#SpatialNeeds

rollo's posterous
 

Back the Bid....

....no, not the Olympic one, or the Common Wealth Games, or for that matter the Yorkshire bid for the Tour de France (www.yorkshire.com/back-the-bid). This is a geo bid...an Open geo bid...to bring the FOSS4G confernece to the UK in 2013.

FOSS4G is the annual global event for Free & Open Source (Geospatial) Software. It's been in Sydney, Denver, Madrid and this year it heads over to Bejing. Next year we want to bring the circus to the UK...but we have to win that right. 

There is a dedicated website for the bid which gives all the details, and how you can get involved: http://foss4g4uk.posterous.com/. At the very least, show your support with the #backthebid twitter tag!

3837963004_4688b858ea
with thanks to She Who Must....

Posted May 4, 2012
 

Happy New Year! (Chineese New Year that is)

It has been some time since I last posted here. It's a reflection of the turmoil of recent months that has taken all my spare moments and spread them across a plethora of projects....I think managing the diary has been the hardest part ;-)

So, being spectacularly late for the Gregorian calendars marking of the new year, welcome to the Year of the Dragon.....

Dragon_year

But what drove me to put proverbial pen to proverbial paper today? This:

Google_timemap

Google has launched a (temporary) project allowing you to find hotels within a travel time on public transport, or by foot. The output are these "experimental isochrones" as Ed Parsons calls them. Play with them here: http://bit.ly/wF99Sp (while it lasts)

In itself this is not a big deal (remember mySociety's Travel Maps? or the rather strangely monetized version by Mapumental http://shop.mapumental.com/), but as an application it represents the first thing that my partner has truly seen the value GI in their daily work....and for that I thank you Google Maps!

Posted January 24, 2012
 

The future is Beta....

Google Maps hit our screens in 2005 and is now used by literally millions of people. Everyday. But it is still in beta.

Googlemapbeta

In fact it seems that in the age of rapid prototyping we never progress beyond beta into a finished product. Does it matter that such tools never reach a 'solid' state, but constantly evolve (presumably) to the changing demands of users and opportunities of new technology? Well, only in the sense that we will shortly need a new term for 'alpha' (which I sometimes feel has become the new beta)...oh, and of course, for marketing purposes. Beta is now cool.

So meet Vertex.

Vertex3d_logo-white_beta

A new 3D model of London (making how many commerical models of the city now? I lost track after five....there are other cities out there folks!) which is offering a very neat web-based service. In beta. Whatever. I'm sure it works (it should for the price), and I'm sure it's one to watch.

http://www.vertexmodelling.co.uk/

 

 

Posted August 9, 2011
 

3D printing takes a new twist

While at Met GeoInfo we used the ZCorp 250 3D printer to produce physical output of the CityGRID model. These were always popular at conferences and trade shows. Clients, in particular the none-technical ones (i.e. the Heads of Departments and budget holders), responded favourably with being able to physically 'see' their model rather than just viewing it on a monitor. It made the project feel real to them.

But it seems things have moved on a stage with the ability to have moving elements to your printed output. A light hearted review of the new 650 for National Geographic, presented by the theoretical physicist David Kaplan, has generated over 4.6M views. If you've not seen it, enjoy:

 

Posted July 20, 2011
 

Welcome to No Where (in particular)

I have to admit that I've not been inspired by the build-up to the 2012 Olympics. The prospect of crowds, costs and intrusive security prevented me from entering the ticket draw, and I suspect that the nearest I will get to an Olympic event is when the Torch passes through the South West....so it was with great surprise to find something of interest (i.e. geo related) being presented as part of the Olympic Cultural Legacy
2012
NoWhere Island, is a small piece of Svalbard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard) that is being sailed to the UK waters in time for the Olympics (why this deadline is important is not explained, but the cynic in me suspects ithhas something to do with funding). It is, according to the blurb, an Independent State, although I have my doubts about the legality of this. That hasn't stopped me becoming a Citizen however; having been to Svalbard a few times, this 'artistic' endeavour caught my interest. But what I have found really interesting is the response from certain sectors....
Outlook

...It seems this project has offended an Anarchist Community (if such a thing can exist?) who plan to attack the island. This story is currently just hear-say but I'm seeking confirmation. Once (if!) I hear anything further I'll update.

Posted July 20, 2011
 

It's not all bad news...

....well, to be honest, it is, for DEFRA at least.

The National Audit Office report on the Geographic Information Strategy being implemented by DEFRA (http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1012/defra_gis.aspx) certainly conveys a negative message, but it does at least highlight the importance that the NAO places on geospatial data for an organisation. Now, that's an endorsement surely?
Att9b3c7
Image: http://addspecialists.com/blog/wp-content/themes/thesis-15b-r7/rotator/child%...

Posted July 20, 2011
 

It's what I've been saying for a long time...

....and I've not been alone in this: 3D is not just the future of GIS, it is it's replacement* (caveat: as we currently understand it). 

And to prove the point there was news coming from #ESRIUC (initially via Twitter [http://twitter.com/#!/VKouyoumjian/status/90485495758471168] but now backed up with PR) of the purchase of Procedural (who produce the impressive CityEngine: www.procedural.com). It seems that the CityEngine 'engine' will be integrated into ArcGIS, but will also remain as a stand-alone product. I was (now here's honesty) surprised at the news, but perhaps should not have been considering the poor support that ArcGIS had of a true 3D format (I might add here that CityGRID was one of the earliest third-party packages to handle the multi-patch file (http://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0706/3d-planning2of2.html); and I can confirm that the banter in the office was never favourable to ESRI on this matter). There was also the fact that Procedural have been a development partner to ESRI for sometime.

