Archive

903. Jack Camel (2009-05-21T18:40:22Z): Owning the GIS curriculum in US colleges isn't locking in future revenue streams enough already? [more ...]
902. Reactions (2009-05-20T19:46:05Z): Some reactions on the web to the Google Maps Data API announcement [more ...]
901. Geo + AtomPub (2009-05-20T17:43:41Z): Google Maps Data API. We have been telling you AtomPub would be a big deal. [more ...]
900. Diving into Shapely 1.1 (2009-05-18T21:53:10Z): It's not been tested on Windows at all, but might work with some coaxing. [more ...]
899. Future for geospatial on App Engine? (2009-05-15T15:52:09Z): I'm thinking a little more about the support GAE could offer for geospatial apps. [more ...]
898. Look what I found in KML (2009-05-12T17:03:59Z): A neat find because we need more working examples of service descriptions. [more ...]
897. New GIS and Python programming blog (2009-05-06T23:05:02Z): Subscribed. [more ...]
896. Philosopher's Stone (2009-04-23T18:07:32Z): Jeff Harrison tries to flip the alchemist label back onto the web wonks. [more ...]
895. Generic geometry library (2009-04-13T14:34:37Z): The Generic Geometry Library (via Mateusz Loskot) looks interesting. [more ...]
894. Shapely 1.0.12 (2009-04-09T22:14:38Z): This release fixes a reference counting bug. [more ...]
893. GeoRSS media type? (2009-04-08T17:11:45Z): Is there anything to be gained by having a special GeoRSS media type that overrode the Atom or RSS media types? [more ...]
892. REST vs SOAP at ESRI DevSummit (2009-04-08T16:44:28Z): Before his presentation becomes canon in the ESRI user community, I'd like folks to consider: [more ...]
891. Keytree 0.2.1 (2009-04-05T04:51:12Z): Now, I'm trying to decide if something similar would be useful for Atom with GeoRSS. [more ...]
890. Sensible observation services, part 2 (2009-04-03T16:31:58Z): SOA didn't say how to spatially or temporally slice data. SOA said "have services". Services with well-defined interfaces. It's up to communities to define those interfaces. It's the same for RESTful architectures. [more ...]
889. REST in reality (2009-04-02T22:20:23Z): This isn't finance. Sometimes non-transactional is more honest. [more ...]
888. OpenLayers constrained by hypertext (2009-03-31T22:50:45Z): All data the OpenLayers code needs to render a map of the place is now discoverable through HTML links without having to go out of band. [more ...]
887. Spring is officially here (2009-03-25T15:50:57Z): You know Spring has really returned to Fort Collins when the turkey vultures show up. [more ...]
886. Good because it's good (2009-03-21T04:03:29Z): REST isn't good because it's trendy, it's good because it's good. Loose coupling. Scalability. Evolvability. Serendipitous reuse. A real alternative to RPC. [more ...]
885. Implications of WMTS for S3 tiles (2009-03-19T18:27:41Z): Check out this interesting post by Randy George concerning S3 map tiles for DeepEarth: Theproject also includes an example showing how to set up a local tile set. The example uses256�256 tiles but not in the OSGeo TMS directory structure. Here is a...
884. Commenting on OGC WMTS (2009-03-19T15:54:52Z): Meanwhile, I've started a discussion on geo-web-rest by posting my comment verbatim, and will write a bit more about the candidate standard here. [more ...]
883. Sensible observation services (2009-03-16T23:32:22Z): What is an ASOS station or a data buoy if not a very dedicated non-human blogger? [more ...]
882. Behind the curtain (2009-03-08T23:21:56Z): Does it matter to a RESTful zealot that ESRI?s REST API is a cover for SOAP? [more ...]
881. Unbearable liteness (2009-03-06T17:25:19Z): Lets you achieve simple goals simply, but not itself a simple thing -- is this too wonky a notion to get across? [more ...]
880. Transliterating from Greek and Latin (2009-03-04T21:02:27Z): The code we use to transliterate names from Greek and Latin writing systems in the style of the Barrington Atlas is now available from our package index [more ...]
879. My first vimperator script (2009-02-25T19:42:05Z): Wrote my first vimperator plugin script last night. [more ...]
878. Give it a REST (2009-02-23T17:25:51Z): I'd like to see more GIS developers follow the lead of CloudMade and tout HTTP APIs. [more ...]
877. Plugins for Shapely (2009-02-19T16:26:03Z): In theory, this makes it possible to a write an application using Shapely that can run on either C Python, Jython, or IronPython. In practice, the plugin framework is helping to improve the testability and quality of Shapely's code. [more ...]
876. Critique of WxS, en Fran�ais. (2009-02-14T21:31:19Z): I think this is the first time I've been translated. [more ...]
875. Making data more citable (2009-02-13T15:33:02Z): Shorter Kurt Schwehr: your data needs a cool URI.
874. Anglo-European Open Source Archaeo/Geo/GIS events? (2009-02-05T23:45:27Z): So, I'm going to be in Montpellier, France, for one year starting 1 June. [more ...]
873. What's the beef? (2009-02-04T17:45:38Z): The answer requires a few more than 140 characters. [more ...]
872. Busting RESTful GIS myths (2009-02-02T19:44:36Z): I'm going to use the announcement of Nanaimo's "authentic Web" GIS as an occasion to debunk some myths about REST and the Web, and their fitness for designing alternatives to the OGC's service architecture, that surfaced on Twitter last week. [more ...]
871. Nanaimo's RESTful GIS (2009-02-01T19:27:18Z): Webarch, REST, and GIS for "the town that Google Earth ate", Nanaimo, BC. Very nice.
870. A more perfect union, continued (2009-01-27T21:38:36Z): Shapely never had the power to dissolve adjacent polygons in a collection before, or at least not over large collections of real-world data. GEOS 3.1's cascaded unions are a big help [more ...]
869. Efficient batch operations for Shapely (2009-01-26T04:34:43Z): I began exposing some of the new features of GEOS 3.1 in Shapely today. [more ...]
868. In order to form a more perfect union (2009-01-23T22:15:22Z): Now that's change we can believe in. [more ...]
867. Services and web resources (2009-01-21T21:12:07Z): Are these OGC web services not web resources at all, or just broken ones that might be patched up with appropriate representations and HTTP status codes? [more ...]
866. KML and atom:link (2009-01-21T13:41:29Z): Jason Birch is right in wanting to use rel="alternate" in his KML atom:link, and the OGC KML spec is wrong in limiting us to "rel=related". [more ...]
865. Mocking GEOS (2009-01-20T18:21:03Z): My use of mocks isn't as sophisticated as Dave's, perhaps, but I stumbled onto a simple testing pattern that might be useful to other Python geospatial/GIS developers who are wrapping C libs using ctypes. [more ...]
864. Toward Shapely 1.1 (2009-01-20T16:10:52Z): Feel free to grab the new code from its Subversion repository [more ...]
863. Open access to National GIS data (2009-01-16T16:20:04Z): I believe I will write my new Senator, Mark Udall (do I ever love typing that phrase!), and see if he's interested in doing something about it. [more ...]
862. Links in content (2009-01-15T20:13:48Z): If your services aspire to the level of infrastructure, links in content is a better architectural style than one where all clients break when the API changes, or that demand a client upgrade to get access to any new capabilities. [more ...]
861. GIS consultancy stimulus proposal (2009-01-13T17:46:41Z): US $1,200,000,000 is a lot of GeoPork. [more ...]
860. OpenLayers and Djakota imagery (2009-01-04T17:51:10Z): Hugh Cayless has written an OpenURL image layer for OpenLayers that pulls imagery from Djakota. [more ...]
859. More decoration (2009-01-02T18:03:01Z): Are decorators merely cosmetic? I'm of the opinion that some syntaxes are better than others. [more ...]
858. How to decorate Python GIS code (2008-12-30T19:42:20Z): Last month I blogged about Python logging and how to avoid using print statements in geoprocessing code. But your crufty old code isn't going to rewrite itself, and you're overworked already. [more ...]
857. ESRI users discover setuptools and easy_install (2008-12-29T04:15:07Z): My work is done [more ...]
856. I can has Python and GIS environments? (2008-12-23T23:45:39Z): I've spent this short week tuning up my new laptop's development environment, and a side effect of this work is a new build system for replicable, isolated Python, GIS, and image/raster processing environments. [more ...]
855. Preserving first-generation web/GIS projects (2008-12-22T18:12:37Z): Check out this interesting story about the reanimation of an orphaned plant database and its associated ArcIMS instance. [more ...]
854. Geojson 1.0.1 (2008-12-21T04:10:05Z): Geojson 1.0.1 fixes a bug in serialization of features with no geometry.
853. The return of the scientist (2008-12-19T23:24:44Z): Holdren's Boston Globe op-ed from the summer is now a must read [more ...]
852. My new project (2008-12-17T21:03:31Z): Born Saturday, a few days early. [more ...]
851. Semantic web at CAA 2009 (2008-12-12T15:56:06Z): There will be a semantic web session at CAA 2009 [more ...]
850. TurboGears and MapFish tutorial (2008-12-11T18:44:47Z): If I had PostGIS running around here, I'd give this tutorial a go. [more ...]
849. Why not CIDOC CRM at this time (2008-12-10T18:03:38Z): Our decision to defer use of properties of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) is explained in this memo. [more ...]
848. Surging! (2008-12-09T15:21:33Z): Some say the "Geo-Gopher" is surging, and it may well be. Any numbers?
847. Get your Python 3000 geometries on (2008-12-04T22:11:06Z): Python 3.0 is final and I've pushed my port of Shapely to GitHub: http://github.com/sgillies/shapely-3k/tree/master. [more ...]
846. In defense of less sexy software (2008-12-02T17:06:06Z): Two posts from the Zope world caught my eye recently. [more ...]
845. How to lay out Python project code (2008-12-01T18:24:33Z): Paste has many more features, but is worth getting for the project creation feature alone. [more ...]
844. The beds we make (2008-12-01T15:50:03Z): To the extent that INSPIRE is guided by the OGC, how could it have chosen anything but SOAP? [more ...]
843. REST solutions (2008-11-26T16:54:15Z): "Resources derive from the solution domain, not part of the problem domain." [more ...]
842. Neo vs. Paleo: argle-bargle or fufurah? (2008-11-25T03:39:46Z): I found some videos from upcoming AAG and Where 2.0 panels on YouTube [more ...]
841. How to make better brown gravy for turkey (2008-11-24T19:48:43Z): Do you want better gravy than you had last year? It's not too late to begin tonight [more ...]
840. Why not Atom-powered repositories? (2008-11-21T23:14:24Z): Less like EPrints, DSpace, or Fedora; more like Google's data APIs, more like what Peter Keane is doing with DASe.
839. Shapely 1.0.11 and onward (2008-11-20T16:47:20Z): If I were superstitious, I wouldn't post a link to http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Shapely/1.0.11. Tests pass, the release candidate checked out, it's good to go. [more ...]
838. HTTP caching explained (2008-11-19T17:43:40Z): Even if you already know, you'll likely appreciate Ryan Tomayko's explanation of the things caches do. [more ...]
837. Maps, France 1944 (2008-11-18T17:34:31Z): Yesterday, I received in the mail my grandfather's cloth escape maps of France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. [more ...]
836. Shapely 1.0.10 (2008-11-18T04:07:47Z): Somewhere along the way I became too lax about testing compatibility with GEOS 2.2.3, and it was broken in the 1.0.8 release. [more ...]
835. Shapely 1.0.9 (2008-11-17T03:43:10Z): Shapely 1.0.9 works with a MacPorts libgeos. No need to upgrade otherwise.
834. GeoJSON is not hypermedia (2008-11-13T23:36:17Z): In conclusion, GeoJSON 1.0 is not a hypermedia format. Without links there are no levers of application state to be seized, no hypertext constraint, and therefore no REST. [more ...]
833. Nearest book (2008-11-13T22:56:24Z): A book excerpt meme is propagating through Python blogs. Why not? [more ...]
832. Python logging (2008-11-11T19:00:42Z): Today's tip: excellent application logging and how to avoid using print statements in your production code. [more ...]
831. Will the real "GeoWeb" please stand up, part 2 (2008-11-06T02:52:56Z): One of the GeoWebs is predicated on GML, another eschews it. There's some brand confusion here.
830. Change (2008-11-03T04:43:33Z): After 7 disastrous years of mal-intent and incompetence, let's give the hopeful and serious a chance. It's time for a change.
829. Shapely 1.0.8 (2008-11-01T18:22:30Z): An upgrade is recommended if you're using Zope or a similar framework. [more ...]
828. Multiprocessing with Rtree (2008-10-30T19:49:11Z): I came up with an example of how Python's multiprocessing package could be used to set up a simple R-Tree index server: [more ...]
827. Geo-enabling CouchDB (2008-10-29T15:55:01Z): I suggested in comments that GeoCouch might want to take advantage of the GeoJSON group's work, on geometry formatting at least. [more ...]
826. Zotero Update (2008-10-29T14:47:05Z): "CHNM announces that it has re-released the full functionality of Zotero 1.5 Sync Review to its users and the open source community." [more ...]
825. The Geospatial-Military-Industrial Complex blogs (2008-10-28T16:04:39Z): There's no rule of "Web 2.0" that says one must be fun and hip. Grim, steely resolve is fine too. Be yourselves. [more ...]
824. New blogs around OpenLayers and Python (2008-10-22T15:43:36Z): My Zope guru, Whit Morris, is writing on a new OpenGeo, and there are two new blogs related to MapFish by C�dric Moullet and Eric Lemoine.
823. Happy birthday, Ursula K. Le Guin (2008-10-21T16:22:47Z): Did you know that her website has maps of Earthsea? [more ...]
822. ORE 1.0 (2008-10-21T15:13:52Z): The discussion around ORE opened minds all around: I was clued in to Linked Data and had my interest in RDF rekindled; the ORE authors came around to embracing the practices of the Atom community. [more ...]
821. Long, lonely tail (2008-10-20T22:03:34Z): This reminds of the geospatial/geoweb community's fascination with "top 25" lists and preference for popular blogs over idiosyncratic blogs [more ...]
820. The hypertext constraint (2008-10-20T14:07:50Z): A must read for all "REST API" designers.
819. Second-guessing Project Bamboo (2008-10-19T18:42:48Z): Count me as a skeptic. [more ...]
818. Beers and Python GIS in Praha (2008-10-03T07:49:41Z): One of the highlights of this trip was the chance to meet fellow Python and GIS programmer, and blogger, J�chym ?epick�. [more ...]
817. Friends don't let friends use EndNote, part 2 (2008-09-27T12:38:06Z): Is this the kind of company you want to support, Steve? [more ...]
816. OpenLayers and 900913 (2008-09-19T17:21:11Z): Thanks to some hand holding from Chris and Josh, Pleiades now has Spherical Mercator maps using the Google physical geography layer as a stand-in for our ideal ancient world base map. [more ...]
815. Geojson and pyproj interop (2008-09-18T21:20:13Z): I've just finished writing a module that supports projection of objects that provide the geometry part of the Lab's geo interface: proj.py. [more ...]
814. Adding pyproj to a buildout (2008-09-18T16:11:54Z): Pyproj is Jeffrey Whitaker's Python interface to PROJ.4. It depends on Cython, which makes it a bit tricky to include in a buildout: you must install Cython into your buildout's python, not as an egg, and make the pyproj egg only after this step is finished. [more ...]
813. kml:description considered harmful (2008-09-17T15:39:58Z): Limitations of KML's description element and its ties to the original implementation hold us back. We need something better. [more ...]
812. G(eo)nomes of Atlanta (2008-09-16T18:41:52Z): Inside the "Open" Geospatial Consortium there are yet more inner circles?
811. Python packaging and builds (2008-09-15T18:15:05Z): Do read Teague's post to the django-developers list if you're new to the Python software ecosystem [more ...]
810. C-List and proud of it (2008-09-09T16:33:54Z): Technorati is totally busted for doing this kind of analysis. [more ...]
809. POST(a) and POST(p) (2008-09-08T16:52:15Z): It's great to see others like Vish continuing to write about REST in geospatial (I continue to stalk the term). [more ...]
808. The other GeoWeb (2008-09-05T18:02:17Z): I forgot to mention that there's a third "GeoWeb": the web of data that links to GeoNames, U.S. Census, etc. [more ...]
807. Will the real "GeoWeb" please stand up? (2008-08-29T18:28:16Z): Is one of these the real "GeoWeb", or are they just two parts of the same elephant? Can anyone describe how such a beast works? [more ...]
806. On the road (2008-08-29T16:05:53Z): I'd enjoy meeting up with open source GIS or classics programmers along my route [more ...]
805. Lex parsimoniae (2008-08-27T16:46:56Z): See also Occam's Razor. [more ...]
804. GIS-Python Lab website update (2008-08-27T16:16:25Z): I've tuned up the http://gispython.org page; adding links to similar enterprises, highlighting the email list, and exposing project news items. [more ...]
803. Friends don't let friends use Endnote (2008-08-26T04:05:17Z): Kurt, I have in fact seen mapping integrated with Zotero. Shekhar Krishnan used the GeoNames database to locate items by their place of publication in a demo at THATCamp.
802. Shapely 1.0.7 (2008-08-23T03:41:47Z): Version 1.0.7 fixes problems with polygon ring dimensions and reference cycles. [more ...]
801. Mapping McCain's homes (2008-08-21T20:09:36Z): Speaking of maps in the media, I like this one of John McCain's homes [more ...]
800. Easier (2008-08-21T16:53:24Z): Mateusz's post about marshaling geometries from hex-encoded WKB strings in C++ reminded me how easy this is in Python using built-in string methods and Shapely [more ...]
799. Better (2008-08-21T16:01:50Z): This is better, as I was saying. It's nice to see Python catching on in my home state's GIS department. [more ...]
798. REST and JSON (2008-08-19T21:16:53Z): The GeoJSON working group didn't target specification of an API, but I always imagined we'd be using something like this.
797. tg.ext.geo (2008-08-18T21:14:21Z): TurboGears will join the ranks of geospatially-enabled Python frameworks with the addition of tg.ext.geo to tgtools. [more ...]
796. The distinction between disciplined and simple (2008-08-16T20:55:36Z): If there's anything the GIS mainstream knows about REST, it's that REST is simpler and more lightweight than SOAP, "Web Services", or the OGC's service architecture. This notion is erroneous, and it's irresponsible to propagate it. [more ...]
795. Down to earth (2008-08-15T18:05:43Z): if anybody can rescue the concept of geospatial cloud computing from the pundits, Kirk Kuykendall can [more ...]
794. Who is playing whom? (2008-08-14T20:12:13Z): Sounds like FOSS4G 2008 is going to have an even stronger proprietary flavor than the 2007 edition. [more ...]
793. Django on Jython (2008-08-14T16:14:19Z): I could see Shapely or GeoDjango adapted to Jython to bring some geoprocessing power to the framework. [more ...]
792. Rocky Mountain Rail Authority Study (2008-08-13T04:16:29Z): It's about damn time. I don't care if the study has to use the most paleo-proprietary software one can find, let's get this on. [more ...]
791. "Web GIS" versus "GeoWeb" (2008-08-08T16:19:56Z): The "GeoWeb" proposition repels me. Maybe it's a matter of taste, but I'd find discussion of MusicWebs, VideoWebs, and BookWebs equally unproductive. [more ...]
790. Clouds and hypertext (2008-08-02T17:51:03Z): There are some actual architectural constraints that make these "Cloud" applications feasible. One of them, and the one that has been almost entirely missing in so-called "GeoWeb" applications to date, is hypertext.
789. Geojson 1.0 (2008-08-02T04:09:38Z): Share and enjoy [...]
788. High Country News and Plone (2008-07-24T17:39:10Z): I've read the print manifestation of High Country News for years and am delighted to find out today that the new http://hcn.org site is based on Plone. Congratulations Jon and ONE/Northwest.
787. Coda (2008-07-23T17:38:58Z): See update to http://sgillies.net/blog/690/no-wms-in-google-static-maps-api.
786. Weak references (2008-07-23T17:23:44Z): I've been living off of them for years, but have finally found a use for Python's weak references in my own code. [more ...]
785. Linking open geographic data (2008-07-21T18:27:31Z): This graph of data has grown by leaps and bounds since we pitched Concordia. We didn't initially propose to join the Linked Data project, but I'd really like to see Ancient World datasets link themselves together in this way. [more ...]
784. Blog hauling (2008-07-16T17:19:40Z): I'm moving my blog to http://sgillies.net/blog/ [more ...]
783. Open street mapping Denver (2008-07-16T16:13:14Z): This weekend [more ...]
782. Standards for Geospatial REST (2008-07-11T16:22:13Z): Standards? We've got them. [more ...]
781. Shapely 1.0.6 (2008-07-10T05:03:01Z): Shapely 1.0.6 is uploaded. [more ...]
778. REST on the conference circuit 2008 (2008-07-09T21:24:25Z): Anything changed since 2007? Yes [more ...]
780. Get your Grand Tour on (2008-07-09T16:09:09Z): My interest in pro cycling bottomed out last summer, but Get Your Grand Tour On has completely revived it. Inspired by David Rees's brilliant Get Your War On, brace yourself for sarcasm and obscenity. [more ...]
779. Explain? (2008-07-07T23:17:52Z): Except for very large values of "inconsistent" -- like "one or the other doesn't use HTTP" -- I think a little more explanation is needed to support this: "REST-based architectures are not inconsistent with the WFS specification."
777. REST anti-patterns (2008-07-07T14:47:09Z): I've recommended a couple of Stefan Tilkov's articles before; his new one on REST anti-patterns is equally good. See if you can recognize the anti-patterns most commonly used in geospatial services.
776. Geojson 1.0 beta 1 (2008-07-02T17:14:07Z): We've renamed our "GeoJSON" package to "geojson", uploaded the first beta release, and plan to finalize it within a couple weeks. [more ...]
775. Fava time (2008-06-21T05:02:23Z): We had our first favas this evening, saut�ed with garlic in olive oil. Pink C�tes de Provence, not Chianti, and ravioli, not liver. [more ...]
774. Parallels (2008-06-17T17:46:44Z): Andy Powell's presentation on Web 2.0 and repositories is just as relevant a read for GIS designers as it is for archivists. [more ...]
773. GeoJSON ships (2008-06-16T18:24:04Z): Congratulations, everyone. [more ...]
772. Guerrilla SOA (2008-06-16T13:50:03Z): Those of you interested in applying Agile software development methodology to geographic or GIS Web services may be interested in this talk by a couple of ThoughtWorks gurus: Does my bus look big in this?. In the second half, Martin Fowler and Jim Webber make analogies from Agile development practices and benefits to using the Web/REST for agile deployment and integration.
771. Feature query languages (2008-06-13T19:35:09Z): What concerns me right now as I face this WorldMill patch is that SQL may not be the right model at all for this sort of domain specific language. [more ...]
770. Penstemonium (2008-06-12T23:51:05Z): This is P. Strictus, perhaps the most beautiful perennial wildflower of the Mountain West, just beginning to bloom today. [more ...]
769. XML mapfile (2008-06-11T19:38:49Z): Heh. I think "XML mapfile" is a stage that many people (myself included) just have to go through on their way to enlightenment. See also bargaining.
