Mapperz - The Map & GIS News finding blog. With so many Mapping sites online. This blog tries to provide you with the best maps and services that are currently available online.
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Review of the Day at Wembley Stadium 17/09/2008 The new turf getting laid down for the next event England v Kazakhstan (thanks the friendly security guard for letting me go turf side to take this pic.)
Google Developer Day, London,UK Nothing amazingly new, geolocation for mobiles, GeoIP location, some new phone that shows maps fairly quickly. (though not it's real location)
Meeting some of the real developers people for Google Maps API but not all. Some wanting more details of what is coming - like the reverse geocoder and new geocoder response (creates a bounding box set of coordinates so zoom levels can be applied). But Google rarely give away what is likely to be coming out.
Seemed a little less busy than last years event maybe due to having more space.
Some items like 'clouds' and 'dojo' completely over my head for some of it. Like the Google Apps potential for saleability - 4 users or 400,000 users hosted and load balancing handled by Google.
(jump to 2.25 minutes in the video to view the maps)
Good Food, Good Location, Good Company made a nice day out.
Google have announced the full line up for the day
Here are the 'Mapping' related sessions
Mashing up Google Data APIs
Ryan Boyd
This session will provide a quick overview of Google Data APIs and demonstrate some ways to use them in mashups with other APIs like Maps, App Engine and more. Expect to see code in a variety of languages.
Prerequisites: Developers attending this session should be comfortable with at least one of PHP, Python, JavaScript or Java. Experience working with REST-based APIs a plus.
A Deeper Look at Google App Engine
Mano Marks
Google App Engine allows you to build and run applications on the same highly scalable web infrastructure that Google uses to run it own applications. This allows you to build an application once, and then never have to worry about how many people are using it, how many machines you're using, or how you're going to handle all the traffic. This talk will introduce you to the basic features of Google App Engine, and walk you through building a quick, interactive application.
Some of the topics we will cover are:
App Engine's Datastore
Authentication using Google accounts
The web framework
Our image manipulation API
Using Memcache
App Engine best practices
This session is intended for intermediate developers who are new to Google App Engine.
Prerequisites: If you want to follow along with setting up an application, then you should have a laptop with Python 2.5 and the App Engine Development Server installed and an App Engine account. Python knowledge is helpful but not required.
What's New in Geo
Russell Middleton
This session will cover recent developments in Google Maps and Google Earth, including the Earth browser plugin and new ways to share and leverage geographic data.
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of XHTML, CSS, XML and Javascript
Gears for mobile and the new Geolocation API
Charles Wiles
This session will provide an overview of Gears and it's usefulness in mobile browsers and then focus on how you can easily location-enable web apps with a few simple javascript calls.
Prerequisites: You should have reviewed the Gears APIs on code.google.com/apis/gears and in particular, have familiarised yourself with the Geolocation API.
Note:It is recommended you have a laptop with the 'Prerequisites' installed.
update in blue (see below) BBC Sport's Olympic Map Released
BBC Sport has a nice custom maps using Microsoft Virtual Earth. Image Source:Firefox screenshot of BBC Sport's Olympic Map
BBC Sport's Olympic map for the 2008 Beijing Games.
How to use the map
Yellow sport icons indicate venues Click to find out more about a venue
Blue icons indicate landmarks Click to find out more about places in Beijing
Red icons indicate blog posts Click to read an Olympics blog post
Green icons are Twitter posts Click for an update from a BBC journalist
Image Source:BBC Sport
There are more than 30 venues in Beijing. Sailing in Qingdao on China's north-east coast. Equestrian sports in Hong Kong, to the south.
Clicking different icons allows to find more information about venues.
• Find out more about the 37 Chinese Olympic venues
• Read articles from journalists on BBC Sport's Olympics blog
• Read Twitter updates from BBC Sport's journalists in China
The BBC would like feedback... We would like to hear your feedback on our Olympic map - you can leave your comments on BBC Sport's Olympics blog.
This Map was created using the Virtual Earth API and Custom Maps added using MapCruncher. If you are interested in the methodology of how this has been created here is a good starting point. http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2008/07/16/bbc-sports-olympic-map/ "The inclement weather and a thick cloud layer over Beijing for the last few MONTHS, it has been incredibly difficult to get good satellite imagery. This makes the MapCruncher overlays a huge benefit to the application. The imagery we’re serving up was taken just a few months ago - obviously tons of progress has been made to the get the stadiums ready for August, but what a great addition to compliment the Virtual Earth platform"
All golf courses and airports have been mapped in Adobe Flex for the PGA Golf Tour of Wales 2008.
