FANTASTIC Bay Area spatial data

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  If you love detailed spatial data and/or the bay area, I HIGHLY recommend downloading and exploring the readily available Upland Goals Project Data . Ryan Branciforte introduced  it to us last week during his enlightening geolunch presentation about his work with the Bay Area Open Space Council. There is a wealth of data for all interests, including vegetation, animals, environmental features, weather patterns, fire risk, and even camp sites if you want to plan a trip to go look at all the data on the ground.

Access private data at the UC Berkeley Census Research Data Center

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Kevin and I went to a talk this week and found out about a very under-utilized resource on campus, the Research Data Center (RDC). It is one of only 9 RDCs in the U.S., and it is the only location where you can access non-public demographic, health, and economic data that contain detailed information on geographic location and/or other characteristics about firms or households. For an overview of all the confidential data you can seek access to,  look over the CRDC's data page, and specific details about each can be found at the Center for Economic Studies Data Page. The application process is described as "rigorous and lengthy", but the people at the center seem very friendly and eager to help more researchers use their data. For a list of other data resources on campus, check out the UC Data resources page.

Global disease alert map

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healthmap.JPG Here is yet another exciting use of the GoolgeMaps API.... HealthMap aggregates outbreak data by disease from numerous sources (news, personal accounts, and official alerts) and displays them by location in real-time. It's a collaborative project brought together by the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. If you're not a germaphobe now, you may become one after taking a look at the map; be sure to check it out before your next international trip or even if you stay around here. For example, did you know that the West Nile Virus has infected 78 people in California this year? Even closer to home, there was a TB scare at Kaiser in SF last week.

GPS on a Mac

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I have been doing some GIS noodling on my Mac recently, since it is an Air and very nice. So, what can you do without parallels on a Mac? Lots. The new QGIS with Grass plugins is great, but if you want to just get your hiking points in and overlaid on an image, you can use GPSbabel. Also free (with suggested donations though, and it is a good thing). You can download your waypoints, tracks and routes from your Garmin (I used a GPSMap 60CSx) with GPSbabel (use the GPX format) and use the GPS plugin in QGIS to easily map them. But, going the other way? that is more difficult. I used GPSbabel with csv format (x, y, id) and uploaded an important route to my Garmin. I was feeling all adventurous until a colleague sent me this link: ben sinclair's site: how to use a garmin with your mac which sorts it all out for you.

Radar vs GPS: GPS Wins!!!

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 A 16 year kid got a speeding ticket for 62 in a 45, but the GPS tracking device in his parents put in the car showed his more accurate speed, first the court ruled against him, but when the "expert" realized the GPS was accurate to 1mph of the speed, they overturned it. http://hothardware.com/News/Speeding_Radar_Gun_vs_GPS/

Radiohead uses LiDAR in latest music video

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No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes. And here's the 'making of' video:

Reimagining cities through “hyper-exploration”

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For those with an interest in historical maps and/or new uses of the google maps API , check out this HyperCities site created by a group at UCLA. The original of such a site has more data: Hypermedia Berlin, which was created by UCLA Germanic Languages and Jewish Studies Professor Todd Presner when he wanted a better way to teach about Berlin. For details on the sites, here is a short article on Presner.