Planet OSGeo

Frank Warmerdam: World Mapping

warmerdam@pobox.com (Frank Warmerdam) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:53:55 +0000

Over much of the last decade I have fought with world mapping issues in MapServer. This falls into three broad areas - problems with requests crossing the dateline, problems with requests including the poles, and problems with requests extending beyond the domain of validity of a projection. Typically these are not a big issue when working on local mapping projects, but do become issues when

Geoff Zeiss: Interesting Blog about State of Green Business Forum 2010

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:16:28 +0000

I just came across an interesting blog post by Jagan Nemani about the State of Green Business Forum 2010 organized by Greenbiz.com.

Zero Waste Upgrade of Empire State Building Windows

First of all, Jagan outlined a fascinating story about upgrading all the windows in the Empire State Building. To improve energy efficiency all of the Empire State Building's 6,500 R2 windows were replaced with higher insulation R8 windows, which will enable the Empire State Building to reduce its energy bill by 40%. But what is even more interesting is that replacing the 26,000 panes of glass did not involve carting the old glass out to the landfill, and then carting in the new ones. Instead a small factory was setup on one of the floors where the the old R2 windows were converted to R8 windows - minimal waste, no transportation costs and smaller carbon footprint for manufacturing these windows.

Autodesk Cleantech Partner Program

Secondly, Jagan pointed to Autodesk's Cleantech partner program which he saw as "a win-win for the early stage startups as well as Autodesk." In July of last year Autodesk setup the Autodesk Cleantech Partner Program, which grants free design and engineering software to early-stage clean technology companies in North America who are working to solve some of the world’s environmental challenges.

China’s run to become Cleantech Leader

Finally, Jagan discussed China's very ambitious cleantech initiative. According to Jagan, one of the panelist in the forum said “China is going to kick our (US) butt in cleantech industry if we do not act quickly”. Jagan "was amazed by the speed with which China is moving into the cleantech space, both in terms of developing green cities as well as building products for the cleantech industry. Mayors of China’s cities have the authority to approve green city projects within weeks, if right type of financing, project plan and technologies are presented to them. China has plans to pilot smart grid in 4 cities over the next 4 years, as well as plans to build many more green cities."

Sean Gillies: Shapely 1.2a6 with pictures

sgillies@frii.com (Sean Gillies) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:31:11 +0000

One thing that Shapely has lacked is one or two dirt simple example programs to keep the API real and help explain its use. I did something about this over the past couple of nights: 1.2a6 includes two easy to understand, easy to run scripts. I hope users profit from them. Myself, I found that they demanded a new and improved API feature. I'll explain.

First, here's an example of using Shapely to construct patches by growing buffer regions out from a set of points and dissolving those regions together as they intersect, and plotting the results with Matplotlib. This is run-of-the-mill GIS stuff, yes, but done in style.

A plate of blue-speckled brains splattered on the floor, or is it just me?

The interesting part of the complete, amply-documented dissolve.py script is here:

import pylab
from shapely.ops import cascaded_union

patches = cascaded_union(spots)

pylab.figure(num=None, figsize=(4, 4), dpi=180)

for patch in patches.geoms:
    x, y = patch.exterior.xy
    pylab.fill(x, y, color='#cccccc', aa=True)
    pylab.plot(x, y, color='#666666', aa=True, lw=1.0)
    for hole in patch.interiors:
        x, y = hole.xy
        pylab.fill(x, y, color='#ffffff', aa=True)
        pylab.plot(x, y, color='#999999', aa=True, lw=1.0)

pylab.text(-25, 25,
    "Patches: %d, total area: %.2f" % (len(patches.geoms), patches.area))

pylab.savefig('dissolve.png')

The xy property is completely new in 1.2a6, inspired by how awkwardly I had to slice and dice coordinates when writing this example against 1.2a5. It provides two Python arrays that are immediately usable with Numpy or Matplotlib. Speaking of Matplotlib: I'd love to know how to fill a patch but not its holes (you'll notice that I'm faking the emptiness of the holes in this example).

What would would you have to go through to pyplot ArcGIS scripting results?

Shapely doesn't just make grey matter go splat, it can also toss brains in the air and pierce them with lasers:

Or make a fair facsimile thereof. What's really going on in intersect.py is an analysis of a HTML5 geolocation (latitude, longitude, heading, and speed) trajectory's intersection with a cluster of patches. The intercepted patches are plotted in red and the intersecting segments of the trajectory itself are also plotted in red. Finally, scalar properties of different geometries are used in a text label:

import pylab
from shapely.geometry import LineString

# Represent the following geolocation parameters
#
# initial position: -25, -25
# heading: 45.0
# speed: 50*sqrt(2)
#
# as a line
vector = LineString(((-25.0, -25.0), (25.0, 25.0)))

