Surveying, Mapping and GIS

I am looking forward to spending this week in Washington DC, despite any further threats of snow (1"-3" expected tonight)... Living in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 1 to 3 inches of snow is no big thing. But the 30+ that hit the Washington area last week are astounding. Hopefully, much of the prior accumulation is now under control.

I will be flying out to Phoenix, Arizona December 9th-12th, to attend the US Environmental Protection Agency's annual Environmental Information Symposium... This year, I will be participating on a panel, to discuss collaborative geospatial tools, web services and data publishing, integration and visualization frameworks for environmental science, such as Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Earth. I am definitely looking forward to sparking some discussion and engaging more people who collect, manage, consume or make decisions based on environmental data... My particular interest at this point is not just in publishing data via open, standards-based (not just OGC, but REST, JSON and others), accessible, dynamic data resources, but also in modeling and analysis, and beginning to look at workflows toward solving a wide variety of environmental problems.

Last year, I got to have a lot of fun developing a turbo Virtual Earth integration in 36 hours, for the Puget Sound Information Challenge. To blow my own horn, my application was recognized by EPA's CIO as one of the most interesting contributions made to the effort. Needless to say, I am really looking forward to attending again this year.

The event will be held at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix,

• Agenda
• Registration

From my colleagues at the Penn State Department of Geography:

Please share with colleagues or students who might be interested. Note that the conference is open to undergraduate as well as graduate students, and Sunday's session (sponsored by our SWIG -- Supporting Women in Geography--chapter) will focus on professional development/networking; former AAG President Jan Monk will be the keynote speaker.

The CFP is available as a PDF document at http://www.geog.psu.edu/noboundaries/noBoundaries2009_CFP_Poster_final.pdf

Additional information, including updates as available, can be found at http://www.geog.psu.edu/noboundaries

***********************************************

The graduate students of the Penn State DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY invite graduate & undergraduate students to present their research at our annual interdisciplinary conference, which takes place on Penn State's University Park campus Saturday, February 28-Sunday, March 1, 2009.

We welcome submissions on subjects including:

Politics, economics, and international development; Ecology and environmental sciences; History, culture, and society; Gender, race, class, and sexuality; Urban & rural policy and planning; Hazards, vulnerability, and global change; GIS, spatial analysis, and geovisualization.

What unites us (and hopefully you) is an attention to space and place, scale, and connections between the human and physical realms. If your research intersects with any of the above, please join us! (more

information: www.geog.psu.edu/noboundaries)

PAPER SESSIONS

Paper sessions will be organized along common themes with 20 minute timeslots (15 minute presentations followed by a 5 minutes of Q and A).

If you would like to present your research, send a title and abstract (250 words or less) to noboundaries@psu.edu.

POSTER SESSIONS

Graduate and undergraduate students are invited to present posters. Send a title and abstract (250 words or less) to noboundaries@psu.edu.

SPECIAL SESSION: BALANCING ON THE ACADEMIC LADDER—SUPPORTING WOMEN IN

GEOGRAPHY AND BEYOND

Creating supportive spaces for a diversity of women within academia is an ongoing process that involves personal and political action at a variety of scales. This year’s special session of the no)BOUNDARIES conference looks to acknowledge the successes as well as the challenges faced by those striving to create a more supportive academic environment for all women.

We are soliciting papers for panel sessions on the themes of:

- Life in the Department: Departmental Climate; Mentoring; Access to Information; Student Organizations (e.g. Supporting Women in Geography)

- Life Beyond the Department: Publishing; Work/Life Balance; Career Track; Outreach; Networking

These are merely suggested topics; we welcome any and all contributions.

Balancing on the Academic Ladder will consist of workshops as well as panel sessions to encourage the generation and exchange of creative ideas and strategies. Send paper abstracts to noboundaries@psu.edu.

Submission deadline for abstracts is February 1, 2009

The Sixteenth Annual Pennsylvania GIS Conference (2008) is coming up:
May 14-15, 2008, at the Radisson Penn Harris Hotel and Conference Center, Camp Hill, PA

Oracle Spatial User Conference
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Washington State Trade & Convention Center
Seattle, Washington USA

The agenda touches on some of my own hotbutton issues - integrating Oracle Spatial with Virtual Earth, Business Intelligence and other areas...

http://gita.org/events/annual/31/Oracle.asp

Finally back home, after spending a week on the road for a few meetings around the country, including the NCEES Uniform Procedures and Legislative Guidelines committee meeting, to which I was recently appointed, to discuss the 5-year review of the NCEES Model Law and Rules and other associated charges, and a couple of days at the Pennsylvania Surveyors Conference.

Amazingly, during the course of one week, US Airways managed to lose one of my bags not once, but twice, on my way down to Florida and then on the way back. The bag did finally show up, but not after it took me a few trips to the store to restock on a few sundries, and not without finally arriving with a trashed wheel.


