So far I'm keeping this application away from Extras until HSL gets scalability issues solved with their dataset. In the meanwhile you can grab and run the application from the GitHub repo.

From the official website: "OpenDragon provides a robust suite of image processing operations, via an intuitive, responsive, multi-window graphical user interface. Software functionality includes full-color display, annotation, enhancement, measurement, supervised and unsupervised classification, georeferencing, on-screen vector capture, and a broad range of other capabilities to support image processing education and research. OpenDragon can access image and data files created by earlier releases of commercial Dragon, can run scripts created for other versions, and is backward compatible in its organization and navigation. OpenDragon uses an innovative client-server architecture and is based on platform-independent industry standards including Java, XML and HTML. The OpenDragon architecture supports new levels of user extensibility and will eventually allow the software to execute on Windows, Linux, Mac OS/X, and Solaris and other Unix variants. "

We previously mentioned a few other similar software, Opticks is one example.

He's simply calling it a 3D sound demo. Here is a brief video of it in action:

You can read the full write-up on his site, but here's the basics of it:

sound3D manages a collection of soundSource objects that have knowledge of the location they are at. A soundSource has a collection of channels. Each channel represents a sound file with associated falloff range. Outside this range the channel can not be heard.

Multiple sound channels per sound source enables you to use different sounding audio files for nearby and far away. The "far" file should sound more muffled and have a longer falloff range. These audio effects can be prepared in a sound editor such as Audacity.

The helicopter on the beach is a great example showing how this works. Move in close and notice how the engine sounds louder but also sharper.

Be sure to check out the PlanetInAction site for more info.

The objective is to combine the concept of a social network together with the use of cartography and maps.

Users can create their own maps (by uploading files in KML, GPX…formats or directly by drawing on the map), vote for other users maps, add comments, create groups of friends, theme channels and more! Users can actually label the map as private and grant access to it only to certain people.

ikiMap is a free service, and it's based on freeware:

* OpenLayers (http://openlayers.com/)
* MapServer (http://mapserver.org/
* PostGIS (http://postgis.refractions.net/)

There are more info about ikiMap on:

• Blog: http://ikimap.blogspot.com/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/ikimap
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ikiMap/200361580929
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ikimap

Read more of this story at Slashgeo.

• Create a temporary SQLite database with table structure identical to our "left" and "right" sources.
  
• Pump the data from our "left" source into this temp SQLite database
• Pump the data from our "right" source into this temp SQLite database
• Create a view in our temp SQLite that encapsulates a join between these "left" and "right" tables
• Do some metadata hacks to make this view be recognised as a FDO feature class.
  
• Pump the data from this view out to our target data store.
  

• Old approach: 16 minutes
• SQLite approach: 21 seconds!

Today Ola Rollén, President and CEO of Hexagon AB, participates at the Intergraph Corporation's annual international users' conference in Las Vegas, USA. The event "Intergraph 2010" hosts approximately 2 000 Intergraph customers from across the world and offers previews of new Intergraph technology, presentations by industry experts and hands-on training of Intergraph technology.

In a keynote address Ola Rollén comments on the planned acquisition of Intergraph announced on 7 July 2010. He reiterates Hexagon's intentions of continuous commitment and investment in Intergraph's vision, solutions, customers and employees. Ola Rollén also confirms Hexagon's intent to support Intergraph's product roadmap and to further invest in research and development.

"It is our intention that Intergraph's solutions will become Hexagon's core software platform, providing differentiated and vertically-focused software solutions. By combining Intergraph's technologies with our global resources and technologies, Hexagon will be able to create new exciting solutions to customers going forward", says Ola Rollén.

The acquisition of Intergraph is subject to completion of regulatory process and satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Competition law notifications have been submitted to the relevant regulatory authorities and the applicable waiting periods have expired. Completion of the remaining regulatory procedures is pending. Financial consolidation is estimated to take place in the fourth quarter of 2010.

At closing, Intergraph will become a fully owned subsidiary of Hexagon AB and will operate as a separate Hexagon division under the Intergraph name and branding. Following closing, it is planned that Ola Rollén will assume the role of CEO of Intergraph in accordance with the Hexagon model for successful integration into the Hexagon Group. Following closing, the two Intergraph divisions Process, Power & Marine and Security Government & Infrastructure will continue to operate under the leadership of Gerhard Sallinger and John Graham, respectively.

