Professional Geographer

Last week I reported on cool web-based virtual holograms. Based on motion sensing / sound sensing technology from your computer’s web cam and microphone, the image can be manipulated by moving a paper with a calibration image on it. This week along comes the promise of a control-free gaming system from Microsoft. With sensors built in, this system appears to detect hand, feet, and full-body gestures to control game action. This is slightly different than using a printed image for calibration like the web version (though I viewed a funny virtual hologram demo that used hand gestures). I love our Wii, and reporting about gaming systems isn’t my forte. But for me the interest is in the technology. What are the mapping applications? Who knows, maybe there aren’t any. But the environmentally-friendly thought of not having to constantly replace our remote’s batteries has plenty of allure.

I’m looking forward seeing the first mapping application using virtual digital holograms. What is a virtual digital hologram you ask? It is very cool technology that creates a 3-d image you can move around via tracking from your webcam. The best place to check it out is GE’s fantastic implementation Plug Into the Smart Grid.

Think of the pieces that might be used for a mapping implementation - it may be aerial photography, digital elevation models, Sketchup and other 3-d models of buildings and cities. And now FLARToolkit is available as a free non-commercial license to pull those pieces together to create virtual digital holograms viewable by anyone with a webcam, printer, and Internet connection. Due to the novelty aspect of the technology, its biggest potential may be its use for marketing, communication, and education campaigns. If you’ve seen mapping or other fun uses of this technology, please share them!

Exciting times. At Mapdiva, we are getting prepared for the initial release of Ortelius map illustration software. On our new blog we’ll be posting news about Ortelius, as well as tips, tricks, and tutorials on cartographic techniques. There are some topics (such as map font basics) that I’ll be continuing on the Mapdiva blog rather than here, so I’ve added Mapdiva’s postings to the sidebar for a quick glimpse of what’s there. Enjoy!

NPR has produced a new interactive map of the U.S. energy grid and power sources. Included are several roll-over maps to see percent energy production by different states and by fuel type. It also includes an informative display of anticipated renewable (solar and wind) fuel sources incorporated into the grid over the next few decades. The maps are intuitive, well designed, and data sources are cited in the map’s footnotes. This is a good example of interactive map design for public education. It should serve as a terrific resource for educators to help students understand power production, renewable power supply, and power distribution in the U.S.

The interactive map is produced for NPR’s series, “Power Hungry: Re-Envisioning Electricity In The U.S.,” including over a dozen articles. One could easily imagine this series and maps being worked into the curriculum in middle through higher education, inviting students to explore questions about location, energy, and the future. From the site: “The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation’s electrical systems.”

The e-book “Emotional Cartography” was recently mentioned on CartoTalk under interesting links. I thought it worth a quick glance, and got immediately drawn in by this short-story…

A Future Love Story, by Marcel van der Drift

Five stars. A perfect short-story for anyone interested in geo-locational/GPS/futurist technology, or just a fun read. I’m looking forward to reading some more.

Whether you are a lone GIS technician or a large GIS company, education and outreach is an ongoing challenge for everyone in the geospatial industry. The Geospatial Revolution Project was announced about a month ago and I was overly impressed with the goals and production value. It was too bad the wait-time was going to be long for final production. Today I received news that the GRP team will release short video segments throughout the life of the project rather than waiting for them all at the end. They are starting today by making the trailer downloadable. This is a high-quality video that will be useful with the general public and decision-makers (and family members who haven’t got it yet ;). Think about ways you might include the video clip in your community presentations, GIS day, school outreach, or the “About GIS” section of your website. See below for details - what a fantastic resource.

Dear Friends of the Geospatial Revolution Project,

Thank you for your enthusiastic response to Penn State Public Broadcasting’s new public education initiative—the Geospatial Revolution Project. The conversations and exchange of ideas within the geospatial community have been tremendous and we are eager to work with you on maintaining project momentum. To that end, we wanted to brief you on the latest project developments.

