Category Archives: Happy Hour GIS

Meetups, MOOCs, and Hackers, Oh My!

Posted on by
Reply

As a community of users and programs, we are constantly searching for ways to broaden and expand the use of GIS/geospatial technologies in our areas of influence.  While I’ve written previously in eSpatiallyNewYork about the NYS geospatial community’s need to expand outreach in professional circles and disciplines (engineering, public works, health industries, retail, etc.), there is a large and increasing number of GIS/geospatial individuals,  or even companies for that matter, who are not necessarily aligned with the traditional “GIS community”.  Or at least the traditional community of users which we have come to recognize and know over the past two decades.

This is a new and evolving community of geospatial users very different from the first generation of GIS/geospatial users which came together in the 80s/90s representing government and government contractors to create the initial statewide organizational framework (i.e., annual conferences, regional GIS user group meetings, NYS Coordinating Body, etc).  For years, the act of collaborating and communicating the geospatial message required attending meetings and conferences.   You had to be there.  It was the only venue there was.

But as we know now, the internet has fundamentally changed all of this and at the same time has dramatically increased the number of geospatial users and consumers. Individuals joining our space from many different angles and reasons such as starting a mid-life career change, engaging as a community activist,  Millennial generation programmers leveraging  public domain geospatial datasets to build mobile/smartphone applications, or the many simply participating in internet-based continuing education programs.   Connecting virtually and joining the geospatial fray via social media, MindMixer, blogs, hackathons, code sharing, and the many other available online user forums. Even through LinkedIn.

One online venue growing in popularity and offering geospatial enthusiasts the opportunity to interact, exchange ideas, collaborate, and to meet, is Meetup.com. There are Meetup groups for nearly everything imaginable, but just in the metropolitan New York City area alone, there are several “geo” groups with combined memberships already well into the thousands.   One group I’ve joined (GeoNYC) now has over 1,000 members.  A thousand! Some other groups in the metropolitan area include NYC Open Data (1,800 members), Crisismappers NYC (140+ members), and GeoDev NYC (which is essentially supported by ESRI) with 600+ members.  There also Meetup groups for OpenStreetMap NYC , Maptime NYC, and nyhacker (2,600+ members).  The New York Big Data Workshop group has had 384 members join just since February of this year.  Granted many individuals are probably members of multiple groups and not all of these groups are totally focused on GIS/geospatial, but the numbers are still pretty impressive.   It’s definitely a new culture of collaboration and working together – and I doubt many of the “geo” Meetup.com Nation have attend or participate in either of the two major statewide GIS conferences (NYS Annual Conference and NYS Geospatial Summit).    (The last time I was at a Meetup I overheard a conversation between two individuals communicating solely by their screen names!)

Conceptually similar, though phenomenally different, consider the  thousands of individuals now chasing and taking part in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC).  For example, one of the more visible and successful MOOCs was the 5-week MOOC, Maps and the Geospatial Revolution, taught Summer 2013 by Dr. Anthony Robinson of Penn State. Dr. Robinson was the keynote at the Spring 2014 Annual GIS-SIG meeting held in Pittsford, New York.   Over 47,000 students enrolled – of which according to Dr. Robinson 1,068 were from New York State – and over 35,000 students participated, making it the largest GIS course ever taught. (Wonder how many of the 1,068 registered are members of the NYGIS Association?) The same MOOC course is currently being offered and is in session now. Here in Westchester County, Dr. Peggy Minnis at Pace University offered a MOOC entitled “GIS 101” during Spring 2013 semester which led to 810 individuals registering for the course.  Dr. Minnis noted that about 150 of the 810 never logged in while another 150 worked fairly regularly through the weekly assignments. The latter group became the core of the active learners.  (And a follow-up course “GIS Basics” was offered Fall 2013).    All said, there is no denying the increasing MOOC appeal as a means to presenting basic geospatial concepts to a new and broader user community.  As to the overall benefits and relevance of MOOC coursework,  reference is made to a January 2013 Journal of Higher Education article noting “Course certification rates are misleading and counterproductive indicators of the impact and potential of open online courses”.    (I just saw another MOOC listing in a June 5th Directions Magazine Blog posting:  New MOOC in Beta: Introduction to GIS using Quantum GIS.

And lastly, are our hacker friends.  There are hackers of all types but here I’m referencing the geospatial types.  The new friends of GIS with an edge and attitude.   One does not have to try too hard to find the growing list of GIS and open data related hackathons including, but not limited to, the  ESRI UC Hackathon, Hack Pasedena, City of Austin Hack for Change, Code for Burlington , Colorado/Wyoming Google Hackathon,  NYC BigApps 2014, opendataphilly,  ourimportant and closely aligned disciplines in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry (AEC), and many more.   Any other Google search on “geohacker applications” or “geospatial hacker apps” will return yet another long list of specific applications and authors.  Take a look.   A completely different, and often awesome, ad hoc approach to geospatial application development.  Hard to quantify the numbers but they are there.   Maybe in the cubicle/office pod next to you or in the basement next door.  And what do they do?  Maybe best defined from the  Hacker wiki:

  • Hacker:  those who make innovative customizations or combinations of retail electronic and computer equipment
  • Hacker:  those who combine excellence, playfulness, cleverness and exploration in performed activities

There is a whole new and expanding community of geospatial users amongst us and it’s my guess we’re only beginning to scratch the surface on identifying and understanding who they are and how to make a connection.   The big challenge is realizing that many of the new breed are ones using geospatial on the fringe, innocuously, and not necessarily in establish groups or programs.  Probably solo on the internet, sometimes just a screen name, developing and sharing – and then leaving.  GIS rogue.  But at the end of the day new and refreshing.  And contributing to the common geospatial good.