The attendees at the workshop were entertained by my talk about what FOSS is and why it is important, an introduction to QGIS slideshow (superbly presented by Marco Hugentobler), and ending with a tour of openModellerDesktop. We also did some live demonstrations of QGIS and openModeller, before going on to discuss details about how these tools can be used to support their Biodiversity Informatics workflows.

The meeting was funded by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) with Juan Bello as their representitive, and hosted by the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH).

In case you are unfamiliar with the aims of GBIF, they are facilitating the digitisation (or digitization for our american readers) of the worlds biodiversity records – herbarium records, museum collections and so on. COSTECH provides the local infrastructure and staff for the ‘TanBif’ node in Tanzania.

The meeting also included ‘in-country’ experts in the fields of GIS, Meteorology, Ecology, IT and so on. I think for all of the attendees, the concept of FOSS was a real eye-opener. African economies can’t compare with those in Europe and the USA and the capital outlay for proprietary software that presents an irritation in the Western world is a major burden in the third world. So just knowing that they could dive in and use QGIS was a great revelation.

We finished our workshop a little early on the Friday so Marco and I offered to go along to the COSTECH offices and geo-enable their PostgreSQL species occurrence database and install QGIS on their desktop PC’s running Windows XP. In the space of a couple of hours we were done – the major part of which was spent showing the TanBif staff members how to bring up the PostGIS layer in QGIS, perform simple queries and make maps. Having spent days in the past trying to get proprietary software like Oracle and Arc*** configured, optimised, licensed and generally usable, I was struck by just how easy and quick it is to get someone up and running with a robust enterprise ready PostGIS geospatial datastore and a user friendly Free Software desktop GIS like QGIS.

Thanks to the friendly Tanzanian folks for their hospitality – I look forward to my next visit! Here are some piccies from the trip…

Juan Bello telling us about the cool things you can do with a good Biodiversity Information repository.

The workshop attendees (Marco and Juan out of shot)

Marco showing Godfrey how to use QGIS to bring up their PostGIS Biodiversity dataset.

Godfrey proudly showing off his first map (made with QGIS)!

Marco killing a mosquito – he became something of an expert!

Google's SketchUp 3D Basecamp in Boulder, Colorado has just begun, and they kicked it off with a big announcement -- the release of Google SketchUp 8!

The biggest difference in this version of SketchUp is the amount of geodata that can be pulled into it. They've rewritten the UI for geolocating models, and they'll pull in a patch of terrain data along with color aerial photos via the Google Maps API. Because they're doing that way, Google Earth doesn't need to be open while you're working in SketchUp, saving system resources.

You can also perform geospatial searches from the 3D Warehouse to show nearby 3D models from other SketchUp users. This helps to add context to your project and offers some nice advantages.

Another neat feature is Building Maker integration with SketchUp. You can start Building Maker from within SketchUp, work on your building, and then convert the Building Maker model into a SketchUp model. The model will be cleaned up a bit (removal of unnecessary interior polygons), but it will maintain the imagery that you'll applied to the exterior of the building.

SketchUp Pro has also seen some upgrades, including some new tools and support for boolean operations such as intersect, union and split.

If you're a SketchUp user, this is a great update for you. You can download SketchUp 8 here, or watch the video below to learn more about the new features available to you.

Event details…  Join Google, DLT and [...]]]> http://blog.gisuser.com/?feed=rss2&p=7617 0 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mapperz/~3/1pZaRkbOYYU/new-bbc-travel-maps-beta.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mapperz/~3/1pZaRkbOYYU/new-bbc-travel-maps-beta.html#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:39:00 +0000 Mapperz Continue reading →]]>
Map and GIS News finding blog. With so many Maps and GIS sites online now it is hard to find the good from the not so good. This blog tries to cut the cream and provide you with the newest, fastest, cleanest and most user friendly maps that are available online. News has location and it is mapped.

There has been great interest in the OpenGeo Suite from around the world since its launch almost a year ago, from end users and solutions providers alike. We feel that the best way to foster greater access to the OpenGeo Suite is in collaboration with organizations that share our values and offer outstanding solutions expertise to end users. Our Partner Program will expand the capabilities of these solutions providers by giving them a complete, certified, and fully supported open source geospatial stack backed by core experts on PostGIS, GeoServer, GeoWebCache, OpenLayers and GeoExt.

Read more about our Partner Program.