# Find intercepted and missed patches. List the former so we can count them
intercepts = [patch for patch in patches.geoms if vector.intersects(patch)]
misses = (patch for patch in patches.geoms if not vector.intersects(patch))

pylab.figure(num=None, figsize=(4, 4), dpi=180)

for spot in misses:
    x, y = spot.exterior.xy
    pylab.fill(x, y, color='#cccccc', aa=True)
    pylab.plot(x, y, color='#999999', aa=True, lw=1.0)
    for hole in spot.interiors:
        x, y = hole.xy
        pylab.fill(x, y, color='#ffffff', aa=True)
        pylab.plot(x, y, color='#999999', aa=True, lw=1.0)

for spot in intercepts:
    x, y = spot.exterior.xy
    pylab.fill(x, y, color='red', alpha=0.25, aa=True)
    pylab.plot(x, y, color='red', alpha=0.5, aa=True, lw=1.0)
    for hole in spot.interiors:
        x, y = hole.xy
        pylab.fill(x, y, color='#ffffff', aa=True)
        pylab.plot(x, y, color='red', alpha=0.5, aa=True, lw=1.0)

pylab.arrow(-25, -25, 50, 50, color='#999999', aa=True,
    head_width=1.0, head_length=1.0)

intersection = vector.intersection(patches)
for segment in intersection.geoms:
    x, y = segment.xy
    pylab.plot(x, y, color='red', aa=True, lw=1.5)

pylab.text(-28, 25,
    "Patches: %d/%d (%d), total length: %.1f" \
     % (len(intercepts), len(patches.geoms),
        len(intersection.geoms), intersection.length))

pylab.savefig('intersect.png')

Grab the new distribution with easy_install or pip (as well as Numpy and matplotlib) and give them a try:

$ python /usr/local/bin/dissolve.py
$ python /usr/local/bin/intersect.py

I think this is pretty much the last 1.2 alpha.

Edmar Moretti: i3Geo + OpenLayers: mashup

edmar.moretti@terra.com.br (Edmar Moretti) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:14:39 +0000

Os dados estruturados no i3Geo agora podem ser facilmente visualizados e disseminados por meio do OpenLayers. Para isso, desenvolvi um mashup que traz o OpenLayers com alguns botões já definidos e uma se´rie de parâmetros que permitem definir a extensão geográfica, tamanho, botões, etc, mas principalmente, quais as camadas que comporão o mapa.
Essas camadas são as mesmas inseridas no i3Geo. O mashup utiliza o gerador de WMS do próprio i3Geo, que é baseado no software Mapserver.
Mais informações:
http://mapas.mma.gov.br/i3geo/mashups
http://mapas.mma.gov.br/i3geo/mashups/openlayers.php

Código utilizado no exemplo:


<iframe height="400px" src="http://mapas.mma.gov.br/i3geo/mashups/openlayers.php?temas=bioma&altura=350&largura=350" style="border: 0px solid white;" width="400px"></iframe>

Geoff Zeiss: NIST Releases Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards 1.0

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:51:11 +0000

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards 1.0. The NIST sees an urgent need to establish standards for the smart grid because without standards, there is the potential for technologies developed or implemented with sizable public and private investments to become obsolete prematurely or to be implemented without ensuring security. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) designated development of a Smart Grid as a national policy goal and specifically said that the interoperability framework should be “flexible, uniform, and technology neutral” while at the same time encouraging new, innovative smart grid technologies.

The Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards 1.0 describes a conceptual reference model for the smart grid, identifies existing standards that are applicable to the development of the smart grid, identifies high-priority gaps for which new or revised standards are necessary, outlines action plans with timelines and standards organizations for addressing these gaps, and addresses smart grid cybersecurity.

NIST chose to focus initially on standards identified by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) plus additional areas identified by NIST. The priority areas are:

Demand Response and Consumer Energy Efficiency
Wide-Area Situational Awareness
Energy Storage
Electric Transportation
Advanced Metering Infrastructure
Distribution Grid Management
Cyber Security
Network Communications

For each priority area, Priority Action Plans (PAP) and targets for completion have been identified. One, the smart meter upgradeability standard, has already been completed.

Common specification for price and product definition (early 2010)
Common scheduling mechanism for energy transactions (early 2010)
Common information model for distribution grid management (year-end 2010)
Standard demand response signals (early 2010)
Standards for energy use information (mid 2010)
DNP3 Mapping to IEC 61850 Objects (2010)3
Harmonization of IEEE C37.118 with IEC 61850 and precision time synchronization (mid 2010)
Transmission and distribution power systems models mapping (year-end 2010)
Guidelines for use of IP protocol suite in the Smart Grid (mid 2010)
Guidelines for use of wireless communications in the Smart Grid (mid 2010)
Energy storage interconnection guidelines (mid 2010)
Interoperability standards to support plug-in electric vehicles (year-end 2010)
Standard meter data profiles (year-end 2010)
Harmonize power line carrier standards for appliance communications in the home (year-end 2010)
Cyber Security

The reference model, standards, gaps and action plans in the Framework are designed to create an initial foundation for a secure, interoperable smart grid and were achieved through participatory workshops and webinars, a formal public review process, and the involvement of more than 20 standards organizations.

The second phase of the NIST plan involves an ongoing organization and consensus process that is being formalized under a new virtual organization, the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). The SGIP is a public-private partnership that provides a more permanent organizational structure to support the continuing evolution of the framework and is open to international participation. SGIP membership already includes over 500 organizations. The objective is to create a robust standards process that supports smart grid innovation for at least the next two decades.

Eduardo Kanegae: FOSS4G tools – dependency map

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:49:41 +0000

In 2008 after some GIS setup tasks, I decided to map package dependencies in order to help me on future setup tasks. So, after discovering the great GraphViz tool, I created some scripts to map these deps. Now, after some revisions, the diagram is finally published at http://www.webmapit.com.br/wiki/index.php/FOSS4G_tools_-_dependency_map Note: due to corporate restrictions, I´m not able to publish its source [...]

