After a long delay, it is time for the third installment of understanding the Geoprocessor Programming Model that will deal with the Describe object. If you missed the last two parts, feel free to look at them first (Part 1: understanding what the geoprocessor is, and Part 2: accessing data with the geoprocessor). As always, comments are welcomed and encouraged. Continue reading »
Dec 21
MapChat 2
MapChat 2, a wonderful spatial mapping web-based application has been publicly released. This tool enables spatial discussions to enhance the production of local knowledge and public discourse. A demo version is set up for users, so go ahead and give it a spin. There are many features in this release, documented below.
Nov 18
I have been lucky enough to organize a GIS Day ‘09 career event at the university of Washington, joined by Harvey Arnone of city of Seattle, Marty Balikov of ESRI Olympia and Dane Springmeyer, freelance geospatial developer. The discussion was titled “What are the essential skills to succeed as a GIS Analyst”, and I have compiled some notes to help with all aspiring GIS Professionals out there. Feel free to add more details in the comments section as you see fit.
Oct 23
Oct 19
In the first part of this series I covered access to the geoprocessor and how one can navigate the first part of the diagram of the model. If you are not familiar with the geoprocessor, please have a quick look at that post to understand the geoprocessing model ESRI provides.
In this post I will finish covering the bottom left part of the model that deals with direct access to features and their geometry. In order to do that, we will discuss cursors, features and geometries.
Continue reading »
Oct 16
A question often asked when people venture into the wonderful world of Python Geoprocessing with ESRI is how one can read the programming model they make available on their website. As it may not be easily interpreted when one begins programming, I will do my best to unpack it and explain how one can use it more effectively. All images presented here are extracts from the actual model presented by ESRI on their website.
Oct 16
According to Chris Pendleton of Bing Maps, the new Digital Globe WorldView-2 satellite has been launched with probably some funding from Microsoft. The satellite will capture imagery of the Earth that will eventually end up in Bing Maps. The first image has seem to have been returned, and Chris promises data updates to Bing Maps in the near future. To view imagery from the launch, visit their public gallery on SkyDrive. Congratulations to the Bing Maps developers for this wonderful news they are giving us. Here is a quote from Chris:
[..] our Bing logo is floating in the ocean evangelizing to scuba divers [..]
Oct 13
According to the Google GeoDevelopers Blog, the Google Maps API now supports multiple languages (list here). There is no need for developers to do anything, Google will simply translate all map controls based on the location of the user (geo-ip location). Wonderful news for all of you travelers which will end up seeing the local language at your location rather than the language you speak. Google does offer a way to define a specific language, but is that enough?
Oct 08
As mentioned on the Google Geo Blog yesterday, as well as by James Fee in his blog, Google’s spatial offerings (Google Maps and soon Google Earth I assume) will include comprehensive parcel data that has been collected somehow from Google. While the Geo Blog entry is sparse, there is a mention of the “Report a Problem” link added to maps, allowing users to make suggestions (and perhaps corrections) to the data served by Google. What many people have noted is that the copyright notice in the United States has changed, and now the notice reports as a copyright holder Google.
Oct 06
There is been some discussion over the internet about ESRI’s decision to drop Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) support after the ArcGIS version 9.4 release. There are blog entries about why this shouldn’t happen, so I decided it is time to introduce an entry on why it should go, and what you can do about it. Continue reading »
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