New LE tool: Conefor Sensinode 2.2: Software for quantifying the importance of habitat patches for landscape connectivity

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New Patch/Corridor tool: CONEFOR SENSINODE 2.2. This is a new software that allows quantifying the importance of habitat areas for the maintenance or improvement of landscape connectivity. It is conceived as a tool for decision-making support in landscape planning and habitat conservation, through the identification and prioritization of critical sites for ecological connectivity. I know nothing about it, but looks cool.

WhereCamp, June 2nd-3rd

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Y'all might be interested in this. Hell, I might even go. Via the geowanking list,

A quick reminder: WhereCamp is being held June 2-3 at the Yahoo! Sunnyvale campus. There'll be sessions and whatnot. You might also consider it a Geowanking list meet-up of sorts. Description: WhereCamp un-conference. Free. A hugely energetic overlap of diverse interests ranging from newbies, web 2.0 and mobile developers, social place hackers and artists to grad students, geographers, earth scientists and people focused on humanitarian and environmental efforts. Wiki: http://wherecamp.pbwiki.com/WhereCampSF Directions: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/address/ Registered Attendees: http://wherecamp.pbwiki.com/WhereCampSFRegistrants and: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/170065/ See you there! -- Joshua Schachter http://del.icio.us/joshua http://joshua.schachter.org/

geocoding webservice on giif

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After I saw this: I created a specialized, simplified, hacked up version on giif, that is pretty useful. the simplest way to see its use is by going here (ken-ichi, i'm leaving the link text == href intentionally): http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/proxy/geoservice.py/geocode/2134%20Allston%20Way,%20Berkeley,%20CA,%2094704 that is the lat/lon of CanCun Burritos. If you prefer your burritos in UTM, you can request by appending ?epsg=26910 to the end: http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/proxy/geoservice.py/geocode/2134%20Allston%20Way,%20Berkeley,%20CA,%2094704?epsg=26910 or any valid EPSG code that GDAL on giifweb will recognize. (if you dont know what EPSG is, you should consider freeing yourself from your dependency on ESRI products.) likewise, reverse geocoding: http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/proxy/geoservice.py/reverse_geocode/-122.2584/37.8675 and it may return you a list of info. depending on wether geonames.org can reverse_geocode your points. again that assumes lat/lon, you can specify an EPSG code by appening ?epsg=26910 to the end of the query. it's useful to have this built into a webGIS. where,perhaps, the user enters an address and you move the map to that lat/lon. the script will generate an example if you browse to: http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/proxy/geoservice.py/example if you enter an address and an EPSG, it should alert the lat/lon, and then try to reverse_geocode and alert that derived place. if you view the source on that page, you can see how to include the necessary javascript: and if you browse to that url, you'll see the lovely javascript that is generated. Since AJAX is used, you'll either need to download the source to somewhere that has GDAL and web.py installed, or be on giifweb. to use the javascript, you need to attach an event to call the geocode() javascript function:

document.getElementById('button').onclick = function(){
geocode(document.getElementById('address').value, 4326);
};

where geocode() generates a url and makes the AJAX request to server to do the geocoding for you. again, the 4326 is the default, optional EPSG, to use other projections, just put that as the 2nd argument. then, when the result returns from the server, it geocode.callback is called with the resulting JSON: so you can define your own callback like: geocode.callback = function(result){ // do something with the result. document.getElementById('x').value = result.x document.getElementById('y').value = result.y }; where result.x and result.y correspond to the x and y properties here it's simpler than it sounds, best to view and read the source of the example. or better yet, just make the python script print itself. in all places in this post where it says firecenter.berkeley.edu, you can substitute giif.cnr.berkeley.edu or giifweb.cnr.berkeley.edu, and it will work as it should. and you will have to do this if you use the javascript/AJAX because of cross-domain issues. sorry i dont know how to format html properly on this blag.

Cool weather links

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Come on, you know you love checking the weather.. admit it. here is a nice, late night, intimate dinner conversation starter. Awesome interactive maps that change as you move your cursor over various links (e.g. wind direction, temperature, etc.) If you love graphs (and who doesn't!?) this site will rock your boat, because honestly, who needs those cutsie little pictures with dark cloudies and the sun, or the so not scientific location descriptors (e.g."Berkeley, CA")?? (not me!) if it's going to be cloudy, i wan't to know "HOW CLOUDY?". and please, it's "37.86N -122.26W," not "Berkeley." (see attached picture for more details) ;)

Google mashups galore

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Over the past few months, I've run into some cool Google Maps mashups. Check and see.

  • Berkeley Crime Maps: Take a look at the what, when, and where of crime in Berkeley. Don't look too long, though, or you'll want to move.
  • Housing Maps: Now that you've been staring at Berkeley's crime maps for too long, you probably want to move. These guys have you covered. All housing posts on Craigslist for the past few days are geolocated. Click on the pin to preview the post. Very cool.
  • Gmap Pedometer: Moved to that new location finally? Not sure how long your running route is? Gmap Pedometer is a slick way to take care of this without the clickety-clack of a real pedometer. I like.

Flow Map Layout

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Several researchers at Stanford have written some software for visualizing flow maps. There pictures are very pretty, and, I think, good data vis. The map above shows the top ten states providing migrants to NY and CA. Here's their abstract:

Cartographers have long used flow maps to show the movement of objects from one location to another, such as the number of people in a migration, the amount of goods being traded, or the number of packets in a network. The advantage of flow maps is that they reduce visual clutter by merging edges. Most flow maps are drawn by hand and there are few computer algorithms available. We present a method for generating flow maps using hierarchical clustering given a set of nodes, positions, and flow data between the nodes. Our techniques are inspired by graph layout algorithms that minimize edge crossings and distort node positions while maintaining their relative position to one another. We demonstrate our technique by producing flow maps for network traffic, census data, and trade data.