OpenGeo managers and technical staff will be in attendance at FOSS4G, the leading conference for open source geospatial software, in Barcelona, Spain, September 6 – 9, 2010. Stop by booth #15 if you are interested in discussing partnerships and plans for the OpenGeo Suite.

McGraw-Hill Construction has just released a new report, Green BIM: How Building Information Modeling is Contributing to Green Design and Construction, that forecasts that the growth of the green building market will accelerate adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM). The convergence of BIM and sustainable design, which McGraw-Hill refers to as "Green BIM", is just getting started, but a sharp increase in Green BIM is expected in the near future.  According to the report, "78% of the survey respondents who aren't currently using BIM on green building projects expect to do so within just three years."

DigitalGlobe Announces the Development of WorldView-3
DigitalGlobe, a leading global content provider of high-resolution earth imagery solutions, today announced that it had contracted Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation to build its next imaging satellite, WorldView-3. The company also contracted with ITT Corporation to build the imaging system for WorldView-3. The imaging system will be capable of capturing 8-band multispectral high-resolution imagery. The WorldView-3 satellite is scheduled to be ready for launch in 2014 and will further expand DigitalGlobe’s industry-leading collection capacity, ensuring that DigitalGlobe can meet future assignments while continuing to deliver value-added products that satisfy current customers’ needs for information and insight derived from advanced imagery applications. Read the full press release here.

Google and Arcade Fire Collaborate on the Geekiest Music Video Ever
Google displayed the power of HTML5 this Monday, thanks to a unique music video collaboration with indie-rock band Arcade Fire. The unusual partnership, which goes under the project name of The Wilderness Downtown, was directed by Chris Milk and offers site visitors an undoubtedly new browsing experience. The project is made of an impressive mashup of Arcade Fire’s video for “We Used to Wait,” along with inventive use of Google’s mapping service. When you visit the site you will be instructed to enter the address of the home you grew up in, and after a few minutes–once the background technology loads and does its magic–the experience will begin. Read the full PC World article here.

Sigourney Weaver Narrates New Google Earth Animation on Brazil’s Controversial Belo Monte Dam for Amazon Watch and International Rivers
Amazon Watch and International Rivers have teamed up to create a state-of-the-art 10-minute Google Earth 3-D tour and video narrated by actress Sigourney Weaver, with technical assistance from Google Earth Outreach, in support of Brazil’s Xingu River Forever Alive Movement. Download the tour or view the video on amazonwatch.org. The tour allows viewers to learn about the harmful impacts of, and alternatives to the massive Belo Monte Dam on the Amazon’s Xingu River. If built, the Belo Monte Dam would be the third-largest hydroelectric dam in the world. The dam would divert the flow of the Xingu River, an important tributary of the Amazon River, in order to produce electricity for industrial mining operations in the region. The dam’s reservoirs would flood 668 square kilometers and displace more than 20,000 people. Late last week, the Brazilian government signed the concession to build the $17 billion-dollar project, ignoring local, national, and international opposition, proven financial and technical risks, and the ready availability of clean energy alternatives. Read the full Google Earth press release here.

Google to Use ‘Spy Drones’ for Street Mapping
Internet search engine giant Google has plans to use “spy drones” similar to the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used in military operations for surveillance and bombing to prepare more accurate maps of streets across the globe. Sven Juerss, the chief executive of Microdrones GmbH, a German firm which builds UAVs, has said that his company has already supplied Google with one aircraft and expects to provide “dozens” more in the future, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday. While this story is a bit old, it is certainly worth checking out here.

Boeing’s Secret Robot Space Plane Vanishes… For Almost Three Weeks
Boeing’s unmanned space vehicle, the X-37B (also known by its prototype designation, OTV-1), launched in April. Its top-secret mission and undisclosed capabilities have engendered plentiful speculation from amateur astronomers, space-policy enthusiasts and arms-control activists alike. Recently, however, the spacecraft pulled off a new trick: a vanishing act. The robotic space plane, which looks like a scaled-down version of the space shuttle and has the approximate payload capacity of a standard-bed pickup truck, disappeared July 29 until it was spotted again Aug. 14. While it would be cool if the X-37B’s mysterious disappearance was due to a Star Trek-style cloaking device, amateur astronomers say it’s likely due to a minuscule change in the spacecraft’s orbit. Read the full Executive Biz post here.

Happy Wednesday!