsig.org/download/gvsig-desktop/ y buscando por “Tipos/symbols”)o directamente descargándoos el paquete desde aquí.

The GeoServer team is pleased to announce the release of GeoServer 2.3.2 for download.

• This release includes and is made in conjunction with GeoTools 9.2.
• The INSPIRE plugin has now graduated to extension and is included in this release. This plugin adds WMS and WFS capabilities support for metadata required for compliance with the European INSPIRE directive.
• The application schema support (app-schema) support plugin now enables joining by default for data sources that support it.
• Fixed transformation problems with projections based on Hotine Oblique Mercator (variant B) (for example Swiss CH1903 / LV03)
• Fixed WFS lockups when a WFS 1.1 GetFeature is providing a schema referring back to the same server DescribeFeatureType
• A new option to limit the file browser to the data directory, geared towards high security/multi-tenant environments

More details can be found in the GeoServer 2.3.2 Release Notes.

GeoTools 9.2 Released

• geotools-9.2-bin.zip
• geotools-9.2-doc.zip
• geotools-9.2-userguide.zip
• geotools-9.2-project.zip

• The application schema support (app-schema) module now enables joining support by default for data sources that support it; this improvement and many bug fixes by Rini Angreani.
• XML parser support for unsigned numeric bindings has been added by Justin Deoliveira.
• Fixed transformation problems with projections based on Hotine Oblique Mercator (variant B) (for example Swiss CH1903 / LV03)

About the 9.x Series

• Native geometry serialisation has been added for SQL Server.
• Feature Collection Clean up: removed methods that were only applicable for in memory feature collections, combined with a general quality assurance review.
• Vector Grid module is now included as an extension.
• The gt-complex module provides general programming support for complex features.
• Library supports the use of Java 7 try-with-resource syntax.
• PostGIS, Oracle and Property files now provide Partial 3D data support backed by the introduction of ReferenceEnvelope3D.
• WMS 1.3.0 client support now enabled by default.
• OGC models and XML support for WCS 2.0 and OWS 2.0.

• ImageIO-Ext 1.1.6 and JTS 1.13 release

• GeoTools 9.1 Released ( Release Notes )
• GeoTools 9.0 Released ( Release Notes )
• GeoTools 9.0-RC1 Released ( Release Notes )
• GeoTools 9.0-beta1 Released ( Release Notes )
• GeoTools 9.0-M0 Released ( Release Notes )

Getting Started with GeoTools

Joining an open source project has been one of the best things I did for my career. To better myself in the process of improving QGIS. To grow as a GIS professional. To learn to be part of team and respect each others ideas even if don't agree. To be open to ideas that others have spent a lot of time on. To not just be single tool pusher and learn a wider range of toolkits. To work with people who you have never seen in person, or even talked to.

How did it feel to join an open source project? Scary but awesome I would say. Scary in that that everyone would read my code - my very amateur code. Scary in that I had never really joined an open source project before and wasn't sure what everyone would think of my work, or my ideas.
Scary because there are so many people better at this than me and they might think I'm crap.

However all of this fear is outweighed by the awesome feeling of knowing that people benefit from the work you, and the rest of the team, put in. Sometimes even the small things can make a huge difference to what people can do with your software - and yes I did use "your software" on purpose. Contributing to open source means you, personally, are part of the software. Being a contributor, for me at least, gives you a deeper relationship with the project. The kind of relationship that sees you staying up at night when the rest of the family is in bed trying out a new idea, fixing some annoying bug, or writing a blog post about being an open source contributor. All for free! - well mostly. Some call it obsession I prefer passion.

It's not pretty roses all the time. Passion can lead to burnout. Trying to be involved in most of the major parts of the project can result in stretching yourself thin. A project that never sleeps makes this even harder. The wave of ideas can sometimes be a distraction from just getting stuff done. Rejection of your work can be hard to handle the first time, you just have to remember it's never personal. Most of these are just personal demons that need to be managed but they do sneak up if you enjoy what you do. Having a family - and an xbox - helps to ground you and make sure you don't spend all your free time on the computer hacking away.