Anyway, all details aside, I'm expecting (hoping) this story to get wider interest, or just as soon as the shouting about applications to find potholes quietens down (). But isn't that the problem illustrated? The majority of the 'user community' out there simply does not get the value of the third dimension. Having it thrust in their face in this manner may...just may...change that (*and make my prediction come true?!)

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With thanks to kk+, who had the fortune to be at the UC while I was not, for the image (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/)

...and just to rub salt into the wound, I'm currently missing #SOTMEU. In Vienna! My 'home from home'.For heavens sake. Meh. 

Posted July 20, 2011
 

"The wonderful thing about standards is....

...that there are so many to choose from" (Admiral Grace Hopper*) is an adage that applies well to the world of 3D modelling. But even here, there is a glimmer of hope in the announcement today of the MoU between the 3D SIG (http://www.sig3d.org/) and the OGC (http://www.opengeospatial.org)
on working collaboratively to continue to develop a semantic data structure for 3D models (i.e. CityGML). 

My hope is that CityGML will break out of the confines of being a Eurocentric tool and become more widely adopted before alternative (but radically different in scope) models become the dominant approach to 3D. I guess I'm talking about BIM here. There is no "either / or" distinction between CityGML and BIM - indeed BIM is as a generic term as 3D modelling, with an equally long list of emerging standards (I should really make reference to one of them: NBIMUS. There. Done). But in terms of PR, BIM has got the upper hand, which I do not feel is appropriate for a whole raft of applications.

So, with luck today's announcement (http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/OGC-and-SIG-3D-Advance-Standards-for-3D-Digital-Cities-1425210.htm) will work to redress some of that balance, *but "unfortunately, the current generation of [blog] programs do not have checkers to see if the sender knows what he is talking about" (Andrew Tenebaum). 

Outlook

Posted April 11, 2011
 

CityGRID lives on.....

It is with great pleasure that I can post the next instalment in the commercial evolution of CityGRID. From Met Geo Info GmbH rises UVM Systems GmbH (Urban Visualisation & Management).

Uvm_logo
CityGRID has had something of interesting past. The Company was originally founded as NoLimits in Graz, Austria in 1997, as a research cooperation with the Graz University visualisation group VrVIZ (now Microsoft Pictometry). In 2001, NoLimits was acquired by GeoDATA ZT, a civil engineering company specialising in tunnels based in Leoben, Austria and the first software licences were sold to the City of Linz, Austria.  Here the team grew with the TD and the PD joining (2003) and then moved to Vienna. 

In 2004, the business was re-named GeoDATA IT and operated as a remote subsidiary company. The next four years saw the team expand further and the software develop significantly with licences registered in Austria, Germany and Slovenia. Then in 2008, Met Geo Info acquired the business and MGI GmbH was launched at INTERGEO'08 in Bremen, Germany. The company moved again to  offices in Vienna’s 19th district. The latest transformation see's the office move to Klosterneuburg outside Vienna.

Despite this apparent turbulent history, the core team and the product has remained intact. Gunter Sukar, the company’s Senior Software Developer and the man responsible for the very first elements of the source code has been with the company since its commencement. In my mind this is a tribute to the quality of CityGRID, something that UVM continues to recognise by retaining the majority of the MGI team.

So it just remains for me to wish everyone at UVM the best of luck in the coming months and years! (early days yet, but there is a site at http://www.uvmsystems.com/)

 

Posted February 25, 2011
 

A Map! Well...sort of (updated)

I was playing with the new('ish - I've meaning to get around to looking at this for ages!) application from LinkedIn labs which allows you to create a visual representation of your network. And voila!

Outlook

You can look at a live version of the map graph (and create your own) at: http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/share/Rollo_Home/108053954551418441770305679918240127020. 
The coloured groupings are generated from the common connections between the contact and yourself. No meaning is attached to the colours: you have to assign a logical label to them (and you can see my attempt in the image above). So what does this show me that I did not already know about my network? It allows me to understand who are the pivotal connections within and between 'groups' view, and I can see the common relationships between contacts (case in point below). The relative position of the points is influenced by the commonality of links that they share.
0outlook

But that seems about it. With the exception of the 'blue' cluster (although even here there are some notable anomalies in the network) the groups make little sense. What I had hoped to see (piqued by the term 'map') was some level of interpretation of the geography of the network (such as the hack done by Andrew Zolnai Jan Willem van Eck (no longer available http://www.kortsteroutes.nl/mmc/). My graph(!) map can be seen below. The map, and Jan's blog highlight the issues many have found with geocoding from LinkedIn. I think that it's telling that a graph (described as a map) is clearly of more significance to the development team than an actual map...but then I would say that, wouldn't I?
Imappedmyconnections3
In summary, my network is not large, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the lack of a clear picture that is being generated. The real power of something like this must become apparent with massive data; what LinkedIn themselves are doing with it...that's what I would like to hear more about.

Filed under  //   LinkedIn   Map   Neo   Network   Web  
Posted February 8, 2011