Can You Place the US States in the Right Place?
Try this geography game – it’s harder than you think! (I was reminded of one of this one from a recent post – thanks Very Spatial.
Fly a Plane!
This is one of my favorites in terms of creative uses of GoogleMaps. Try Goggles. Pick a city and try flying to another city, or fly around the world for the more adventurous. I have to admit I like crashing too.
To control the plane, use your keyboard’s arrow keys to bank and dive, the “A” and “Z” keys to change speed, and the space bar to fire.
AccuGlobe 2007 (DDTI) Free GIS Software with WMS Capibilities
I use a range of different GIS software, both free and commercial. I also try and keep the pulse of free downloadable GIS tools that help me do my job without breaking the bank (Mapz mentions several great ones).
A couple years ago, I was turned on to Accuglobe by DDTI and was incredibly impressed. With DDTI’s Accuglobe (and grants from AT&T and IEDC), we in Indiana have been able to freely distribute our statewide IndianaMap 2005 Orthophotography data with over 70 other data sets bundled with free software to over 200 Indiana public libraries and economic development organizations (with the grant assistance, we provided training too!). Now the DDTI team has released their completely rebuilt 2007 version – and it rocks. It has a new look and feel (OK, I haven’t quite gotten used to it yet) and greatly improved features, including Open Web Map Service (WMS) functionality and a Pictometry viewer that I haven’t used. It can also now handle on-the-fly reprojection of shapefiles – a blessing for regional or statewide applications using data from multiple projections. I am particularly excited about the WMS capability – we have several map services running huge databases (did I mention our statewide orthophotography project?) and now users can stream in the whole state to a free desktop application. Check this one out. Go to www.ddti.net to download and give it a whirl.
Try GeoWhitePages, a bit cluttered but wow powerful (and a bit scary ;)
08.15.2010 >> geowhitepages.com is no longer active.
GeoWhitePages offers users the ability to search and find people geographically. I like the interesting way they’ve combined demographic information and bar charts on the Google Map interface. The information on people digs pretty deep (some will find this a bit scary, however this info is out there on the web already). You can look someone up, click on the person’s name, get more information such as the names of their relatives, and can even link to where you can purchase background checks. You can also search by phone number. From the pop-ups on the map, you can click “show neighbors” and it will return search results showing near-by neighbors and their contact information. To top it off, you can email all search results to a friend :}
Recognizing the Value of Geographic Information for Economic Development
Last week I presented at the Indiana Economic Development Association’s Indianapolis Winter Conference. The speaker right after me, Dr. Buzz Canup of AngelouEconomics, presented an enlightened view of how site assessment consultants for Fortune 500 companies do their work. Much of what he talked about was how he and his staff use geographic information systems (GIS) to do nearly 90% of their work for site selection – even before they visit an area or a community’s web site.
Buzz made a powerful case for the role of GIS in the future of economic development. And they are some high-powered data miners! To all you economic development directors out there… the message is get your government GIS data out and shared (GIS web maps and clearinghouses) or consultants like Buzz will not find you. In early 2006 from Mickey Maurer, Indiana Economic Development Corporation Chief Executive, also emphasized the role of geographic information. “Geographic information systems are playing an increasingly integral role in the world of economic development and corporate real estate, and this tool will answer the main questions that businesses have when they are involved in the site selection process.”
Dr. Buzz Canup serves as President of Site Selection Services at AngelouEconomics and brings over 30 years of experience in business and economic development to the firm.
Thematic Mapping on Google
Up until recently, Google Maps mashups have been limited primarily to maps with up to about 200 points, limited line data, and overlays of static images. The Google Map Creator is a freeware application designed to make thematic mapping using Google Maps simpler. The application takes a shapefile containing geographic areas linked with attributes and automatically generates a working Google Maps website from the data. It does this by pre-creating all the necessary files and saving them into a directory. Publishing the map on the web is then just a matter of copying files onto a web server, allowing Google Maps to be used with the majority of ISPs.
Google Map Creator offers promising new opportunites for professional-grade mapping via Google Maps mashups.