Geoff Zeiss: 3D Visualization of Road Design

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:20:41 +0000

Autodesk has acquired Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM visualization software products from 3AM Solutions in the UK. Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM help automate the process of creating visualizations for civil engineering projects designed with AutoCAD Civil 3D by providing simple and efficient ways to bring Civil 3D designs into Autodesk 3ds Max Design.

3D visualization helps communicate engineering designs with technical and non-technical people and is especially helpful for processes involving public consultation and approval. Autodesk intends to integrate core technology from the Dynamite VSP and Dynamite SIM products into 3ds Max Design and other existing Autodesk architecture, civil engineering and visual communication applications. The applications are specifically optimized for road design and corridor modeling for transportation networks, but there are plans to extend this capability into other domains.

There's a Youtube video and here that will give you an idea of the capabilities of the Dynamite products and an article that puts the acquisition in the broader context of AEC interoperability.

GeoServer Team: GeoServer hidden treasures: filter functions

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:11:42 +0000

Ever had the need to format some text in SLD, or to perform complex filter in WFS, and noticed that the basic elements of the OGC Filter specification left you wanting for more?

If so, welcome to the club. One thing few people know is that both SLD and WFS filtering capabilities can be extended by using filter functions. A filter function is just like a programming language function, it’s something that takes arguments and returns some result. For example, “sin(toRadians(45))” will compute the mathematical sin of 45 degrees, and “strSubstring(”hippopotamus”, 0, 5)” will return “hippo”.

The concept of filter function is standardized, but functions themselves are not, so once you start using them you’re tied to a specific server. However they often provide the level of flexibility that you just need in order to get some work done. The good news is that GeoServer already contains tens of them, from number and date formatting, to geometry manipulation, math, string wrangling. So far we just never found the time to document them, but things have changed and we have now quite a complete reference along with some examples.

Let me show you a simple example of using functions. Say we have a contour map, each isoline has an elevation, and we want to show it on the map. Unfortunately the elevation is stored as a floating point, resulting in a less than pleasing output of “150.0″ or sometimes “149.999999″ when we know the elevation accuracy does not go beyond the meter. To get nice labelling we can use the “numberFormat” filter function to force an integer representation instead (along with some VendorOptions):

<TextSymbolizer>
  <Label>
    <ogc:Function name="numberFormat">
       <ogc:Literal>#</ogc:Literal>
       <ogc:PropertyName>ELEVATION</ogc:PropertyName>
    </ogc:Function>
   </Label>

  ....

   <VendorOption name="followLine">true</VendorOption>
   <VendorOption name="repeat">250</VendorOption>
   <VendorOption name="maxDisplacement">150</VendorOption>
   <VendorOption name="maxAngleDelta">30</VendorOption>
</TextSymbolizer>

Notice how the the ELEVATION field is formatted as an integer number following the simple formatting pattern provided (for a full reference see the the Java DecimalFormat documentation):

I hope you’ll find interesting and clever uses of the existing filter functions to improve the way you work with GeoServer. Next time I’ll show you my favourite one, which is also a new feature in GeoServer 2.0.1, called “geometry transformations”. Stay tuned to learn more about it.

Geoff Zeiss: Modest Increase in Nuclear Power Predicted

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:30:05 +0000

A study released last week by the Centre for International Governance Innovation predicts only a modest increase in the number of nuclear power plants and a small number of new countries joining the 30 or so countries that currently have nuclear power plants.

The report suggests that a significant worldwide expansion is unlikely before 2030, and that a window of opportunity exists to fix the currently inadequate global governance system to avoid nuclear accidents and weapons proliferation. The report says that since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, nuclear safety has improved around the world, but that a safety culture around nuclear power does not exist in all countries.

President Obama will host a special summit on nuclear security in April, Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty signatories will meet in New York for a review conference in May and it looks like nuclear issues will be high on the agenda at the G8 summit in Huntsville, Ontario in June.

The report makes several recommendations to improve global nuclear global governance and make the world safer for nuclear energy. It also argues that Canada, with experience in nuclear technology and a history of engagement in the construction of effective global governance in this area, is particularly well placed to promote such an agenda.

Andrew Turner: Data Dissemination to the Haiti Government

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:09:42 +0000

In a joint project with the World Bank, USAID, and numerous other partners, there are now 6 TB hard drives on the ground in Haiti with mapping tools and satellite and remote imagery data being shared with the Haitian government. Read more about the project on the FortiusOne blog.

Schuyler Erle and Tom Buckley will be heading down on Tuesday to provide on the ground support between the government agencies and the community.

A tremendous thank you to the numerous individuals and groups that helped and provided tools or data: World Bank, San Diego State University / Calit2, Internet2, Georgetown University, DigitalGlobe, Delta State University, Sahaha, Crisis Mappers, OpenStreetMap, NOAA, Ushahidi, DevelopmentSeed, TelaScience, STAR-TIDES, CrisisCommons, USAID, GeoCommons, OpenSGI, GeoEye.

OSGeo News: deegree Graduates OSGeo Incubation

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:04:21 +0000

Mateusz Loskot: Preparing Quickbook for Boost.Geometry

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:33:24 +0000

I’ve just started writing Boost.Geometry (aka GGL) documentation in Quickbook. It is a lightweight format and parser being developed by Boost used to prepare technical documentation for software, mainly for for Boost C++ Libraries. Quickbook files (.qbk) are used as input for BoostDoc which in turn is an extension of DocBook.

Quickbook is a textual format, it feels quite similar to AsciiDoc or some sort of Wiki dialect but dedicated for documenting C++ programming. It is extremely easy to grasp while drinking a single short coffee.

