Wednesday, July 11, 2012

CFGIS User Group Next Friday!!! July 20, 2012

Be sure to join CFGIS next Friday, July 20th for our July Users Group!!!

CFGIS users group meetings are free to attendees and are a great networking opportunity to meet and talk with other GIS professionals or to learn how your peers are also using GIS to increase efficiency and solve problems.

Please Note that we will be starting at 9:30 for this meeting. For driving directions or to view our draft agenda please visit www.cfgis.org

We will have presentations on GIS and Next Gen 911, an ESRI presentation on how ArcGIS online can benefit local government and organizations, and two of the popular IGNITE presentations.

Hope to see you there!!!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

White House Mobile Strategy Might be a Game Changer

May 23, 2012 By  - Government Technology

"The White House unveiled a new mobile initiative on Wednesday, May 23, that’s intended to reshape how government agencies utilize mobile platforms in serving the public.

To kick-start the initiative, federal CIO Steven VanRoekel and federal CTO Todd Park released a report on mobile strategy titled Digital Goverment: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People, a “12-month road map” to assist agencies meet goals for a more mobile government."

...

"Make Data More Open

The Office of Management and Budget will be formulating a governmentwide policy pertaining to Web API (application programming interfaces). Systems will have to be architected to support access to high-value open data and metadata tags, the report said.

“For decades, we’ve been locking government data up in paper files or nonsearchable PDF documents and things like that,” VanRoekel said.

Launch a Shared Platform

As a method for reducing duplication and cutting costs, VanRoekel is calling on government agencies to take a “governmentwide approach” to IT solutions. Applications or other solutions that have been deployed inside a government agency should be used across other agencies as well, giving multiple agencies access to features they may have otherwise not had access to before, and in addition, allowing the private sector access to those features when appropriate."


Read the full article http://www.govtech.com/e-government/White-House-Mobile-Strategy-Might-be-a-Game-Changer-.html

Thursday, May 17, 2012

What do you think? Funny, Useful, Derogatory?

As a GIS professional what do you think about the maps presented below? Are they funny, helpful, useful, derogatory? Share your opinion with us in the CFGIS LinkedIn group or CFGIS Blog (cfgis.blogspot.com).


560 - A World Map of Heavy Metal Density  - By Frank Jacobs, Big Think


Cartography has the curious capacity to bypass a map-reader’s critical function when conveying information, and never more so than when a map is plain and simple. Two examples treated earlier on this blog spring to mind - also because they’re quite funny: the Jesusland map (#3), and the New Simplified Map of London (#199). 
Some maps are beautiful because of their rich complexity. Others capture our attention because they are so starkly simple.  


Jesusland is based on electoral data, the Simplified Map on a more subjective idea of wealth distribution. But both communicate a sentiment rather than merely solid data. The map shown here is less editorial, but the information it presents is equally stark. 
This map reflects the number of heavy metal bands per 100,000 inhabitants for each country in the world. It codes the result on a color temperature scale, with blue indicating low occurrence, and red high occurrence [1]. The data for this map is taken from the extensive Encyclopaedia Metallum, an online archive of metal music that lists bands per country, and provides some background by listing their subgenre (Progressive Death Metal, Symphonic Gothic Metal, Groove Metal, etc). Click Here to View Full Story

Monday, April 9, 2012

NOAA makes available Tornado Outbreak Data

Last April, one of the worst tornado outbreaks occurred across the state of Alabama. NOAA has made available several datasets and an interactive map showing the path and intensity of the tornadoes which caused so much damage last year. Below is a link to the NOAA page where you can download the data, view the interactive map, and learn more about how NOAA is providing future disaster data and information.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=event_04272011gis

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Happy April 1st

Happy April 1st Central Florida GIS community!!! In what has become the pranksters day we wanted to see if anyone would be willing to share any of the the fun stories that they have seen or done.

Also as geographers, if you haven't had the chance to see the new Google quest mode for Google maps be sure to take a look.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Social Media sites help aid agencies and families after a disaster

We have been talking for quite some time about how we are living in the social age, with the ability to connect via twitter, Facebook, or Google from anywhere in the world and as GIS professionals we have been finding more and more ways of getting useful information into the hands of our users when they need it most.

Certain social media outlets are combining the power of GIS and creating an invaluable aid tool in the face of disasters for both agencies trying to assist and families who have been effected.

This article from News Channel 5 in West Palm Beach highlights how GIS is being used during disasters to reunite families and provide aid agencies with the most up to date information available and while it does point out some of the difficulties being faced by using GIS and social media the overall approach seems very positive.

Click here for story


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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

CFGIS March 2, 2012 Ignite Videos

At this past users group we had two brave presenters and a video ignite ignite. Hope you enjoy them!!!

In addition to the usual Ignite presentation, CFGIS also featured an ignite presentation given at a TED event all about how to give an ignite presentation.





Tim Kitchen presented on Where in the World is the EM Team.



Claudia Paskauskas told us about the importance of not hitting that snooze button

Monday, March 5, 2012

Then and Now: The 2011 Japan tsunami

The devastation caused by the tsunami which struck Japan last year serves as a reminder of the power that nature can release. It has been a year since the disaster and NBC has put together a series of before and after pictures from many of the sites impacted by the tsunami. The images which slide depict the location during the flooding of the tsunami and of what the area looks like today. Despite a large amount of cleanup which is still occurring to remove all of the debris many of the areas are beginning the stages of recovery.

Click here to view images and story. Image from cnn.com

Friday, March 2, 2012

Great turnout at CFGIS Users Group Meeting!!!