"This application was built using Adobe Flex, an open source framework for building rich Internet applications that get delivered via the Flash Player or to desktops via Adobe AIR."
"One hundred golf clubs, one Ryder Cup. The Ryder Cup is taken on a tour of Welsh golf clubs by helicopter as a prelude to the 2010 Ryder Cup to be held at the Celtic Manor Resort."
Maps are based on the Microsoft Virtual Earth Platform (but with a google zoom bar). Map available at http://www.pgarydercuptour.com/Map.swf (requires flash) Lots of locations and lots of content for users interested in professional golf.
SQL Server 2008 and Virtual Earth - Looks to become a powerful online GIS (WebGIS)
Most Mapping Applications take data from a database, here users input (Points,Polylines & Polygons) and gets stored in a spatial database, After data is stored, the data can be used in simple analysis, buffering, interesecting, clipping etc. No need to have a desktop GIS anymore (?)
"In the previous parts we have first been looking on the database side and how we can use various mechanisms to load and extract data and we even implemented a geocoder in the database. Then we moved on and investigated various ways to retrieve data from SQL Server 2008 and visualize them in Virtual Earth. In this final part we will now focus on using Virtual Earth as a simple data editor which allows us to write data back to SQL Server 2008."
14 tutorials using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and Vitrual Earth
BBC School Report Map using Microsoft Virtual Earth "This is a map of schools taking part in School Report 2008. Navigate and zoom by using the buttons at the top left of the map. Click on a marker to find out about that school."
When will ESRI certify support on Microsoft’s Vista operating system? We will complete our testing and add support for the Microsoft Vista operating systems in the third quarter 2007 for ArcGIS Desktop 9.2. We will support all products on Windows Vista at the ArcGIS 9.3.
NOTE: Due to some issues with Vista, several patches from Microsoft will be required in order to run ArcGIS under Vista.
What is the status of ESRI’s support for running ArcGIS on 64-bit operating systems? ESRI is currently performing certification testing for ArcGIS Desktop 9.2 to support 64-bit processors. This will be delivered with service pack 3 in July.
What is ESRI doing in ArcGIS to make it easier for users to share geoprocessing models and best practices? ESRI will publish a new Web site named the Geoprocessing Center to coincide with the ArcGIS 9.3 release in an effort to promote the sharing of geoprocessing models and scripts among the ArcGIS user community. This new resource center is part of the ESRI support site. By openly sharing these models and scripts, we can help each other learn and apply geoprocessing for solving many types of problems. ArcGIS 9.3 will make it easy to publish models to, as well as search for and download models from, the Geoprocessing Center.
When will ESRI support better handling of graphical exports of large format maps (72 x 55 inches and larger)? The next major release after ArcGIS 9.3 will include a new plotting and graphic display system that will significantly increase display performance and support large format map export as a primary capability.
Can you improve the performance of the “Near” spatial analysis tool? (Requested many times to ESRI UK - you try using 'near' with 28 million addresses)
Yes, ArcGIS 9.3 will include a new approach for performing proximity analysis that substantially increases the performance of the Near tool. New functionality will be provided that calculates the distances between and among various features (points, lines, and polygons). The output of this function will be a new "near table" that can be subsequently used for various kinds of spatial analysis (e.g., spatial statistics).
What is ESRI doing about the speed of ArcMap? In the next major release after ArcGIS 9.3, ESRI will implement a new display pipeline into ArcGIS that will radically improve display performance and scalability.
Microsoft is developing a spatial type in SQL Server. Will ESRI be supporting this? (codenamed 'Katmai' will be SQL Server 2008 with Spatial Database Support. This manages any type of data from relational data to documents, geographic information and XML.)
Yes, ESRI is working closely with Microsoft and will release support for this spatial type as a standard part of ArcGIS clients (direct connect) and ArcGIS Server (ArcSDE gateway). This capability will be supported with ArcGIS 9.3. We will coordinate the timing of the release of this functionality with Microsoft’s release schedule. More info on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/futureversion/default.mspx