Anyway, it seems it is going to be a quite a book after all elements of Boost.Geometry are documented. One of the challenge I’ve found is to collect all bits necessary to document C++ concepts defined by Boost.Geometry. Unfortunately, Doxygen is not an ideal tool for this purpose, so current version of the documentation lacks of some sections of concepts description. So, I have to dig the source code to find out formal definitions and details of valid expressions and semantics.

Another challenge related to concepts is to find best way to structure their documentation. I started to browse documentation of existing Boost libraries looking for examples and what I found is that there is no best example. Various libraries document concepts in very different way.

A concept is a set of requirements consisting of valid expressions, associated types, invariants, and complexity guarantees

– David Abrahams, Generic Programming Techniques

For example, neatly Boost.Fusion documents concepts with Quickbook, though some elements seem to be omitted. Boost.Graph doesn’t document with Quickbook, looks good, but some details are missing to me, for instance, titles in headers of tables saying what is what is return type and pre-/post-condition for valid expressions, etc. Documentation of Boost.IOStreams concepts sound well. On the other hand, Boost.GIL is an example of why Doxygen should not be used to document concepts of a C++ library.

It looks to me the old good Standard Template Library Programmer’s Guide at SGI is still a best and most complete example of how C++ concepts should be documented.

Given these experiences, I started to think of a way to improve the way concepts are documented within Boost. I believe it would be a good idea to have predefined block for concept in Quickbook. Something along these lines:

[concepttype [Point Concept]
  [this is a concept for 0-dimensional geometry]
  [notation
    [term 1] [description 1]
  ]
  [refinement [concept 1] [concept 2]]
  [associated
    [type 1] [description 1]
  ]
  [expressions
    [name 1 [expr 1]
      [type requirement 1] [return type 1]
  ]
  [semantics
    [name 1 [expr 1]
      [precondition 1] [semantic 1] [postcondition 1]
  ]
  [complexity [...]]
  [invariants
    [invariant 1] [description 1]
  ]
  [models [model 1] [model 2]]
  [notes
    [ note 1] [ note 1]
  ]
  [seealso ...]
]

I posted my proposal to boost-docs list explaining the motivation in details. It’s an interesting experience of a C++ documentation craftsman, anyway. (BTW, Daniel James just announced Quickbook port to Spirit 2.)

Mateusz Loskot: postgis dot us

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:12:05 +0000

Regina Obe has just announced that PostGIS in Action book website launched. It is http://postgis.us

Mateusz Loskot: When Boost.Geometry release?

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:28:42 +0000

The Boost 1.42 was released a week ago, however this release does not include Boost.Geometry (aka GGL) which was accepted 2 months ago. It is nothing uncommon, though many people have been asking obvious question, why Boost.Geometry is not there and when it will be there.

Boost.Geometry is accepted but with a sticky note attached with a list of issues that need to be solved before the library can be included in official Boost release. It means there is still plenty of work necessary to be done and as soon as they are done and confirmed, we’re in.

Hartmut Kaiser, the review manager, included compete and detailed list of all the issues that need to be addressed in the GGL review results report. Shortly, the contingencies are:

Robustness: complete review of all elements of the library to assure it allows to instantiate all algorithms with arbitrary number types. By design, it is possible to specialise types and algorithms of Boost.Geometry with GMP or CLN, so it computes with arbitrary-precision arithmetic. This feature is possible thanks to numeric_adaptor developed by Bruno and Barend. Also, details of computational complexity per algorithms shall be updated.
Concepts: during the review, a few problems have been revealed with adapting custom geometries for Boost.Geometry. The concepts are a moral backbone of the library, so they need to be sound making the adaptation process simpler as that’s what the whole idea of concepts in C++ is for.
Boolean operations: robustness and coping with different coordinate orders of polygons should be improved.
Documentation: currently only Doxygen-based documentation is available. This system does not work well for Boost, so migration to Quickbook system is to be done.
Testing: simply, a collection of basic unit tests is not enough and verification of the correctness of the algorithms in a wide range of use cases is necessary along with high volume and random tests.

There are also a few minor issues specified as non-contingencies, however.

It is quite a list and plenty of work that needs to be done and Barend replied on the list:

We’re working on the library, I don’t hope it will take us that long, but 1.42 was not feasable at all. I hope 1.43 but even that is already coming soon.

Tasks dispatched. Fingers crossed.

Tamas Szekeres: GDAL 1.7 latest fixes are available for testing

noreply@blogger.com (Tamas Szekeres) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:01:00 +0000

The GDAL 1.7 branch have now been added to the Windows builders providing ready to use daily stapshots of the Windows binaries for being up-to-date with all the recent changes. These packages should contain the fixes in GDAL since the latest release of 1.7.0 (2010/01/19) including the fix for the issue with the HFA driver which is considered as a blocker, and validates a new GDAL release (version 1.7.1) within a couple of days.

Martin Davis: Opposites attract?

noreply@blogger.com (Dr JTS) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:39:41 +0000

This sounds like

Fine Swiss shade-grown organic chocolate and rancid peanut butter from the big-box store discount aisle

Cameron Shorter: LISAsoft awarded three innovation grants for SLIP Enabler

noreply@blogger.com (Cameron Shorter) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 03:49:54 +0000

Over the last two years, Landgate has invited proposals for Developer Innovation Grants to build innovative applications that utilises the Shared Land Information Platform (SLIP). SLIP delivers web data services for a wide range of Western Australian and national geospatial data though a standards-based Spatial Data Infrastructure.