Cutting-Edge Production Model—Based on your feedback, we are announcing an exciting change in our production plans. We realize that time is of the essence. Therefore, we will use the Web to release 8 video episodes—each 7 minutes or so—on an ongoing basis over the lifespan of the project. This new model allows us to accomplish several goals that are important to all of us:
· We will start releasing segments as they are produced—no need to wait for the final production;
· Broader audiences will be reached by engaging people where they are and how they want their media—online and through flexible and more immediate distribution platforms;
· Educational media tools will be available as episodes are released for outreach partners and the public to use;
· And, by releasing videos episodically, we will be able to better reflect emerging trends in geospatial technology.

In keeping with this new model, we are releasing a downloadable version of the Geospatial Revolution Project trailer on our web site today. Go to http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu to download.

Outreach Education—The outreach initiatives around our new production model will focus on digital learning tools for K-12 education and media content that will support work force development, local government and policy applications, civic engagement, and public understanding of this complex issue.

Fundraising—As of today, we are in the fundraising phase for the project. Production will begin as soon as we have reached our funding threshold of $500,000. To produce all of the planned episodes and the culminating one- hour documentary, fundraising will continue throughout the project. However, in order to receive recognition in the credits from the very first episode, we are encouraging funders to come on board early. You can learn more about fundraising and underwriting opportunities by contacting us at ProjectFundingOpportunities@psu.edu.

We will continue to update you on important milestones and developments. With your support, we look forward to an early production start and to sharing this amazing project with all of you.

The Geospatial Revolution Team

Elaine Brzycki, M.Ed.
Project Manager and Funding Relations

Lindsey Faussette, B.A.
Project Associate

Melanie K. Doebler, D.Ed.
Funding Executive

Does your mapping software inspire creativity? Ortelius is a new breed of mapping software designed to make your mapping easy, fun and beautiful.

Come find out how Ortelius can help you create publication-quality maps without the high learning curve or costs associated with other software.

In this workshop we’ll introduce Ortelius and demonstrate its capabilities. Attendees will learn how to create custom maps from scratch and with templates. Learn about Ortelius’ robust tools and palettes, and how to create unique and inspiring symbols in a flash.

Attendees will receive a FREE Public Beta copy of the Ortelius software for evaluation. Come learn how Ortelius can work for you.

Association of American Geographers
Workshop Details

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Wednesday
March 25, 2009
Capri Meeting Room 108
Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas

Ortelius is Powerful Map Illustration Software for Mac OS X
Learn more at www.mapdiva.com

I’ve been very interested in the news stories I’ve read about neighborhood boundary data and its usefulness. About a year ago Adena Schutzberg, Directions Magazine, wrote about neighborhood data offereings and the announcement by Zillow.com that they would provide their neighborhood GIS shapefile data freely through a Creative Commons license. First of all, I am very interested to see the CC licensing being applied to geospatial data - this alone is worth following. And I applaud Zillow.com (which I love) for making their data available in this way. So I was really interested when I came across another very excellent site providing my home’s walkability score (which alas is moderately low) and my office (which is very highly walkable).

Walkscore.com is a site worth visiting. “Walk Score helps people find walkable places to live. Walk Score calculates the walkability of an address by locating nearby stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc. Walk Score measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle—not how pretty the area is for walking.” The Walk Score algorithm awards points based on distances to the closest amenity in a number of categories. I especially love the heat maps showing the most walkable neighborhoods in the top 40 U.S. cities. And certainly turn around is fair play… Zillow is already leveraging the benefits of having made its neighborhood data available (in February, Zillow.com added WalkScore to each of their 87 million properties).

Local government participation (i.e., accommodating data sharing policies) in regional, statewide, and nationwide spatial data infrastructures can be more challenging than the technology and standards required to implement it. In Indiana, the approach has been to make a formal request for participation. At just about 6 months old, today Indiana reached the half-way mark with gaining voluntary local participation (46 of 92 counties). The participation agreement includes public domain access to the following: address points, parcel boundaries with parcel identification numbers, road centerlines, and political boundaries. Access will be provided through the IndianaMap, and thus available to The National Map and surrounding states. Technical implementation has been successfully piloted with the IndianaMap Address integration Pilot Project (supported by a USGS grant) and full implementation is under development.