Hurrah for Autodesk (sort of)

FOSS4G Day 3. Fantastically inspiring lectures on Open Source Spatial Data Infrastructures, which is just what we (in an Oxford Archaeology sense) are looking for. Time to go back and re-evaluate a lot of these products, which are maybe two major releases further on, and a great deal more developed and sophisticated, than last time I looked.

Prize for the most exciting new product of the conference (IMHO) goes to MapChat- which the conference abstract describes as “a prototype web-based tool for synchronous multi-user communication via a mab interface”. In archaeology the technical term we would use to describe this would be “very cool indeed”. In a nutshell it’s a geographically enabled forum with a map front-end built with mapscript/chameleon and some ajax widgets, and the data stored in postgresql. I came away with these rosy ideas of passionate discussions amongst my fellow archaeologists about what has been found in a particular area, or more prosaically being able to plan trenches interactively with the client, all through a map and discussion-based interface. It’s still in alpha at the moment, but a demo is available at http://fesdss08.uwaterloo.ca/mapchat.

So why am I grudgingly praising the mighty AutoDesk monster? Well they’ve been a big presence throughout this conference and have invested quite a lot of money in making it a success (which it has been, without a doubt). However, I think that their motives for opensourcing MapGuide are still not entirely clear, and there is a lot of ingrained distrust towards them. Having said that, tonight they laid on a boat trip to the Chateau de Chillon at Montreux, a guided tour of what is undoubtably a fantastic castle, and a delicious three-course meal in one of the castles’s four great halls. So, thanks guys!

[Posted on my pda from the hotel]

Of Neogeography and Mashups

Soooo, yesterday was FOSS4G 2006 Day Two, and the key point of interest for me was the interaction between the old-school learning-intensive traditional approach to GIS with the “anything goes” Google Mashup approach.

Several of yesterday’s speakers acknowledged the undeniable debt that web-based mapping has towards Google for lowering the barriers and raising the profile of the discipline, but some also pointed out that often this means abandoning core ideas in GIS such as coordinate systems, because you don’t need this knowledge to create a mashup.

As I learnt in Scott Davis’s very informative and interesting workshop in the afternnon, you can create a perfectly functional Google Maps clone in javascript with free imagery from NASA without referring to real world coordinates, but is that a map or a pretty interactive picture?

I think it is still a map, the London Tube Map isn’t an accurate location of what’s under the ground, but people don’t expect it to be geographically accurate. When creating maps that have the appearance of accuracy, should we be more upfront about the limitations of the data or applications we produce?

People who create Google Maps Mashups were described yesterday as NeoGeographers, which was the first time I’d heard the term. If you take that to mean that Google Mashups represent the rebirth of mapping, then it’s even more important that we acknowledge the limits of the maps, and in fact all the spatial data, that we create.

[Posted with my pda from the conference]

FOSS4G 2006 Day One

Well, today was day one of the FOSS4G conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. I’m a bit of a conference n00b, having only made it to UK events in the past, and certainly nothing of this size or calibre. So, couple that with the fact that I’ve forgotten most of my school french or german vocab and it’s been a learning experience!

The workshops that I attended today were on MapGuide Open Source, which was what I was concentrating on when I signed up but I think I would rather have attended the workshop on PostGIS instead of the Introduction to MapGuide Open Source this morning. Having already used MGOS for a few months now I’m reasonably familiar with the basic functionality, although as always a proper grounding in the fundamentals is incredibly valuable. The most interesting aspect that I was unaware of is MapAgent, a set of html forms built in to the standard MGOS installation that expose the xml-based resource database and allow you to interrogate it. With MapAgent it’s possible to alter much of the layer symbology and client-level appearance of your map, such as the Web Layout without needing to use MapGuide Studio, which will soon be a fully commercial product, or it’s slightly limited but free alternative Web Studio by DM Solutions.

The afternoon session was far more advanced, covering the development of web-based applications to enhance MGOS, such as an interface for digitising features on screen or serving live kml to Google Earth. This session required a better understanding of php and javascript than I have, unfortunately, so went way over my head. It was really inspiring though, and I do hope to improve my coding in those areas (when I get chance). I’m not sure that either session convinced me that MGOS should be a primary part of our emerging Spatial Data Infrastructure though, as it does blur the lines between service provider (the Server), the Data Store, and the Client Interface. Boy though, that client interface is slick. Hmm, the jury’s out on this one.

