On August the 14th – a little over two weeks ago – the US State of the Map conference was held in Atlanta. It was excellent – I think it will be one of those events where I will say “I was there” 5 years from now.
OpenStreetMap has been one of those things I’ve had a hard time wrapping my head around. It took me months to get comfortable editing. Once I did I found it hard to stop. I’ve made more mistakes than I care to admit. I’m trying to decide now how to fix some attribution mistakes I made in adding data. I think I’ll have to take the “eat the elephant approach” to fix them – but they will get fixed.
The big thing that struck me about this conference was….well two things.
The first was how these guys (non-gis people) were doing in essence GIS work. They had the luxury of not being bothered by all the stuff I worry about – and because of that they made an excellent map. I’ll toss data if I think it is bad. I would rather have no data than bad data. It actually got me to think that maybe bad data isn’t really all that bad – no data is the problem. If you have nothing – you truly have nothing. Anything is better than nothing (in most cases). I really began to understand the term “Crowd Sourcing”.
Second – OpenStreetMap is changing. The idea behind GIS data is changing. I watched Learon Dalby stand up in front of a group of maybe 100 people and offer all the roads in Arkansas to OSM. Free. No License. No Nothing. Take them please. There was dead silence in the room. It was beautiful. In reality – what good does it do a state/county to collect data and then do nothing with it…except sell it…oh yeah and serve it out in a map over the internet. Give it away – give it to Google, give it to OSM……Make it available to the people. Learon’s reasoning…the New Madrid Fault. When it lets loose what will we use for the rescue? The data he has given away. Look at Haiti and what happened. There was no data for rescuers. The New Madrid earthquake will make Katrina look like it never happened.
I watched as a representative of the US Census made a case for using the map and the data and contributing back to the map. I watched as representatives from local US Gov’t made cases for using the map and the data and contributing back to it. I found it interesting that both talks centered around this approach. Use the data – contribute back. Not get the data and share it out from an overpriced server with a flex front end.
I found it to be more interesting to watch the people in the audience. People I thought would be really overjoyed at this – didn’t seem to be. It was interesting….possibly a bit telling as to the internal state of OpenStreetMap. I like the politics of mapping – it’s always been a guilty little pleasure. How do people react…how do they not react…..how good is your poker face. Mine is terrible. I guess that’s why I try to watch everyone else in the room.
So OSM is starting to serve whether it likes it or not as a…a National Map of sorts. A data repository. A place that data can be stored and shared. It wasn’t built for this and the concern was evident at the conference. What do you do? My gut feeling is the recent deal with MapQuest is going to result in a better backend for OSM. I really think Google should take notice. Google should help. After all – The opposite of “Do no Evil” is “Do all Good”…correct…maybe. This would be a good thing to do.
Anyway – I’m rambling a bit. It was an excellent conference. Oh yeah – the price for admission. $35 dollars.Yes. $35 dollars.
I watched OSM grow just a bit in the US. Actually I think it grew a lot in two days.
Gather round Children…..lets talk about some really old stuff…..
So way back in the early 90′s (really not that long ago), Young Randy started his GIS career. When I first started out there was this company called Intergraph that pretty much ruled for mapping in the agency for which I worked. They are right down the road from Chattanooga in Huntsville Al. You had all this very boring looking software running on very complicated computers of which I had no clue. The only clue I did have is that we used Intergraph software in combination with Microstation to map stuff. We had 1 or 2 onsite techs. Arc/INFO eventually shut them out. It was a bit sad – a local company gets dumped for a non local company….but that is the way it works.
So about that same time (or a little later) I had to take a trip to Muscle Shoals and printed out my maps from Mapquest. Mapquest rocked. No more fooling with giant Atlases for me – I would print out where I needed to go when I needed to go there. If I remember correctly, and I most certainly don’t, that same trip I passed Intergraph off the side of the interstate while holding my Mapquest printouts swerving all over the road. I haven’t looked at mapquest in probably 5 or 6 years.
So twice in one week the past came rocketing back.
