Tag Archives: GIS

Open Source in the UK

Contrary to popular belief, it was neither the UK government nor Britain’s national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, who started the UK open-source movement. Although open source was present and used in the UK before 2006, it was The Guardian newspaper that started a campaign called “Free Our Data,” which called for the raw data collected...

Morphing Landscapes

Normally we create digital surface models (DSM) and elevation models (DEM) to analyze the topography and visual issues related to a project or issue. The requirement for accuracy and precision is paramount, ensuring that the correct method(s) of converting the data from raw source to an accurate model is more a work of art than...

FOSS4G 2014

If you’re seriously into open source GIS, you were (or should have been) at the FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geoinformatics) international conference held September 8-13 in Portland, OR. An annual event since 2006, FOSS4G is large enough to attract the heavy-hitter vendors (e.g., Google, Amazon and Boundless), yet small enough to enable...

Critical Issues for GIS/Survey Cooperation

State Plane Coordinates in Legal Descriptions The time is now to have State Plane Coordinates (SPC) attached to key monuments that should be part of just about any legal description, in the proper context.*  This has been discussed since the early 1980s and has been accomplished only on a piecemeal basis.  With coordinate inclusion, a...

Google Glass

The box a Glass arrives in is pretty impressive in and of itself—it reminded me more of Apple packaging for iPads than of typical Android products  (top right). A little card underneath the Glass holder tells you that you are special for spending so much money (middle right). There are really very few operating instructions...

jack dangermond xyht interview

Growing GIS

Many people view Jack Dangermond as the face of commercial GIS, if not the face of GIS as a whole. As the internationally recognized and celebrated leader of Esri, he has led the company from humble beginnings to a leadership role in the GIS industry and community. xyHt recently asked Jack for his views on...