This evening there was a meeting about OSGEO, which was mainly a request for people to set up Local Chapters, and a discussion on the exact form that such groups should take. I confess that I started off in the meeting not very interested, but after mulling it over I can see that such a group in the UK could potentially provide a focus for lobbying for public ownership of geospatial data as well as increasing public awareness (and adoption) of Open Source software in the UK. It’s quite telling that there are very few Brits at the conference, and whether that’s symptomatic of a British reluctance to get involved in OS Software is an interesting question.

Finally we hooked up with Tyler Mitchell and had an entertaining evening meal in a pizzeria where all the pizzas were named after celebrities! I can’t say that I tried the Brad Pitt, or even the Tony Blair- I went for a Swiss Politician who’s name I’ve forgotten. No mushrooms you see…

[Posted from my hotel room on my zaurus pda (so no linkalicious goodness, though I'll try and rectify that later, with a proper keyboard]

Deckchairs on the Titanic

This morning I took delivery (thanks to the nice people at Amazon UK) of Time Management for System Administrators from O’Reilly. I’m really looking forward to reading it, because I could do with something to help me deal with the many different calls upon my time at work. The trouble with being a sysadmin (in everything but name) AND working on GIS projects is that I find it difficult to focus on any one task when I am constantly being interrupted for assistance with Microsoft Word, printers, changing backup tapes, getting together deployment kits of computers and associated gear for remote sites, etc, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job and it’s never dull, but I could do with some pointers on how to keep the plates spinning!

I have been a big fan of David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach for a year or so now, though I admit that I fall off the wagon occasionally! I’m still looking for the perfect To-Do list upon which to record all of my tasks though. I have been looking at the myriad online solutions, but what I want (no, need) is something that I can carry around and use offline on my zaurus pda. The browser on the zaurus is somewhat old-fashioned now (Opera 7.25) and it doesn’t really do all of this shiny ajaxy stuff very well, so I’ve been sticking with Ko/Pi, which is a platform independent version of Korganiser. I use that on a USB stick on my desktop, and synchronise it with the copy on the zaurus whenever I remember. At the very least I need to set it to synchronise automatically when I connect the zaurus to the desktop, but I’ve got a Windows XP machine at work, and a Mac Mini and a Fedora Core 4 Desktop at home, so I could do with something a little more slick.

Though, as I said, I do fall off the GTD-wagon occasionally, and have never managed (or needed?) to implement the whole system, I have incorporated several aspects of GTD into my work and home life. The idea of “Next Actions” (What is the very next thing you need to do to move this project forward?) and, following on from that, the “Two Minute Rule” (Can you do this Next Action in two minutes or less? If not, delegate or defer it) now seem absolutely fundamental. They don’t stop things piling up, or stop me procrastinating about a job because I can’t see the way forward, but at least I’m learning to recognise this state of mind and do something about it.

Back to Time Management for System Administrators though. The biggest area of frustration I have in my day to day work is not being able to see projects through to completion because so many other things have got in the way.I’m hoping that this book might give me some clues as to how to get the bigger things done as well as the little things. We’ll see, and I’ll keep posting on this subject. I’m off to FOSS4G 2006 in Lausanne on Monday so I’m hoping to get started with reading it on the journey to La Suisse.

More on Flickr Geotagging

After yesterday’s post, I was wondering about geotagging, and specifically whether or not it’s possible to export the location data created in the geotagging process as standard flickr tabs. If I’m going to put my photos in Flickr and Google Earth I don’t really want to have to go through the geotagging process twice! Anyway, in the Flickr Geotagging Group I found a link to a great Greasemonkey script for adding visible lat and long tags to photos, which I’m hoping to explore further.

Yahoo’s idea of where the photos were taken is, however, somewhat different to mine- it has labelled the photos taking in Tobermory as Ledaig, and those in Iona as Baile Mor. It did get Oban right though, which is a relief!

First Post

Well, everyone’s got to start somewhere!

I’ve just been trying out the new Flickr Geotagging capabilities, uploading photos of my recent wedding on the Isle of Mull, just off the west coast of Scotland. As countless people have said elsewhere, Flickr have got it pretty much spot on with this geotagging interface. Being able to drag and drop the photos is great- does it get more intuitive than that?

My only qualm is the quality of the mapping for the UK. It’s not as good as Google, showing only major roads and towns, and believe me there aren’t many of them on Mull…

Anyhow, this is a work in progress, and I want to investigate the different methods of getting the geotagged images into Google Maps/Earth as well.