Like I said, and despite personal demons, joining an open source project has been one of the best things I did. There is an emotional kick working on something and seeing it used by other people. I didn't expect my expression based labeling addition would get such good remarks but it did and that helped push me further into becoming a QGIS contributor.

Does anyone ignore what is OSM (OpenStreetMap)? If anyone was distracted, OpenStreetMap is the most important participative project to create free and editable maps  worldwide.

Following step by step what has been described in the posts “gvSIG 2.0: Create symbols libraries” we have created a new symbols library for our gvSIG form symbols related to OSM. Availability of this library has to be framed  in the idea that gvSIG users can use a wide and differentiated symbols library sets, that can be installed through the “Add-ons manager”.

See how this library has been realised in order to be a new example for users who wish to create an own library.

For point symbols (markers), a collection made by “SJJB Management” under Creative Commons (CC-0) licence and called “SJJB SVG Map Icons” has been used.  It is an excellent categorized symbols collection that can be downloaded in SVG format. Some of these icons come from the “US National Park Service Cartography” and other source of public domain that can be browsed on SJJB website.

As stated in previous posts, the name assigned by gvSIG to each symbol is the file name, thus we have used  a massive file renaming tool to perform this task; in our example we have used pyRenamer, available for Linux. Using Inkscape we have produced the different symbols when selected (colouring in yellow each symbol and adding the suffix “_sel” to file name).

Everything is ready now for the gvSIG symbols loader as already seen in a previous post and the new library is created in an automatic way and with the point symbols set loaded. In this case we have decided to create some subfolders to classify the sets of symbols.

We want that this library have also lines and polygons symbols similar to the ones we can found in OSM. Even if no documentation on symbols composition is available, it is possible with any image editor, such GIMP, to identify the symbols RGB values and replicate them in gvSIG.

We have created also line symbols

and polygon symbols

Only the package creation is left and “how to do it”  is explained in this post.

This package is available in the add-ons managers (selecting  http://downloads.gvsig.org/download/gvsig-desktop/ and looking for it in “Categories/simbology”) or directly downloading from here.

Nearly every new phone or tablet these days comes GPS enabled. And you can choose any of a slew of apps to capture GPS waypoints and tracks. But how do you get these data into a GIS system? Several apps save the GPS data into an sqlite database, so using Spatialite to convert the locations to spatial layers is a piece of cake.

I tried using, for example, GPSEssentials, an Android app with all the bells and whistles. I’m not endorsing any one location app but this one (like some others) stores all its data into sqlite files. So I plugged my phone into a USB socket and copied the “waypoints” file from the gpsessentials folder over to my computer. Then I renamed the file to add the popular *.sqlite extension, and opened it in Spatialite_gui. For our purposes there are three tables of interest: Waypoint, Track, and TrackElement. The Waypoint table contains, of course, the waypoints with Longitude and Latitude coordinates, along with altitude, description, etc. The Track table is a list of tracks, and the TrackElement table is a crumb trail of Longitude/latitude values for each location along each of the tracks.
To transform these tables into true spatial layers, for use in GIS, you must first make the sqlite DB spatial. So:

SELECT InitSpatialMetaData();

Now we can use the Longitude/Latitude values in the waypoints table to create actual geometries. First call the AddGeometryColumn function:

SELECT AddGeometryColumn('Waypoint','geometry',4326,'POINT','XY');
UPDATE Waypoints SET geometry = MakePoint(longitude, latitude, 4326);

and Waypoint becomes a point layer ready to be opened in QGIS, for example, or exported to a shapefile.
But what about the tracks? Here we need an additional step. We make the Track and TrackElement tables spatial, then use the TrackElements to create LINESTRING features in Track geometry column:

SELECT AddGeometryColumn('Track','geometry',4326,'LINESTRING','XY');
SELECT AddGeometryColumn('TrackElement','geometry',4326,'POINT','XY');
UPDATE TrackElement SET geometry = MakePoint(longitude, latitude, 4326);

and now do the update on the Track table:

UPDATE Track SET geometry = (SELECT MakeLine(te.geometry)
FROM TrackElement as te
WHERE te.trackID = Track._id
GROUP BY te.trackID)


and you’re done. The Track table is now a true line feature, and can be exported as a shapefile, etc. The column names above are as they appear in the sqlite tables created by this particular app, so you might have to replace some of the ingredients. But the recipe should be similar. So get out your spatial mixing bowl, and your phone becomes a handy GIS tool.

The new OSM editor is a pleasure to use and I've been inspired to fix up my neighborhood a bit. It was cool to see these historic homes (designated Fort Collins landmarks, in fact) pop up in MapBox just minutes after I submitted them.

Google Maps, on the other hand, has no historic homes and a rather outdated and (sadly) never to be realized development proposal in the neighborhood. Fixing Google's map for free is not high on my list of priorities.

Next, I'd like to finally get some Pleiades-related data into the OpenHistoricalMap sandbox.

New York, NY, May 15, 2013 — OpenGeo, the creators of the OpenGeo Suite, the world’s leading open source geospatial software platform, announced a $3 million Series A investment from Vanedge Capital of Vancouver, British Columbia. Simultaneous with the funding event, the company has spun out from its incubator parent, OpenPlans, and is boosting OpenGeo’s product and customer-support initiatives.

"We are thrilled to be working with Vanedge.” said Eddie Pickle, OpenGeo CEO. “The Vanedge team understands the huge opportunity in the geospatial software space. Their investment is very timely given the tremendous demand for open source, Spatial IT solutions among government and commercial enterprises worldwide."

The OpenGeo Suite is widely used for managing and sharing spatial data. OpenGeo has led the industry shift toward flexible, interoperable geospatial software infrastructures and will use this Series A funding to further enhance its industry-leading product and training offerings and reach a broader array of customers.

Moe Kermani, partner at Vanedge Capital, noted, "OpenGeo has developed an impressive customer roster who are using its product offerings in mission-critical software applications. The paradigm shift toward web and mobile geospatial services is well underway and is permanently altering the Spatial IT landscape. We believe this shift heavily favors open source and the OpenGeo Suite, which is ideally situated to become the de facto geospatial platform."

The Vanedge-led investment enables OpenGeo to complete its separation from tech incubator OpenPlans, which founded OpenGeo in 2002. "We are proud that our incubation with OpenPlans has been so successful," noted Chris Holmes, OpenGeo’s founder. "We look forward to growing our contributions to open source communities as a dedicated open source geospatial software company."

About Vanedge Capital

Vanedge Capital is a Vancouver, B.C. based venture capital fund focused on investments in interactive entertainment and digital media businesses. The fund managers have extensive experience and relationships in this sector and have built and led world-class companies in video games, computer animation and enterprise software, among others. For more information, visit www.vanedgecapital.com.

About OpenGeo

OpenGeo is the world leader for commercial open source geospatial software. Our global customer base uses the OpenGeo Suite, a complete open source geospatial web services stack, to deploy solutions for web mapping, transportation, telecommunications, open government and a huge range of other solutions. The OpenGeo Suite provides the best, continually updated geo web services platform along with maintenance agreements that include support and training. These agreements provide our customers with superior value and the growing functionality of continually enhanced open source geospatial software.

OpenGeo supports open source communities by employing key developers of PostGIS, GeoServer, and OpenLayers. We are committed to the ideals of open source and aim to bring the best practices of open source software to organizations around the world.

Media Contact

David Dubovsky
OpenGeo
+1 917-388-9077
media@opengeo.org

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