At any rate, it was a great trip, but I am happy to be home again.


The PSLS Conference was particularly enjoyable, I got to see a lot of old friends and colleagues from around the state, with a great turnout from our PSLS Pocono Chapter, as well as a few friends from the RPLS.COM message board, a few folks from PAMAGIC, and there were a bunch of great sessions to attend...

The sessions I attended:

• Introduction to FEMA National Flood Insurance, presented by Wendy Lathrop PLS, CFM - this was a great session, giving an overview of the DFIRM flood maps and data, versus Q3, discussion of the zones and base flood elevations and processes for submitting map amendments, for working with instances of fill and development within a flood zone, and other associated issues - will post more on FEMA, "Map Modernization" and the DFIRM process in the very near future, as it raises a huge, longstanding concern of mine regarding DFIRM data. Umm, on second thought, NO, I won't post more on my issues and concerns on DFIRMs and MapMod - at least until AFTER the upcoming RFP response...
  
  

  Surveyors use floodplain maps to identify flood-prone areas of sites and to determine the extent of those hazards. We will look at how first Housing and
  Urban Development (HUD) and later the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began mapping flood hazard areas, how the process has changed over the years, and the surveyor’s role in updating and correcting those maps. Regulations and use of the appropriate forms provide practical background when serving our clients and protecting ourselves from liability

• Records Research, presented by Lionel "Buck" Alexander PLS & Charles Colony PE PLS - this was a great session on cadastral research and locating legal records from a variety of sources, not just deed books, but registers of wills, orphans' court, road dockets, and many other sources.
  
  

  This workshop will cover how a deed research is started and completed. It will look at indexing systems, reading and interpreting deeds for chain of title, and the use of plats and plans in deed research, wills, estates, and tax sales as related to deed research will be discussed.

• Survey Measurement Analysis, presented by Chuck Ghilani, Ph.D. - this one featured analysis and propagation of error, and adjustment of error via least squares.
  
  

  This workshop will present and demonstrate the basic statistical analysis necessary to perform least squares adjustments. It will describe methods for
  analyzing and adjusting measurements to account for their errors. This workshop seeks to furnish theoretical understanding and demonstrate computer-aided application to common survey types including level networks, horizontal survey measurement networks, and GPS baseline networks.

• Easements and Rights of Way, presented by Gary Kent - this session gave a great overview of some of the legal aspects of easements and rights-of-way, in how easements and rights-of-way can be formed either through written or unwritten means (such as by necessity), along with case law and other great info.
  
  

  This workshop has the overall objective of helping surveyors more fully understand the types, elements and nature of easements, both written and
  unwritten. Specific performance objectives include improving participants'
  knowledge base such that after attending this workshop, they are able to: define what is an easement, outline the various types of easements, explain the difference between appurtenant easements and easements in gross, explain the difference between an easement and a license, identify the ways in which easements can be created and terminated, identify the types of unwritten easements and explain the nature of each type of unwritten easement.

• Dendrology & Forest Ecology, presented by Tim Pierson Ph.D. & Ken Comstock PLS
  This session provided a great overview of forestry - types of trees, mensuration and valuation of trees, forest growth and sustainability and history of Pennsylvania's forests and forest stewardship.
  
  

  Tree identification and understanding of the uses and values of our timber heritage. Also, the study of forest growth and the relationship of trees to our environment, and to our work as surveyors.

While I'm airing complaints... I was amazed to see that the San Diego Trolley system does not accept credit or debit cards for purchases. So cash only. And then, they don't give out any more than $5 in change (maybe all you have is a $20...)

Further still, they give change in those cheeezy new $1 coins that look like arcade game tokens (at least the Sacajawea dollars had some aesthetic...)

Also, they don't seem to have a 5-day or week pass right front and center. I ended up having to get a 4-day pass and then wing it on an individual fare for the last day.


Not exactly consumer-friendly or commuter-friendly, unless you get a more permanent pass...

As with ESRI User Conferences in the past, there were several cancelled paper sessions. Not that this is unusual in and of itself, but it did seem that there were more cancellations than usual this time around. For example, one person commented that virtually everything relating to geology was cancelled.

I have not heard anything more about the young lady that was hit by the Orange Line trolley on her way to the ESRI UC Wednesday morning...

There is still only sparse information available online: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/13537864/detail.html


I was on the next southbound Orange line, we had to disembark and walk from Seaport Village, she had already been rescued and sent off by ambulance, but police were still working the accident scene.

My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family for a speedy recovery.

ESRI International User Conference 2007

Plenary Session, 6/18/2007 - Continued

Here continues my posting of notes from the UC... Still enumerating new features for 9.3...

Multiple Views

Yes, the much-awaited multiple views for ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 are coming...