The SLIP Innovation Grants are awarded for innovative ideas in the development of commercial applications and new uses of SLIP datasets. LISAsoft is proud to be awarded three of five of this year’s grants.

“LISAsoft’s proposals fitted very closely with our users needs, and we see them providing significant value to the future of SLIP.” Darren Mottolini, Landgate Business Consultant.

Winning Ideas:

PostGIS Shapefile Loader GUI

The current process for appending a shapefile to an existing PostGIS table involves command line tools and scripts. This project will produce a GUI interface for loading a shapefile to a PostGIS database.

Automated Layer Creation

By streamlining the current manual process of metadata collection, agencies will be able to leverage SLIP for high currency data services.

Big Red Basemap Feedback

“Big Red” provides the ability to markup base map information with instructions to create, update and delete features and review update history from a web page. Crowd sourcing will be used to clean and improve datasets.

Would you like to work on innovative projects, using Geospatial Standards, Open Source, and Geospatial Technologies? LISAsoft is hiring. Contact me if interested.

Juan Lucas Domínguez: Doing nasty things with Spherical Mercator tiles: Ordnance Survey 1857 map versus OpenStreetMap

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:02:32 +0000

Since tiles from different sources are being stored in the application cache with a common namespace, you can move tiles from one folder to another to get funny, revealing combinations:

And here is a nice screenshot in full-screen mode (click to expand):

Slashgeo (FOSS articles): Friday Geonews: Open Data, More iPad, Geolocation in HTML5, and much more

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:32:00 +0000

Here's your weekly dose of geonews in batch mode. Please allow the less frequent posts lately, I'm quite busy at the moment. I'll also be away next week, so we rely on your contributions and other editors. Thank you for your comprehension.

On the FOSS4G front, the open source GIS uDig 1.2 reached milestone M9. TMR links to a Washington Post article on OpenStreetMap. Plenty of geoblogs/lists pointed to the interesting O'Reilly Radar entry named Rethinking Open Data: "[...] it costs money to make existing data open."

In the Apple front, more from CNET on the iPad and maps (via TMR). APB links to instructions to access Google StreetView on the iPhone (yes you can!). Here's details on a 'GIS app' for the iPhone. Here's an entry comparing free maps and navigation apps.

In other news, several geoblogs mentioned the excellent article on geolocation in html5. It seems the USGS budget cuts hit geospatial as well. NAVTEQ is shutting down Nav4All, used by 27 million users, that uses NAVTEQ data, due to license agreements. Here's an interesting short entry named How KML Succeeds and Fails as a Web Format. Here's another interesting entry named How Coordinates are Referenced in Databases. Here's an interesting graph of artificial satellites by nations, including the functional and non-functional ones.

In the maps category, here's a series of maps on the U.S. State of the Union. Here's various Bing Maps maps of Vancouver, in time for the Olympics. Here's a "Tube Map" of the Milky Way. There's new bedrock maps for the U.K.

Paul Ramsey: Chocolate and Peanut Butter?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Ramsey) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:17:02 +0000

My two favourite things, ArcView 3 and PostGIS, together at last...

Slashgeo (FOSS articles): GeoServer-BR Reaches the Mark of 350 Members

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:16:00 +0000

Fernando Quadro writes "The GeoServer-BR Community reached 350 members, in less than 3 years of life. It is very gratifying to see how this community has grown in Brazil, is the now the second largest community GeoServer in the world. The numbers have surprised not only the brazilian community but also the GeoServer Core, only in the year 2009 were 166 new members, and 1068 messages." See previous GeoServer stories.

Slashgeo (FOSS articles): PostGIS 1.5 Released

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:09:00 +0000

One of the best geospatial SQL databases out there just got better: the open source geospatial database PostGIS version 1.5 has been released. From the announcement: "This release adds a long-wished-for feature to the open source spatial database—direct support for “geodetic” coordinates. [...] With PostGIS 1.5, the new “geography” type is a 100% sphere-aware type, which can be indexed globally and returns answers in meters, using calculations on the spheroid for maximum correctness. It is built on top of a new disk storage and index format, which the existing “geometry” type will also transition to in version 2.0. [...] We expect that the geography type will make it easier for new users to store their data in PostGIS (without having to learn about projections and coordinate systems before starting) and also allow global data managers to store and query international data sets for effectively." See also related stories below.

Geoff Zeiss: Nuclear Power on the Rise

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:56:57 +0000

President Obama's request in the 2011 Budget for additional funds for nuclear power reminded me of a post I made last July. At that time there were 436 operable nuclear power plants (373 GW) in about 30 countries generating about 15% of the world's power, 45 new plants were under construction, 131 were planned, and 282 had been proposed. Since then the worldwide development of new nuclear power has increased. As of February 1, 53 new plants (51 GW) are under construction, 142 (156 GW) are on order or planned, and 327 (343 GW) have been proposed. One of the major drivers for nuclear power is that it is non-emitting and does not contribute to world CO₂ emissions.

About 60 per cent of the world's production of uranium from mines is from Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan. Canada produces the largest share of uranium from mines, 20.5 per cent of world supply. In 2008 Canada generated about 88.6 billion kWh from 18 nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 13 GW, about 15% of total power generation.

Australia has the world's largest uranium reserves, 23% of the total. Only three mines are currently operating, but more are proposed. It looks like the government of Western Australia is about to approve its first uranium mine in three decades. There are no nuclear power plants in Australia, all uranium production is exported.

