mapping for a changing california
Welcome to the Kellylab blog! We post fun facts and things that catch our eye. Occasionally I wax lyrically about a topic of interest.
A gripping watch: this animation focuses on the Russian fires, as seen from various angles. It shows carbon monoxide concetration at altitude 18,000 ft (5.5 km) as measured by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft.
Image credit: NASA/JPL
A draft methodology is proposed in response to requirements by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to assess ecosystems for carbon stocks, carbon sequestration, and greenhouse-gas fluxes. The assessment will be conducted to estimate capacities of ecosystems to increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse-gas fluxes, in contexts of land-use, land-cover, and land-management scenarios as well as other controlling processes, such as climate change and wildland fires. Results of the assessment will be useful for evaluating a range of choices for formulating mitigation strategies and other land management policies.
An inexpensive, iphone-controlled, super cool looking hover craft - can we use it for our local aerial imagery acquisition? Check it: from Engaget.
WASHINGTON-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today published an expanded list of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degree programs that qualify eligible graduates on student visas for an Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension-an important step forward in the Obama administration's continued commitment to fixing our broken immigration system and expanding access to the nation's pool of talented high skilled graduates in the science and technology fields.
The announcement follows President Obama's recent remarks in El Paso, Texas, where he reiterated his strong support for new policies that embrace talented students from other countries, who enrich the nation by working in science and technology jobs and fueling innovation in their chosen fields here in the United States, as a part of comprehensive reform.
By expanding the list of STEM degrees to include such fields as Neuroscience, Medical Informatics, Pharmaceutics and Drug Design, Mathematics and Computer Science, the Obama administration is helping to address shortages in certain high tech sectors of talented scientists and technology experts-permitting highly skilled foreign graduates who wish to work in their field of study upon graduation and extend their post-graduate training in the United States.
Under the OPT program, foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges and universities are able to remain in the U.S. and receive training through work experience for up to 12 months. Students who graduate with one of the newly-expanded STEM degrees can remain for an additional 17 months on an OPT STEM extension. More here.
Today's "On the Media" radio show included a great discussion of maps and map making in the Google era. Largely a synopsis of this article in the Washington Monthly by John Gravois, the radio piece, with John Gravois, touched on the decline of the National Map and the rise of the Google Map paradigm, and the consequences of this change: how does Google name features that are in dispute? what do maps mean as their lineage changes from government to corporation? how do the political nuances of national maps change as Google becomes the global standard for map making? do we need a new term for these increasingly community based collections of spatially tagged conversations? It was a really interesting piece, and I recommend it. Good listening.
On the heels of Sarah's post last week about Apple-GIS merges comes this verrrry provocative news clip: Apple acquires web mapping firm Poly9 posted in engadget. Better mapping apps for iphone & ipad to compete with android stuff? Stay tuned to your iphone I guess.
I just downloaded the new ArcGIS iPhone app newly available this weekend. It's impressively speedy, especially over wifi. One of the best features I've noticed so far is the ability to measure distances and areas. It's also available for the iPad and iPodTouch.
NOAA's magnetic declination calculator is here. Magnetic declanation is the difference between magnetic north and true north. Berkeley's declination is 14° 16' E. This is useful information for calibrating your compass or your GPS. Most GPS allow bearings to be calculated on either true or magnetic north, even the lowly iphone compass allows this.
From Doug McCune's blog, the motto of which is: "I was Web 2.0 before your grandma was Web 2.0" which is kinda cute, gotta admit. Not that my grandma was ever anything close to that, she was a great baker though.
Anyway - he says: "I’ve been playing with different ways of representing data and I decided to venture into 3D representations. I’ve used a full year of crime data for San Francisco from 2009 to create these maps. The full dataset can be download from the city’s DataSF website." These are really rad and interesting.
He's chosen a solar illumination from the east, as it would be during sunrise.
He has a disclaimer: "These maps were generated from real data, but please don’t take them as being accurate. The data was aggregated geographically and artistically rendered. This is meant more as an art piece than an informative visualization." which is valid, but these are still really nice.
Comparison between SRTM and TanDEM-XFrom the BBC: The TanDEM-X satellite has blasted into orbit on a mission to acquire the most precise 3D map of the Earth's surface.
The German radar spacecraft will fly in formation with an identical platform called TerraSAR-X launched in 2007. Together, the pair will measure the variation in height across the globe to an accuracy of better than two metres.
With the TanDEM mission, the intention is to go down to a vertical resolution of two metres, with a spatial resolution of 12m by 12m. Airborne laser instruments (lidars) can do better than this but their DEMs are only regional. To achieve the TanDEM level of detail on all 150 million sq km of the Earth's land surface will require three years of operation.
My productivity went out the window when a friend showed me this new interactive map from Forbes illustrating the inward and outward migration of Americans by county. It's fascinating to see which counties attract or repell, and even which counties are primarily static.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html
The new company will be called Trimble Geospatial Munich, and maintain the same staff, and the Centers of Excellence Program. From the Open Letter:
"Definiens’ earth sciences business, including the eCognition suite of products, was acquired on June 10, 2010 by Trimble. The eCognition team has now transferred to Trimble, and the business of delivering the most advanced geospatial analysis software will continue, uninterrupted.