768. Atom as service oriented architecture (2008-06-11T18:06:23Z): Andrew Turner's act of data liberation reminded me that I'd made a similar point at THATCamp. [more ...]
767. I'm sabotaging the fight for a sustainable climate? (2008-06-03T15:50:49Z): I stumbled onto this warning that Atom and JSON may be sealing our doom [more ...]
766. THATCamp (2008-06-02T23:33:18Z): Dear Jeremy, Dave, Tom, Dan, and the CHNM crew, thank you for having me out for the inaugural THATCamp! [more ...]
765. Everyone's a historian now (2008-05-30T04:47:56Z): Stephen Mihm's article in the Boston Globe highlights several different projects using the Internet and its communities to examine American History in new ways. [more ...]
764. AtomPub will drink WFS's milkshake (2008-05-29T16:58:40Z): Sooner or later. If you don't believe me, read Dare Obasanjo [more ...]
763. xISBN and REST (2008-05-28T06:39:29Z): Looking at the xISBN service docs tonight while running Pleiades data import tests, I see that there is support for "REST-ful" short URLs in version 1 and cool URIs in version 2. [more ...]
762. Planet Geospatial (2008-05-27T18:47:16Z): It's weird what an influence his site has on the informal discourse of the GIS business. [more ...]
761. Public Service, Public Data, and the Web (2008-05-27T17:35:26Z): Next time I speak to a non-technical audience about the "GeoWeb", I'm going to lean heavily on Paul Ramsey's clever and informative talk (click through for the PDF). [more ...]
760. Tilt! (2008-05-21T18:09:54Z): Placebase's Pushpin API provides a format they call "GeoJSON", which should be good except that it has the wrong coordinate order. [more ...]
759. GeoHash and BigTable (2008-05-21T17:58:01Z): A while ago I wrote about cool stuff that could start to happen when Google's AppEngine supported bounding box searches for geo data. [more ...]
758. Barrington Atlas Feature IDs and Unicode Normalization (2008-05-21T17:22:06Z): pleiades.normalizer reduces Barrington Atlas labels which may contain annotation and non-ASCII characters to ASCII strings suitable for use in URI templates. [more ...]
757. Shapely 1.0.5 (2008-05-20T14:40:54Z): Shapely 1.0.5 now includes a flexible polygonizer, documented in section 2.5.1 of the updated manual, and makes it harder to create a particular class of broken geometries.
756. Dark Matter of the "GeoWeb" (2008-05-14T13:12:53Z): Hanke wasn't referring just to ESRI silos, but also to the data stuck behind WMS and GetFeatureInfo(), WFS and GetFeature().
755. OWSLib 0.3 (2008-05-08T19:34:20Z): OWSLib 0.3 adds preliminary support for coverage services, contributed by Dominic Lowe [more ...]
754. Shapely Debs (2008-05-08T19:00:24Z): I'm a big fan of the Debian GIS project and pleased to see that Shapely is getting some of its attention. [more ...]
753. Line Simplification (2008-05-06T19:31:41Z): I just want to point out how well Schuyler Erle's implementation of Douglas-Peucker line simplification works with Shapely. [more ...]
752. The Programming Historian (2008-05-05T15:08:16Z): The Programming Historian looks great to me. It covers HTML parsing (with Beautiful Soup), regular expressions, Unicode, and link traversing, with more to come.
751. Shapely 1.0.4 (2008-05-02T03:48:34Z): One bug fix and a simple GEOS geometry cache to improve performance when wrapping coordinate data stored outside of Shapely. [more ...]
750. Keytree (2008-05-01T21:30:26Z): Keytree (also known as pleiades.keytree in our repository) is a simple package of ElementTree helpers for parsing KML. [more ...]
749. QGIS Python Plugins (2008-05-01T06:12:57Z): I think it would be neat to see QGIS community plugins done Trac-style, as eggs.
748. Don't Save the Whales (2008-04-30T17:20:44Z): Wouldn't you know: Dick Cheney and his shadow scientific community have other plans for those Right Whales. [more ...]
747. SpatialIndex 1.3.1 (2008-04-30T16:42:59Z): Howard and Marios have released SpatialIndex 1.3.1. [more ...]
746. Blacklisted (2008-04-30T14:08:58Z): Aha!
745. Python Geo Frameworks 2 (2008-04-29T17:19:32Z): Here, continuing on from my previous post, are some of the forces arrayed against an all-encompassing OSGeo Python framework [more ...]
744. GeoJSON 1.0a4 (2008-04-28T17:06:43Z): Matthew Russell and I have brought it up to date with the current draft version of the spec and uploaded 1.0a4 to PyPI [more ...]
743. WordPress Commenting Trouble (2008-04-24T15:42:54Z): My comments on WordPress blogs this week are vanishing without any confirmation or trace. I'll bundle them together here as a last resort [more ...]
742. Python Geo Frameworks (2008-04-23T22:48:56Z): Those who do not learn from the history of PCL_ are doomed to repeat it [more ...]
741. Logo Fiasco (2008-04-22T16:49:00Z): Fort Collins, my hometown, "where renewal is a way of life" (ugh), is going through a branding and logo fiasco. But maybe we should be grateful: it could have been much much worse. [more ...]
740. Vulture Roost (2008-04-22T02:33:56Z): Here's the neighborhood vulture roost at sunset, with half of the birds still incoming. [more ...]
739. Like Slashdot, Only Worse (2008-04-21T23:56:16Z): Huh? You don't even use Python? [more ...]
738. KML Standardization (2008-04-16T17:23:50Z): One thing that nobody has mentioned is how much the OGC needed KML standardization. [more ...]
737. Python re.cipe (2008-04-14T19:05:44Z): Python's regular expressions aren't as expressive or as built in as Perl's, but there's nothing you can't do by using a callable object as the second argument to re.sub. [more ...]
736. More Gardening (2008-04-14T14:37:41Z): Are people from a farming or gardening tradition more likely to cultivate open source software? [more ...]
735. Fava (2008-04-13T20:46:07Z): The fava beans we planted 16 days ago finally came up yesterday. [more ...]
734. Pop! (2008-04-10T18:37:31Z): Heads explode as Adena Schutzberg links to the Great Orange Satan.
733. Attribution (2008-04-10T17:11:17Z): You are free to share and remix the content of my blog, including code and data examples. In return, please attribute my work. [more ...]
732. Shell History (2008-04-10T16:03:06Z): Why not? [more ...]
731. Shapely 1.0.3 (2008-04-09T21:22:43Z): This release fixes another operator chaining bug and makes multi-threaded use more safe.
730. Shorter Paul Smith (2008-04-09T14:58:09Z): Christopher Schmidt rocks your world.
729. Google App Engine (2008-04-08T14:35:42Z): Python, WSGI, and Bigtable (well, non-relational datastores generally) are 3 things I've been telling geospatial folks to keep an eye on.
728. How Standards will be Made (2008-04-07T15:56:07Z): Open source, open data, open standards [more ...]
727. Useful GMaps GeoRSS Quirk (2008-04-05T04:53:06Z): I'm thinking this quirk just might be a good practice. [more ...]
726. Vulgar Geography (2008-04-04T23:11:21Z): I like Tom's new name for "neogeography" so much that I'm adopting it for my blog tagline.
725. Poudre River Osprey (2008-04-04T16:09:03Z): My reward for braving the blustery weather to run yesterday was seeing 3 Osprey, just arrived from their winter range, fishing at the "ponds" (flooded gravel pits) along the Cache la Poudre River. [more ...]
724. Emerging Geo Technology (2008-04-02T17:11:31Z): Looks like Andrew Turner's presentation provided the fresh air that Ed Parsons was enjoying [more ...]
723. Vimperator (2008-03-31T23:25:36Z): I'm loving Vimperator.
722. Mush and Paste (2008-03-31T23:08:14Z): I've added a service to Mush that demonstrates the concept of dereferencing linked locations. [more ...]
721. They Tell Stories (2008-03-28T21:44:50Z): Charles Cummings's The 21 Steps supports my thesis that not only is one location not enough to tell a story, one narrative or analytical chunk is not enough to tell a story. [more ...]
720. GeoRSS 2.0? (2008-03-27T22:01:07Z): I saw several references to "GeoRSS 2.0" recently by people who are attending the OGC TC meeting in St. Louis. Here's my 2 cents on 2.0 [more ...]
719. THATCamp (2008-03-27T16:09:12Z): Maybe I'll see you at THATCamp, 5/31-6/1? I'm particularly eager to find out how folks are using syndication, AtomPub, and GeoRSS.
718. Grant Award (2008-03-26T21:24:45Z): Tom and I get to continue the kind of academic research that James Fee so loves. [more ...]
717. The GeoWeb That Might Have Been (2008-03-26T16:41:37Z): Searching for "geoweb architecture" turns up some interesting stuff, like this "GeoWeb" "based on a hierarchy of servers whose domain names represent geographic areas" [more ...]
716. Alamosa's Dirty Water (2008-03-25T21:07:10Z): Look on the bright side, Alamosans: you may be puking your guts out, perhaps hospitalized, and can't drink your municipal water for a couple weeks yet, but at least it wasn't bio-terruh!
715. The Wings of Spring (2008-03-25T04:55:35Z): Nevermind the Swallows of Capistrano: the surest sign of spring is when the Turkey Vultures return to 920 West Mountain Avenue in Fort Collins. [more ...]
714. Rtree 0.4.1 (2008-03-24T20:00:44Z): It is important to upgrade from Rtree 0.4 to 0.4.1 if you're using it within long-running Python processes. No upgrade from spatiaindex 1.3.0 is necessary.
713. ESRI, Developers, REST (2008-03-19T14:17:30Z): Resource oriented architecture, state transfer, entity tags ... ESRI is putting the Web back in "GeoWeb". [more ...]
712. OGC URN Internet-Draft (2008-03-18T16:51:25Z): I'm enthusiastic about draft-creed-ogc-urn-03.txt [more ...]
711. Multiple Locations in GeoRSS (2008-03-18T16:31:35Z): Feed entries are cheap: if you need more locations, add more entries. [more ...]
710. AtomPub for zgeo.atom (2008-03-14T05:11:17Z): Now, zgeo.atom has an incomplete, but functional Atom publishing protocol. [more ...]
709. Fire Eagle and Shapely (2008-03-14T04:05:47Z): Fire Eagle GeoJSON is fixed. Shapely is great for doing things with your data. [more ...]
708. Fire Eagle GeoJSON Oops (2008-03-11T19:28:57Z): We've got a problem. [more ...]
707. Sunset on Nebuka (2008-03-11T15:16:29Z): Being buried in snow all winter didn't bother them at all. [more ...]
706. ArcDeveloper REST (2008-03-10T18:18:06Z): ArcGIS developers are embracing Web architecture as enthusiastically as we on the open source side. Maybe even a bit more. [more ...]
705. More WxS Hinting From Feeds (2008-03-09T06:31:48Z): For a more concrete (though not exactly WMS) example, see this form. [more ...]
704. Frugosapalooza Wrap Up (2008-03-06T17:13:23Z): Helping Brian realize his idea was fun. Here's his summary. What's next? [more ...]
703. Representing OGC Services in Atom Feeds (2008-03-05T20:28:48Z): I think that a custom link relation could be the hint Jeroen is looking for. The OGC's content type problem still needs to be fixed. [more ...]
702. The Fear and Insecurity Industry (2008-03-05T17:15:38Z): According to the map, I live in a medium risk zone ... should I be moving to Montana soon? [more ...]
701. OAI-ORE, Aggregate Resources, and Atom (2008-03-04T18:16:36Z): We have some graph-y plans for the resources of Pleiades and related projects that fit perfectly with ORE. [more ...]
700. Fun With Shapely (2008-03-03T18:15:22Z): Very cool. Is this neogeogenomics? I hope the JTS/GEOS architects are equally pleased. [more ...]
699. Rethinking GSDI Architecture (2008-03-03T17:21:19Z): Ed Parsons and Chris Holmes were at the GSDI-10 conference and have each written posts about "GeoWebs" and "Global Spatial Data Infrastructures" that touch one of my favorite topics: architecture. [more ...]
698. G(eo)nomes of Vancouver (2008-02-29T17:15:06Z): Anybody else ever play Steve Jackson's Illuminati card game? [more ...]
697. More Open Source Geospatial and Archaeology (2008-02-27T15:56:00Z): Today one of the Ominiverdi (and PyWPS) developers blogs about an even more interesting application of that kind. [more ...]
696. Not-Quite-Web Processing Service (2008-02-27T06:25:00Z): I had a longer post about the new WPS specification that I scrapped after I realized that it reduces to this: the OGC WPS working group gets the formats and parameters more or less right as usual (good), but still can't find any respect for HTTP as a...
695. Frugosapalooza in Fort Collins (2008-02-27T04:21:38Z): Turnout was surprisingly good [more ...]
694. InscriptOL Source (2008-02-26T20:39:48Z): By popular demand (okay, 2 people asked), you can now browse or clone the inscriptOL repo. [more ...]
693. Really, There is More to REST Than HTTP + POX (2008-02-25T18:24:58Z): It's better than SOAP, but I'm dismayed that this is hyped as REST. [more ...]
692. Python, MapServer, and WSGI (2008-02-23T20:44:46Z): To enable this is why I added an OWSRequest class and image byte access to mapscript. [more ...]
691. Digitizing Ancient Inscriptions with OpenLayers (2008-02-21T23:37:00Z): OpenLayers simply rocks. [more ...]
690. No WMS in Google Static Maps API? (2008-02-21T19:09:07Z): I think this says something.
689. Shapely Mention (2008-02-20T22:31:36Z): It feels good to read about Shapely being put to use in EveryBlock alongside OpenLayers, Mapnik, PostGIS, OGR, and TileCache.
688. Pleistocene World WMS? (2008-02-20T18:15:43Z): Yo, Lazyweb: is there a publicly available WMS providing maps of the Pleistocene world, or some layers thereof?
687. Nit of the Day (2008-02-18T19:37:09Z): GeoRSS is not a format. [more ...]
686. Atom and GML Simple for OpenLayers (2008-02-17T21:46:12Z): I submitted the new Atom and GMLSF formats to OpenLayers (#1366) and look forward to working with the developers to get them into an upcoming release. [more ...]
685. Still Not Getting it (2008-02-16T20:53:58Z): Open source is about freedom, not about cost-free operation. How many times does this have to be said? [more ...]
684. Growth of the "GeoWeb" (2008-02-15T19:37:30Z): My own take is that the WxS-based "GeoWeb" is more like Gopher circa 1993 [more ...]
683. More Thinking Beyond the Spatial RDBMS (2008-02-15T18:02:38Z): Interesting question from Kirk Kuykendall [more ...]
682. Geo Web Frameworks (2008-02-13T19:51:46Z): The biggest reason to go with Django is, of course, PostGIS [more ...]
681. FDO and OSGeo Incubation (2008-02-13T17:22:09Z): OSGeo's "A for effort" incubation policy needs to be reconsidered. [more ...]
680. Entity Tag (2008-02-13T03:39:55Z): OGC update sequence? Why bother when HTTP/1.1 already specifies ETag?
679. Watching the Telethon (2008-02-11T18:39:44Z): If your tech company doesn't have, or can't learn, the Javascript, SQL, and Java skills needed to deploy and run OpenLayers, PostGIS, and GeoServer, you'll be passed sooner or later by the companies that do. [more ...]
678. Iterators. Iterators. Iterators. (2008-02-08T21:15:10Z): Tight. Of course, I've got plans to do it even better in a future release of WorldMill. [more ...]
677. Shapely 1.0.1 (2008-02-08T20:15:55Z): A bug fix release [more ...]
676. Frugosapalooza Schedule (2008-02-08T15:45:13Z): Keep an eye on the wiki for details. [more ...]
675. ESRI's RESTful API (2008-02-06T21:58:00Z): There is resource-oriented thinking going on at ESRI. [more ...]
674. Feeding Birds Again (2008-02-06T20:51:29Z): I can't decide which feels more liberating: posting amateur bird photos, or writing about electoral politics. [more ...]
673. Getting Political (2008-02-05T20:58:23Z): Democrats caucus in Colorado. It looks like it's going to be an interesting process. [more ...]
672. Taking my own Advice (2008-02-05T19:36:48Z): I had broken links on a previous blog post, but 2 mod_rewrite rules have moved resources and put all the services in working order for HTTP-savvy clients [more ...]
671. Long Live Chicago Crime (2008-02-05T18:08:49Z): The transition of chicagocrime.org has been noted by geo-bloggers, but they are missing a key part of the story: the resources that had been hosted on chicagocrime.org are not dead at all. [more ...]
670. The Planet of Digital Antiquities (2008-02-02T00:04:36Z): Have a peek into the world of ancient texts, historical sims, and virtual archaeology. [more ...]
669. Original Geo Mashup Retires (2008-01-31T21:04:37Z): A Chicago Crime retrospective.
668. Buzzwords (2008-01-31T20:12:43Z): "GeoWeb" (or "Geospatial Web", or "Geospatial Semantic Web") is the one that really gets to me. [more ...]
667. Beyond the RDBMS (2008-01-31T15:31:22Z): Martin Davis's post reminds me that the GIS industry, or at least the open source corner of it, still trails the Web community in thinking about data. [more ...]
666. Frugosapalooza (2008-01-30T15:35:56Z): Watch the wiki page for details. [more ...]
665. There is More to REST Than HTTP + POX (2008-01-28T21:12:02Z): Seems like a cool project. A little restraint in hyping REST is all I'm suggesting. [more ...]
664. Rtree, Shapely, and WorldMill: Jamming Econo (2008-01-24T23:25:46Z): I just added Shapely 1.0 and Rtree 0.4 to the Gdawg buildout, where they join WorldMill 0.1. Together they create a friendly environment on the C Python platform where you can read GIS feature data, spatially index it, and manipulate its geometries. [more ...]
663. Rtree 0.4 and Spatialindex 1.3 (2008-01-24T17:43:02Z): I'm pleased to announce the releases of Rtree 0.4 and spatialindex 1.3.0. [more ...]
662. EveryBlock (2008-01-24T03:37:16Z): Speaking of Django: EveryBlock, a new startup. [more ...]
661. Django People Map (2008-01-23T18:57:37Z): By Simon Willison: Django People. Using GeoDjango, maybe?
660. This Blog is for the Birds (2008-01-22T18:33:07Z): He's giving me that annoyed look because I'm sticking the camera right in his face. [more ...]
659. Feeding Birds and Feeding Birds (2008-01-21T22:30:31Z): Sadly, I'd removed my camera from our backpack just this morning or I would have been able to get a awesome wildlife action photo on my doorstep. [more ...]
658. OSM Outshining GDAL and MapServer? (2008-01-19T20:00:17Z): It's interesting that a technically savvy person starting from scratch today might find the OSM community first and completely overlook the old timers. [more ...]
657. Shapely 1.0 Final Release (2008-01-18T21:15:50Z): Share and enjoy [more ...]
656. Data vs API (2008-01-18T19:36:50Z): Brady Forrest nearly equates Zillow's free (as in speech) neighborhood boundary data with Urban Mapping's free (as in beer, while supplies last, domestic only - hey, no sharing) neighborhood ID API. [more ...]
655. Careful With That Pendulum, Steve (2008-01-18T16:15:41Z): REST and web frameworks aren't mutually exclusive at all. [more ...]
654. .aspx Considered Harmful (2008-01-18T15:54:16Z): Says John Udell. I've been saying this about .php extensions for a while. One of my favorite URLs from last year: http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations/html.php. html.php cracks me up.
653. Gdawg Mercurial Repo (2008-01-17T23:31:01Z): Voila: http://zcologia.com/sgillies/hg. [more ...]
652. Open Source CS-Map? (2008-01-17T19:34:19Z): Any news? Is it waiting on a MapGuide release or what? [more ...]
651. Technology is not Religion (2008-01-16T18:11:56Z): An SOA governance platform based on AtomPub. Why not?
650. INSPIRE and Model-Driven Architecture (2008-01-16T17:33:01Z): Here's where I agree with proponents of MDA: code is not an asset. [more ...]
648. Shapely Windows Installer (2008-01-14T21:59:50Z): Thanks to distutils, even a know-nothing Linux zealot like myself can make Python distributions for Windows. [more ...]
649. Count the Pikas (2008-01-14T18:31:00Z): Migrating poleward is not an option for every critter that lives on the alpine islands of North America. [more ...]
647. On Config File Design (2008-01-11T17:19:11Z): Adding support for an interpreted language like Python or Javascript seems like a neat way to add more power while keeping simple things simple. [more ...]
646. Parts is Parts (2008-01-09T22:05:32Z): Well, maybe, if you overlook a score of architectural and implementation details like protocols, wire formats, governance, terms of use, data quality, etc. [more ...]
645. Atompubbase (2008-01-09T17:03:47Z): Joe Gregorio's atompubbase looks promising. To try it out, I ran the apexer program against my Hammock site [more ...]
644. Plone Geo Interoperability (2008-01-09T05:10:53Z): Zope's component architecture was designed in part to make it easier to bridge such gaps. Since I'm the one arguing that there is a real benefit to a less naive GIS approach, the obligation to build the bridge is on me. Geographer is my solution. [more ...]
643. Count the Bears (2008-01-08T16:55:18Z): And just the other day Joe Francica was telling us that polar bear numbers are actually increasing. I think that was the moment that All Points Blog jumped the shark. [more ...]
642. Geography on Plone (2008-01-07T17:11:32Z): By request, here's a repost of the summary of geographic software for Plone that I sent to the PrimaGIS and PCL community email list [more ...]
641. Shapely Manual (2008-01-02T23:08:14Z): If you're using Shapely, I'd appreciate your feedback on the manual. It's the last ticket on the Shapely 1.0 milestone. [more ...]
640. Open as Possible Standards (2008-01-02T16:37:19Z): Tantek �elik's call for standards that are as open as possible appeals to me.
639. GDAL and GEOS Releases (2008-01-01T21:43:21Z): GDAL 1.5.0 and GEOS 3.0.0 were released during the holiday and are now used in the Knowhere and Gdawg buildouts [more ...]
638. Replicable Python Geoprocessing Environments (2007-12-29T00:03:26Z): It's like an FWTools where you control the versions of everything. [more ...]
637. Britannia Superior Preview (2007-12-28T20:03:25Z): Also known as Barrington Atlas Map 8. Just got this data back the other day. Roads, settlements, mines, you can just pick out a few copper mines in what we now call Wales. We'll be rolling it out into the Pleiades site in the new year.
636. MSWKT (2007-12-27T19:55:43Z): I don't understand how you'd expect a different approach from Microsoft. Being a late entry, the company could benefit from shaking things up a bit.
635. Back (2007-12-27T14:59:48Z): I miss Seattle already. Normal posting from good old Fort Cowpie will resume shortly.
634. Last REST Post of 2007 (2007-12-18T18:56:14Z): Here's the take-away from the past year's discussion about REST and geospatial: [more ...]
633. Knowhere Project Wiki (2007-12-17T20:27:38Z): It's my Christmas present to everyone. What, you were expecting something other than open source software? [more ...]