The rapid increase in demand for uranium has led to predictions of worldwide shortages in supply.

Martin Davis: HatBox for Derby and H2

noreply@blogger.com (Dr JTS) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:20:35 +0000

I just saw the HatBox spatial extension to Derby and H2. (Cute name - Derby, HatBOX - get it?)

And of course HatBox uses JTS!

This is great - H2 is a fantastic pure Java database, which has been crying out for spatial support. (Perhaps if this extension proves its worth it will be merged into the main H2 codebase at some point?)

However, HatBox is still a "user-space extension" - which means that it has not enhanced the SQL evaluation engine itself with knowledge about spatial indexes and when to use them. So to utilize spatial indexing you have to explicitly join to the spatial index table, which results in ugly SQL like this:


select ID, GEOM from T1 as t
inner join
HATBOX_MBR_INTERSECTS_ENV('PUBLIC','T1',145.05,145.25,-37.25,-37.05) as i
on t.ID = i.HATBOX_JOIN_ID

This is the same approach used in Sqlite and ESRI SDE and other spatial extensions which operate in user space rather than DB engine space (Mike Butler of SDBE fame used to call this "staying above the blood-brain barrier" 8^). Basically you are adding the index filter condition which for scalar indexes the SQL engine adds automatically.

In contrast, the "big boys" like PostGIS, Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Informix, etc have actually extended their database engine to handle spatial datatypes and indexes. Most of these systems actually have provided a general extensibility mechanism which allows a clean separation between the engine core and the new datatypes. PostgreSQL is probably the one which takes this to the ultimate extent.

User-space spatial extensions are for a first approach, but it would be really nice to be able to play with the big boys and incorporate knowledge of spatial indexes and functions directly into the database engine. This should be easierto do in Java than in C - are you listening, H2?

Geoff Zeiss: National Renewable Energy Standard Would Create Quarter of a Million Jobs

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:46:21 +0000

The RES Alliance for Jobs is a coalition of renewable energy companies in wind, solar and biomass. The Alliance argues that a strong Renewable Energy Standard (RES) would provide the national commitment to renewable energy enabling manufacturers to invest billions of dollars in the U.S. economy and job creation.

The Alliance hired Navigant Consulting Inc. to study the impact of a national mandate for 25 percent renewables by 2025. The study concluded that

A national RES of 25% by 2025 would result in 274,000 more jobs than without a national RES.
A national RES will lead to job growth in all states, especially those currently without state-level renewable electricity standards (RPS).

Fernando Quadro: Disponibilizado o PostGIS 1.5

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:56:04 +0000

A equipe de desenvolvimento tem PostGIS, depois de um longo período de reflexão e um auto-exame de vários erros, decidiu lançar PostGIS 1.5.0 para o público. Esta nova versão do PostGIS inclui o novo tipo Geography para de gestão dos dados geodésicos (latitude / longitude), além da melhora no desempenho dos cálculos de distância, GML e KML.

O tipo Geography vai tornar mais fácil para novos usuários armazenarem seus dados no PostGIS (sem ter que aprender sobre projeções e sistemas de coordenadas) e também permitir que os gestores de dados armazenar e consultar seus dados com uma maior eficácia.

http://postgis.org/download/postgis-1.5.0.tar.gz

Fonte: OpenGEO Blog

Posts Relacionados

Jo Cook: On getting considerably more than you pay for

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:57:23 +0000

This week I have actually been doing some real GIS work for a change, rather than going to meetings, writing bids, writing reports, fixing computer problems and showing other people how to do stuff. I think this is the first time in approx 2 years that I’ve done this, and I was pathetically excited about the prospect at the beginning of the week.

It has also been an opportunity for me to really put my money where my mouth is, regarding using open source GIS, since last time I did some real analysis it was with the Redlands offerings. So, I loaded up PostgreSQL and PostGIS, and Quantum GIS with the Grass plugin and Shapefile to PostGIS Import Tool (SPIT), and wrangled half a million polygons of historic landscape data into submission (ie merged, dissolved, reclassified, cut, pasted and cleaned).

I have a confession to make. It was easy! It was quick! I hardly had to go near the command line (with the exception of creating indices and merging tables in postgis). OK, I had a few crashes (mainly python errors in windows) and I had to try a couple of different approaches to get my dissolves and merges to work, but I would expect that with any program dealing with large amounts of data.

I’ve been evangelising about open source GIS for a number of years now, but until now I’ve had to take other people’s word on the performance aspect. It’s always nice to get your own personal confirmation about something (albeit in a totally un-scientific, non benchmark sort of way), and even better, to have it exceed expectations.

So, to all you developers out there- thanks!

Mateusz Loskot: How to crop images using GDAL

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:07:42 +0000

Enrico Zini, author of Meteosatlib, posted to his blog an interesting example in C++ language which uses, still quite mysterious for many, GDAL C++ API class VRTDataset and GDAL VRT machinery and illustrates how to crop images with GDAL.

Geoff Zeiss: Olympic Venues on VanMap

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:18:03 +0000

The venues, road network, and the torch route for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver starting February 11 and 12 with the Olympic Torch Relay routes are on VanMap. The opening ceremonies are on Friday, February 12.

Geoff Zeiss: Rapid Energy Modeling for Existing Buildings

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:20:23 +0000

In the US buildings are responsible for 40% of primary energy consumption and 39% of CO₂ emissions. It is estimated that 150 billion square feet or about half of the existing building stock in the US will be remodeled over the next 30 years and most of it will require energy modeling to conserve energy and reduce emissions.

