Jonathan Frishtick, GIS/GPS Mapping
As always, please let me know if you find something particularly interesting or useful.
Supreme Court Upholds Resident’s Right to Navy Maps, Rules Against FOIA Exemption
1.From All Point Blog
“The Supreme Court rejected the government’s use of an exemption in the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to keep maps from the public. A Washington state resident wants Navy maps relating to its main West Coast ammunition dump. The individual will see those maps.
In a 8-1 vote the court threw out an appeals court ruling upholding the Navy’s decision keep the maps secret. The maps show damage expected from an explosion at the ammunition dump near Port Townsend in western Washington.”
2. From Geodata Policy Blog
Background: Supreme Court hears arguments in Navy FOIA case
by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, December 1, 2010
… The case before the court, Milner v. Department of the Navy, concerned the Navy’s decision to withhold documents requested under the federal Freedom of Information Act regarding U.S. Navy maps depicting the placement of explosives at a Washington state naval munitions site. The Navy refused area resident Glen Scott Milner’s FOIA request for safety maps and data that show the placement and potential blast ranges of ammunition stored in Naval Magazine Indian Island, located near Port Hadlock, Wash. Milner was seeking information on the potential dangers to the nearby communities of the Navy’s munition storage practices. …
For full text of the article, visit here.
Boston Globe Declares Cartography Boom
From Spatial Sustain
“The rise of new tools is leading to a cartography boom that offers new ways to see the world, states a feature this weekend in The Boston Globe.
Thanks to satellites, surveying, and ever-increasing computing power, mapping has become geographically accurate beyond the dreams of a medieval mind. But many of those same technological advances have also brought us full circle: Maps have increasingly become vehicles not just for telling us how the world looks, but for organizing and representing all sorts of information.
The article cautions that perhaps too much mapping tools are available today, with reference to the work of Edward Tufte who aims to translate data graphically through clear and creative design.”
TeleNAv Reveals Exactly How People are Using GPS
From Mashable
“The company has mined anonymous usage data from more than 20 million subscribers to its GPS products, providing us with these graphics and analysis.”
US Patent Office to License National Online Parcel level Map
From GeoData Polcy
“This patent is for locating a street address by displaying the boundary of the parcel in which it is located within a national multi-state database. …”
Strange Agricultural Landscapes Seen From Space
From Wired Science
My favorite image is the Bolivian soybean fields. They look like snowflakes.
Visualising Global Earthquake Intensity
From Views of the World by way of The Map Room & Planet Geospatial
A cartogram showing earthquake intensity in relation to today’s population distribution, giving an idea of where most people are of risk related to seismic activity:
ESRI Technical Certification Program Live – Training Seminar
Esri’s Certification Manager presents an overview of the Esri Technical Certification Program and discusses the benefits it offers to you and your organization.
From Free Geograpghy Tools:
“ESRI’s GovMaps.Org website (currently in beta), currently offers a searchable catalog of 88 data layers (and presumably growing) hosted at ArcGIS.com, mainly from the US Government, covering a wide variety of subjects areas. A random sampling:
Crushed Stone Operations In The US
NOAA_U.S. Historical Tsunami Database
USGS Stream Gages and Weather Stations
USA Fire Perimeters 2000 through 2009”
Find out where the Google Street View cars are currently on the road
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2011/03/find_out_where_the_street_view_cars.html
Best Mars Images From Orbiter’s First 5 Years
From”Wired Science
Truly phenomenal photos. You can actually see the Mars rover Opportunity in some of the photos.
Create Aerial Cartography for Under $100
Symbolizing trees in ArcGIS 10: Randomly varying the tree symbol size and rotation angle
From: ESRI Mapping Center Blog
A blog entry on how to randomly vary tree symbol sizes