We are very happy to see such a great turnout at the 1st CFGIS meeting of 2012. We have more than 70 attendees here today to learn more about GIS and how it is be used thoughout Central Florida. We want to say thank you to everyone for attending the meeting and being involved in CFGIS. Your attendance and participation is what makes CFGIS and the entire Central Florida GIS community strong. Thank you, we hope you enjoy the meeting and look forward to a great 2012!!!

Friday, February 24, 2012

CFGIS Users Group is Almost Here!!!


Be sure to mark your calendars and join CFGIS next Friday March 2nd at FDOT D5 offices. The meeting starts at 10 a.m. and will feature a number of great presentations and outstanding networking opportunities.

For more information click here!!!

We will see you there!!!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

GIS Is Everywhere! Online Cemetery Makes Tough Visits Easier

One of Adelaide’s largest cemeteries – famous as the site of Sir Donald Bradman’s funeral – can add another unique story to the pages of its history: becoming the nation’s first cemetery to use world-leading technology to take their graveyard online.

Centennial Park Cemetery has used Esri Australia’s Geographic Information System technology to create a website that maps the location of graves so visitors can easily find information about their loved one’s final resting place.

The website will be joined by a mobile phone application to be released later this year, meaning visitors will be able to navigate their way around 40.5 hectare cemetery from the palm of their hands.

“We’ve made that difficult process a little easier to deal with by providing visitors with everything they need to know at their fingertips.

“People can access records of their ancestors and view detailed maps so that they know exactly where to visit before they leave the house.

“With GIS technology, all the information and maps are there at the click of a button, hopefully making potentially difficult visits a little easier."

Read the full article about this just released use of the GIS technology.

What is OGC?

This is a cute video OGC (Open Geospatial Consorium) by ogcvideo. It talks about what OGC is and what it is trying to do through its consensus standards development process.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Satellite Mapping could save Coral Reefs

This article from earthtimes.org discusses how satellite mapping could be used to prevent damage to coral reefs and increase awareness.



From the article: A marine ecologist says new satellite mapping should be introduced to help identify and halt the rapid decline of coral reefs. Phil Dustan has been investigating coral reefs for almost 40 years, since famous marine ecologist Jacques Cousteau warned him in 1974 that humans were destroying reefs.

Dr Dustan, now a University of Charleston biology professor, in the United States, believes that by using Landsat satellite mapping the declining reefs, hotspots can be identified and conservation measures put in place.

Click here to see full story. Image from EarthTimes.org

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Crowd Sourced Maps

Can crowd sourcing ever take the place of traditional datasets and collection types?

Ask this question to a variety of different geospatially inclined people and I am certain you will get a wide variety of very passionate and yet different responses. For those who may not be familiar with the term crowd sourcing, it is the practice of utilizing amateurs or the public at large to aid in providing information or data which has become available with the increases in technology. Two examples that you may have seen are the open street map project and to some extent even Wikipedia, both locations where the general public is able to add content in an attempt to refine what already exists or expand upon it.

Even Google Maps is beginning to use crowd sourcing, it recently announced that the Google Map Maker will open its editing tools to everyone. One reason for this shift is to allow locals to add content which Google’s teams would have difficulty obtaining. A review process is in place to ensure that the added content is verified but essentially local individuals add content directly to the live maps.

Another good example of crowd sourcing is the urban forest map project which was utilized in San Francisco to map the location and get information about trees all around the city. The program has met with great success as the community heavily participated in providing a large amount of information. This has saved the city a large amount of money as this information is being collected by empowered citizens and traditional tree surveys have not needed to be conducted.

While these two examples are great uses of getting the public involved and providing content, there are several concerns and problems which immediately rise to the surface making this practice controversial. The three most common concerns are accuracy, updates or maintenance, and documentation or metadata.

As geospatial professionals we understand the critical importance of data accuracy. Hours upon hours can been spent in discussion about differences in accuracy and precision as they relate to different geographic datasets. Many wonder how high the accuracy of a data set which is being edited and created by an untrained member of the public can be. This can be argued from both points of view. Some argue that it is impossible for crowd sourced maps can be as accurate as professionals creating data. While others note that the accuracy greatly increases because local knowledge is able to correct mistakes and expand on information which cannot be known from traditional methods. This leads to one of the advantages of crowd sourcing in that you have access to an endless supply of local knowledge based peer reviewers who together are able to refine information and accuracy, while in traditional data collection practices constant revisions can be costly and impractical.

Like many discussions the reality is probably somewhere in the middle and dependent on what layer is being created and for what purpose. For some data such as utilities which require high accuracy levels as they relate to other projects and inaccuracies can cause many problems, traditional data collection methods should be used over crowd sourcing options. Other data sets which are intended for basic navigation or public knowledge and don’t require a high level accuracy, such as business or tree locations you would expect might have a better accuracy in crowd sourcing as local knowledge is able to offer information which be difficult for a data collector to know and increased peer review can refine.

The timeliness of data created from crowd sourcing can be difficult to distinguish, unless it is included in the original collection. However one important consideration of crowd sourcing to remember is that if the community is involved, it is likely that changes on a local level will be reported quickly by locals, where in the traditional data update process it would take time for changes to be reflected.

Metadata and other documentation can be among the most difficult parts to complete when using crowd sourcing as your public is made from a variety of professions and technical levels. While you are likely to have some experts editing data you are just as likely to have citizens contributing who do not have the same level of background or technical experience. With such a wide variety of potential editors, understanding who exactly is maintaining the data can be hard, where in a traditional data collection you know exactly who created the data, how the data was created, and any details which are relevant to the data.

All of these different factors need to be considered when determining whether utilizing crowd sourcing options are the best option or where traditional data collection remains superior. It does appear that at present both forms have many advantages and disadvantages. Determining when to use which is really dependent on the type of project or data that will be collected, edited, and maintained.