There are lots of individuals engaged in these new spaces and the Empire State GIS community would do well to take note.

Spring 2014 GIS Conference Deals

Posted on by
Reply

Spring is one of my favorite times of the year for a bunch of reasons.   March Madness, Major League Baseball season begins (sorry Yanks & Mets fans, having been raised outside of Cleveland, I’m a hapless lifelong Indians fan – which is a curse) and the public golf courses in Westchester County open late March!  But this Spring is particularly sweet as we finally begin to sense and feel an end to the brutal and seemingly endless winter we’ve all suffered through over the past several months.

Over on the geospatial front, Spring also offers some of my favorite one-day GIS conferences held in locations which are easily accessible to the Empire State  geospatial community.     These one-day conferences are user-friendly, light on registration fees, provide excellent networking opportunities among colleagues and industry representatives,  provide good content, and minimize overall travel expenses – which is significant due to the substantial travel restrictions many GIS professionals are currently dealing with across the state.

Three Spring 2014 regional GIS conferences and meetings worth considering include:

GIS-SIG 23rd Annual Conference, April 15th, Rochester, NY.   GIS-SIG is the long standing western New York geospatial educational user group whose primary mission is to “foster the understanding of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology.”   GIS/SIG provides a professional forum in the Rochester – Genesee Finger Lakes region for GIS education, data sharing, communication and networking with other local, state and national users, dissemination of information about trends and policies related to GIS, and technology advancement.  With a loyal membership and Board of Directors, the size and content of the GIS/SIG conference is broad enough to often substitute as an  annual state conference for many GIS practitioners in the western half of the state.  The conference boasts a wide range of vendors and presentations involving government, industry and business, nonprofits, and contributions from the many academic institutions in the Rochester-Buffalo corridor.  Corporate sponsorship keeps the price tag of an individual registration at under a $100 for the day which also includes lunch.   Online registration is available and while you are at the GIS/SIG website you can also see the many resources and links GIS/SIG provides to its user community.

Northeast Arc User Group (NEARC) Meeting, May 13th, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.  Though not in New York State, the Spring NEARC meeting is conveniently located in Amherst, MA which is easily accessible to the Albany Capital District and GIS professionals in eastern New York State. Once considered the smaller venue of the NEARC suite of annual conferences, Spring NEARC grew too large at its original site at Smith College in Northampton, MA and moved to a larger venue at the University of Massachusetts.  Unlike the GIS/SIG conference which is software vendor independent, this show is very much ESRI centric though is packed with high quality user presentations, well attended by ESRI business partners, and has grown to be so popular that the show competes with the larger annual three-day NEARC Conference held in the fall and other similar New England GIS shows.   This is a great one-day conference, well attended, great user content, easy access, lots of opportunities to meet industry representatives and ESRI regional staff,  professional networking,  and includes lunch – all for $45.  If your organization is an ESRI shop – this is a Spring show not to miss.

Westchester GIS User Group Meeting, May 15th, Purchase College, Purchase New York.  As one of the largest geospatial meetings in southeastern New York State,  the Westchester GIS User Group Meeting is a free one-day conference held at Purchase College.  Made possible by financial support from exhibiting vendors and conference facilities through the college, the 2014 event includes a wide range of user presentations,  a specific PDH (Professional Development Hour) user track for engineers,  afternoon workshops, coffee breaks for networking,  and both a student poster contest and on-campus geogaching and orienteering contest.  The Purchase College location provides easy one-day access across the metropolitan NYC area, including the lower Hudson River Valley and also southeastern Connecticut. While a preliminary agenda has already been posted, it will be updated on a regular basis leading up to the day of the meeting.

So, if overnight travel and expenses are simply not available, fret not – there are regional geospatial meetings and conferences which are accessible from most areas of the state – which provide many of the same benefits of larger shows – and at the same time are easy on the wallet.  It’s worth considering these and other smaller shows to support your professional development efforts and outreach.  At the end of the day, it will be worth your while and you’ll be supporting both your colleagues and the industry representatives which support our Empire State GIS programs.

Imagery is Everywhere

Posted on by
Reply

The recent release of the joint Time, Inc., Google, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and Carnegie Mellon University’s Create Lab Timelapse website in May of this year highlights once again the increased availability of a wide range of imagery – in variety of formats – to geospatial users across the Empire State.  With aerial imagery becoming another market-driven commodity to support the expanding geospatial industry, consumers now have several options including either a la carte commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products or more simply consuming imagery online – for free – as part of a growing number of publically accessible Cloud applications and map services.