632. Aggregation of Ancient World Bloggers (2007-12-17T19:25:16Z): Many are new to me.
631. RESTful Marketecture (2007-12-16T16:37:25Z): That's a great term. [more ...]
630. Grok, the Paleolithic Geographer (2007-12-15T08:21:15Z): The paleolithic geographer isn't concerned about geographic information systems. He wants a know-where-things-are system; hence the name of my demo app: Knowhere. [more ...]
629. The Pleiades Fitness Program (2007-12-11T16:04:05Z): You must pounce on the snow here in town because it doesn't last long. [more ...]
628. KML Balloon Templating and Charts (2007-12-08T17:28:54Z): Now that's slick. [more ...]
627. OpenAerialMap Fort Collins (2007-12-07T15:40:07Z): I just finished filling out the "paperwork" and voila. Christopher Schmidt did everything else.
626. Python GDAL 1.5 Beta (2007-12-05T20:34:01Z): It's up on PyPI.
625. Uranium Mining in our Backyard (2007-12-05T16:28:35Z): I've been following the story but missed this Times piece. Fortunately, the world's best mother-in-law clipped and mailed it to us. [more ...]
624. More All Points Baloney (2007-12-05T15:33:37Z): Joe Francica, trolling again.
623. Peutinger's Map (2007-12-04T19:42:55Z): "Peutinger's" map, about which geo blogs are buzzing today, happens to be the subject of work at the Ancient World Mapping Center. Pleiades and the Barrington Atlas cite Miller's 1916 study, the Itineraria Romana.
622. My Fantasy Movie (2007-12-04T18:51:06Z): Today I discover that I'm not alone in this fantasy land. Wacky. [more ...]
621. Wikipedia Cabal Cablooie (2007-12-04T18:06:52Z): Everyone's favorite community anti-pattern strikes again.
620. Geo Microformat (2007-12-03T19:11:57Z): I'm interested in applying hAtom to the Pleiades XHTML docs. Add location and I'd have something like an "hGeoRSS", but the geo microformat isn't going to be adequate for expressing the locations of Pleiades roads or regions. [more ...]
619. New Geospatial Packages for Zope (2007-12-02T15:36:59Z): As part of my work on migrating Pleiades to Plone 3, I'm distilling Zope packages from the original old-style Plone products. [more ...]
618. Fake Ed Parsons (2007-11-30T15:25:46Z): Funny. Yesterday I would have bet that a Fake Jack Dangermond would have been the first to appear. [more ...]
617. Agile Schmagile (2007-11-28T21:57:49Z): Just kidding, Dave. I know people feel the same about REST. [more ...]
616. Watching the Watchers (2007-11-28T20:25:24Z): "Domestic Spying, Inc." via an All Points Blog post is a interesting look at GEOINT and the corporations who profit from expanding the War on Terror's home front. [more ...]
615. Geo Products Example Buildout (2007-11-27T21:24:07Z): I've made a Plone 3 buildout to get people up and running with reliable versions of PleiadesGeocoder, SpatialIndex, and all their dependencies. [more ...]
614. Rtree 0.3.0 (2007-11-26T23:55:03Z): This version allows you to delete objects from indexes and perform nearest neighbor queries.
613. Map of the Napa-Bordeaux Greenline (2007-11-23T16:51:24Z): East of the of the line the greater efficiency of shipping by boat offsets the distance between Bordeaux and Napa [more ...]
612. Geocoding, GeoRSS, and KML for Plone 3 (2007-11-21T17:07:35Z): I've made the necessary configuration changes so that PleiadesGeocoder 1.0b2 works with Plone 2.5 or Plone 3.0. [more ...]
611. Kindle: meh (2007-11-20T15:46:31Z): I like paper books. I like the user interface and I like the freedom. [more ...]
610. That's About Right (2007-11-17T20:28:02Z): Howard Butler sums up my motivations pretty well. The one factor he doesn't mention: community. [more ...]
609. WorldMill (2007-11-16T23:19:59Z): Enough blogging, here it is: WorldMill 0.1. [more ...]
608. OGR, Ctypes, and Cython, Again (2007-11-15T03:24:30Z): My previous benchmarks were made using the original recipe ogr.py module from GDAL 1.3.2. I saw some numbers that compelled me to try to new Python bindings from GDAL 1.4.3. Here are the new results (same benchmark code) on that same machine: [more ...]
607. OGR, Ctypes, Cython (2007-11-13T20:19:50Z): Leave now if you're not into Python extension programming and performance benchmarking: we're headed deep into the weeds. [more ...]
606. Grok Does AtomPub (2007-11-09T05:04:52Z): Nice. I'd like to bend Grok's REST components to fit Pleiades after our move to Plone 3.
605. Transactional Refinery (2007-11-08T19:50:46Z): Talk about serendipity: repoze.tm. [more ...]
604. OGR GeoJSON driver (2007-11-06T15:13:57Z): Mateusz Loskot just completed the inverse of my last project: pulling GeoJSON data through the OGR abstract model.
603. AtomPub Slides from FOSS4G (2007-11-06T14:46:26Z): Charlie Savage has slides from his excellent FOSS4G talk.
602. Taming the OGR (2007-11-06T07:26:53Z): This evening I made a protoype of a smoother, simpler interface to the industrial-strength vector data functions in libgdal. [more ...]
601. PleiadesGeocoder 1.0b1 (2007-11-06T00:22:08Z): Here it is, the first 1.0 beta release of the ultimate content geo-annotation plugin for Plone 2.5: PleiadesGeocoder-1.0b1. [more ...]
600. Spook Country (2007-11-05T18:18:04Z): We're there. Otherwise, I'm enjoying William Gibson's "Spook Country". Plenty of geowanking.
599. OpenSocial, AtomPub, and GeoRSS (2007-11-02T21:33:00Z): AtomPub again. Jason points out that OpenSocial is also using {http://www.georss.org/georss}where.
598. Geospatial Media and the Environment (2007-11-02T16:55:45Z): Has All Points Blog always been so overtly skeptical about climate change, or is it a response to the recent launch of the enthusiastically green and sustainable V1?
597. More fun With Curl and AtomPub (2007-10-25T20:42:07Z): GData is AtomPub, more or less. [more ...]
596. Rtree for the N800 (2007-10-24T18:38:57Z): Rtree user Kenneth Christiansen has made Maemo Bora (N800 internet tablet SDK) debian packages for Rtree 0.1 and its dependencies.
595. Plone R-Tree Spatial Index (2007-10-23T04:58:37Z): At the 2006 Plone Conference sprint, Shaun Walbridge and I wrote a Quadtree-based spatial index for Plone. Last week I finally made the time to rewrite the original Plone product into a persistent R-tree index. [more ...]
594. PrimaGIS Sprint Summary (2007-10-22T15:49:42Z): The switch to OpenLayers is complete. Kai's original map interface was fine, but there are far more resources going into OpenLayers development.
593. Rocket City Baloney (2007-10-17T21:29:56Z): Am I ever glad I took a pass (sorry, Tom) on coming down to Huntsville for this. [more ...]
592. Lines and Polygons in Plone (2007-10-17T04:35:05Z): Also new is a form for setting the location of any Plone content. Location is still stored in GeoRSS (Simple) form in PleiadesGeocoder (mostly to delay content migration), but the form takes GeoJSON. [more ...]
591. OpenStreetMap Fort Collins (2007-10-15T17:13:47Z): I didn't know that OSM covered the Fort. [more ...]
590. PrimaGIS Sprint (2007-10-13T14:46:28Z): Goodbye old map interface, hello OpenLayers. [more ...]
589. AtomPubbing Librarians (2007-10-12T22:07:38Z): The 1.0 version of the SWORD AtomPub profile was released today. [more ...]
588. Nobel Peace Prize (2007-10-12T14:41:58Z): Congratulations to Al Gore and the UN IPCC. [more ...]
587. Clearly it's a Good Idea (2007-10-11T15:24:26Z): When people start coming out of the woodwork to take credit. [more ...]
586. Open Source Web Processing Versus ArcGIS Server (2007-10-10T18:35:52Z): A RESTful web geo-processor that provides a DSL for describing complex processes and analyses (my preference would be for Javascript ala CouchDB) and lets users create new processing resources from these scripts could certainly begin to replace ArcGIS Server. [more ...]
585. Open Source and Sustainability (2007-10-10T17:38:18Z): Getting locked into buying proprietary seed is not the way to sustainable agriculture, and getting locked into buying boxed proprietary software is not the way to sustainable digital enterprises. Where is the sustainability media on the subject of open source? [more ...]
584. Better Python Practices for the GeoWeb (2007-10-10T15:59:23Z): It pains me to see novices taught poor Python programming practices, and so I can't resist making a few corrections to this post. Processing and marking up data into KML is a simple task that can be used to teach better practices. Here are 3 easy ones [more ...]
583. Using New Technologies to Explore Cultural Heritage (2007-10-09T17:09:31Z): Cohen has written a detailed review of the conference. [more ...]
582. RFC 5023 (2007-10-08T23:37:26Z): It's "AtomPub", not "Atompub" as I've been writing [more ...]
581. NEH/CNR Slides (2007-10-03T17:29:49Z): The slides that I will be using at the National Endowment for the Humanities/Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche "Using New Technologies to Explore Cultural Heritage" conference are online. [more ...]
580. Horothesia Blog (2007-10-01T17:22:53Z): My boss, Tom Elliot, is an expert epigrapher as well as a fine programmer and geo hacker, and has a new blog on these subjects: Horothesia. [more ...]
579. REST at FOSS4G (2007-09-29T21:31:25Z): Charlie, Chris, and I got to speak in succession and tag team on REST. I don't know if anybody sat through all three of these talks (and kept their sanity), but we did get some good momentum going. [more ...]
578. GeoJSON 1.0a1 (2007-09-29T18:09:56Z): I have updated GeoJSON, tagged it as 1.0a1, and uploaded it to the Python Package Index. [more ...]
577. Wednesday FOSS4G Update (2007-09-26T23:36:16Z): The conference wifi melted down this morning, but the event is otherwise running well. [more ...]
576. Libya and Western Civilization (2007-09-23T21:50:31Z): Speaking of Cyrene, on page 3 of the Times International section is an article about Saif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, a Ph.D. student at the London School of Economics, and the son of Libya's president. [more ...]
575. Finding me at FOSS4G (2007-09-23T17:51:50Z): It's the biggest open source GIS conference ever. I have no booth and my physical appearance is modal. How then are you going to find me? [more ...]
574. Toddler Travel Tip (2007-09-23T17:24:26Z): The flight went really well, and I'd be remiss if I didn't share the secret to traveling happily with a toddler. [more ...]
573. Rethinking JSON for Geospatial (2007-09-20T16:25:53Z): Limitations or quirks of our implementations shouldn't be engraved into our standards. [more ...]
572. Ahoy! PP to Starboard (2007-09-19T14:44:07Z): Now, thar be first-class privateerin'. Cap'n Perry dug up the secret of doublin' yer firepower.
571. Catching up With Python (2007-09-18T16:17:53Z): Parallel Python and virtualenv. [more ...]
570. Shapely Manual (2007-09-12T16:08:41Z): It will refer to and quote from the Java Topology Suite (of which GEOS is a port) Technical Specs and the OGC Simple Features Specification for SQL, and explain specifics such as the difference between GEOS's topological operations and the set operations that are standard in Python. [more ...]
569. OGC and Atompub (2007-09-10T20:57:15Z): Rebranding Atompub as "Federated Geo-synchronization Services" does nothing for me, but at least it is now on the map, so to speak. [more ...]
568. Feed Paging and Archiving (2007-09-10T19:05:20Z): Many of the initial misgivings about applying Atompub to geospatial problems had to do with uncertainty about totality and partiality of feeds. RFC 5005 is attempting to bring more feed standardization to the internet community.
567. Mush Update (2007-09-10T18:47:24Z): I've updated Mush to use my feedparser.py enhancements and Shapely 1.0a3. Now it will parse GeoRSS GML, Simple, and W3C geometries of all types (points, lines, polygons) from source feeds. [more ...]
566. GeoRSS Patch for Universal Feedparser (2007-09-08T19:54:27Z): Recognize that? It's GeoJSON. Simple points, lines, polygons, boxes, and GML points, linestrings, and polygons can be parsed. Since entry["where"] also provides the Python Geo Protocol, you can use it immediately with Shapely. [more ...]
565. Open Source GIS in Montpellier? (2007-09-07T15:51:45Z): Y a-t-il des utilisateurs? I'm moving to Montpellier next year and would like to make some contacts in the region.
564. Shapely for Python 3.0 (2007-09-06T18:28:57Z): Shapely is a thin wrapper for libgeos_c. How thin? With help from the 2to3 tool, I ported Shapely to Python 3.0 in less than an hour, that's how thin. [more ...]
563. Pleiades Data Update: Cyrene (2007-09-05T14:57:05Z): Yesterday we uploaded Barrington Atlas places from Cyrene (map 38, the region now known as Libya) to Pleiades. [more ...]
562. Shapely 1.0a1 (2007-09-04T18:27:06Z): I have just uploaded Shapely to the Python Package Index. For more info see http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Shapely/1.0a1. [more ...]
561. Python 3.0a1 (2007-09-01T19:28:43Z): Like others, the first thing I checked was the unicode default: [more ...]
560. "Welcome to my World" (2007-08-30T17:12:59Z): Despite the lip service paid to entrepreneurship in this country, our American society is in fact hostile toward small, innovative agricultural producers. [more ...]
559. More Harvest (2007-08-29T15:18:24Z): The more gardening posts in GIS blogs, the better, I say. Too bad we're so distant: I'd happily trade some of my scruffy (the soil here in the northwest corner of the Fort is not ideal) red potatoes for some of Kurt's deformed carrots.
558. Brew Credit Due (2007-08-29T04:00:06Z): There's a lot of good people working hard at New Belgium, and the company itself is a good citizen, so it's great to be able to rave about one of their beer again. [more ...]
557. Geo-Atompub Interop Day 5 September (2007-08-28T17:01:00Z): A bunch of us are going to try to meet up on 9/5 to test the interoperability of our Geo-Atompub implementations and hash out the problems that crop up. [more ...]
556. Lukewarm Fusion (2007-08-28T16:26:46Z): Here's one for the FortiusOne folks: what's the spatial distribution of Fusion Center funding? What's the pork factor? [more ...]
555. Harvest Time (2007-08-26T21:33:12Z): As it turns out, there is such a thing as too many beans after all. [more ...]
554. We are Made of Star Stuff (2007-08-24T17:51:37Z): All the buzz about Google Sky has prompted me to re-up some image companions to my 18th blog post from April 2005. [more ...]
553. NEH-CNR Conference on Using New Technologies to Explore Cultural Heritage (2007-08-24T16:45:23Z): The National Endowment for the Humanities has invited Pleiades to help represent US projects at a joint NEH-CNR conference on "Using New Technologies to Explore Cultural Heritage". [more ...]
552. The Petty Bureaucrats of Wikipedia (2007-08-23T15:22:47Z): Apparently, once the crowd to which you are outsourcing grows large enough, it may spawn a class of self-appointed bureaucrats who are more concerned about the process than the results. [more ...]
551. Geo-Atompub Meme Watch 2 (The Wrath of Khan) (2007-08-21T16:46:01Z): Andrew Turner points out the Atompub-shaped hole in mobile platforms. A couple weeks ago, Stefan Geens picked up on the meme too.
550. Map Servers (2007-08-21T16:28:59Z): Map servers -- the CGI programs and servlets that render infinitely customizable map images of any scale, size, and format -- remain useful in this tiled world. [more ...]
549. Plone 3.0 (2007-08-21T15:03:30Z): Plone 3.0 is released today. Built-in versioning, slick ajax interface, and more. [more ...]
548. GIS Certification (2007-08-17T17:33:37Z): I'm skeptical about gatekeepers and skeptical about the value of GIS certification. [more ...]
547. Tufte and Cartography (2007-08-16T17:55:03Z): stuff. My favorite Tufte tip is outlining regions with a slightly darker hue of the fill color. Because our visual system is non-linear, a difference as small as 5-6% can sharpen up your map dramatically.
546. Why WPS? (2007-08-16T14:41:49Z): What exactly does one gain here by abstracting away the Web? [more ...]
545. Tiles (2007-08-15T18:01:37Z): If you want to cache effectively, you must switch your design over to a finite number of view resources. Tiles, in another word. [more ...]
544. Explaining REST (2007-08-14T22:57:18Z): Charlie's latest are good posts that don't require continual referral to the HTTP/1.1 or OWS specs. [more ...]
543. That's not Agile Geography (2007-08-14T15:19:08Z): Looks like the standards architects are not going for the KML + Atompub idea after all.
542. Camping With Google Earth (2007-08-13T22:55:49Z): Last week I used Google Earth to scout sites for my 21 month-old daughter's first ever camping trip. [more ...]
541. REST Can't Handle Rasters and Coverages? (2007-08-10T18:07:47Z): There may be geospatial problems that REST can't tackle, but access to arbitrary regions of a coverage is not one of them.
540. Buildouts for the Lab (2007-08-10T16:19:16Z): Ah, the benefits of collaborating with a real software engineer in an open source project.
539. Stop Using Mapscript: Finally (2007-08-09T23:06:29Z): I've explained the motivation previously. You can now transform the problem of writing intricate, error-prone mapscript code into a more tractable template interpolation problem. [more ...]
538. OGC, GeoDRM, and Me (2007-08-09T16:33:32Z): My hackles rise every time I read that GeoDRM is one of the OGC's advanced technologies. I simply do not find it easy to look past it to the other more sensible working groups and standards. [more ...]
537. Shorter Sebastian Good (2007-08-09T15:18:11Z): Let's you and him fight. Nevertheless, I always enjoy Sebastian's writing.
536. KML Module: Atom (2007-08-08T22:58:53Z): An Atom module would help developers implement Atompub clients and services by delineating a clear boundary between media and metadata elements. [more ...]
535. Doctests for Javascript (2007-08-07T18:11:02Z): Doctest/JS.
534. OWSLib 0.2.1 (2007-08-06T16:50:06Z): It now works with no external dependencies on Python 2.5. [more ...]
533. Geo-Atompub Meme Watch (2007-08-06T14:09:43Z): It is spreading.
532. Atompub and KML Demo (2007-08-04T08:13:46Z): I have repurposed my Hammock application into a demonstration of the Atompub, KML, and Google Earth integration. [more ...]
531. The Shapely Alchemist (2007-08-03T17:04:15Z): Following the example at byCycle.org I've figured out how to use Shapely geometries with SQLAlchemy and PostGIS. [more ...]
530. Welcome Spatialindex (2007-08-02T16:25:36Z): We offered Marios Hadjieleftheriou a home at the GIS Python Labs for his spatialindex library, and I'm pleased to say he has accepted. [more ...]
529. Uninformed (2007-08-02T15:02:44Z): The industry mainstream has now heard of REST, but not everyone gets it yet. [more ...]
528. Atompub, KML and Google Earth (2007-08-01T16:06:15Z): Atompub + KML == agile, read-write geography. [more ...]
483. Amateurs: STFU (2007-07-31T16:44:14Z): I'd love to see Jeff Thurston debate Larry Lessig on the merits of "The Cult of the Amateur". [more ...]
527. Selectively Running Python Tests (2007-07-31T06:33:55Z): With unittest your best bets are to name tests so they cmp() predictably, or subclass TestLoader and implement your own testing ordering (sorting) algorithm. [more ...]
526. OGC WTF of the Day (2007-07-30T13:19:02Z): I'm reading over the WFS 1.1.0 spec (0GC 04-094) and see in section 6.3.1 [more ...]
525. KML Output for Mush (2007-07-28T21:28:25Z): Add format=kml to a Mush request to get a KML document instead of the Atom feed default. [more ...]
524. Planning Alerts and Findspots (2007-07-27T15:45:58Z): Here's an application of Mush that might even be useful to an antiquist: UK planning alerts within 1 kilometer of Celtic coin finds in Cambridgeshire [feed] [map].
523. Mush, 2 Feeds (2007-07-27T06:47:34Z): Mush, my prototype feed geo-processing service based on Shapely and the Universal Feed Parser can now find the sphere of influence intersections of 2 different feeds. [more ...]
522. Holy Memory Holes, Batman! (2007-07-26T20:47:42Z): Just one year? Isn't it more like 2? As I recall, some MapServer developers were already under an NDA with Autodesk in June 2005, 2 months before I was invited to join.
521. Web Home for Spatial Reference Systems (2007-07-26T16:13:30Z): Christopher Schmidt and Howard Butler have teamed up to create http://spatialreference.org/, a home on the Web for user-generated spatial and coordinate reference systems.
520. La Mort du Tour (2007-07-26T14:38:18Z): Yes, I got suckered back into watching the TdF this year, even though I figured it was pretty likely to have another meltdown. [more ...]
519. Geo at Plone4Artists Sprint (2007-07-25T20:02:58Z): David Siedband and Sally Kleinfeldt are working on implementing the interfaces of Plone Maps and zgeo.geographer for GPS-tagged digital photos uploaded to Plone, making it easy to make a Google Map or provide GeoRSS feeds of photo locations. [more ...]
518. Atompub! (2007-07-25T18:23:41Z): One of those areas where the Atom Publishing Protocol takes off just might be geospatial. [more ...]
517. mod_wsgi (2007-07-24T16:11:06Z): Easy. According to the author, mod_wsgi is feature complete and a 1.0 release candidate is coming soon. [more ...]
516. Games (2007-07-23T17:36:22Z): I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that, soon, any enterprise that is not also a rewarding, multi-dimensional game will struggle. [more ...]
515. Web Geo-Processing, Pull Style (2007-07-20T23:10:17Z): The growing consensus is that map image and feature services can be (and should be) done RESTfully. Is there any aspect of web GIS that cannot? Geo-processing, perhaps? [more ...]
514. Going Big (2007-07-20T17:59:28Z): I'm throwing a party this weekend featuring my most ambitious ever grill-roasting enterprise: whole leg of pig with citrus marinade and sauce. [more ...]
513. An OGC REST Working Group? (2007-07-20T14:52:34Z): Interesting. [more ...]
512. Sound Advice for INSPIRE (2007-07-18T16:06:44Z): Should INSPIRE's enterprise be a distributed object system, upgrading to new versions across the board simultaneously (and this certainly means rarely)? Or should it be more like The Web, allowing clients, servers, and data to be upgraded independently and as needed? [more ...]
511. Mars Lander Blogging (2007-07-18T14:36:24Z): Kurt Schwehr, who's making fink packages of OWSLib, Quadtree, and PCL-Core, is blogging about working on the Phoenix Mars Lander. Are these packages going to Mars, or helping from Earth? Let us know if the Lab can be of any assistance.
510. Why There is no REST in WxS (2007-07-18T13:02:26Z): OGC web services have no uniform interface, and therefore are not well suited for RESTful architectures. That's the why not. [more ...]
509. Geo Blogs and Media (2007-07-17T18:01:36Z): Do GIS/geo blogs have any such impact on the media?
508. Software and Camping Gear (2007-07-16T15:58:27Z): Why write new web GIS software? Why not add to MapServer? I'm going to explain by analogy: it's like picking camping gear. [more ...]
507. The "GeoWeb Ecosystem"? (2007-07-13T16:41:34Z): If Google is the primary source of the "GeoWeb Ecosystem", then it's a pretty limited and fragile ecosystem. Like the organisms living off hydrogen sulfide leaking from a deep-sea vent, we must huddle closely around an API, pray to Neptune that it doesn't shut off, and dream of brighter, richer realms. [more ...]
