Maps + Compass

In iPhone OS 3.0, a digital compass will be provisioned, which could potentially add more helpful features to the existing Google Map application. Already, the soon-to-released OakMapper Mobile is taking advantage the open API for Google Map in iPhone SDK 3.0beta to create an application that allow iPhone users to view and report SODs on their iPhones. I believe that the future iteration of the OakMapper Mobile application can take advantage the built-in compass to re-trace the reported SODs.

 

Lidar web resources

As a lead-up to this week's SNAMP Spatial Team Workshops on our LiDAR data, I am collecting the great web resources for LiDAR here.

• CLICK: the USGS Center for LiDAR Information Coordination and Knowledge;
• I know it's not LiDAR (yet!), but here is the site for NED, the National Elevation Database;
• USFS' Remote Sensing Applications Center LiDAR site;
• NASA's LiDAR information site, including the DesDynI mission site;
• NOAA's Coastal Services Center tutorial on LiDAR (mostly for coastal topography);
• LiDAR 101 You Tube video (soundtrack from Carmen) posted by "in the scan" blog (another good resource);
• Presentations for download from the recent International LiDAR Mapping Forum held Jan 09 in New Orleans;
• Presentations for download from the Special Session Developments of National Lidar Dataset at the 2009 ASPRS Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland;
• Some free data resources:
  
  • From CSC again, the LIDAR Data Retrieval Tool (LDART) is a Web-based application that the Center developed to allow its customers to obtain topographic LIDAR data from its archive;

Lidar and owls

Related to our SNAMP work, and the research Celia is doing here: this NASA highlight article featuring Ralph Dubayah's Sierra forest work. Must follow up on this.

GIS article database

I just came across a helpful bibliography of GIS literature created and maintained by ESRI. It indexes journals, conference proceedings, books, and reports fro the origins of GIS to the present. There are currently 78,400 entries. You can't download all articles directly from the site, but the keyword search is really helpful to get a list of articles on a particular topic that would be good to look into.

Democratizing Data

The Federal CIO Coucil has just launched Data.gov, a site that brings all federal data into one searchable place. You can directly download xml, csv, kml/kmz, and shp files and find links to tools for finding other data.

Here are some more details from the White House press release:

"Created as part of the President's commitment to open government and democratizing information, Data.gov will open up the workings of government by making economic, healthcare, environmental, and other government information available on a single website, allowing the public to access raw data and transform it in innovative ways.

Such data are currently fragmented across multiple sites and formats—making them hard to use and even harder to access in the first place. Data.gov will change this, by creating a one-stop shop for free access to data generated across all federal agencies. The Data.gov catalog will allow the American people to find, use, and repackage data held and generated by the government, which we hope will result in citizen feedback and new ideas.

Data.gov will also help government agencies—so that taxpayer dollars get spent more wisely and efficiently. Through live data feeds, agencies will have the ability to easily access data both internally and externally from other agencies, which will allow them to maintain higher levels of performance. In the months and years ahead, our goal is to continuously improve and update Data.gov with a wide variety of available datasets and easy-to-use tools based on public feedback and as we modernize legacy systems over time.

Democratizing government data will help change how government operates—and give citizens the ability to participate in making government services more effective, accessible, and transparent."

Interesting Forestry Application in Liberia

This seems like a decent way to overcome, or at least mitigate, corruption in the lumber industry. Possible applications in Carbon monitoring / Forestry research? Is this being done already?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8039080.stm

NASA celebrates 50 years of earth observation

NASA has a nice site, and some resources, highlighting 50 years in earth observation. Over the past 50 years, thousands of satellites have been sent into space on missions to collect data about the Earth. Today, the ability to forecast weather, climate, and natural hazards depends critically on these satellite-based observations.

At the request of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Academies published the report Earth Observations from Space: The First 50 Years of Scientific Achievements (2008) to describe how the ability to view the entire globe at once, uniquely available from satellite observations, has revolutionized Earth studies and ushered in a new era of multidisciplinary Earth sciences.

Anglo-television-carto-philes rejoice!

From Meg Pickard's photostream (which shows pictures of her needlepoint maps): a map showing the locations of UK's TV shows.

Virgin Dirt: It IS all connected! Dirt the Movie. Check it.

"If we don't take care of the soil, which is just the first five centimeters layer of life that is on the earth, our future is totally condemned," said UC Berkeley Professor Miguel Altieri, Ph.D.

This video is an ABC promo about the Dirt the Movie presentation on Monday. Our buddy Ron Amundson is featured too.  Soil is disappearing, and fast. Check it.

Who Says Religion and Science Can't Mix? Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins

The Las Vegas Sun ran an article about researchers from Kansas State who conducted a study on mapping the "Seven Deadl Sins". Well, actually proxies for those sins. Judge for yourself if you believe the surrogate variables are indeed indicative of the "sins". No matter how you slice it, it's mapping, and it's interesting...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/mar/26/one-nation-seven-sins/