First off – Intergraph was bought by Hexagon. Hexagon it seems is in the business of “precision”. From their website “Hexagon is a world-leading supplier of systems for measurement of objects in one, two or three dimensions.”. What makes this Interesting for me is that Hexagon also owns ERDAS. I’ve had a long standing relationship with ERDAS. I’ve watched them jump around a bit over the last few years as they were bought by Leica Geosystems….. and then Leica Geosystems being bought by Hexagon…… to the re-emergence of ERDAS as a solutions provider for imagery and other stuff (Apollo). So ERDAS and Intergraph are pretty much in the same 6 sided church. ESRI doesn’t much care for wither one. Absolutely nothing could come of this…..or everyone is so busy building flex sites they wont’ be paying attention.
Second – Mapquest just announced a $1,000,000 dollar investment in OpenStreetMap . I can’t remember the last time I went to Mapquest to print out a map. I do remember however the last time I went to Google Maps and printed out a map…and cussed because it was wrong. So is it a bid to remain relevant? Do they really want to make a better map? I don’t know but I am interested just because of all the work I’ve put into the the Chattanooga portion of the map. Plus there is the US State of the Map conference in Atlanta….at which I will be speaking…..
Anyway – two things I had pretty much forgotten about suddenly came rocketing back out of the past this week.
So the Education and Outreach portion of GA URISA Rolls on…..
The workshop we held in Dahlonega Ga back in March is heading south to Warner Robbins Ga. After sitting through the last workshop I’ll be co-instructing this one with the lovely and talented Sara Yurman of Spatial Focus.
A Brief Overview:
Free and open source software (FOSS) has been offering choices to computer users for a number of years. Over the past few years the open source choices in GIS have been broader and more capable than ever before. This workshop will focus on GIS open source software. It will give an overview of current developments from technical and management perspectives. Selected packages and their applications in various projects will be demonstrated and discussed.
Specific topics include:
Open Source GIS background and development
Overview of Open Source GIS spatial functionalities
Live demonstration
Interoperability: The Open Source GIS spectrum
Planning and implementation issues
Intended Audience: Anyone interested in free and open source geographic information system software. The workshop will suit both managerial and technical needs and it does not require any prerequisites.
Check the new and improved GA URISA website for any changes – right now it’s looking like May 20th is the date.
The great OSM experiment continues. During one of my last blog posts I declared that the best way to get your kids up and geographically literate – or at least literate about their surroundings was to stick them out and get them to update Open Street Map.
So a call was put out and I found myself at Red Bank High School. Having been out of high school some twenty years I found myself roaming the halls headed to talk to two classes about maps – for one I did a greater overview of GIS and Maps in general. By the second class (after waking up the 1st) I found that I really just needed to dive into Open Street Map and quit talking so much.
After much pain and agony getting their hardware up to date they are mapping. It should really be stressed – and I try hard to not poke too hard on this blog – about the state of technology in the school systems. I was faced with about 15 or so laptops running Windows 2000 and Internet Explorer 6. Different parts of the school were on different Operating Systems. In one walk down the Hallway I passed Four Different OS’s and three different types of computers. I know it’s hard to keep technology current in a school….but dang…. . If I could give out local school board some advice – eh….I won’t go there. It won’t end well.
Anyway with minimal effort they are straightening out roads, adding buildings, and POIs (Points of Interest) through Mapzen. I’m diving in when I can and helping. I really need to introduce them to the Wiki and start getting them to recognize the things they can tag: one way streets, hyperlinks, addresses, etc, etc., but for a first whack it is going well. Some kids are adding buildings, some are adding fields and trees, some are adding <gasp> the mall in Hixson. It’s pretty funny. It’s quite interesting.
This all relates to a project that they and the teacher will be working on………but I think they will discover the following…and not even realize it.