506. North and South (2007-07-11T21:11:14Z): Steve C.-P. pointed me to this bad analogy by David Chappell that Elliotte Rusty Harold picks off and runs the other way for a touchdown. [more ...]
505. Chocolate and Peanut Butter (2007-07-11T18:10:05Z): The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is in no way better than pure chocolate. Hanke is either a barbarian, or is cynically perpetuating the fraudulent premise of Reese's Peanut-Butter Cups. [more ...]
504. Real Life Object Databases (2007-07-11T15:05:58Z): I enjoyed Martin Davis's love letter to the relational model, but would like to remind readers that object databases aren't entirely academic. [more ...]
503. Resource-Oriented WFS: Filters (2007-07-10T04:55:05Z): Posting a query destroys the uniform interface, and should only be done if there is no other option. In this case, there is another option, and a fine one: implement filter resources subordinate to feature type resources. [more ...]
502. INSPIRE Tech Choice is Discouraging (2007-07-06T20:14:39Z): HTTP REST is not about light weight (RFC 2616 is just as heavy as a WxS spec), it's about working with the grain of the Web. [more ...]
501. Are GML Documents Hypermedia? (2007-07-06T15:38:47Z): XLink is part of GML, but I've never seen a WFS return GML that links to other resources. Does anybody use GML like this, and what client would they use?
500. Rendering Shapely Geometries in Matplotlib (2007-07-05T21:26:42Z): I hope you'll agree that this is considerably simpler than the code I used at the 2005 Open Source Geospatial workshop. An even more direct solution for ogr.py fans would be to provide the Numpy array interface directly from OGR geometries. [more ...]
499. Buh-bye Blogroll (2007-07-01T17:56:23Z): I dropped the blogroll from my blog's home page since it wasn't accurately reflecting what I read. Go ahead and unlink me if you're keeping score.
498. Good Things (2007-06-30T04:56:59Z): 2 more REST-related presentation abstracts submitted to the FOSS4G conference: [more ...]
497. The Future of Geo-Blogs and Advertisement (2007-06-29T22:18:00Z): I wonder if Sterling isn't reading Planet SpaceNavigator/N95/iPhone. [more ...]
496. Downtime (2007-06-25T13:04:56Z): If anyone can keep the Overton windows moving on WxS and REST, and make sure that GeoDRM doesn't creep out of the basement, I'd be much obliged. [more ...]
495. KML Syndication (2007-06-22T18:57:48Z): It's been pointed out that Google Earth has reinvented syndication where GeoRSS might have been used. Andrew Turner has a proposal for the right way to do it.
494. Designing Simple GIS Services for Zope (2007-06-22T18:16:13Z): I've identified a veritable continent of common ground in Zope for services that I consider to be otherwise orthogonal: WFS and the Atom Publishing Protocol (APP). [more ...]
493. On Expertise and Revolution (2007-06-22T17:03:13Z): Who was the go-to person for GIS data formats before blogs? Frank Warmerdam. Who's the go-to person today? Frank Warmerdam. A million amateurs typing in their blogs about the pros and cons of various formats hasn't changed that in the least. [more ...]
492. REST on the Conference Circuit (2007-06-21T19:04:40Z): For what it's worth, here's the result of a quick search for REST on the agendas of some of this year's GIS conferences: [more ...]
491. Geo-Web-REST Group (2007-06-20T21:02:27Z): Totally public, and devoted to RESTful and resource-oriented GIS/geo architectures. [more ...]
490. Bare Minimum RESTful WFS (2007-06-20T18:23:39Z): Any public-facing service is going to need at least a minimal RESTful aspect. Here's what that looks like for WFS: [more ...]
489. I Guess I'm Easily Baited (2007-06-20T15:31:58Z): But this is bizarre.
488. Diving Into Python (2007-06-19T16:28:34Z): Let's say that you'd like to not only learn to do the same old stuff in a new language, but that you'd also like to learn some new tricks and increase your programming Fu. You're in luck, because Python is a great environment for knowledge acquisition. [more ...]
487. Hammock Update (2007-06-19T06:51:57Z): Every resource now has alternate XHTML representations, which are created using Genshi: service, collection, and item. [more ...]
486. RESTful ArcGIS Server? (2007-06-18T21:33:05Z): Can't say much about it until I see it.
485. GeoSummit Conclusion (2007-06-17T03:25:14Z): Thanks to everyone for coming out, and an extra big thanks to Tom Churchill for hosting. [more ...]
484. Role for JP2 in RESTful Web Services? (2007-06-15T18:01:01Z): One request per tile, and I'm still using hypermedia as the engine of application state. [more ...]
482. Yo! (2007-06-15T15:13:09Z): Ed, you forgot an event. Down here, in the grassroots.
481. GeoSummit Agenda (2007-06-13T19:09:18Z): My ultimate goal is to help merge all the cool agendas people bring, but I have a few of my own. [more ...]
480. Alternative to ogr.py (2007-06-13T18:00:53Z): It would make a nice addition to the GIS packages already in the Python Cheeseshop. [more ...]
479. Rome Reborn as a Flash Movie (2007-06-12T17:25:17Z): Flash movies should complement -- never replace -- addressable, linkable, bookmarkable, and programmable web sites. [more ...]
478. Shapely Geometries for Python (2007-06-11T22:07:52Z): Shapely is an LGPL-licensed replacement for PCL's cartography.geometry package. [more ...]
477. Python Pain Points (2007-06-11T16:36:26Z): So, there's this meme that you have to be able to enumerate your domain's pain points. [more ...]
476. Local Bloggers at GeoSummit (2007-06-07T16:44:11Z): Come see Bill "MapWrecker" Thorp tear a road atlas in half with his bare hands! Or better yet, discuss rich internet mapping applications with him. [more ...]
475. Geospatial Computing for History and Archaeology Workshop (2007-06-06T15:34:48Z): Tom Elliot, Pleiades director, is going to be leading discussion on integration of heterogeneous data. [more ...]
474. Bait and Switch (2007-06-06T14:30:57Z): This isn't about Python after all.
473. Python Access to Series 60 Location (2007-06-06T14:11:06Z): Neat. Via Simon Willison.
472. Koombaya (2007-06-06T03:37:36Z): A hardcore Java programmer employed at ESRI and a open source Python hack should be diametrically opposed. Maybe we still are, but are converging on some of the same design principles from different directions. [more ...]
471. Richardson and Ruby's RESTful Maps and Gazetteer (2007-06-05T15:27:25Z): This is rather a lot like the RESTful feature services I wrote about in April: simply elegant, but also a hard sell. Mainstream GIS folks recoil in horror at the thought of relying on link traversal to render their maps.
470. Geo-Zymurgy (2007-06-01T03:30:40Z): Nice! Another food and drink (beer, at least) and GIS blogger. [more ...]
469. FRUGOS GeoSummit is on (2007-05-31T15:19:55Z): If you're interested, join the GeoSummit Google Group so that we can start to get a feel for numbers, and spread the word. [more ...]
468. Open Source as Voltron (2007-05-30T19:14:55Z): That's me, Voltron's left fist.
467. Feature Server (2007-05-24T17:12:26Z): MetaCarta's FeatureServer source is now available. REST or (web-in-name-only) WFS, your choice. FeatureServer groks each.
466. Coming Soon (2007-05-22T03:54:56Z): New Pleiades data will be available under a CC or Science Commons type license, but the negotiation of terms for existing Barrington Atlas data (under similar license) is not quite finished. Fortunately, we're not petitioning solo: people like Eric Kansa, Ross Scaife, and Peter Suber are making open access to scholarly data a very respectable enterprise. [more ...]
465. Progress (2007-05-18T18:48:35Z): It's great to see that three of my favorite hobby-horses -- REST over SOAP or WxS, web search over portals and one-stops, and open source over proprietary software -- are coming to the fore at mainstream industry events.
464. Rtree 0.2.0 (2007-05-18T18:09:11Z): Persistence of indexes, nearest neighbor lookup, and item deletion are now supported. See the doctests for usage examples. [more ...]
463. Hype is the "Intel Inside" (2007-05-16T02:09:50Z): There is more giddiness to come. Our own silly season is just getting started.
462. The Garden is Deployed (2007-05-14T15:41:29Z): I spent about 8 hours digging and planting this past weekend. More time in the gym this spring has paid off, and I'm much less sore this morning than the morning after last year. [more ...]
461. Victoria, Here I Come (2007-05-14T02:04:54Z): Looks like I'm in. I'm pleased and, honestly, a bit surprised. WxS owns the open source GIS community, and I worried that a presentation on an alternative might be a bit too niche.
460. Welcome Back, Matt (2007-05-14T01:43:43Z): This is cool: Worldwind Java and Jython.
459. Snakes on a Sonde (2007-05-10T20:24:24Z): Joe VanAndel and Mary Haley, from NCAR, will talk about using Python in atmospheric observation and climate model visualization at next Wednesday's Pythoneers meeting.
458. Digital Consumer Enablement (2007-05-10T20:02:06Z): Just change the name and turn the table on the critics. Brilliant! Maybe ... no, nevermind.
457. Real-time Geography (2007-05-09T21:27:05Z): "Real-time Geography" is a better, more accurate catch phrase than "Geo-Web". The latter has been trading on universal, yet shallow recognition of the significance of the (HTTP REST) World Wide Web despite being composed of services that are not of a web. [more ...]
456. In Your GIS, Recking Your Map's (2007-05-08T16:51:11Z): If you're into technical blogs, add Bill Thorp's MapWrecker. .NET is his working environment, but he's writing about issues of browsers, standards, and protocols that cross platform boundaries.
455. FRBR (2007-05-07T22:35:45Z): Help! I'm turning into a librarian.
454. Props to OSGeo (2007-05-03T02:13:01Z): Not that anyone gives a damn about my approval, but I must give credit where it is due: this looks promising. Software quality and usability remain a bigger problem for open source GIS software adoption than lack of commercial support, but an index of providers won't hurt at all.
453. Science Fiction in the News (2007-05-02T15:05:57Z): Does taste in SF make or break a candidacy? I think it's a more valid factor than a candidate's haircut, waistline, or iPod playlist (current media staples). Charles Stross's "Glasshouse" and Jo Walton's "Farthing" would be my litmus test. Did you read them? Did you like them? [more ...]
452. Blogosphere and Ivory Tower (2007-05-01T21:17:17Z): Tom Kralidis points us to a new book, and I was struck by how few of the authors I know by name. Am I not getting out enough, or are these folks not taking their ideas to the web like they should?
451. A GML Critique (2007-05-01T20:43:30Z): Charlie Savage writes: In my view, the fundamental premise of GML is wrong. The ability to create custom data models is an anti-feature that makes integration between different computer systems impossible because it assumes that those systems can act...
450. Stop Using Mapscript: Almost There (2007-05-01T15:05:41Z): MapServer revision 6064 (my first contribution in quite a while) has an example of loading a mapfile from a string: fragments.txt. We're getting very close to the point where we can practically stop using mapscript. [more ...]
449. Made it (2007-04-30T14:14:22Z): I just finished one the most challenging and rewarding 8 days of my life as the single parent of an 18 month-old. Whew. Single moms and dads of the world, I salute you!
448. MapServer Subversion Repository (2007-04-29T20:46:46Z): MapServer users: you all owe Howard a beer.
447. Our Friend, the Atom (2007-04-28T18:42:29Z): I too think so. Dear geospatial community, please do not propose yet another special protocol until you can demonstrate that Atom won't work.
446. Restful Versioning (2007-04-27T17:15:44Z): In a discussion of restful features the other day, a good question came up: where's the back button? POST and PUT are easy to understand, but how about rolling back or undoing changes? I have a simple solution which is going to look pretty familiar to Subversion users. [more ...]
445. GIS Software Commoditization (2007-04-26T22:22:13Z): When considering the commoditization of GIS software, you can't ignore the impact of the open source movement. [more ...]
444. Novelty of REST and GIS (2007-04-25T16:04:43Z): Being the first geospatial project to jump on an already filling bandwagon, 6-7 years after the publication of RFC 2616, is really no big deal. The interesting question is why it took us (the industry and community) so long. [more ...]
443. WBW 33: Languedoc-Roussillon Values (2007-04-25T04:14:14Z): I've been slacking on the wine blogging front, but I'm coming out again for the 33rd Wine Blogging Wednesday.
442. Feature Paging (2007-04-25T03:23:45Z): I've just been hand-waving, but Chris Holmes is getting ready to blaze a trail for GeoServer from WFS to restful features. He, more than anyone, has clued me into the significance of paging links for GIS applications, and his post has a good introduction to the concept. [more ...]
441. WFS Simple (2007-04-23T16:45:54Z): Raj Singh is working hard on WFS Simple, but I think it is still going to miss the "mass market" boat by a few steps. [more ...]
440. Dear Google Earth Team (2007-04-19T22:55:49Z): Please consider giving your users the power to POST and PUT KML from Google Earth to arbitrary URLs other than http://bbs.keyhole.com. Anything you can do about this, Ed?
439. More Like This, Please (2007-04-19T19:40:55Z): First, Sam Ruby on GeoRSS, and now Stefan Tilkov on REST and CRUD: lessons from the Web for we who would build the Geo-Web. Listen up.
438. Upcoming Events (2007-04-18T17:05:58Z): Front Range Pythoneers: OLPC (!) and testing, 18 April. FRUGOS: MapServer and OpenLayers class at CU-Denver, 25 April.
437. Resources, not Objects (2007-04-18T14:19:04Z): Keyur, you must think in terms of resources, not object methods. Nouns, not verbs. [more ...]
436. Even More REST and Geo Blogging (2007-04-17T15:33:39Z): At All Points Blog. The mainstream hasn't yet discovered that the community has been earnestly discussing REST since last fall.
435. GeoDRM or GeoCYA? (2007-04-17T14:19:43Z): Yesterday, a reader pointed me to an article in Government Computer News about what I'll call GeoCYA, in which the OGC CTO walks a fine line between removing, and stoking, "the fear of litigation".
434. JSON Security (2007-04-14T19:28:01Z): I'm surprised nobody noticed the potentially exploitable feature collections responses in my initial Hammock deployment. Bob Ippolito explains all about it here.
433. Rtree 0.1.0 (2007-04-13T22:09:07Z): This package is based on Marios Hadjieleftheriou's spatialindex, and now allows you to persist a tree on disk. [more ...]
432. In a Nutshell (2007-04-13T13:50:20Z): The difference between Microsoft's and Google's urban web maps says a lot about the mindset of these companies [more ...]
431. Hammock (2007-04-11T22:43:01Z): Here's the code for the toy not-a-WFS I wrote about yesterday [more ...]
430. Feature Demo (2007-04-10T08:31:36Z): This evening I cobbled together a demo of a feature service inspired by Joe Gregorio's Robaccia. It's a toy model of something not unlike a RESTful WFS-T, based on the Python wsgiref, elementtree, and simplejson packages. [more ...]
429. Geometries for Python Update (2007-04-09T17:27:30Z): An older, slightly outdated, post of mine about Python geometry packages is getting read enough to warrant an update. [more ...]
428. Game Over for GeoDRM? (2007-04-09T15:40:52Z): On the other hand, work on rights expression is useful to all of us, and even more so in the light of recent revelations that Creative Commons doesn't want to get into the geodata business. [more ...]
427. GeoRSS: Worse is Better (2007-04-07T15:40:19Z): That the Geo-Web is forming out of GeoRSS and KML rather than GML is yet another indictment against XSD. [more ..]
426. Conference Wireless How-to (2007-04-06T15:31:37Z): For the FOSS4G 2007 organizers: wireless lessons from PyCons 2006 and 2007.
425. Silence on Spatial Search (2007-04-05T15:59:39Z): Ed Parsons, a few weeks ago, was befuddled by the GIS industry's almost-imperceptible response to Google's spatial search news. There hasn't been any new tide of interest since, and there are 3 primary reasons. [more ...]
424. More REST and GIS Blogging (2007-04-04T14:48:43Z): REST gets a mention from Sebastian Good, though his post is more about the current REST-less state of enterprise GIS.
423. Google JSON and Geo (2007-04-02T17:22:34Z): Interesting, but Google's JSON, literally transcribed from Atom, is almost exactly as cumbersome as XML (example here). [more ...]
422. My Comment Policy (2007-04-02T16:24:55Z): Recent events, summarized by Tim O'Reilly here, have prompted me to spell out a policy for comments on this blog. I encourage people to write critically about our community, industry, and media, but I reserve the right to remove pointless flamebait, or personal attacks, as well as spam. If an email address accompanies extremely poor commentary, I'll contact the author personally about making sensible edits or retractions. If not, I'll simply delete it. Fair enough?
421. Dumbing Down REST (2007-04-02T15:40:48Z): In a comment on my last post, I pointed out that content negotiation is low on my priorities because there aren't enough smart user agents yet. In a related (and better) post, Dave Thomas explains how dumb the browser is, and how you might dumb down your applications. His idea is immediately relevant to anyone developing a RESTful GIS; when we're constrained to the same small handful of verbs (GET, POST, PUT, etc), it's easy to transfer and share architectural concepts.
420. RESTful Feature APIs (2007-03-30T19:29:01Z): The gist of all this is that a RESTful feature query returns key, indexed data about feature resources along with a URI to the feature resources themselves in the same way that a Google Search returns data from its index, with links, instead of dumping the entire Web into your browser. [more ...]
419. Scrub-a-dub Venus (2007-03-29T20:10:50Z): James Fee is modernizing Planet Geospatial, so I've updated my Greasemonkey script to version 3.0: pgscrubber-3.0a.user.js. Be annoyed no more by xenophobic virtual geographers, OSGeo haters, press releases, or commercial product "news". I found the Firebug javascript console to be a invaluable tool for playing with XPath expressions.
418. Improving MapServer: a Specific Example (2007-03-27T03:27:45Z): Earlier this month I made some hand-waving arguments for separating the concerns of MapServer's web application and cartographic engine on general principles. There is now a new MapServer development proposal that allows me to make a specific example. [more ...]
417. GeoDjango (2007-03-26T15:53:32Z): I met some of the GeoDjango folks this weekend, and am looking forward to collaborating with them. The Python Cartographic Library is not just for Zope3, after all.
416. GeoRSS and Antiquities (2007-03-26T15:22:12Z): GeoRSS evangelism is part of what I do for Pleiades. The new support for GeoRSS in Google Maps is the spark that will set it off in the digital humanities. For example, check out this feed of Celtic coin finds from the British Museum's Celtic Coin Index [more ...]
415. Planet OSGeo (2007-03-26T14:28:09Z): I'm not affiliated with OSGeo at all, but I'm pleased that Christopher Schmidt likes my blog.
414. Toward a Better Python Feature API (2007-03-25T04:26:29Z): Previously, I asserted that the Python Cartographic Library feature API was superior to anything generated trivially from C++ code (even excellent C++) by SWIG. Of course, even PCL's API can be improved. I've been inspired by Django's database abstraction API to experiment with something even easier to use. Friday night I hacked on PCL's GeoRSS module, and tied up loose ends this afternoon. [more ...]
413. More ArcGIS and JSON (2007-03-23T15:54:07Z): Again, found this from Jithen Singh while stalking keywords. Still no details about whether it's for geospatial features or other application data. [more ...]
412. GeoRSS and Validation (2007-03-23T14:28:33Z): Sam Ruby finds GeoRSS and finds it a bit confusing. My blog entries feed validates perfectly, unlike the slashgeo feed Google references.
411. Irrelevant (2007-03-23T01:30:44Z): I saw this Linus Torvalds quote (full interview here) in the OpenGeoData blog: [more ...]
410. GeoRSS in Google Maps (2007-03-22T16:48:39Z): Google Maps now groks GeoRSS. For example, here's a map of ancient bridges from map 65 of the Barrington Atlas: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/bridge.atom
409. JSON with ArcGIS Server (2007-03-22T15:39:41Z): Few details, but an interesting mention of JSON in the context of ArcGIS Server.
408. Geo-Enterprise to Geo-Web (2007-03-22T15:31:17Z): The contents of enterprise spatial databases are not passed over because they are not files, but because they have no URLs. They are not of the Web. [more ...]
407. Trac Changeset Links from Chatzilla (2007-03-21T22:12:48Z): Under your "Auto-load scripts" directory, create a sub-directory named "trac-rev". Save the following script as trac-rev/init.js and modify the changeset URL accordingly. [more ...]
406. W*S and REST, Again (2007-03-19T16:30:43Z): I'm experimenting with watching Planet Geospatial less, and stalking more keywords on Technorati. This led me to a blog I hadn't seen before, and a post asserting the RESTful-ness of OGC W*S, a notion that I thought we'd put to bed last year. [more ...]
405. New GeoJSON Discussion Group (2007-03-15T16:30:51Z): Are you using JSON as a format for geographic data? Join the discussion: http://wiki.geojson.org/Main_Page.
404. Mr. Plow, Meet the Plow King (2007-03-15T14:52:00Z): How annoying. At least ArcSDE on PostgreSQL will be interoperable with PostGIS. If OSGeo is right, that's the best deal we can get.
403. 300 Historically Accurate? (2007-03-15T03:34:28Z): Not so much. Ephraim Lytle, in the Toronto Star, provides the real background for the truthy new battle-porn epic, 300.
402. Different Perspective on ESRI and FOSS4G (2007-03-14T19:24:19Z): Jachym Cepicky has kindly made an `English translation`_ of an entry I found yesterday. [more ...]
401. Another REST sighting (2007-03-14T18:39:31Z): Dave Bouwman points out the low profile of REST in the ESRI developer world at the tail end of a blog entry. RPC and SOA own these people. [more ...]
400. FDO and Python (2007-03-14T16:59:06Z): Jason and Mateusz have each posted about Python bindings for FDO this morning, and so I took a look into it. I've been intrigued by FDO ever since I heard of it in October of 2005. Python is my bread and butter, and I'm sad to say that the FDO Python bindings are disappointing. [more ...]
399. Gort Owns Us (2007-03-12T19:14:50Z): Seriously, The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of my favorite films. Let there similarly be peace between proprietary and open source GIS software, a peace maintained eternally by shiny, indestructible, planet-busting robots.
398. ROA Maturity Model (2007-03-12T17:28:29Z): Sure, SOA is an easy target for parody, but Pete Lacey's table is still hilarious_. What's the maturity level of your organization?
397. Taking GeoRSS Too Far (2007-03-12T16:37:36Z): The GeoRSS community needs to hold the line on simplicity, continue to hew to the Web, and show people who are looking for an XML serialization of GIS data the way to GML. [more ...]
396. My FOSS4G 2007 Abstract is in the Intertubes (2007-03-08T17:58:10Z): Cool! I have submission number 007. [more ...]
395. Yet Another Compass Rose (2007-03-07T19:51:16Z): Just so you know: the AWMC logo, which you'll be seeing in our Google Earth bubbles, goes back to 2000, well before Panoramio or OSGeo.
394. Ancient Wonders Keep on Going (2007-03-07T19:24:01Z): Unless these photos are a hoax, these ancient, natural vents are still leaking methane, and can be lit by tourists. [more ...]