Autodesk developed a workflow for rapid energy modeling (REM) that streamlines capturing building exteriors, creating a building simulation and performing a building energy analysis. To assess the practicability of the process, Autodesk applied the process to six Autodesk buildings on three continents. The results, which are available in a report, suggest that rapid energy modeling enables building energy assessments with a smaller budget and shorter time frame, and can thereby help increase the number of existing buildings that undergo assessment and energy upgrades.

Geoff Zeiss: Canadian Geomatics Conference 2010 "Convergence in Geomatics"

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:32:40 +0000

The first Canadian Geomatics Conference will take place June 15 to 18, 2010 at the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary, Alberta. Pre-Conference Workshops will be offered June 14.

The Organizers, a partnership of groups from within the Geomatics Community, are presenting the conference in association with Commission I of the International Society for Photogrammtery and of Remote Sensing.

The conference will focus on the potential of Intelligent Mapping and the critical role Geomatics can play in bolstering Canada’s productivity, innovation, global competitiveness and overall socio-economic well-being. The Conference is designed to attract decision-makers, the general public and non-traditional users of spatial information, as well as those deeply involved within the Geomatics community: educators, developers, government, industry, and scientists. ISPRS Commission I will present a concurrent program focused on sensors and platforms. This will provide insight into the role space and satellites play in developing the ability to observe, detect and capture accurate data from great distances.

Geoff Zeiss: Texas Requires BIM for State Projects

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:07:43 +0000

Texas now requires building information modeling (BIM) on state projects. You can find the new standards at the Texas Facilities Commission web site. Follow the link and download #23 for BIM guidelines and standards that go with the new TFC contracts. Thanks to Mob Middlebrooks for pointing me to this.

"A. TFC has adopted Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a standard for producing the design and documentation for all projects developed under TFC authority.

"B. TFC-adopted BIM software versions are listed in the “BIM Standards - Overview” section of this document.

"C. CADD software may be used only in isolated circumstances as indicated in the “CADD Standards” section of this document"

I have blogged previously about Singapore, which is encouraging e-submission of building information models (BIM). Right now I believe that Singapore accepts architectural, structural and MEP BIMs.

SEXTANTE Team: Reseña OSOR

noreply@blogger.com (volaya) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Y vamos con un poco de autobombo... Ahí os dejo otro articulito de la gente de OSOR, comentando que ya son mas de 2000 los programas que albergan, y con un enlace a nosotros y menciones como:

"The three most popular projects that are hosted on OSOR itself are Sextante, geospatial analysis software, Wollmux, which add office template functionality to OpenOffice and GvSig, software to manage, analyse and use geographic information."

Para el que quiera leerlo entero:

http://www.osor.eu/news/two-thousand-open-source-applications-for-the-public-sector

Fernando Quadro: GeoServer-BR alcança a marca de 350 membros

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:47:58 +0000

Ontem a comunidade GeoServer-BR chegou a marca de 350 membros, isso em menos de 3 anos de vida. É muito gratificante ver como esta comunidade tem crescido aqui no Brasil, somos hoje a segunda maior comunidade GeoServer no mundo, só perdendo para a comunidade americana.

O números tem surpreendido não só a mim, como também ao Core do GeoServer, pois só no ano de 2009 foram 166 novos membros, e 1068 mensagens, criando uma média de 89 por mês.

Gostaria de agradecer a todos que tem ajudado de alguma forma essa comunidade a crescer. Se você não participa desta comunidade ainda, cadastre-se no link abaixo:

– http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/geoserver/

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SEXTANTE Team: Nueva política de distribución

noreply@blogger.com (volaya) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:46:00 +0000

Tras pensarlo detenidamente (es una decisión importante y con consecuencias notables), hemos decidido cambiar la forma de distribuir SEXTANTE a partir de la siguiente versión (a publicar en un mes más o menos). La razón principal es que cada vez resulta mas complejo el mantenimiento de las versiones y de las distintas modalidades (un instalador con ayuda en español, otro en inglés, uno para gvSIG, otro para OpenJump...). Además, para rematarlo, la versión 0.5 tiene problemas para ejecutarse en gvSIG, ya que algunos algoritmos requieren java 1.6, mientras que éste va con 1.5. Para evitar todos estos problemas hemos decidido comportarnos como lo que realmente somos: una librería. A partir de ahora enfocaremos nuestro trabajo a los desarrolladores y distribuiremos un zip con todo SEXTANTE (núcleo, algoritmos, bindings varios, ayuda...), y serán los responsables de aplicaciones los que serán responsables de incorporar SEXTANTE en éstas si así lo desean, de la misma forma que ahora emplean otras librerías como JTS, Log4J, etc.

Una gran parte de los usuarios de SEXTANTE ya lo hacen así (por ejemplo, 52N o GearScape), sin necesidad de que nosotros tengamos que publicar versiones específicas para sus usuarios. Son ellos los que piensan en sus usuarios y se apoyan en SEXTANTE para darles más funcionalidad. Las restantes aplicaciones esperemos que se adapten a nuestra nueva filosofía, y estamos en contacto con ellos para que así sea, por supuesto dispuestos a echar una mano en lo que sea necesario. Creemos que a largo plazo esto será mejor para todos, y sin duda repercutirá en un mejor producto.

