An interesting question came about a few days ago. While I have been discussing ESRI’s geoprocessor and how one can use it effectively, I failed to define what geoprocessing is,, either within the ESRI realm or the general GIS realm. In short, geoprocessing is an operation performed on geographic (spatial) data. In other words, it is when one uses data to perform some operations and receiving results. An example would be geocoding. The user provides spatial data (an address), which we geoprocess to identify the output (latitude and longitude). In the ArcGIS world, there are a few methods for geoprocessing: running commands from the ArcToolbox, the Model Builder, the command line and Python scripting (the one I focus on mostly in this blog).
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Google Maps introduces some nifty new features for its users in the form of Labs (as in their famous Gmail Labs). The new features are accessible on the toolbar on the top right of the screen, labeled as “New” (look like this: 
). There are many features for all map geeks available, including Drag and Zoom (allows you to draw a rectangle on the screen to zoom in it), Aerial Imagery (a much finer resolution imagery than satellite), Rotation (rotates the map, making up South or East), and others. My favorite one is of course the option to introduce the Beta label to Google Maps, for those that suffer from nostalgia.
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.
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.