393. ArchAtlas (2007-03-07T17:55:39Z): ArchAtlas is another of Pleiades's neighbors at the corner of GIS and Humanities. It takes a different approach than MAGIS, using KML and WorldWind plugins for browsing their database of sites.
392. Backronyms for KML (2007-03-06T19:35:27Z): I'm one of those who feels that KML needs an update if it's going to become a standard. Keyhole Markup Language has a legacy sound to it. Here are a few possibilities: [more ...]
391. Wine Blog Atlas (2007-03-05T17:01:53Z): The Wine Blog Atlas looks promising. I'd like to see KML as well.
390. Deliberately Obtuse (2007-03-05T15:34:30Z): I'm sorry, but this post is nonsense. There's almost nothing more annoying than deliberate obtuseness about open source and free software.
389. The Right Tool for the Job (2007-03-05T15:23:16Z): Use the right tool for the job. This is one of the guiding principles of good craftsmanship, and it would be a fine slogan for an Open Source and Proprietary Geospatial Foundation. [more ...]
388. Get Confident, Stupid! (2007-03-03T21:38:42Z): Come on, OSGeo milquetoasts, stand up for open source. If you need help, I'll loan you my Troy McClure self-help video collection. [more ...]
387. OpenLayers 2.3 (2007-03-01T22:01:02Z): OpenLayers 2.3 is out (since 21 February, in fact). For details, see the release notes. [more ...]
386. Suggestion for MapServer 5.0 (2007-03-01T19:14:21Z): The MapServer 5.0 plan has some compelling items (feature-level transparency, AGG rendering), but the one thing I'd really like to see is separation of MapServer's cartographic and web application aspects. These are entangled both in the code and in configuration, so it's no small task, but one that would reward the community. [more ...]
385. More Geospatial and REST (2007-02-28T15:16:10Z): Google Maps is being used to make the case for REST in the Web and Web Services world.
384. CUGOS (2007-02-26T16:28:00Z): The Cascadia Users of Geospatial Open Source. I'm not sure if they are hewing to the official Cascadia boundaries or not.
383. Pseudo-Open Source Companies (2007-02-26T15:26:47Z): The provocative post by Nat Torkington about pseudo-open source companies at OSCON makes me wonder how many of these will be showing up at FOSS4G 2007, and if anybody will even object as Nat does.
382. Geospatial Venus (2007-02-25T02:55:29Z): James, are you looking into Sam Ruby's new Planet branch, Venus? You can see its features, including a meme tracker, at Planet Intertwiningly. Pretty sweet, eh? Mail me for Python help. Meanwhile, my increasingly awesome feed (brand-new Atom categories, complete with schemes, and more liberal license starting today) is being massacred at the old Planet Geospatial.
381. Free Toys for Geo-Bloggers (2007-02-24T05:08:07Z): Smells like the 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator is the Ferrari Vista laptop of geo-blogging. More of this to come, I'm sure.
380. REST and Geospatial (2007-02-23T16:54:07Z): David Smith, who has generally been a proponent of SOA and Web Services on his blog, considers REST. [more ...]
379. New Pleiades KML (2007-02-22T16:58:29Z): That's 304 places in ancient Lycia and Pisidia (southwest coast of modern Turkey) from map 65 of the Barrington Atlas. There are 102 map pages to go, and we'll eventually have about 50,000 ancient places online next spring. [more ...]
378. Catalog Free (2007-02-22T16:11:43Z): I finally read Adena's interview with Michael Jones, who in fact does invite us to start spatially marking up our data and services in the way I proposed. I'd better start reading Directions more often. [more ...]
377. PleiadesGeocoder 0.6.2 (2007-02-21T02:56:46Z): PleiadesGeocoder provides a portal geocoding tool and methods for producing KML and GeoRSS representations of Plone content. I've made a 0.6.2 release [plone.org, icon.stoa.org] on the way to the next Pleiades milestone site release. [more ...]
376. Interesting Web of Services Position Paper (2007-02-20T21:03:51Z): Substitution of 'W*S' for 'WS-*' in Nick Gall's position paper yields a bunch of good lessons for the GIS standards bodies. [more ...]
375. Open Source GIS and Vista (2007-02-19T15:56:01Z): Why in the world would you want to run your RDBMS, Plone instance, or any other server application on Microsoft's defective-by-design multimedia appliance? [more ...]
374. Imagine a Geo-Web Without Catalogs (2007-02-19T15:09:17Z): Google Earth with KML search may not be an SDI, but it sure as hell looks like a data or service catalog killer. [more ...]
373. Ancient Places and Google Earth Search (2007-02-17T05:12:04Z): I'm finding a fair amount of other placemarks in the neighborhood of some interesting ancient places from Pleiades. Check out the ancient settlement of Caunus [direct network link], and the host of interesting photos in the Panoramio layer. If you search for "roman" in this spatial context you get a number of Pleiades placemarks, but there are a few from other sources, notably the "theatre of Caunos", and the co-located Panoramio mark. There are also nice shots of remarkable rock tombs near Karpasyanda.
372. Planet Geospatial Lives (2007-02-16T15:05:14Z): Looks like Dr. Fee-enstein has finished bolting together his new creation, and is beginning to run some current through it. I see more feeds than ever, which i suspect means even more press releases, thinly-disguised product blogola, .NET fanboys, zimboe minions of SOA, and Python nutjobs that you'll want to filter. As soon as Planet Geospatial consolidates, I'll update my Greasemonkey script.
371. Searching Google's Geo-Web (2007-02-14T18:32:30Z): Google's Geographic Web is now searchable, and all the other wanna-be Geo-Webs just became much less relevant.
370. Proprietary Feedback Part 2 (2007-02-13T16:52:00Z): My conclusion is that developers of higher-level open source GIS projects shouldn't be overly concerned about scaring off contributions by choosing the GPL. I've found vanishingly little evidence that proprietary companies contribute at other than the lowest level. [more ...]
369. March FRUGOS Meeting (2007-02-13T04:20:04Z): Here's the plan for the next FRUGOS meeting [more ...]
368. New Belgium Sees the Lite (2007-02-13T03:51:29Z): In pursuit of the mass market, New Belgium drops one more of their unique and interesting brews; the wild and gamey Biere de Mars, which I loved, is gone, replaced by the lite, insipid, and disappointing Springboard. I didn't care when they replaced Loft with the even-lighter Skinny Dip, but this latest switch is quite a bum deal.
367. PrimaGIS for Plone 3.0 Preview (2007-02-12T22:07:32Z): Plone 3.0 is coming this spring, and Kai has a preview of what that means for PrimaGIS.
366. TileCache 1.4 (2007-02-10T16:05:53Z): I forgot to mention that TileCache 1.4 was released this week. If you're running MapServer as a WMS without any WFS requirements, you've gotta check out TileCache. [more ...]
365. Geospatial Mashup Components (2007-02-10T15:55:53Z): When Howard announced his projection web service, I told him that this was not nearly as useful as a service that operates on entire documents. A service that reprojected, buffered, or spatially aggregated the items in a GeoRSS feed or KML document could be a great component in a mashup pipeline. Pipes doesn't support remote modules yet, but I expect that's only a matter of time. It's the obvious next step.
364. Pipes Full of GeoRSS (2007-02-09T15:30:12Z): Pipes. Is there anybody who still thinks GeoRSS isn't ready for prime-time?
363. GeoRSS Caution (2007-02-08T16:06:49Z): Standardizing on RSS is a no-brainer. There are orders of magnitude more information being shared via RSS than by OGC protocols. It works. It scales. It's extensible. It's not going away. The success of RSS is very much a grassroots story. These folks didn't wait for W3C approval, they mobilized and took the web by storm. [more ...]
362. Wine Blogging the Columbia and Rhone (2007-02-08T08:49:02Z): Being a GIS blogger, I've tried to do something that I haven't seen much of in wine blogs: use Google Earth to help tell the story of the wine. So, start up Google Earth, hit this KML link, select the top-level folder, and read on. [more ...]
361. More Geo-JSON (2007-02-07T16:50:45Z): Platial's Chris Goad is offering JDIL as a way forward for Geo-JSON. JDIL (I presume this is an acronym for JSON Data Integration Language) is used at Platial to map RSS 1.0 XML feeds to JSON [example feed]. It's thorough and seems a decent solution to the problems particular to RSS 1.0, but those problems don't exist in my applications.
360. Suprisingly Quiet (2007-02-06T20:25:15Z): I can understand letting the birthday of the MapServer Foundation quietly slide by, but I expected a little more buzz about this OSGeo milestone.
359. Plone Snowsprint Roundup (2007-02-06T19:04:33Z): Kai Lautaportti launches his brand-new blog with a roundup of PrimaGIS activities at the Snowsprint. What I'm most excited about is the new WMS support, which paves the way for integration with OpenLayers. [more ...]
358. MAGIS: Mediterranean Archaeology GIS (2007-02-06T18:19:59Z): Slowly, but surely, I'm catching up on the other Web and GIS projects in the Digital Humanities. One of these is the Collaboratory for GIS and Mediterranean Archaeology's MAGIS, which provides simple MapServer-based map search for archaeological projects.
357. The Wehlener Sundial (2007-02-05T16:19:28Z): Over the weekend I went on a few virtual vineyard tours in preparation for WBW #30. In Germany, on a slope above the Moselle, facing the town of Wehlen, I found the Wehlener Sundial. [more ...]
356. Sprint Track at FOSS4G 2007 (2007-02-05T14:51:22Z): Paul Ramsey has been thinking about software sprints too. My experience at the Plone Conference sprint is that one day isn't enough unless the participants do this kind of work regularly.
355. Geospatial Code Sprinting (2007-02-04T15:55:34Z): The open source GIS community, with a few exceptions, hasn't done code sprints. I used to advocate for MapServer code sprints at past meetings, but there was little interest. [more ...]
354. No Fan Love (2007-02-04T15:22:32Z): Often it seems that the Fair Use and anti-DRM movements have no greater ally than the big media companies themselves. Everytime a company loads rootkits on customer machines, sues the family of music-downloading a teen for all it's worth, or comes after churches for showing the Superbowl on too large a TV screen, more damage is done to the old copyright regime than I could do in a million blog posts.
353. OWSLib 0.2.0 (2007-02-02T05:55:22Z): OWSLib 0.2.0 is the first release after switching from the GPL to the BSD license a month ago. The other changes involve extended service metadata introspection.
352. ILWIS Joins 52 North (2007-02-01T16:04:13Z): I don't know what to make of this curious development. [more ...]
351. 1000 to 1 (2007-02-01T15:26:12Z): The OGC standards are designed for the enterprise, some thousands of users on an intranet. It's unlikely that they scale to millions or billions of users. [more ...]
350. Fink Packages: OWSLib, Quadtree, PCL (2007-01-30T20:11:10Z): Kurt Schwehr has put together OWSLib, Quadtree, and PCL-Core packages for Fink and Python 2.5 [more ...]
349. PrimaGIS in the Snow (2007-01-29T20:52:38Z): Kai is working on PrimaGIS for Plone 3 at this week's Snow Sprint. I'll try to pass along updates throughout the week.
348. Beneficial Proprietary Extensions of Open Source Software? (2007-01-29T18:28:57Z): One of the arguments for choosing Apache/BSD/MIT software licenses over Free Software licenses like the GPL is that the former harness the profit motive of individuals and companies for the benefit of the open source users. There is hypothetical positive feedback: Apache/BSD/MIT licenses allow proprietary extensions, which in turn lift up the open source source software by giving back bug fixes and feature enhancements. [more ...]
347. Simple Answers to Simple Questions (2007-01-28T19:47:55Z): There is a question in All Points Blog this morning: [more ...]
346. More on Google Book Search Maps (2007-01-27T20:32:03Z): More on Google Book Search maps at The Stoa Consortium: Google Maps and Millions of Books.
345. Quadtree 0.1.2 (2007-01-27T20:11:49Z): A user caught an installation bug in Quadtree, the fix for which warrants a new release. Quadtree 0.1.2 has been uploaded.
344. Maps for Google Book Search (2007-01-26T17:02:54Z): My boss just pointed out to me that Google's book search has new Gutenkarte-like maps at the end of the page. [more ...]
343. Camp 5 and BBQ Sprint (2007-01-18T20:54:23Z): Chris Calloway and TZPUG are ready to accept registration for Camp 5 (March 10-17, 2007 in Chapel Hill, NC). Philipp von Weitershausen is a great instructor; don't miss this chance to learn about Zope3 and Five from one of the community's most knowledgeable developers.
342. New Bathymetry of the Great Salt Lake (2007-01-17T18:55:31Z): GeoCarta's Roger Hart just reminded me of something I miss: the Great Salt Lake. Back in the day, I fished for perch and sailed in Gunnison Bay. Evaporation from the lake contributes to the annual 500" of snow dumped on Alta. Sea Monkies (Artemia franciscana) frolic in the smelly, briny compartment south of the railroad causeway. [more ...]
341. FOSS4G 2007 (2007-01-17T17:25:07Z): Rumors that Kirok will deliver the keynote to the tribes are untrue. [more ...]
340. Blog Upgrade (2007-01-14T22:13:47Z): The software that runs this blog has been letting me down. After some consideration, I decided that instead of switching or rolling my own, I'd be like the guy who soups up his Ford Pinto wagon (COREBlog in my case). New wheels, new paint, and tinted glass. Maybe, later, new seats and sound system. [more ...]
339. Google's Geo-Web (2007-01-12T17:32:02Z): This is how it's going to grow? From KML in sitemap files? I have mixed feelings about this. [more ...]
338. $200 Laptop? (2007-01-10T22:07:05Z): Count me in. As far as I'm concerned, the OLPC story is a thousand times more interesting than the iPhone. Imagine the potential wave of new, young neogeographers when these things hit the streets of Recife, Tripoli, Abuja, and maybe even Fort Collins. [more ...]
337. If You Like Proprietary, You'll Love the iPhone (2007-01-09T21:11:50Z): Cingular only? 2 year contract? Bah, humbug. I'm not turning over any more of my digital life to Apple.
336. cartography.data.georss (2007-01-09T06:56:08Z): Last year I helped add support for geo-referenced Atom feeds in OpenLayers (example here), and today committed a GeoRSS module for the Python Cartographic Library: cartography.data.georss. Based on the Universal Feed Parser, it adapts simply geo-referenced entries of any RSS flavor to PCL's feature model. [more ...]
335. GDAL 1.4.0 (2007-01-09T05:47:13Z): Congratulations to Frank et al: GDAL 1.4.0 is released.
334. Scrub a Dub Preview (2007-01-05T22:28:16Z): I've got a pgscrubber 2 preview, pgscrubber-2.0a.user.js [MD5, SHA1] to go along with the new PlanetGS preview [more ...]
333. Five Things (2007-01-04T00:06:33Z): I don't want to let James down, so here are the five things you probably don't know about me [more ...]
332. PlanetGS Scrubber Uploaded (2006-12-29T18:36:16Z): My trusty PlanetGS scrubber is back on line with a license, checksums for the paranoid, and more humorous example URLs.
331. Sharpening the Wiki (2006-12-28T18:18:38Z): Expertise will continue to have value in our wiki future. I'm already convinced that Pleiades has a solid mission, but it's nice to find reinforcements. [more ...]
330. Google, Now With Fewer Mashups? (2006-12-19T20:36:08Z): Dave Megginson's post is getting around the blogosphere. I saw it via Pete Lacey and Tim Bray. It would be a shame if other organizations followed Google in this direction.
329. OGC and the Geo-Web (2006-12-17T18:40:10Z): One of the things the OGC needs to understand before it can help to geo-enable the Web is that there's more to ubiquity than just dumbing down specifications to the grade level of the mass market. Systems with simple rules allow the evolution of complex and surprising features. Our teeming, expanding, World Wide Web was made possible by its deliberately simple design.
328. Forget Mass Market, it's All About the Web (2006-12-14T17:03:04Z): W*S protocols have opened minds and hinted at possibilities, but are not engendering a geo-web. It's time for a new approach. It's time to geo-enable the Web. [more ...]
327. Biggest and Best of 2006 (2006-12-13T20:49:25Z): Here's my list of some of the biggest and best of the community, blogosphere, and things tangential in the last 12 months, in no particular order, and with no apologies about the open source bias. I've omitted many worthy persons, events, and developments. Feel free to write about them in comments or on your own blog. You may be surprised at how long it takes you to make even deliberately casual, non-definitive, best-of lists. [more ...]
326. NBA Geography (2006-12-12T18:05:54Z): My old hometown Jazz routed the Mavericks last night for Jerry Sloan's 1000th win. For now -- and for the first time in my memory -- the Mountain West, led by the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz, and Denver Nuggets, is the NBA's dominant geographic region.
325. The Fuss About Google's Geographic Web (2006-12-10T16:56:35Z): I don't see the point in fussing about Google's new geographic web layer. ESRI's Geography Network and the scattered archipelago of W*S servers may have come first, but neither constitute a functioning web. Google's geo web is as legitimate as any other.
324. Digital Gazetteer Workshop Notes (2006-12-08T20:15:22Z): If you're interested in digital gazetteers and didn't make it to this week's workshop in Santa Barbara, check out the notes of my boss, Tom Elliot.
323. A Guide to the Blogosphere (2006-12-07T14:03:57Z): I'm with Jonathan Crowe, Adena's sense of special interest is turned inside-out. And Planet Geospatial is still not a blog.
322. The MapGuide Demos (2006-12-06T16:46:59Z): I spent a few minutes trying out the three generic tasks, and must say, this is more like it. Autodesk is employing some UI and graphic designers. They haven't found the sweet spots yet, but are closer than the ADF team.
321. QGIS R-Trees (2006-12-06T15:10:55Z): I too looked into Hadjieleftheriou's Spatial Index Library before settling on shapelib's quad tree (for Quadtree). My C++ chops are a bit flabby these days, and Frank's C code is very easy to work with. Given my limited resources and minimal requirements, the choice was obvious. Now, I'll definitely be looking into the QGIS R-tree implementation.
320. So This is the ArcGIS Server ADF? (2006-12-05T15:34:09Z): I was expecting it to feel more usable and look more appealing. It's an improvement over the abysmal ArcIMS client, for sure, but is less impressive than all the hype suggested.
319. Declarative Maps (2006-12-01T19:35:56Z): As obvious as this post will be to some, it bears being written for the benefit of people who are at a fork in the MapServer road. Don't write unnecessary programs. Write documents. [more ...]
318. Heads in the Sand (2006-12-01T15:06:42Z): In the comments of James Fee's AGX vs GE post (and others), ESRI users cling desperately to the mantra that ArcGIS Explorer and Google Earth do different things and aren't competitors. However, as Stephen Geens notes (at the end of this post), Google Earth users with a serious GIS background are ready, willing, and able to compete with AGX and ArcGIS services.
317. Companies, Teams: Think Twice Before Blogging (2006-11-30T17:15:12Z): You might not care that I don't read corporate or team blogs, but maybe you'll pay attention to Jeremy Zawodny or Joe Duck. [more ...]
316. Simplicity and the Corporate Development Firewall (2006-11-30T16:59:18Z): Good post from Pete Lacey about how much of the IT industry can't hear the victory cheers. Thanks largely to Google, the situation is better in the geospatial business. Google Maps and Earth have utterly breached the firewall in our industry. Only the deepest of the deep corporate spider-holes could hide a geospatial developer from un-enterprisey ideas like the GMaps API, KML, GeoRSS, and REST.
315. Stop Using Mapscript (2006-11-29T17:28:20Z): Stop using MapScript. I recently gave this advice to an email correspondent, and I'm repeating it here for my readers. Cease, or at the very least, minimize your use of MapServer's various language bindings. Instead, embrace MapServer's domain-specific language (DSL) and write more of the declarative cartographic scripts known as "mapfiles". Use the mapserv (or shp2img) program to compile these scripts into images. This is the path to happiness and prosperity. [more ...]
314. Plone Conference Keynote Video (2006-11-29T04:54:24Z): I didn't expect it to happen at all, but Eben Moglen's keynote address at the Plone Conference moved me. I admit that it's easier to do these days now that I'm a parent and feeling sappy. (How sappy? My wife and I almost lost it at the end of Peter Jackson's King Kong, that's how sappy.) I want my daughter to grow up in a more free, more fair, better world, and I'm proud to consider that my work on free software is helping to make that better world possible. [more ...]
313. Landscape Words (2006-11-18T15:11:32Z): Place names and class of names are the main points of our upcoming Pleiades milestone, so it's an interesting coincidence to hear about Barry Lopez's book about landscape words on NPR the other evening. Reading the excerpts, I became a little sentimental about names of my favorite landscape, the Colorado Plateau: slot canyon, dry fall, reef, arch, tank, water pocket.
312. Almost Like an Onion Headline (2006-11-17T21:57:44Z): "Man says reusable modules are ok and all, but cutting and pasting code snippets is way better." [more ...]
311. SDI in a Box (2006-11-17T17:13:02Z): People having been talking about mapservers or spatial data infrastructures in a box for a while. It's bound to happen any day now, but almost certainly without the box, instead using "elastic" arrays of virtual machines. [more ...]
310. Props to ArcMap (2006-11-17T16:43:16Z): I just finished making a map of Tanacetum vulgare (Common Tansey) incidence for a visiting ecologist. Everything I remembered about good ole ArcView 3.2 seemed to transfer right over to use of ArcMap 9.1. [more ...]
309. More on the Plone Conference Sprint (2006-11-17T02:53:17Z): I've always done a poor job of explaining what these software sprints are all about. Jon Stahl does a much better job here. If you look closely you will see my chin in the very upper left corner of the fifth photo in his blog entry, sitting just behind Jackie, Martin, and Alexander.
308. The REST Dialogues (2006-11-16T23:35:10Z): The REST Dialogues looks like it will be good stuff, although The S stands for Simple is more fun. If I were more clever, I would have taken this approach to discussing W*S.
307. Pydap to Google Earth (2006-11-16T22:42:59Z): Just saw this on Planet Python. Interesting.
306. How to Explain Metadata (2006-11-15T15:44:47Z): No, no, no. As as cook and programmer, I must object. The only analogy that works is ingredients == data. [more ...]
305. primagis.buildout (2006-11-13T15:22:16Z): Kai and I attended Chris McDonough's talk on buildouts at the Plone Conference. Kai left motivated to do something about common environments for developing PrimaGIS. His solution is primagis.buildout: a script for making complete, isolated PrimaGIS sandboxes. [more ...]
304. Java Freed (2006-11-13T14:49:06Z): Java freed. Open source GIS folks should read and think about Bray's -- and he's not a Free Software zealot -- common sense arguments for the GPL.
303. Tests for Goodness' Sake (2006-11-11T17:40:49Z): You know what would impress more than a 1.0 tag? [more ...]
302. Web Mapping and Accessibility (2006-11-10T16:36:17Z): Web mappers: what are you doing about accessibility? [more ...]
301. Python Cartographic Library 0.11 (2006-11-09T17:13:38Z): This release has been a long time coming, and I appreciate the patience I've been shown. At least the wait was less than 18 months. [more ...]