Aunque anunció esto ahora por aquí como un anticipo, es probable que esta noticia haya que reproducirla en listas y similares más adelante, ya que cuando se publique la nueva versión de SEXTANTE habrá un aluvión de preguntas del tipo "¿y dónde esta la version para gvSIG?" o "¿y cómo instalo ahora SEXTANTE en OpenJUMP". Esperemos que la comunidad también preste ayuda para este cambio y sigamos trabajando como hasta ahora, o mejor aún.

Sean Gillies: Diving into geolocation

sgillies@frii.com (Sean Gillies) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:34:22 +0000

Speaking of the open web, here's Mark Pilgrim's take on HTML5 geolocation:

Geolocation is the art of figuring out where you are in the world and (optionally) sharing that information with people you trust. There are many ways to figure out where you are — your IP address, your wireless network connection, which cell tower your phone is talking to, or dedicated GPS hardware that receives latitude and longitude information from satellites in the sky.

You can also pick your location, or any other location at all that suits your needs, from a map using René-Luc's Firefox Geolocater.

Fabio D'Ovidio: L'unità di tutte le scienze è trovata nella geografia

noreply@blogger.com (Fabio D'Ovidio) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:29:42 +0000

" L’unità di tutte le scienze è trovata nella geografia. Il significato della geografia è che essa presenta la terra come la sede duratura delle occupazioni dell’uomo." (John Dewey).

"Alle elementari avevo un maestro che insegnava geografia e che tirava giù una carta geografica del mondo davanti alla lavagna. Avevo un compagno di classe al sesto anno che un giorno ha alzato la mano e ha indicato la costa orientale del Sudamerica; poi ha indicato la costa occidentale dell’Africa e ha chiesto: «Sono state mai unite?». E il maestro ha risposto: «Certo che no, è una cosa ridicola!». Lo studente cominciò a fare uso di droghe e sparì. L’insegnante è diventato consigliere scientifico dell’attuale amministrazione (ndr Bush)." (dal film documentario statunitense del 2006 “Una scomoda verità”, diretto da Davis Guggenheim).

"Nella mia geografia ancora sta scritto che tra Catanzaro e il mare si trovano i Giardini delle Esperidi." (George Robert Gissing, da Sulle rive dello Jonio).

"L’arma del giornalista è la penna o la macchina da scrivere. L’arma del giornalista sotto vetro smerigliato è la bacchetta o la carta geografica." (Sergio Saviane).

"Lungo la costa dell’Africa del Sud-Ovest, delimitato da montagne di origine vulcanica da una parte e dall’Atlantico dall’altra, si stende uno dei più antichi e selvaggi deserti della terra. I geografi chiamano questa zona la Costa degli Scheletri, perché le sue spiagge sono disseminate dei relitti delle navi che vi hanno fatto naufragi." (Ronald Schiller da “Nel mondo dei diamanti”).

AIIG, Italian Association of Geography Teachers, is collecting signatures to try to avert the risk of the disappearance of geography education programs in high school.

I invite italian readers of my blog to give a look here and subscrive the petition on the AIIG web site!

Here the list of blogs that have joined the initiative:

Alternativa Geologica

ESRIdipendente

Faccio Cose Vedo Gente

GeoBI

freeGIS-Italia

Il Blog italiano di AutoCAD Map e Civil 3D

inDiritto.it

JGrass Tech Tips

map freely

massimozotti.it

OpenStreetMap Italia

Simone Cortesi

TANTO

Thinking in GIS

Sistemi Informativi Territoriali in Sicilia

Thank you

Tom Kralidis: Why XML Libraries Rock

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:46:44 +0000

msautotest is MapServer’s way of unit testing and sanity checking various features and bug fixes. When testing the addition of AuthorityURL and Identifier support in WMS Capabilities XML, I found an issue with the output being invalid XML, which was tested and fixed. Another fix was then added to ensure valid XML (isn’t open source [...]

Mateusz Loskot: How PostGIS can help SQL Server users?

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:21:24 +0000

I may be a gonzo or it’s just that today I didn’t have my notorious 4th coffee in my favourite Winnie The Pooh cup I got from Pantera on our 14th (or 15th?) anniversary we celebrated a month ago, so…

Apparently, there are situations in which PostGIS could be an affordable anti-GML vaccine jab. It seems there is a potential market for PostGIS to conquer. Perhaps it wouldn’t be estimated as profitable as the H1N1 but who knows what will happen if no one takes a brave stand and stop GML designers! Here I’d eagerly conclude with one of the famous Scottish sentences :-)

Back to the subject matter. Today, I spotted an interesting question on the StackOverflow archives: Is it possible to export spatial data from Sql Server 2008 in gml2 format?. Natively? No, there is no such solution. Presumably, Microsoft thinks forward and thinks GML 2 is a legacy standard. Fair enough, someone has to draw a line between prehistoric and modern, somewhere. Why Microsoft? Again?

Facing such a tremendous suffer Microsoft exposed SQL Server users to, I suggested to visit the “underworld” for a while and hire PostGIS to do the dirty job.

Paraphrasing Andrei Alexandrescu’s, hysterically famous recently, sentence: SQL Server should go!.

Geoff Zeiss: Autodesk Topobase 2010 Update 2 Released

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:10:52 +0000

Autodesk has announced the release of Topobase 2010 Update 2 for Topobase 2010 Client and Topobase 2010 Web. Topobase is infrastructure asset management software built on AutoCAD Map 3D and MapGuide Enterprise.