This change represents a significant step forward for eCognition. Access to Trimble’s advanced technologies, expertise and global operations provides us with an exceptional opportunity to take eCognition to a new level. In time, the benefits of the synergies between Trimble and eCognition will become evident through the exciting new product and service innovations we deliver together.
It is also worth noting that the collaboration with Definiens does not end with this transaction. In fact, Definiens and Trimble have signed a co-development agreement to ensure that the core technology driving eCognition continues to evolve and improve, and that there is no pause in the development or release schedule for eCognition."
The new California Protected Areas Database (CPAD 1.5) has just been released in geodatabase and shape file formats. Please visit www.calands.org to download. Updates and improvements to CPAD are described in the CPAD Manual also available on the CALands web site.
WHAT'S NEW IN CPAD 1.5: CPAD 1.5 includes many updates and corrections to federal and state lands in the Sierra Nevada region, as well as a thorough review of the San Joaquin Valley and Bay Area. CPAD data is better aligned to parcels, and we have more accurately captured managing agencies. Urban parks data has generally been significantly improved in CPAD 1.5, with many missing parks now included and boundaries and attributes made more accurate.
VIEW CPAD DATA ONLINE, REPORT ISSUES: For those who do not use GIS or prefer to view CPAD via the web, you can do so though a google map overlay at http://www.calands.org/review.php. We welcome input from the CPAD user community to keep us informed about errors and updates in CPAD. Please report errors by clicking on the "Report Error" button.
GET NOTIFIED WHEN CPAD IS UPDATED: We encourage you to receive CPAD updates. You can do this by clicking on the "Receive Update Notification" link on the calands.org homepage. We will not distribute any of your information or use your email outside of the CPAD mailing list. Registering helps us better serve the CPAD user community.
Anyone who travels California's byways sees the many faces of agriculture. A huge entwined business, farming and ranching are the state's dominant land use. Yet few Californians understand what animals and crops are raised or how agriculture reflects our relationship with nature. This fascinating and gorgeously illustrated field guide gathers essential information about agriculture and its environmental context, and answers the perennial question posed by California travelers: “What is that, and why is it growing here?” Paul F. Starrs's lively text explores the full range of the state's agriculture, deftly balancing agribusiness triumphalism with the pride of boutique producers, sketching meanwhile the darker shadows that can envelop California farming. Documented with diverse maps and Peter Goin's insightful photographs, this book captures the industry's energy and ingenuity and its wildly diverse iconography, from the mysteries of forbidden crops (like marijuana) to the majesties of scale in food production.
ESRI has just launched a public beta version of their online mapping service on arcgis.com.
At the ArcGIS.com site, you can browse featured ArcGIS Online content such as maps and applications published by ESRI and the ArcGIS community, and add comments and ratings. You can upload and share your own items, either with specific groups that you created or are a member of, or you can share your items publicly. Use the newly designed Web Mapping application to quickly create online mashups that you can also share with others.
The design and interface is nicely done, and includes easy access to many of ESRI's online basemaps. This site launch coencides with a greatly updated version of ArcGIS Explorer which provides a much improved free GIS viewer, tightly integrated with ArcGIS desktop layers and outputs.
The GPS IIF artworkMay is a big month for GPS. Ten years ago selective availability of GPS signals was disabled, making accurate GPS technology available to the public rather than just the U.S. military. Boy was field work hard back then - all that map reading!
And this week the Air Force will launch the first of the next generation of GPS satellites - the IIF SV-1. The new satellites each transmit three civilian GPS signals — we’ve typically been making do with just one for years — including a military-strength transmission that should enable autopilots to land with zero visibility. This means always-on GPS that’s accurate to within 3 feet, even indoors and in concrete urban canyons. From Wired.
According to the launch material, each IIF satellite will deliver:
More information here.
The map portion of the quilt.
Quilt detailThis is amazing. Denali Quilters created this giant (~10m2) quilt to interpret Denali National Park and Preserve's landcover types, based on an Earth Satellite Corp. classification. Each pixel is a 2 cm (!) quilt square (see detail at left). Website here.
This upto-date Google map of red shirt conflict in Bangkok gives an interesting spatial perspective on the events taking place. Travelling here, it's also a helpful navigation tool to get around the city. I write this from an apartment marked by the red teardrop just to the right of the action.
A nonprofit called Skytruth has been monitoring the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico using NASA/MODIS satellite imagery and publishing daily reports and analysis as the situation develops. They've also developed an interactive mapping site (Gulf Oil Spill Tracker site) where people can share photos or videos. Here is an example of one of the images they've produced:
From Science News in the NYTimesNYTimes covers lidar! The husband-and-wife team of Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase used lidar sensors to penetrate the jungle cover to get 3-D images of the site of ancient Caracol, in Belize, one of the great cities of the Maya lowlands. See article.