300. Rick Santorum (R-AccuWeather) Defeated (2006-11-08T22:49:49Z): Peter Suber points out that users of rich NWS data feeds won big last night. The sponsor of S.786 has been sent home. Suber says it was a good night overall for Open Access to research data. FRPAA co-sponsor Joe Lieberman was re-elected, and pro-OA Sherrod Brown replaces Mike DeWine. Are there any seasoned industry watchers who want to make an assessment of the impact on the geospatial business?
299. IronPython Goodies (2006-11-08T02:41:15Z): Responding to my previous .NET post, Seo Sanghyeon wrote to tell me that ElementTree is already ported to -- if I understand correctly -- the IronPython Community Edition, and work on PIL is underway. As I said before, these have always been two of my top 10 favorite modules, standard or not. I guess working on .NET won't be so bad after all.
298. FRUGOS Event November 14 (2006-11-07T17:52:56Z): There will be a demo of "Geospatial Open Source on a (Memory) Stick". [more ...]
297. GIS and Democracy (2006-11-06T22:42:16Z): There's been a lot of buzz over the past few years about how GIS is democratizing everything. The power to peek at your neighbors' backyards, strip mines, and refugee camps has been called democracy. Maybe it is, or at least is raw material for democracy. Myself, right now, I'm more concerned about political equality and the right to participate in choosing representatives in government. Bottom line: does GIS enfranchise us? If not, all this democratization talk is just hot air. [more ...]
296. Spatial Resources Spam (2006-11-06T19:19:57Z): Is it just me, or do others get unsolicited press releases from Spatial Resources, LLC? What have I ever said or done that would make this guy think I was interested? I've cancelled my so-called subscription before, but apparently they've decided that I needed to be put back on the spam list.
295. Plone and Atom (2006-11-06T19:07:44Z): The PleiadesGeo software I've been developing serves up Atom feeds, and now it seems we can suck such feeds back in. I get to work on something closely related today. PleiadesGeo already serializes content to KML for display in Google Earth. Now we're working on opening up the inbound lanes. [more ...]
294. .NET: Meh (2006-11-05T18:37:07Z): The funny thing about .NET is that I can ignore it, mock it, invest nothing in it, knowing that when I absolutely have to, I can turn on a dime and be very productive on it thanks to IronPython. [more ...]
293. Planet Geospatial Woes (2006-11-04T03:33:15Z): Maybe what we really need is a geo-reddit. Get to it, lazyweb!
292. OS and GeoDRM: Only the Half of It (2006-10-31T14:54:37Z): The more fundamental question to ask is whether data providers can risk turning away innovators that don't appreciate being treated like criminals. [more ...]
291. Plone Sprint Summary (2006-10-30T17:43:09Z): I've got several more entries about the conference to write, but don't worry: I'll be back to GeoDRM bashing and REST advocacy in due time. [more ...]
290. Tiling Implementation (2006-10-28T17:00:31Z): I think URL traversal is going to expand and perhaps even blow some minds. Presently, the open source GIS community thinks about web applications almost exclusively in terms of CGI. [more ...]
289. Tiled Mapping API (2006-10-23T03:32:11Z): I like where Paul Ramsey is going with this. It's not just trendy: it's the way the web works.
288. Persistent Misconception About the GPL (2006-10-21T17:51:57Z): If 52N seeks to own all commercial rights to the software, it will have to find a different license. [more ...]
287. REST and WMS (2006-10-21T16:55:57Z): Could WMS have been REST-ful? Andrew Hallam says probably not. I think he's being too strict about REST. [more ...]
286. Levels of Openness (2006-10-20T14:52:25Z): Some of us care a great deal about open development as well as open source. Howard explains. I've been recently cajolling the authors of a well-known, open source, closed development project about just this issue.
285. New OSGeo Executive Director (2006-10-19T19:38:47Z): I was complaining to Frank "El Presidente" Warmerdam last week that OSGeo was too opaque and needed to shed a little more blog light on itself. Today is different, with almost every OSGeo-related blogger reporting on the hire of Tyler Mitchell as Executive Director. [more ...]
284. OWSLib 0.1.0 (2006-10-19T18:15:50Z): OWSLib is a Python package for working with OGC web map and feature services. It provides a common API for accessing service metadata and wrappers for GetCapabilities, GetMap, and GetFeature requests. [more ...]
283. Why Does WFS Dislike the Web? (2006-10-18T18:22:43Z): I read Andrew Hallam's post about REST Abuse last month, and nodded: right, REST != not SOAP. There's more to it. I've spent the past two days programming WMS and WFS clients, and have a little more to add to his thread. [more ...]
282. Mirror, Mirror (2006-10-18T15:41:10Z): Now which one is the defensive, paranoid, government? Iran throttles internet access to 128kbps. Interior Bans Reading Blogs.
281. Multi-geometry Features (2006-10-18T07:46:17Z): Jason Birch has a nice KML tip tonight. PCL's N-geometry feature model suits this kind of application very well.
280. Quadtree Uploaded (2006-10-18T03:16:06Z): I've uploaded Quadtree to the Python Cheese Shop [more ...].
279. Geo-JSON (2006-10-17T15:00:12Z): Pleiades uses JSON when transporting map contexts and map features from Plone to our OpenLayers-based javascript applications. Our evolving flavor of geo-JSON is documented in the Pleiades wiki. I'm curious to find out if anyone else is doing something similiar.
278. Open Source Proliferation (2006-10-16T14:21:25Z): Autodesk has one. Now ESRI has its own. Who will be next?
277. Dirt Simple Geo for Plone (2006-10-13T18:46:56Z): What makes it all hang together? Reliable Zope 3 machinery and standards. [more ...]
276. I-cubed Imagery in MapQuest (2006-10-12T21:21:52Z): Congratulations, Russ, Jean, and crew! Check out the lower right corner of this map. Does this officially make I-cubed the biggest little Mom-and-Pop shop yet? [more ...]
275. Python Quadtree (2006-10-12T20:56:50Z): After researching trees of all kinds and reviewing a number of libraries, I finally went with what had been right under my nose all along: the quad tree from the venerable and inscrutable shapelib. A few years ago I would have used SWIG to wrap shapelib's tree, but I honestly don't give a damn about anything but Python these days. I whipped up tests, a Python C extension module, and Quadtree was born. [more ...]
274. Geo at the Plone Conference (2006-10-11T17:27:08Z): It's two weeks to the Plone Conference. I missed out on FOSS4G, so this is my big conference of the year. Interest in the post-conference sprint is huge. It looks like we're going to have 8-10 people on the geospatial track.
273. DebianGIS, GEOS, MapServer (2006-10-11T15:34:44Z): There's a push to update the MapServer stack in Debian unstable, including MapServer 4.10 and GEOS 2.2.3. Since switching to Ubuntu I'm paying much closer attention to the process. If you're interested, you could help test the packages.
272. Switching to Atom (2006-10-11T05:37:45Z): Hopefully I can pull this off without flooding Planet Geospatial. All my timestamps are OK, so if anything goes wrong I blame James and Mark Pilgrim's FeedParser.
271. Fingers in the Wind? (2006-10-09T20:31:00Z): The shift is well underway. And I, for one, welcome our new open source overlords.
270. geopy: Python Geocoding Library (2006-10-09T20:02:44Z): I like geopy so much I just sent the author a patch that adds doctests. [more ...]
269. MetaCarta Labs Rectifier (2006-10-08T16:11:47Z): Chris and Schuyler's rectifier is triggering flashbacks to my days as an apprenticing image analyst.
268. Java Worldwind? (2006-10-06T02:25:00Z): There's going to be a Java Worldwind as well as .NET Worldwinds? Does this multiplication seem like a waste of resources to anyone else? What's wrong with .NET? Does this imply that Mono is still a toy? Why wasn't it written once in C++ or Java? That's a lot of questions, but I'm seriously baffled.
267. Denver Plone Meetup (2006-10-04T19:04:02Z): Trey Beck is organizing a first local Plone meetup. I'm looking forward to hearing what people are up to, and to showing off Pleiades and PrimaGIS. [more ...]
266. Another Milestone (2006-10-04T04:48:24Z): I was just solicited to write some blog-ola about a vaguely geo-related product that I'll never use. Weird. I'd never do such shameless product placement in a million years. [more ...]
265. Framing GeoDRM (2006-10-03T17:05:22Z): Last "International Talk Like a Pirate Day" I wrote and tore up several lackluster posts about GeoDRM. None of them had the "Arr" I was searching for. [more ...]
264. Browsing Ancient Lycia and Pisidia (2006-10-02T20:40:38Z): Pleiades reached its first data milestone today. We've loaded up all point features from the Barrington Atlas Map 65: Lycia-Pisidia. The Choma network link from Pleiades is well worth a visit. All contemporary features can be viewed using the Imperial Roman period network link. [more ...]
263. MapWho? (2006-10-01T22:11:53Z): It's interesting that MapServer doesn't make the cut on the OSGeo web mapping matrix.
262. Python and GRASS (2006-09-23T22:34:48Z): Markus Neteler has news about the scripting interface to GRASS. Welcome to the blogosphere, Markus.
261. Federal Task Force Recommends Standards (2006-09-21T17:20:10Z): Good sense prevails! [more ...]
260. ESRI and IronPython (2006-09-21T15:56:02Z): Seems like a good fit to me. [more ...]
259. Thar be Low-Hanging Booty (2006-09-19T22:49:32Z): People love GDAL and OGR. People love graphical modeling. I think we can have these and the benefits of open source as well. [more ...]
258. Python 2.5, me Maties! (2006-09-19T20:24:38Z): What's in the brand spanking new Python 2.5 for geospatial folks? [more ...]
257. Patronizing Elders (2006-09-15T19:56:56Z): I'd have guessed that people under 35 have always been the major innovators in society. Congratulations, Joshua Schachter!
256. Sol Katz Award to Markus Neteler (2006-09-15T15:08:26Z): According to Tom Kralidis, Markus Neteler has received the 2006 Sol Katz Award. Markus well deserves this recognition.
255. FRUGOS Meetup (2006-09-15T04:05:46Z): The FRUGOS_ meetup at GIS in the Rockies organized by Brian Timoney was a success. [more ...]
254. Discount Entry to GITR for FRUGOS (2006-09-13T21:14:33Z): Brian Timoney has good news for people who weren't sure about paying full admission. See you tomorrow at Invesco Field. [more ...]
253. How to Steal an Election (2006-09-13T17:56:54Z): Public service announcement. You owe yourself a viewing of the video at Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, wherein it is demonstrated that Diebold's poorly engineered system makes stealing an election trivial. [more ...]
252. Tom Kralidis at FOSS4G (2006-09-12T18:21:55Z): Thanks for the update, Tommy. This is the only major open source geospatial conference I've ever missed and I'm starting to feel pangs of regret.
251. mod_expires to the Rescue (2006-09-12T17:55:29Z): OpenLayers and MapBuilder apps each require download of a mass of javascript, and a significant wait. Drop this .htaccess into your library root and your clients will cache the bulky javascript for up to a month. [more ...]
250. GeoDRM at FOSS4G 2006 (2006-09-12T14:02:38Z): The open data movement needs GeoDRM? To me, this is prima facie nonsense. I'm interested to find out what Jo and other open data advocates attending the conference take away from this talk. [more ...]
249. while 1: self.insert(sheep) (2006-09-08T18:46:20Z): Is this what Joel Spolsky was talking about when he said Python was only halfway safe?. Via Boing Boing.
248. Cartography and Science Fiction (2006-09-07T14:29:22Z): Via The Map Room: Another Word for Map is Faith sounds like a fun story. Christopher Rowe's The Voluntary State was one of my favorite SF short stories of 2004.
247. FRUGOS Meeting at GIS in the Rockies (2006-08-31T20:38:03Z): Brian Timoney has secured a slot for FRUGOS at GIS in the Rockies.
246. GeoDRM: Dead on Arrival (2006-08-30T18:35:53Z): Last week programmers broke Windows Media DRM, and today it's announced that others have cracked iTunes FairPlay DRM. How will GeoDRM, using the same technologies as the big media companies, prevent unauthorized use of your geodata?
245. EDUCE Funded (2006-08-29T16:57:29Z): Congratulations to Ross Scaife et al. EDUCE is funded by the NSF. Ross is the host of the Pleiades project web infrastructure.
244. Tomato Processing (2006-08-28T14:46:50Z): Here's a brief follow-up about my vegetable garden. [more ...]
243. Embarassing (2006-08-28T14:14:54Z): Colorado has a lot going for it, but the xenophobia -- whether homegrown or more recently imported from Texas and California -- is embarrassing.
242. Godwin's Law for Geospatial (2006-08-24T18:08:06Z): My remix of Godwin's Law [more ...]
241. Damn It Feels Good to be a Developer (2006-08-23T19:40:46Z): Paul Ramsey swings his clue-by-four. [more ...]
240. Kai and PrimaGIS in Seattle (2006-08-23T14:37:56Z): Excellent! Kai's talk is accepted and on the Plone Conference agenda.
239. PleiadesGeocoder and PleiadesOpenLayers (2006-08-23T03:47:29Z): In my 200th post I wrote about the Pleiades project and our intent to be geospatial leaders for the Plone community and the digital humanities. Release early, release often is a part of the philosophy that Pleiades is porting from the open source software movement. Two months into the project, we're releasing a couple of simple and useful products for Plone: a geocoder, PleiadesGeocoder, and a map, PleiadesOpenLayers. [more ...]
238. Peter Suber on Open Access (2006-08-22T15:50:24Z): OA is somewhat related to the Open Source movement, but is concerned about content rather than tools. There's a lot in this conversation that is of interest to free geodata advocates. Check it out. [more ...]
237. AJAX Mapping Shakeout (2006-08-21T16:22:55Z): Speaking of shakeout and convergence: I don't see any reason why Mapbuilder and OpenLayers, the two leading open source AJAX map libraries, need merge. Choice is good, and these projects offer distinctly different approaches. [more ...]
236. Python Web Framework Shakeout (2006-08-21T15:54:46Z): A year ago I pointed out Django as the one to watch. And now Python's BDFL has proclaimed Django to be the one. [more ...]
235. Sol Katz Award, Ideals of Open Source (2006-08-18T19:28:51Z): Nominations are open for the Sol Katz Award [more ...]
234. Google Regionator (2006-08-18T16:44:44Z): Yo, Google, don't be a bozo. Use ElementTree or lxml instead of managing all the tags and angle brackets yourself. You'll be glad you did, and you'll help to set a good example for thousands of new Python programmers. [more ...]
233. GeoDRM and Access Control (2006-08-17T16:59:27Z): Anybody have an access use case that can't be solved by an Apache proxy, mod_rewrite fu, and tweaking of row/column privileges in your data store? It would have to be quite the corner case. [more ...]
232. GeoDRM: Worst. Idea. Ever. (2006-08-15T16:29:03Z): I lurk on the Mapbuilder email list and am growing uneasy at the project's apparent embrace of GeoDRM. In the wake of Sony's anti-customer technology meltdown the string "DRM" makes reasonable people shudder, but GeoDRM proponents soldier obliviously on. [more ...]
231. Yahoo's Python Developer Center (2006-08-08T21:03:40Z): Check out the site for good examples of using the Yahoo APIs. [more ...]
230. W*S Client Library for Python (2006-08-04T16:10:11Z): OWSLib doesn't require the Python Cartographic Library. It depends only on elementtree or lxml. Your choice. There's no official release yet, but I expect to have one in October in time for the Seattle Plone Sprint. [more ...]
229. You're in San Diego and You're Curious (2006-08-02T13:06:00Z): There's an Open Source GIS gathering at the SDSU Visualization Lab, Aug 8. For more details, see this post on mapserver-users.
228. Community Map Symbols (2006-08-01T15:42:08Z): I was just asked if I knew of a comprehensive set of openly licensed map symbols. I'm not aware of such a thing. But it occurs to me that this might be just the job for the OSGeo foundation. [more ...]
227. Planet Geospatial is not a Group Blog (2006-07-30T04:07:55Z): I disagree with Adena's take on Planet Geospatial as a group blog. Boing Boing is a group blog. The GeoRSS Blog is a group blog. The Stoa Consortium is a group blog. Planet Geospatial is a feed aggregator. I've worked with James Fee to get markup that is easy to monkey with, but that's as far as I consider it a joint venture. Not that I'd be opposed to participating in a group blog. [more ...]
226. Ruby, REST and YAML (2006-07-28T14:48:06Z): Here's a good article by Charlie Savage: A Community for REST. I appreciate the work that the Rails community is doing to push back against WS-*. The other thing I think Rails does exactly right is use of YAML for configuration instead of XML. [more ...]
225. Pro Cycling, You're Killing Me (2006-07-27T15:01:12Z): I feared that it might be too good to be true. Perfect bookend scandals. I sincerely hope that Landis' B sample clears him.
224. Ruby and Geospatial? (2006-07-26T18:00:31Z): Ruby is the best thing since sliced bread. It embraces Perl refugees, gurus love it, and you're nothing but a chump if you're using a sucky language like Python or Java. Why then -- with the exception of Charlie Savage's work with GDAL and GEOS -- does it seem that there is nothing significant going on at the intersection of Ruby and Geospatial? [more ...]
223. Incubation Follow-Up (2006-07-26T01:49:30Z): Does unwillingness to spend a big chunk of free time trying to reform the incubation committee disqualify me from criticising the process? Not in the least. Let me try a metaphor on you: I'm not the guy in the back seat of your car second-guessing how you drive, I'm the guy on the bicycle yelling at you to drive carefully. [more ...]
222. Slippy AJAX Timeline (2006-07-24T17:17:52Z): Slick! You better believe I'll be trying out the SIMILE Timeline for the Pleiades site. I welcome the support for JSON because every time someone creates a new XML language, God kills a kitten. Via Ned Batchelder.
221. Watch Your Back, World Wind (2006-07-24T15:57:55Z): NASA's mission statement has been modified. [more ...]
220. Ideas for Plone and Geospatial Sprint (2006-07-24T15:42:54Z): I've made a wiki page to collect ideas and names of participants for the Plone Conference sprint. Login is required to edit the page, email me to get one.
219. Patently Silly (2006-07-20T16:46:23Z): Via All Points Blog: are all geo patents this ridiculous? They invented a new storage medium and a new electrical signal? I'm a bit skeptical. [more ...]
218. How Rigorous is OSGeo Software Incubation? (2006-07-20T16:09:59Z): Making the incubation rigorous enough that it actually results in improvement of the initial projects would be a big step forward for OSGeo. I believe it would encourage new projects to apply, in the hope that they would be similarly uplifted. How about it, incubator committee? Can you raise the bar a bit more and make the process really meaningful? [more ...]
217. Thrilling TdF Stage 16 (2006-07-19T20:48:35Z): What an thrilling stage 16 today in the Tour! Rasmussen goes off early and stays away to win. Sastre catches Landis out, and Pereiro regains the Maillot Jaune. [more ...]
216. There Goes the Neighborhood (2006-07-19T15:32:14Z): Crap, there goes the neighborhood. Please, unless you bring your own lifetime supply of water (and some to share), or are going to start an old-world bakery, or an affordably priced enoteca, don't move to Fort Collins. I'm begging you.
215. Calling all Gurus (2006-07-19T15:17:35Z): You know what the geo blogosphere really lacks? Gurus. Seasoned, opinionated, frankly critical, highly credible people writing about implementations. Experts in technology or methodology, writing with good style, clarity, and a sense of humor. Where are our Martin Fowlers, Tim Brays, Paul Grahams, Mark Pilgrims, and Joel Spolskys? [more ...]
214. Map Librarians Are Real (2006-07-16T05:21:57Z): Since I have no academic background in GIS or Geography, I've been skeptical about GIS or map librarians (such as mapz). To me, this position seemed a bit mythical, like the jackalope or sasquatch. [more ...]
213. The Future of the Past (2006-07-16T04:25:35Z): If you're interested in a historian's take on Wikipedia and the impact of the Wikipedia process on scholarship, check out Roy Rosenzweig's excellent essay: Can History be Open Source? (via The Stoa Consortium). It's enormously relevant to the Pleiades project, and we'll be disseminating it to all our potential users. [more ...]
212. Giving Back (2006-07-12T16:40:27Z): Yesterday Hobu chastized ZedX for apparently giving little back to the MapServer community.I think the fact that a company can put MapServer to use in a good sized contract without the need for paid consultation with core MapServer developers, or the need for feature enhancement, is a nice indicator of the maturity of the MapServer project. [more ...]
211. Plone Friday (2006-07-07T18:21:33Z): Lots happening this week. The top story is Google's hire of Plone co-founder Alexander Limi. Limi claims that the one day a week he'll be free to work on the Plone codebase is more than he now has. We'll have to wait and see. At any rate, a great opportunity for him. [more ...]
210. TdF Finally Gets It (2006-07-07T03:12:54Z): Via the Google Earth Blog I see that the Grand Boucle has teamed up with Google to address their need for KML. Meanwhile, I'm bummed that Valverde crashed out of the race in stage 3.
209. Front Range Users of Geospatial Open Source (2006-07-07T02:46:23Z): In March 2005 Donnie Marino (then at DigitalGlobe) hosted a meeting of local MapServer users in Longmont. A follow-up has been a long time coming. After consulting with Donnie and Brian Timoney, I created a new Google Group to pick up where we left off last year: the Front Range Users of Geospatial Open Source, or FRUGOS. [more ...]
208. The Open Planning Project Hires Ian Bicking (2006-06-30T22:22:21Z): TOPP, which employs Chris Holmes and sponsors GeoServer, just hired Ian Bicking. I've been reading Bicking's blog for a while now, and am hoping that they get him involved a bit in Python geospatial stuff.
207. Stranded in Phoenix (2006-06-30T15:23:01Z): *La Quinta* is Spanish for America West and US Airways screwed me. [more ...]
206. Black Friday (2006-06-30T14:07:59Z): Stunning. And I was really looking forward to watching a bike race this summer. Instead, it's a soap opera.
205. ESRI Subpoenaed (2006-06-29T15:54:39Z): ESRI and other businesses are being drawn into an investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm. [more ...]
204. Python in the Triangle (2006-06-29T15:24:08Z): I'm very grateful for the kind hospitality of Chris Calloway and TriZPUG this week. I hope their upcoming Python Boot Camp is a huge success. For anyone who may be interested, here are the few and skeletal slides of my talk.
203. OpenLayers 1.0 (2006-06-29T13:35:22Z): OpenLayers 1.0 has been released. It's a simple open source map browser in the style of Google Maps. [more ...]
202. TriZPUG Talk (2006-06-25T03:35:12Z): I made a mistake in a previous post. My talk for the Triangle Zope and Python Users Group is actually at Duke University next Tuesday, not UNC-CH. I'm really looking forward to meeting the members and finding out what interesting applications they might have for PCL and PrimaGIS.
201. Juhannus (2006-06-23T21:33:28Z): I love holidays, particularly the old school holidays. Fertility rituals, Dionysian excess, and bonfires. Nothing says summer quite like a bonfire! My friend and colleague Kai Hanninen is off enjoying the Finnish holiday of Juhannus, which sounds a lot more exciting than our Father's Day. [more ...]
200. My New Gig (2006-06-23T20:33:29Z): I've been saving this news for my 200th post. My new position is the software developer for UNC-CH's Ancient World Mapping Center, and I'll be working on the AWMC's Pleiades project. Pleiades (the daughters of Atlas) continues the work of the Classical Atlas Project. I'll be building a system -- and helping to build a community -- to update the *Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World*. [more ...]