Red Bank is in and of itself in a bit of a quandary. It’s not part of Chattanooga – which is great – but they have to keep, as does everyone, the tax base/funding growing. A few years ago they decided to put into place a few red light cameras at selected intersections (which will be added to the map) to slow people down. So over the last 5 or 6 years since that was done something terrible has happened. They’ve caused a shift in people’s patterns. The humorous thing about the cameras is that they are hated with a passion. Mostly because – and I think this is at the heart of the matter – they are perceived to be for revenue enhancement. If you get a ticket (knock on wood I haven’t) and you decide to protest – the fine is doubled. So it goes from something like $50 to $100. So this year the mayor went out and drove Red Bank and found that probably close to half of the commercially available space was empty – but we are in a recession so that can be explained. Except – the cheapest fast food restaurant near one of the camera’s closed. Not enough people. Patterns have changed. It’s late in the year and most likely the mapping won’t get completed until next year – but it would be interesting if this small group of high school students suddenly were able to document something interesting in a small place. As I told them – it’s all important – map what you you think people want to know about. Half immediately screamed the cameras. It appears the other half are mapping buildings.
I like Red Bank. It’s a great place. As I am fond of saying – It’s all about geography. It’s all about patterns. Do something and something happens. In this case a butterfly didn’t flap it’s wings and cause an earthquake. A camera snapped a picture and the people quit coming.
Check it out – I encourage you to help. Hopefully the Cameras get added this weekend. By Me. Randal Hale. Not a resident of Red Bank.
Educator and want to know more? Email me and I can point you in the right direction.
I probably should have done this a bit sooner – but didn’t.
For those of you keeping up – I’m the Education Chair of Georgia URISA. For those of you really keeping up – you have no doubt heard about the new rollout of the Georgia URISA website. It’s cool – It’s broke.
So for those of you coming to the URISA Open Source Workshop tomorrow:
There’s a great quote in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:
“He started to count to ten. He was desperately worried that one day sentient life forms would forget how to do this. Only by counting could humans demonstrate their independence of computers.”
This is going to a be a long running story arc in the life or North River Geographic Systems, Inc so watch for updates.
Back in my former career of not that long ago I had this long running argument that would rear it’s ugly head. It would go something like “Am I a employee of <blank> or a GIS person?”. I was both – you have to be both. I would find myself posing this question from time to time when I was asked to do something that I found to be off center as a GIS person. The thing I was asked to do would be great for the company – but I felt that it was of questionable GIS intent…and in general bad form. I find myself now – having been a business for just about 4 years – almost the same question. Am I a GIS person or an ESRI person? I’m a Business Partner and currently an Authorized Trainer…..so I’ve drunk the Kool-aid so to speak.
As a GISP – I think I owe it to myself and my clients to get more well rounded in the world of GIS. I’m participating this week in a GA URISA workshop on Open Source GIS. Being the education chair for GA URISA I’ve started perusing the material. Something happened….I feel woefully unprepared. I wanted to co-instruct and I’m really beginning to think I can’t just yet. You see – I can make ArcGIS do what I need it to do. I’ve used ESRI software since my fledgling career started 16 years ago. The open source stuff is a bit new to me. I want to know more – I need to know more. I know I’m not breaking new ground – but for those of you who read and keep up you might find this interesting. Open Source software - particularly Linux – has been a side to my life for some years that I have enjoyed immensely so why not let it be part of my career.
I pulled one of my lab laptops today and reformatted it with Linux. Which flavor? Ubuntu. So I abandoned Windows and as a result I abandoned ArcGIS on this machine. What am I going to put on it? What can you put on it?
Mapserver
Geoserver
Quantum GIS
PostGIS
Open Jump
GRASS
…..and I am going to work on getting better as a GIS person. My Goal – share out data from that machine to my ArcGIS machine. Use my new linux machine to complement my work. Learn. Enjoy and immerse myself just a little bit deeper into GIS. It should make me a better “GIS Person” and a “ESRI Person”. I hope it will. At the absolute worst – I’m going to learn. I may even come up with some ideas that expand the business a bit.
Anyway – check back from time to time. I’m going to be doing some “stuff” and posting what I have learned back up here. So today I “counted” using Open Source GIS Tools. It was kind of nice.