Labeling

9.3 brings enhanced label management, with a "pause labeling" feature, which skips labels in interim operations, and thereby allows faster redraws and navigation.

Polygon labeling offers new options as well - "label at fixed position within polygon", labeling of all polygons on a given layer at upper right, lower left, bottom center, and so on.

Contour labeling has been enhanced, to allow groups of contour labels to be linear, in holding with cartographic standards.

A "river labeling" style has been added, to better follow rivers.

WYSIWYG Editing

ArcGIS 9.3 brings true What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editing of features and for cartographic representations. Currently, when a user drags an entity, it is shown in wireframe mode, but 9.3 dynamically shows what the actual feature will look like while being dragged.

Overlaps

9.3 has functionality that highlights overlaps, as well as a great new "disperse markers" feature, which allows overlapping markers to be automatically rearranged in a number of styles.

Cartographic Representations

For tips and tricks for enhanced cartographic standards and representations, and toward optimizing features and functionality in ArcGIS Desktop 9.3, ESRI has set up a "Mapping Center" website, located at http://mappingcenter.esri.com/.

Job Tracking Extension (JTX)

The new Job Tracking Extension offers interesting new functionalities for ArcGIS Desktop and Server 9.3. Essentially, it tracks and manages workflows.

(more to follow... trying to catch up with family first)

I had a chance to get my photos from the ESRI Conference trip off of my camera, and have posted a sampling of them to Flickr...

See the slideshow...

Unfortunately it's an old camera, I didn't have it with me for some of the events and sessions, and several of my photos did not come out, but I am posting what I can.

Plenary: Analysis!



Map Gallery: Some of my stuff:



Cadastral Fabric:



Marston Smith doing his electric cello thing...



Some good friends at the EPA booth: Left to right: Ayhan Ergul (Innovate), Wendy Blake-Coleman (EPA), Claudia Benesch (CSC), Jessica Zichichi (Innovate), and Riva San Juan (Indus)... Ayhan and Jessica won first place for the Embedded GIS category in the User Application Fair for the Metadata Editor, and Jessica also won the Women's Overall in the ESRI 5k run.



UC...



And more... check the slideshow out...

ESRI International User Conference 2007

Plenary Session, 6/18/2007 - Continued

Here continues my posting of notes from the UC... I left off with enhancements through the 9.2 SP 3, SP4 and 9.3 releases...

Imagery

ArcGIS Server will bring improved support for imagery, to allow more sophisticated processing and hyperspectral imagery. Tools from ERDAS and Leica systems will be able to work with imagery hosted on ArcGIS Server.

Raw imagery will be able to be sent directly to a web service.

Web Mapping

Web mapping tools will improve, with Ajax Map Tips, and transparent tools (such as for navigation).

ArcGIS Mobile

ArcGIS Mobile is a new set of components as a lightweight alternative to ArcPad, which allows integration with GPS, connected and disconnected editing.

ArcGIS Explorer

ArcGIS Explorer and ArcGIS Online continue to evolve.

Open Standards and Interoperability

Toward expanded support for Open Standards and Interoperability, a REST API for ArcGIS Server is being developed. Additionally, stronger OGC support is being pursued, along with improved ability to support mashups in Google and Microsoft Virtual Earth.

CAD Interoperability

ESRI Continues to develop and enhance ArcGIS for AutoCAD, and is pursuing improvements to support the CAD->GIS Workflow. In polling, 50% of ESRI users indicated they also use CAD software.

I wonder if ESRI is pursuing complete, if simple, CAD capabilities, to obviate the need for CAD packages for more casual users.

Other Notes:

Continued support for mashups is being pursued. Additionally, Replication within ArcSDE is being developed and expanded, to support work within an organization, where multiple departments must be coordinated.

ArcGIS Explorer and ArcGIS Online

Bernie Szukalski gave an overview of ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS Online makes a number of ready-to-use resources available to ArcGIS Explorer. These come in the form of prepublished map services and documents, which can be saved as .lyr files, and then consumed within ArcGIS Explorer. These include resources such as 1m US imagery, 2.5m SPOT imagery, and a number of other other data assets.

The ArcGIS Online site provides links to a number of online resources. Additionally, user data assets can be brought in. In an ArcGIS Explorer demo, USGS topos were brought in and draped over topography. Additionally, the Swipe tool allows users to swipe-drag layer visibility status to examine changes.

Another demo showed an ArcGIS Explorer task to perform ALOHA modelling of a toxic plume in ArcGIS Explorer. Here, a user could create a custom task to allow the user to specify a point and supply parameters, and then fetch and overlay the resultant plume.

Another ArcGIS Online feature discussed was online data delivery, using DataDoors technology, or via FTP or DVD.