199. Data and Metadata in the Digital Humanities (2006-06-21T15:46:50Z): I'm crossing over into the Digital Humanities lately and finding some great resources in the blogosphere. Via The Stoa Consortium and GIS for Archaeology and CRM I've been clued in to Digging Digitally and a good collection of links concerning data, metadata, and the platonic semantic cage. [more ...]
198. Souring on Apple (2006-06-20T06:06:17Z): Mark Pilgrim is ditching his Mac. Tim Bray sounds like he may not be far behind. [more ...]
197. Geographic Features for Python (2006-06-20T05:11:57Z): The upcoming PCL 0.11 release will include a new feature model. In a nutshell, it's a Object-Relational mapper for Python which supports the OGC's Simple Feature Profile. The OGR-based filesystem and psycopg-based PostGIS backends are operational, and a WFS backend based on elementtree or lxml is in the works. An introduction to the model and a tutorial with example code has just been added to our GIS-Python wiki.
196. Data is All (2006-06-19T14:30:41Z): Errors in the Gutenkarte picture of Pride and Prejudice remind me of a truth universally acknowledged, that data is everything in this game. [more ...]
195. Gutenkarte (2006-06-14T03:45:16Z): The other night I helped Schuyler out with a Python and PostGIS problem. Now I suppose he was working on Gutenkarte. We saw a preview of this at the 2005 Open Source Geospatial Conference.
194. Mix-ins (2006-06-14T03:16:26Z): I had no idea that Microsoft prefers mix-in over mashup. Adena suggests it may have something to do with ice cream. I thought it was more likely to have come from Lisp, but a little research indicates that ultimately, the term was inspired by Steve's Ice Cream.
193. Python Cartographic Library Summer Tour (2006-06-13T13:24:51Z): If two points make a line, do two engagements make a tour? I'm going to be making a series of presentations this summer about the Python Cartographic Library, PrimaGIS, and open source GIS tools for Python in general. [more ...]
192. Bad News for the Internet (2006-06-09T14:55:43Z): Net neutrality suffers a blow in the House of Representatives. Are our representatives in Congress just cavemen, unable, as Ed Parsons writes, to distinguish between freeway traffic and TCP/IP traffic?
191. Obligatory Simpsons Reference (2006-06-08T17:37:40Z): I'm certain that for every brouhaha in the Geospatial community there is a parallel kerfuffle in The Simpsons. First there was MapServer Cheetah/Enterprise. Now, my question is : does the GeoRSS episode more resemble the conflict in "Mr. Plow" (9F07) or "Flaming Moe" (8F08)? Discuss. [more ...]
190. Hello World (2006-06-08T14:35:12Z): Geospatial is bubbling up everywhere. I followed a link from reddit and found geospatial code in an essay about C++ programming.
189. Writing Myself Out of the Script (2006-06-06T16:00:14Z): I was fortunate to have a lightning talk slot at the 2005 Open Source Geospatial conference. Among other things, I talked about my changing priorities. I said that MapScript (and MapServer) were practically complete and that I'd be working more and more on the Python Cartographic Library and PrimaGIS. Now, a year later, I'm finally making it official. [more ...]
188. ArcGIS 11.0? (2006-05-30T14:10:52Z): Just read on All Points Blog that ArcGIS 9.2 will be ESRI's biggest release ever. Nevermind the version number. In my humble opinion, if Dangermond really want to get customers fired up he should go to 11. [more ... warning: humour]
187. SVR WX Episodio Due (2006-05-24T15:44:26Z): Via Igor Tavella, check out the livecam at the stage 17 finish line. [more ...]
186. Mapnik and MapServer (2006-05-24T15:09:14Z): Mapnik 0.3.0 is released. Mateusz Loskot and Matt Perry are also now blogging mapnik news, so that makes four of us. I think I'm still the only one regularly blogging MapServer releases. This doesn't mean that mapnik is developing at four times the rate of MapServer, but perception -- particularly in the blogosphere -- can often trump reality. The MapServer project really ought to make a little more noise. [more ...]
185. Giro: Plan de Corones (2006-05-23T18:51:05Z): Tomorrow's 17th stage of the Giro d'Italia finishes with a 1260 meter climb to Plan de Corones. In their never-ending quest to make the Giro the most macho of all stage races, the organizers are grading and resurfacing an alpine ski area's service road. [more ...]
184. SVR WX (2006-05-22T22:08:51Z): What do you know: our first severe weather warning of the season. A band of thunderstorms is headed up I-25. Better get the quilts and comforters ready. [more ...]
183. Offline Life (2006-05-22T15:20:41Z): I think Howard and Josh are the only geospatial folks who know that I have any semblance of an offline life. Believe it or not, I do. If there was any serious Ultimate in the Fort, that's what I'd be doing this spring. Instead, I'm going big in the garden. [more ...]
182. Photos from Python "Need For Speed" Sprint (2006-05-22T13:56:16Z): There's a Python sprint in Reykjavik this week which they are calling the Need For Speed. Sean Reifschneider, one the principals of tummy.com, shows us how to foto-document a sprint. I did a relatively pathetic job of taking pictures at the PrimaGIS sprint in March.
181. URISA and Geospatial LoB (2006-05-18T16:42:37Z): URISA, the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association, has weighed in on the Federal Geospatial LoB RFI. In section 2.4 (page 15), the authors state: "No New Funds": Not Realistic. They have plenty of other serious recommendations as well. I don't agree with all of them, but I do appreciate their objection to rigid, top-down, governance, and emphasis on investment in geospatial infrastructure. [more ...]
180. Geeked About Cycling (2006-05-15T03:40:50Z): The biggest cycling stage races of the year are upon us, and that means that the TDF Blog bumps Planet Geospatial from the top of my blogpile. Last year I reviewed the official 89th Giro and 93rd Tour maps, but there's no significant changes this yea...
179. Gabbo? (2006-05-05T16:10:22Z): Gabbo-like buzz for ArcGIS Explorer is building again (here for great picture). Does ESRI really need such an application to stay competitive, or is it more of a vanity project? [more ...]
178. Geographic Literacy (2006-05-03T17:35:55Z): I'm a bit late in pointing out this story on the National Geographic site concerning the geographic literacy of young (US) American adults. The story is cleverly illustrated with an image of the globe showing only the United States. A slightly more nuanced map of the world from the perspective of the average US citizen went around the blogosphere in 2004, before geospatial blogging caught on. [more ...]
177. Open Source Myth Busting (2006-05-03T05:50:48Z): Ed Parsons' entry about perceptions of open source leaves me scratching my head. I'm pretty sure the intention was to inform about the reality of open source GIS as well as the perceptions, but his readership could come away a bit confused. [more ...]
176. Create a PostGIS DB with Make (2006-05-02T05:26:10Z): Sometimes I find myself cycling through databases when developing with PostGIS. To reduce the amount of typing I've written a simple makefile. It's cleaner than a shell script [more ...]
175. Bivariate Cartographic Style (2006-04-30T22:23:51Z): In a previous post I wrote about using the Python Cartographic Library for charting the bright stars. Now I'm revisiting this script while working on a generalized bivariate cartographic style for PCL. [more ...]
174. Community MapBuilder 1.0 (2006-04-26T03:21:48Z): MapBuilder 1.0 has arrived. Congratulations to Cameron Shorter, Mike Adair, and the rest of the gang. [more ...]
173. New MapServer Steering Committee Member (2006-04-26T02:54:23Z): Last week MapServer's technical steering committee voted to make Steve Woodbridge a member. Steve is the first person we've added since the committee was formed. [more ...]
172. LoB News (2006-04-20T19:14:47Z): Dave Smith, at Surveying, Mapping and GIS has an interesting geospatial LoB debriefing. It all still seems pretty murky to me (no fault of Dave's). Were there any journalists present to get interviews or comments from the participants?
171. Calling All Lobbyists? (2006-04-19T19:14:07Z): I have bolder ideas yet. The GSA wants big? I can go big: [more ...]
170. SLD and Python (2006-04-19T16:16:56Z): I've been thinking a bit more about PCL and mapnik and their separate implementations of SLD. Compatibility would be great, but it might be easier said than done. The problem with sharing an SLD implementation is that mapnik is a C++ framework with Python bindings, while PCL is a Python framework with some C extensions. [more ...]
169. Mapnik News (2006-04-18T23:13:45Z): I try to keep readers updated on mapnik, which I hope will soon provide us (through Agg) with sexier maps than our trusty MapServer or MapGuide Open Source. I was quite disappointed when I learned that Autodesk's new application is also using good old GD. MapServer predates Agg or Cairo, but MapGuide OS has no such excuse. [more ...]
168. GIS Features and JSON (2006-04-17T15:00:18Z): I'm a big believer in GML, but not such a fan of XSLT. For many web applications, I want to bypass the transformation and directly get GIS features (whether by WFS or other service) as javascript objects. In PrimaGIS we are using JSON-RPC, and a data structure that is modeled after the GML simple features profile [more ...]
167. Foundation, Physics, and Fun (2006-04-14T18:21:28Z): Jo Walsh has a post that's making me consider whether the open source geospatial foundation more or less addresses my concerns from last summer. Back then, when I typed "organic" I could have just as easily used the word "grassroots". I wasn't looking for ideological purity as much as something that was really of and for the existing community. [more ...]
166. Dark Matter? (2006-04-14T03:10:13Z): Where did the Drkside of GIS go? He was like the Roddy Piper of the GIS blogosphere. Where am I going to get my snark fix now?
165. Ruby and GEOS (2006-04-12T17:51:14Z): A while back I created an initial SWIG interface for GEOS (Geometry Engine - Open Source), focusing on Python. I have subsequently stepped off the SWIG train (they lost me during the big changes made at 1.3.28), but Charlie Savage is forging ahead. The focus is now on Ruby, but if SWIG's unified typemaps work as advertised, bindings for other languages should follow trivially. [more ...]
164. i-cubed Imagery in Yahoo Maps (2006-04-12T17:06:37Z): My image processing mentor Yusuf Siddiqui wrote in to point out that i-cubed is the source for the new satellite imagery in Yahoo Maps. What a coup for Russ Cowart and his company! I worked at i-cubed programming data processing workflows until 2002, and they've been a customer of mine since then. It's great to see the company name come out big time along Navteq and TeleAtlas.
163. PlanetGS Scrubber Update (2006-04-11T15:36:29Z): I have updated [version 0.3.1] pgscrubber.user.js to keep up with the Planet Geospatial URL change.
162. MapServer Illustrates Why Things Matter (2006-04-07T17:06:02Z): I have been reading Julian Bleeker's manifesto "Why Things Matter", and noticed that an image from FlightAware appears on page 6. That is Tcl and MapServer at work, with a unique and distinctive cartographic style that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft can not provide.
161. MapServer 4.8.3 (2006-03-31T00:22:11Z): This release fixes a critical bug.
160. MapServer 4.8.2 (2006-03-23T04:35:08Z): MapServer 4.8.2, directed by Howard Butler, has been released. [more ...]
159. New Geospatial Category on plone.org (2006-03-21T00:26:52Z): Good news for PrimaGIS and four other products: http://plone.org/products/by-category/geospatial
158. Kamp Krusty (2006-03-14T15:26:13Z): Soon it is going to be all Developer Summit all the time in the GIS blogosphere. Is there anybody going who has also been to any of the previous MapServer or Open Source Geospatial meetings? A similiar expectation seems to be building, with a relatively small group of people looking forward to less marketing spiel and more insight into their favorite platform. I would like to hear how it goes from someone who has crossed over into open source.
157. PrimaGIS/Zope3 Sprint Wrap Up (2006-03-14T01:41:12Z): I got back to Fort Collins at 1:30 a.m. today and have tried to come up with a brief summary of the PrimaGIS and Zope 3 code sprint hosted by OpenApp last week. We did not provide much commentary during the event. You really had to be there, as the expression goes. Our colleagues on the #zco channel on IRC or subscribers to the project commits list saw only a flood of commit messages. [more ...]
156. Sprint Day 2 (2006-03-09T22:40:19Z): The second day of our code sprint has been going well. I'll write more about the technical details later, all I can manage now is to show some pictures and introduce our hosts. [more ...]
155. Sprint Day 1 (2006-03-09T00:19:33Z): Kai arrived yesterday afternoon, and we spent some time on strategery, but today was the first full day of programming. [more ...]
154. New OSGeo Foundation Members (2006-03-02T15:22:32Z): Announcement should appear soon at http://www.osgeo.org/. There are a bunch of brand new (to me) names among the usual suspects [more ...]
153. Mapnik Progress (2006-03-02T15:08:05Z): I had a good conversation with Artem Pavlenko yesterday. He showed me the improvement in mapnik labels and we agreed to think about -- and maybe even do something about -- sharing a feature model between mapnik and PCL. His comments were very encouraging, and I am eager to see more convergence.
152. Following Up (2006-03-01T17:04:02Z): It has been getting read lately, so I would like to follow up on a previous post about MapServer and the P* languages. I made a few predictions about the future of MapServer language bindings, and they have been both right and wrong. [more ...]
151. Spring (2006-02-28T23:55:46Z): It's another ridiculously nice day here in Fort Collins. The second in a row with 70+ (F) temperatures. It's positively vernal. [more ...]
150. Geometries for Python (2006-02-25T17:31:05Z): The next release of PCL will include two new components: PCL-Geometry, and PCL-Data, industrial-strength geometries and an agile feature model for Python programmers. I'm going to write about geometries today, and about the feature model in a day or two. [more ...]
149. Geospatial on NPR (2006-02-25T15:09:45Z): Interesting story this morning on NPR's Weekend Edition about coordinate reference systems and emergency response. [more ...]
148. PrimaGIS 0.5.1 (2006-02-18T16:57:28Z): Kai has just released PrimaGIS 0.5.1, which requires an upgrade to ZCO 0.7.1. Important changes in this release include: [more ...]
147. Dublin Code Sprint (2006-02-17T19:50:26Z): Nevermind the ESRI Developer Summit; the place to be next month is Dublin, Ireland, for the first ever Python Cartographic Library and PrimaGIS code sprint. It's hosted by OpenApp, and scheduled for 8-10 March. The current goals are to port PrimaGIS to Zope3, improve the Python Cartographic Library, and bring key new programmers up to speed on the projects. [more ...]
146. Open Source Geospatial Foundation (2006-02-05T14:15:37Z): As expected, the meeting was a success. I am really pleased with the interim Board of Directors. Gary Lang has impressed me, and I've already met Arnulf Christl (of MapBender), Markus Neteler (GRASS), Frank Warmerdam (GDAL), and Chris Holmes (GeoServer). I trust all of them to get things off to a good start.
145. MapServer 4.8.0 Release (2006-02-03T00:17:43Z): MapServer 4.8.0 is here. Too late for Christmas after all, but makes a great Valentine's Day present.
144. Scripting OGR With Python (2006-01-25T04:11:42Z): Matt Perry has a great example of scripting the creation of Tissot Indicatrix circles with OGR. This is the only use of ogr.py that I've seen on the blogosphere since I posted my graticule recipe.
143. Incubating Everyone (2006-01-23T15:40:27Z): During a recent discussion about the two projects at the center of the initial foundation announcement, a prominent open source geospatial developer suggested to me that perhaps MapGuide should be required to enter through such an (ASF style) incubator. If we're to follow the ASF model, this makes perfect sense. [more ...]
142. MapServer and MapGuide (2006-01-20T17:07:23Z): According to the All Points Blog, Autodesk's new open source licensed successor to MapGuide will be named ... MapGuide. I've been trying to make the point that project name churn doesn't help the foundation cause at all, and I'm happy to see that all parties have arrived at the same conclusion. [more ...]
141. MapFoo Foundation Meeting (2006-01-13T21:14:14Z): Not in Phoenix after all, but in Chicago, February 6. I can't go, and just have to hope that realism and restraint prevail.
140. Slick Javascript Scalebar (2006-01-05T00:20:01Z): Tim Schaub wrote in about a javascript map scalebar that he's developed. Kai is working with him to get it included with PrimaGIS. Now I don't feel so bad about deferring work on scalebars for ZCO.
139. Mapnik 0.2.4a (2006-01-02T22:52:45Z): A new mapnik release from Artem showed up on freshmeat right ahead of PCL 0.10.0. Mapnik sure does make an attractive map.
138. New Releases From GIS-Python (2005-12-29T05:50:39Z): We're waiting until people get back to work to announce on Freshmeat, FreeGIS, and plone.org, but there is now a new PrimaGIS 0.5 release, supported by releases of ZCO 0.7 and PCL 0.10. This first release from the new project site features integration with the MochiKit AJAX library, compatibility with Plone 2.1, a users manual, and a host of other improvements. [more ...]
137. MapServer and Autodesk 2006 (2005-12-27T21:36:20Z): Regarding the proposed MapServer-Autodesk Foundation, here are a few things I'm wishing for in 2006 [more ...]
136. Antialiasing Cost (2005-12-18T04:10:18Z): Howard asked me if I had a sense of the cost of antialiased lines. I set up a few tests using the timeit and mapscript modules, and found that the cost of polygon filling still outweights the cost of antialiased polygon stroking. Without fill, antialiasing is at least twice as costly, and increases in cost with the width of the line. [more ...]
135. Is it Really so Confusing? (2005-12-17T01:32:30Z): Some people still don't get the difference between open source (ala MapServer) and open standards (ala OGC). Clearly, people were clamoring in the comments on Spatially Adjusted for the benefits of open source, particularly attention to bugs. Nobody was complaining about open standards.
134. New MapServer Site (2005-12-17T01:06:34Z): The new MapServer website that Hobu has been toiling over for months is live today. New users are already heaping thanks on Hobu for making information easier to find. [more ...]
133. Antialiasing Arrives in MapServer (2005-12-16T22:47:19Z): After a couple late nights by Steve Lime, pretty much any line or polygon outline can now be antialiased in MapServer 4.8-beta3. [more ...]
132. Inside the Teepee (2005-12-09T18:16:38Z): There have been way too many press releases, recycled and regurgitated press releases, and pages of pure nonsense about the MapServer Foundation. Today, Howard Butler takes us inside the teepee for a look at the process. [more ...]
131. Open Is As Open Does (2005-12-08T23:42:04Z): Kevin Flanders has a new editorial in Directions on the MapServer Foundation brouhaha. Like me, he's ready to give Autodesk a fair shot at joining the community. Unlike me, he blames the blowback not on missteps by the Foundation founders, but on the small-mindedness of Joe six-pack MapServer user. That's disappointing. I think a little more openness from the start would have been sincerely appreciated by the community. [more ...]
130. MapServer 4.6.2 Release (2005-12-03T21:00:01Z): New release from MapServer's stable branch. Mapscript users should consider upgrading to benefit from bug fixes involving inline features and scalebars.
129. PrimaGIS: the Sequel (2005-12-03T17:50:17Z): There is a truism that sequels are never as good as the original, but Josh Livni proves this wrong with PrimaGIS screencast number three. Maybe it's because he jumps past number two. [more ...]
128. MapServer Foundation (2005-12-02T18:40:02Z): The good news is that nobody is threatening to take their ball and go home, but some conflict continues. [more ...]
127. Must Read (2005-11-30T22:08:23Z): On the topic of Autodesk-MapServer, Allan Doyle has the must-read post of the day. [more ...]
126. Hobu's Take (2005-11-30T16:24:39Z): Every time I ask myself why Howard hasn't yet posted about the Autodesk-MapServer foundation announcement, I have to remind myself that he already did. [more ...]
125. PrimaGIS News, MapGuide Considerations (2005-11-30T15:55:59Z): Kai has another update about the development of PrimaGIS. [more ...]
124. Arglebargle or Fufurah? (2005-11-29T19:24:29Z): My reference to Gabbo was my biggest hit ever. In another shameless attempt to pander to Simpsons fans out there, here is an image that, for me, sums up the whole Autodesk-MapServer episode. [more ...]
123. Not Getting It (2005-11-29T16:49:47Z): Adena sees a divide in the MapServer community. She doesn't get it. [more ...]
122. Autodesk and MapServer (2005-11-29T05:18:35Z): It's a bit over the top to write: Today, this week, we are simply adjusting to a space/time warp in the continuum of our geospatial marketplace. Processes, products and relationships are all changing in ways with which none of us have experience. but this is certainly the beginning of an interesting experiment. [more ...]
121. MapServer Foundation Open Letter (2005-11-28T15:46:42Z): Big news this morning: A letter to the MapServer community concerning the future of their favorite program. Adena has the industry angle on Autodesk's big open source splash. I remain skeptical. Too busy to write more this morning, but I'll be digging in this evening. [more ...]
120. PrimaGIS: the Movie (2005-11-28T08:35:08Z): Josh Livni has been working hard to turn Seattle Plone users on to PrimaGIS and now goes world-wide, demonstrating mapping with Plone in the first of a series of screencasts. [more ...]
119. MapServer 4.8 Beta 2 (2005-11-25T19:02:45Z): Is up on the MapServer download page. Includes fixes to another bunch of bugs. [more ...]
118. Colorado Consultant Convergence (2005-11-24T20:45:51Z): Here's a little pungent, zesty, tart relish for your otherwise bland holiday blog reading. [more ...]
117. FlightAware: The Return of Tcl MapScript (2005-11-22T23:33:21Z): It had been a long time since I've seen any sign of life from MapServer's Tcl bindings, but recently I've been corresponding with a developer of the FlightAware site about small enhancements to mapscript for use with their live flight tracking application. [more ...]
116. Monkeying with Planet Geospatial 2 (2005-11-22T03:12:56Z): James has retooled Planet Geospatial again to improve it's mutability. Version 0.3 of my pgscrubber.user.js cleans up the front page nicely.
115. Yet Another Python Projection Package (2005-11-20T17:58:41Z): The new PCL 0.9.1 source release contains a cartography.referencing module that can be built, installed, and used independently of the rest of the library. It requires only that PROJ.4 is installed on your system, and that you have a C compiler to compile the extension module. I've been itching for something that fits in the gap between Thuban's Projection (too limited) and OGR's spatial referencing (too intricate), and this is my swipe at that itch. [More ...]
114. Monkeying with Planet Geospatial (2005-11-16T17:36:34Z): I really dig James Fee's Planet Geospatial, just one of the many great things he's doing for the geo blogosphere. That said, in his effort to be all-inclusive he's subscribing to blogs that don't interest me, and it's likely that he's subscribing to another set of blogs that don't interest you. To customize my Planet Geospatial experience, I've written a simple Greasemonkey user script: pgeofilter.user.js. [More ...]
113. New PCL/PrimaGIS Project Infrastructure (2005-11-14T15:01:20Z): Continuing the project work of last week, Kai and I have largely completed an overhaul of our joint projects' infrastructures. Our bugs have been moved to their luxurious new homes, repositories ported, and user list subscribers migrated to the new community list. [more ...]
112. Inside the USGS Struggle (2005-11-10T14:37:14Z): They like my bashing of GOS over at the Topo Employees blog, and are generous enough to overlook the part of my post where I carelessly write about turning off the utilities at a center, and where I fail to note that this really means the premature end of long careers. [more ...]