 Commercial Imagery Products

While imagery requirements to support large scale (1”=100’) planimetric feature mapping is often much more detailed and usually acquired through  formal procurement, COTS imagery can routinely be obtained in the 1m – 2m resolution range, which is normally sufficient to support many general viewing and “what-is-where” geospatial applications across New York State.   COTS imagery has never been easier and more cost-effective to acquire.

GIS mapping and viewing applications that use aerial imagery primarily as a means to provide context to larger-scale, more spatially accurate vector datasets such as tax parcel boundaries, building footprints, and street features can use COTS products.   In the emergency response disciplines, rapidly deployed and developed COTS-quality imagery (+/-  1m – 2m resolution) has also become a standard in damage assessment for incidents such hurricanes, flooding, wildland fires, and other natural disasters.

Firms such as such as MapMart, WeoGeo, and TerraServer serve as brokers for several types of commercial aerial and satellite imagery –  including Digital Globe GeoEye, and QuickBird products – which are sufficient to support “what is where” viewing applications in most government mapping programs.  These commercial data warehouses also make available selected government image datasets such as the leaf-on National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) photography.    Commercial sites provide easy-to-use online forms to select areas of interest, imagery type/format, and cost estimates on the requested imagery.  Commercial aerial imagery can also be bought directly from the aerial or satellite imagery firm (i.e., Digital Globe) but marketplaces such as MapMart and WeoGeo provide a broader range of options for the consumer. (Note:  Georeferenced NAIP aerial imagery can be downloaded directly from Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS) website.  As part of preparing this blog post, I received a cost estimate from MapMart for two scenes of Digital Globe Precision Aerials (0.3 m resolution) imagery covering the entire Westchester County footprint – which proved to be very cost competitive and affordable.

Of course the ease and speed of purchasing COTS aerial imagery with or without detailed specifications does not come without potential issues or concerns.   One, some commercial firms may only have imagery that is several years old for a selected “area of interest” or sometimes even more problematic is that a specific area may contain a combination of years of photography. Also, file formats, datums, or the ability to test (QA/QC) the imagery may not be possible and it is worth mentioning that commercial off-the-shelf aerial imagery products are typically not be used in the production or updating of large-scale planimetric vector datasets.  Users measuring distances with COTS may take heed as depending on the scale and resolution of the imagery as calculated distant may contain an unacceptable amount of error depending on user requirements.   Use and redistribution licensing restrictions should also be thoroughly reviewed.

Imagery as part of Cloud and Map Services

If users do not require a physical (local) copy of the imagery, there are also options to access web sites  publishing aerial imagery as a service  – for free –  which can be “mashed-up” with local datasets in a variety of desktop and web viewing clients.  One of the more notable aerial imagery map services in the Empire State is available through the New York State Digital Orthophoto Program (NYSDOP).  In production since 2001, the program makes imagery available for both download and through OGC-compliant Web Map Services (WMS).    Funded through a combination of federal,  state, and local  sources, many of most commonly developed NYSDOP image products across the state (particularly outside of urban areas) are 1ft and 2ft resolution imagery which are generally comparable to COTS available products.

A much larger and expanded source of online aerial imagery is The National Map Viewer (TNM) portal which provides several map services “containing orthorectified digital aerial photographs and satellite imagery” which are more than sufficient resolution to support “what is where” viewing applications.  In additional to making high resolution imagery available, the TNM also provides viewing software that enables users to add local content – either as layers or map services.  A somewhat similar “mash-up” system is the popular Google Earth viewer which provides imagery as base map and of course, the ability for users to add additional KML layers and WMS services.  Other closely related products such as Microsoft Bing Maps offer developer tools to embed and make available imagery (Pictometry obliques) in business and government applications.

The new approach of providing both Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in one interface – and for free – is increasingly empowering for organizations with limited resources or GIS capacity.  Albeit at its core, ArcGIS.com is a fee-based product that offers similar functionality and does include free options if contributors make project maps accessible to the public.  An exhaustive gallery of public facing maps – many of which include high resolution aerial photography as the base map AND can be modified and enhanced by anonymous users with local datasets – is available for viewing at the ArcGIS.com portal.  Many of the maps can be used as a front-end to add local content for site specific projects here in New York State.

All said, the landscape has changed dramatically in recent months with regard to purchasing COTS aerial and satellite imagery which can used to support desktop and web-based geospatial applications.  And the user community should expect options to only expand over the next several years as:  1) aerial imagery change detection technology continues to evolve (enabling consumers to purchase aerial imagery where it is really needed and/or physical changes have actually occurred)  and 2)  the next generation of smaller earth observation satellites promising a surge of commercial space-based imagery platforms combined with better web-based visualization and mapping systems that are ready to ingest and analyze near real-time imagery.  To say the least of anticipated options associated with the budding drone and unmanned aerial planes/vehicles which will be used to support imagery and data collection.

If organizations have limited budgets, do not require a complete update of the imagery database or do not have other “hard” requirements (i.e., photography to support large-scale feature/planimetric  mapping) COTS imagery can be priced very competitively and can be considered as a viable alternative in support of enterprise aerial imagery programs.