Another new technology being promoted is the availability of ArcGIS Data Appliances. Here, ArcGIS data could be deployed in the field to remote locations, or deployed to secure environments residing behind an enterprise firewall. It was noted that currently ESRI is the leading provider of demographic data.

Other new technologies:

• ArcWeb Services - continues to be developed and expanded


• Geospatial Portal Toolkit - a new release is coming on the horizon


• JTX - for Workflow management

ArcLogistics

ArcLogistics was demonstrated by Carl Terry, which allows users to perform more sophisticated, rules-based routing and logistics than conventional routing tools such as ArcIMS Route Server and others offer. For example, ridership rules, appointment times, vehicle capacities and other parameters can be entered to build optimized routes. Terry stated 15-30% savings could be almost instantly realized for enterprises through the use of this type of logistics optimization.

Tech Support, Training and Education

Nick Frunzi gave an overview of efforts ongoing in customer support, training and other areas - he cited demand as resulting in a gap in support that was seen with the release of 9.2. Toward mitigating and improving customer support, his team is adding 30% more staff, and embedding support staff with developer teams to provide more robust domain expertise. As other new embedded support capability, diagnostic reporting and crash analysis is to be released in 9.3 products.

One piece of particularly exciting self-service support news is that in the next month, the internal ESRI knowledge base would be made available, in an online support center.

So overall, how is ESRI Doing?

15% growth this year...

(To be continued...)

I have to admit, I think I'm getting a bit too much of my royal GIS geek on...

Yes, that actually is ArcPad, loaded up with base maps for San Diego, and I created a few extra layers, with trolley routes, BatchGeocoded places of interest, and plenty of other goodies in advance of the ESRI UC, and I'll be tooling around with bluetooth GPS to boot... As usual, I'll be loaded, downloaded, wired, WiFi'd, bluetoothed, GPS'ed, web 2.0'd, AJAXed, geo-enabled, deepfried and sanctified...

No, I was not able to attend... Getting the occasional bits and pieces of information from the DevSummit.

For those folks who are attending, say hi to Xiuzhu Yang, a good friend of mine and very talented developer that I have been working with for the last year on EPA projects.

Another very talented guy that I cross paths with, also at the DevSummit this year is Vincent Zhuang from SAIC, author of Programming ASP.NET for ArcGIS Server.

Just got this photo emailed to me from friends at PSLS:



Here I am at the 2007 Pennsylvania Surveyor's Conference with Patrick Lee, who was there as a re-enactor performing biographical sketches told as Daniel Boone.

It was a thoroughly wonderful evening - Mr. Lee is a talented and enjoyable speaker. He has also graciously sent me several leads for researching one of my early Searcy ancestors, who was an associate of Daniel Boone's.

I was delinquent in posting this pic from the 2007 ESRI FedUC...



A group of colleagues from the USEPA contracting world - From left to right: Myself, Jessica Zichichi (Innovate!), Jack Dangermond, Claudia Benesch (CSC - Agency Central Support) and Catherine Harness (CSC - GeoData Gateway Lead)

This was the reception at the Organization of American States - and yes, that is a map on my necktie...

I was able to enjoy some time at the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors' 2007 Conference. It was great to see many old friends again, such as the great folks at PSLS that put the conference on, the Penn State Wilkes-Barre Surveying faculty (they have an excellent program there - I was fortunate to be able to tag along as an observer in the last ABET visit to Penn State, and have known Tom Seybert since my own days at Penn State as a student), as well as many fellow surveyors, PAMAGIC members, POBers and other folks - the conversation was great, I got a lot of input and thoughts on Continuing Professional Competency, data standards and geodesy, and many other things swirling around in my life of late.

My focus was to attend some of the GPS sessions, and though I was tied up with many other things, I was actually able to attend some, such as the "Horizontal Control Survey with GPS " session by GPS guru Dr. James P. Reilly, and the "Static GPS Post-Processing" session by Brian Naberezny, of PSU and University of Maine.

I also greatly enjoyed the excellent presentation put on by Patrick Lee, as a Daniel Boone re-enactor. As a pioneer in his westward movements, Daniel Boone was involved in surveying and land grants - and some of my own Searcy ancestors were colleagues of Boone, and were also surveyors in early Kentucky.

Patrick Lee as Daniel Boone

I am looking forward to spending some time over the next few days at the Pennsylvania Surveyors' Conference. It's always a great time to catch up with old friends, as well as get some updates on various things going on in the world of surveying and mapping. This year I am going to focus on the GPS track, something I have not been doing my due dilligence on of late.

On another note, it's beginning to amaze me how many geospatial-related conferences are cropping up of late. I just got a notice of the Rocket City conference in Huntsville, and there have been several others in the last few months and more upcoming. I can certainly understand thematic conferences, regional ones, vendor-
oriented ones... but are we getting to the point where there are just too many?