111. MapServer 4.8 Beta 1 (2005-11-10T14:11:33Z): http://cvs.gis.umn.edu/dist/mapserver-4.8.0-beta1.tar.gz snuck out the other night. [more ...]
110. What is Pythonic? (2005-11-10T13:55:45Z): After I go and call mapscript un-Pythonic last week, Chris McDonough smacks me down. Now, Ian Bicking's UnZen of UnPython bails me out a bit.
109. Equal Time for Intelligent Flattening? (2005-11-09T15:33:15Z): I'm curious to see what follows this story out of Kansas. Equal time for Intelligent Flattening as an alternative to projections in Geography classes?
108. New PCL Project Page (2005-11-04T16:47:48Z): Last night I read much of Producing Open Source Software by Karl Fogel, and then implemented some of his recommendations. I'd been overlooking the need to make it explicit that the Python Cartographic Library is open source, and also retooled the mission statement. [more ...]
107. Another PrimaGIS Update (2005-11-04T15:42:11Z): Kai Hanninen has merged his work with MochiKit back into the PrimaGIS trunk, and added preliminary support for serializing geo-referenced Plone content to KML. Details are found at http://www.primagis.fi/news/dev_news_2005_2.
106. Moving Mapscript Docs (2005-11-01T16:41:09Z): I've been maintaining HTML versions of the mapscript docs on this site, but am going to redirect users to the new MapServer site starting today. See the note at http://zcologia.com/mapserver/.
105. Obligatory ArcGIS Explorer Post (2005-10-31T03:33:18Z): I have nothing much to say about ArcGIS Explorer other than that the buzz about it is starting to remind me of the "Gabbo" ad blitz in The Simpsons episode 9F19 (Krusty Gets Kancelled).
104. MapServer Foundation Proposal (2005-10-30T18:24:24Z): Tyler Mitchell, author of Web Mapping Illustrated, has been talking up the idea of a MapServer Foundation for a while. Recently, he's taken his advocacy to the next generation MapServer site (login required) and invited discussion and comment on the proposal. [more ...]
103. Inside the Katrina Imagery Warehouse (2005-10-27T16:04:57Z): I've heard bits and pieces already, but now Hobu takes Directions readers inside katrina.telascience.org.
102. Do I Care About the USGS? (2005-10-27T15:06:02Z): It's true that the geospatial blogosphere has been pretty quiet about this issue. I've been thinking about it a lot, but have avoided writing about it until I had something coherent to say. Adena's pointed questions have helped me, and I hope that others ask themselves the same questions. [more ...]
101. PrimaGIS News (2005-10-27T13:17:32Z): PrimaGIS, the number one web mapping product for Plone, has been developing rapidly in October. Kai Hanninen summarizes what's going on in the trunk and the new "mochikit" branch here.
100. Newsforge Omission (2005-10-26T13:50:24Z): In his Newsforge article on the community sponsored development of row-level locking for GiST in PostgreSQL, Jay Lyman overlooked the contribution of one of my customers. RealGo Inc. was mentioned in the Refractions announcement earlier this month.
99. Fee's Planet Geospatial (2005-10-22T15:37:03Z): Russ Nelson has been doing something similar since the end of 2004 (if I remember correctly) at http://planetgis.russnelson.com, but I've fallen away from it because it's dominated by boring press releases from gisuser.com.
98. PrimaGIS in Seattle (2005-10-21T21:57:42Z): Josh Livni is going to be demonstrating PrimaGIS at the next Seattle Plone Gathering, October 26.
97. Fearmongering in Directions (2005-10-20T17:35:08Z): I'm willing to bet that, in the wake of a flu pandemic, we're going to be wishing not that we had a fancier web mapping system, but that we had a more robust physical public health infrastructure.
96. Location Shelf Life (2005-10-18T16:06:11Z): In WGS84 and the Web, Allan Doyle notes that people are waking up to the fact that the current world geodetic system isn't going to be around forever.
95. Allan Doyle Thinks (2005-10-17T16:06:40Z): I've enjoyed corresponding with Allan Doyle, and will be a regular reader of his new Think blog.
94. New ZCO Demo (2005-10-17T03:28:40Z): Jean-Denis Giguere, Kai, and I recently made some labeling improvements that make it possible to make decent street maps using ZCO or PrimaGIS. Currently available only from our SVN repo, but should be released soon as PCL 0.9.1.
93. Site Upgrade (2005-10-12T23:35:43Z): This is nothing compared to Hobu's site upgrade.
92. PCL and PrimaGIS Feeds and Stats (2005-09-27T16:01:52Z): I also hacked Micah Dowty's ciabot_svn.py into a reactor for our Roundup tracker so that messages about new or changed issues are also echoed to CIA.
91. CPSGeo (2005-09-23T19:06:34Z): For the past few weeks I have been working on a simple GIS enhancement for CPS. My patient and tireless guide to all things CMF and CPS, Julian Anguenot, announces the release of CPSGeo on his blog.
90. Emailing Python Script Errors (2005-09-23T17:27:38Z): After my workshop, one of the attendees asked me how he would go about mailing the results or errors from a geoprocessing script. Here is a tested working example.
89. GIS in the Rockies Workshop Materials (2005-09-22T16:05:35Z): I plan to follow up on the several good technical questions in the next week or so, do check back with this site.
88. Geo-torrents? Old News (2005-09-18T16:37:31Z): Bloggers have recently discovered that massive geospatial datasets can be efficiently distributed using peer-to-peer technology. This is old news: mapping hackers and #mapserver denizens conceived and delivered free geodata torrents in February 2005.
87. Tyler Mitchell Illustrated (2005-09-18T16:02:01Z): Well, not really, but Tyler did join Howard for an interview.
86. Hobu Interviews Frank Warmerdam (2005-09-12T22:49:34Z): This is a great candid take on GDAL and MapServer from the community's most respected geospatial programmer.
85. Mapnik Update (2005-09-09T21:40:04Z): Artem Pavlenko's Mapnik continues to advance, and I'm still trying to keep an eye on this as a another potential rendering engine for PCL and PrimaGIS.
84. GDAL, MapServer, and USACE (2005-09-09T16:06:12Z): I've been forwarded a postcard of sorts from a GIS user in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which gives big props to MapServer and GDAL for helping to power their Katrina response. While analysts and engineers are using ArcGIS on their desktops and notebooks, our favorite open source tools are efficiently and reliably doing much of the grunt work. Moving earth and filling sandbags, if you will.
83. Geo-Web Blog (2005-09-09T15:20:49Z): Catching up with previous posts, it's interesting to see how sincerely Google (Keyhole) Earth's KML has flattered GML 1.0.
82. Hobu's Latest Podcast (2005-09-07T15:29:20Z): Great stuff: Hobu interviews James Fee. This is not, thankfully, a discussion of blogging, but a wide-ranging dialogue about our profession and industry.
81. Not a Mashup (2005-09-06T15:48:05Z): Yes, one can use the ArcWeb SOAP API to push point data to the service to be rendered onto a map and display the resulting map image in a web page, but this is not what we're talking about when we say mashup.
80. Ancient Mapping Technologies (2005-09-06T13:23:31Z): Via The Map Room I see that the oldest surviving road map of Great Britain is browseable through an almost equally dated and obsolete ArcIMS viewer. One of the greatest achievements of Google's disruptive map application has been to bury the notion that this pre-CSS, pre-AJAX web app is an acceptable way to present maps online.
79. Mapbuilder in Zope (2005-09-02T17:40:56Z): In very little time I was able to traverse the mapbuilder-lib source distribution and load it into Zope as a tree of folders, DTML methods, and images. After instantiating mapbuilder configuration and models as more DTML methods, and creating a page template to mount the widgets, I had my first Zope and mapbuilder demo.
78. PCL 0.9 Windows Binary Release (2005-09-02T14:54:48Z): Able to use my windows box again, first thing I've done is make dumb binary and binary installer releases for PCL: PCL-0.9-win32.zip.
77. After Katrina (2005-09-01T03:56:34Z): The Geospatial industry and community responded to last year's Indonesian tsunami with an outpouring of ... flashy web maps. Let's ease up on the maps this time, and focus on the material aid and relief desperately needed by the people injured and displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
76. MapServer 4.6.1 Release (2005-08-30T16:40:16Z): Includes SVG, GML, and connection pool bug fixes, and a patch that finally enables imageObj.getBytes() for the C# mapscript module. http://cvs.gis.umn.edu/dist/mapserver-4.6.1.tar.gz
75. ZCO Layer Editor (2005-08-24T21:38:53Z): One more screenshot: editing a layer.
74. ZCO Symbolizer Editor (2005-08-24T20:58:52Z): So, what's the new ZCO release like on the inside? Here's a screenshot of one of our best new features: the symbolizer edit view. The color chooser offers web safe colors, but users are free to type any of the millions of colors into the form fields.
73. New Releases From Our Happy Family (2005-08-24T20:13:19Z): This morning Kai and I released PCL 0.9, ZCO 0.6, and PrimaGIS 0.4. The PrimaGIS announcement with change log and download links is at http://www.primagis.fi/news/primagis_0_4_0 and the ZCO and PCL announcement to the mailing list is at http://lists.community.tummy.com/pipermail/primagis/2005-August/000089.html.
72. Python Job at ESRI (2005-08-24T19:09:51Z): Through Planet Python I just saw that ESRI is hiring a Python programmer to, among other things, "improve the Python language as required by ESRI and its thousands of users". As opposed to the mere dozens of existing Python users? ;)
71. GDAL 1.3.0 Release (2005-08-16T16:52:20Z): Frank Warmerdam's Geospatial Data Abstraction Library is a big part of the foundation of our open source GIS software stack, and the 1.3.0 release is now available for download.
70. GML in Wikipedia (2005-08-13T16:43:10Z): How does a programmer get on the GML train? I was asked this question yesterday, and didn't have a satisfactory answer. The specification is not the place to start, a book takes a few days to arrive in your hands, and articles on the web are mainly aimed at managers. Today I was clued in to Ron Lake's brand new Wikipedia GML pages. This is where to begin.
69. Django and MapServer (2005-08-11T21:58:01Z): One problem that new Python MapScript users immediately run into is the choice of web framework; Python is blessed (or afflicted) with a multitude. I think these users owe it to themselves to check out what Adrian Holovaty has been doing on chicagocrime.org
68. Image Server and GDAL? (2005-08-11T21:34:05Z): An All Points Blog post from the ESRI UC blurted (no less than four exclaimation marks) that the new Image Server is using GDAL. This is not something than can be confirmed by Googling for Image (or Prompt) Server and GDAL. Is it rumor or truth? As a GDAL user, I sincerely hope for the latter; the more use GDAL gets from the bigs, the better it will become.
67. What, no Lisp? (2005-08-09T04:20:35Z): Rosso is drawing the line with Python. Ruby and Javascript examples will probably appear somewhere soon, if they haven't already. I appreciate Rosso's explanation of the need for a new account to use the public services, and am amused to find that our particular producer/consumer roles extend into the wine world as well, though I must say that my tastes run more towards the Rhone than to Napa.
66. 2005 Hugo Award Winners (2005-08-09T01:07:27Z): Charles Stross, author of " Rogue Farm " , my favorite short science fiction of 2003, won the Best Novella award for " The Concrete Jungle " . Full details in the Worldcon press release.
65. GIS in the Rockies (2005-08-07T17:39:26Z): Next month I'll be at GIS in the Rockies, conducting a presentation/workshop entitled Data Processing and Mapping with Python: Open Source and Open Standards in the conference's Emerging Standards track. I'm pleased to have been invited to talk about the projects that we're working on in the Open Source GIS community, and show off some specific Python applications.
64. Poking at ESRI's Public ArcWeb Services (2005-08-06T21:02:37Z): In the wake of Google's mapping API release, ESRI has opened up some of its SOAP-based web services for limited public use to see if they can lure in the map hackers. I played around with a trial subscription to ArcWeb services two years ago, and this seemed a good opportunity to dust off the old Python code and try again with the public services.
63. Cheapo WFS and uDig (2005-07-26T21:54:51Z): I've finally made the time to upgrade my Cheapo WFS so that it can feed uDig, Refractions' new desktop GIS app.
62. Back to the Future (2005-07-23T15:59:50Z): David Maquire has a preview of ESRI's "new" type of image server. Raw imagery in the filesystem rather than RDBMS, on-the-fly image processing: these are great features that MapServer users have enjoyed for 5+ years. Storing massive raster datasets in an RDBMS was always a bit of a boondoggle.
61. Motherhood, Apple Pie, Web Mapping, and GIS (2005-07-22T17:33:50Z): Ryan Tomayko has a fine essay on Motherhood and Apple Pie which is relevant to Google's emergence as a web mapping/GIS player. Google plainly gets it, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Google were to become the defacto geospatial one-stop in the same way it has become the web search leader.
60. ESRI and the Google Maps Phenomenon (2005-07-20T18:35:37Z): Hobu is getting a lot of attention for his recent article on ESRI and the Google Maps phenomenon. He looks into ESRI's eyes and doesn't see any clear sign that they are ready to make a play for the mindshare of web map hackers.
59. MapServer Technical Steering Committee (2005-07-20T18:05:31Z): Frank Warmerdam's proposal to form a MapServer Technical Steering Committee has been accepted. Such a committee is long overdue, and absolutely necessary now as we are beginning to consider some re-engineering of the MapServer core to support input driver plugins and new output drivers.
58. RIP, James Doohan (2005-07-20T17:36:44Z): Dead at 85. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott was my favorite of Star Trek's supporting characters, and a patron saint of all IT people who've been called upon to do the impossible again and again. Oddly, I watched the episode The Deadly Years just last night, and saw Scotty come within minutes of succumbing to radiation poisoning and extremely accelerated aging.
57. Cartographic Objects for Zope3 (2005-07-09T16:15:14Z): This past week I spent some time catching up with Zope3 and Five, and thinking about ZCO in this context. I'm determined to bring ZCO a little closer to Zope3 in the next release, but have ruled out making ZCO depend on Five until after 1.0. We now have interfaces that can be readily converted to Zope3 interfaces, and I'm going to be re-doing ZCO's proxy methods in a way more near to the Zope3 adapter pattern.
56. Web Mapping Illustrated (2005-07-08T00:22:04Z): Tyler Mitchell's Web Mapping Illustrated, published by O'Reilly, could have spared me about a week of hair-pulling back in 2000 when I was just beginning to discover open source GIS software. Our projects are reasonably well documented, and there is an enormous amount of knowledge within the community, but there has never before been a broad and coherent synthesis of that information. Finally, new users can see the entire domain of open source mapping from data creation, to data processing, to digital map. We've needed this book for a long time.
55. OSG05 Workshop Materials (2005-06-29T17:23:09Z): Howard has put online our workshop materials. I may be recycling some of these at GIS in the Rockies.
54. Industry Perspective on OSG05 (2005-06-23T15:11:43Z): Industry was better represented and more involved at this year's conference. A new Directions article lists 10 ideas and themes, and examines the significance for both the open source community and the geospatial industry's mainstream.
53. Closed Minds Are Really Wrong (2005-06-21T19:11:49Z): I really disagree with Adena Schutzberg on this one where she applauds Autodesk's RealDWG countering move against OpenDWG ...
52. Another Take on OSG05 (2005-06-21T17:29:18Z): Howard Butler, the organizer of the lightning talks and the developer of the new MapServer site prototype, takes a broader view back at the conference.
51. Sol Katz Award Goes to Frank Warmerdam (2005-06-19T20:41:20Z): Sol Katz, a pioneer in free and open source geospatial software, died in 1999. His family has agreed to allow us to honor him and give credit to other contributors to the community with an annual award in his name.
50. OSG Conference Closing Session (2005-06-19T20:19:18Z): After last year's conference there was some discussion about whether or not the MapServer/Open Source Geospatial community needed a Foundation to look out for the software, its users, and its developers. Some saw the Apache Software Foundation as a model, and were able to bring its current President, Dirk-Willem van Gulik, to tell us all about the ASF and compare the community of Apache users to our own fledging open source community ...
49. Dialog Table (2005-06-17T19:10:47Z): Among the major works (the Chuck Close potraits, the Warhols) was a fun interface to information about the museum's works: the dialog table ...
48. OSG05 Plenary (2005-06-17T17:06:27Z): The lightning talk session went well. Hobu kept us on time and schedule, and after a succession of modest 9 volt talks Schuyler finally brought some real thunder to close it out. The audience appreciated his proposal for a distributed WMS cache, but it was his old time revival preacher delivery that made the entire session.
47. PrimaGIS 0.3 Release (2005-06-15T16:11:02Z): Kai has announced the release of PrimaGIS 0.3. There are a bunch of new features, workflow improvements, and a new layer in the demo. No PCL or ZCO upgrade required.
46. MapServer 4.6 Release (2005-06-15T15:39:48Z): Get it from http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/dload.html. I was unhappy and nervous about the 4.4 release because we'd crammed a lot of new features in at the last second. This time we've been more disciplined, and offer many significant and proven improvements. Release manager Daniel Morissette, the "mother" of MapServer, summarizes the changes ...
45. Sleater-Kinney in Minneapolis June 15th (2005-06-08T23:19:12Z): I've been having good luck with MapServer User Meetings and Rock. In 2003, I stayed an extra day to see Yo la Tengo at First Avenue, Minneapolis' historic music venue (other side of downtown from the conference venue). This year I'm fortunate to have a chance to see Sleater-Kinney play the night before the Open Source Geospatial Conference kicks off. If you're also an early-arriving rock fan, drop me a note and I can try to get you a ticket.
44. ESRI Users Find PostGIS Not Gui'd Enough (2005-06-07T17:17:22Z): Denizens of the all-ESRI blogosphere are writing about their tentative forays into open source GIS software. Predictably, the square peg doesn't fit in the round hole, and the result is disappointment. Hopefully, Fee will keep plugging, get beyond the lack of drag and drop, and see the obvious upside.
43. Maps of the Ancient World for Students (2005-06-03T17:01:26Z): The University of North Carolina's Ancient World Mapping Center brings a GIS perspective to ancient studies. The Center's maps for students are far better than the maps in my Penguin Classics copy of The Histories.
42. MapServer 4.6 Beta 3 (2005-05-31T14:42:01Z): mapserver-4.6.0-beta3.tar.gz Should now be possible to compile MapServer's PHP mapscript module without the PHP source.
41. Hobu in ArcUser (2005-05-24T22:58:33Z): The April-June 2005 issue of ArcUser contains an article by Hobu on pages 34-36. It's an introduction to Python and GIS, and vector, grid, and raster processing with ogr.py and gdal.py for users of ArcGIS 9, which includes Python and makes a small subset of its functionality scriptable. Good writing, too bad he seems to have retired from blogging ;)
40. New ZCO and PCL releases (2005-05-20T23:52:54Z): ZCO 0.5.1 and PCL 0.8.2 releases are available from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=71074. The major new feature (see issue12 in the new issue tracker) will help new users properly configure their data stores. The source for theweofije...
39. GDAL-Warping MOLA Topography (2005-05-14T03:23:26Z): In response to a post on the Matplotlib-users list I almost automatically responded that, of course, we can use GDAL for that; GDAL can read anything. Being Friday the 13th, I decided that maybe it should actually be tried first.
38. MapServer 4.6 Beta 2 (2005-05-12T03:02:25Z): Daniel Morrisette has uploaded mapserver-4.6.0-beta2.tar.gz.
37. Maps of Il Giro and Le Tour (2005-05-12T01:06:29Z): It's too wet to go out for a run or ride after work today, so I'm inside comparing the cartographic qualities of the official maps of the 88th Giro d'Italia and the 92nd Tour de France.
36. Sensor Webs Snag The Times (2005-05-11T22:59:37Z): Nice article yesterday in the NY Times about sensor webs. We need more environmental applications of location technology, and fewer silly authoritarian applications. ...
35. PrimaGIS Preview Download (2005-05-11T22:10:00Z): PrimaGIS-0.1.0.tar.gz. Details and demo at primagis.technocore.fi. If you like what you see, send Kai some fan mail and find out how you can get involved. The preview requires ZCO 0.5 and PCL 0.8, which can be downloaded from links at zmapserver.sourceforge.net.
34. PrimaGIS: Mapping with Plone (2005-05-11T02:08:28Z): This morning Kai Hanninen gave me a thorough demo of PrimaGIS, a collaborative mapping application based on ZCO. It's what geospatial Plone users have been looking for: a means to georeference their existing content and provide a mapping interface to their sites.
33. Putting the Discount WFS to Work (2005-05-06T21:50:53Z): Here's a more interesting use of the cheapo WFS from last week: mining the next generation MapServer website's portal membership for the latitude and longitude properties (just added by Hobu) and publishing them as a WFS.
32. Draft Program for OSG05 (2005-05-03T16:55:27Z): Steve Lime has cut a draft of the OSG05 program, and done a great job as far as I'm concerned. No conflicts for me. I'm scheduled to present in session 11 during the first slot of day 3 along with Schuyler, and some guys who offer " Talking to MapServer with PERL". I hope that's just a typo of Steve's. Are there still people who go around shouting "PERL"?
31. Discount WFS Source for MapServer (2005-05-02T01:05:38Z): How do I get my data into MapServer? This is a commonly asked question. Often, new MapServer users have a large legacy dataset that is not in a supported format. This might be a CSV file, a MySQL database, or a proprietary binary format. An overlooked solution to this problem involves WFS (Web Feature Service), the closest thing MapServer has to a generic data source.
30. OSG05 Python Workshop Homework (2005-04-28T15:08:14Z): The workshop that Hobu and I are running is full, so now it's time for the first homework assignment. If you are new to the Python language and platform, please spend a bit of time with Mark Pilgrim's Dive Into Python. Chapters 1-6 are essential background ...
29. MapServer 4.6 Beta 1 (2005-04-28T14:10:17Z): The first MapServer 4.6 beta is out, the first of several on our way to a final in June. 4.6 will be an important release for mapscript users, and we need beta testers. Please download and try it on one of your development platforms. Only one notable ...
28. Python vs Perl vs PHP vs ... (2005-04-25T04:42:52Z): According to Tim O'Reilly, sales of PHP books are up 16% in the last year. C# sales are also up slightly. While sales of other language books are down, Python continues to gain on Perl. My sense is that trends in the MapServer community roughly parallel ...
27. ZCO 0.5 and PCL 0.8.1 Releases (2005-04-22T05:29:42Z): The Cartographic Objects for Zope 0.5 release is now available. There are new features associated with styles and rules, improved spatial reference systems, and support for richer scripting with the Python Cartographic Library.
26. SVG Maps with Matplotlib (2005-04-14T22:38:19Z): Have I mentioned how impressed I am by matplotlib? Swapping out the RendererAgg in my prototype mapping engine for a RendererSVG from matplotlib's SVG backend in no time yields a map as image/svg+xml: nwmed.svg (warning: 500K file).
25. Protoyping a Matplotlib/Agg Engine for PCL, Part 2 (2005-04-13T22:34:07Z): I couldn't resist writing a real matplotlib/Agg mapping engine to see how it could handle real-world features such as those from the VMAP0-based world borders data available from http://mappinghacks.com ...
24. MapServer and Threads FAQ (2005-04-13T16:56:06Z): As more MapServer users begin to explore the Java and C# mapscript modules, there are more questions about thread safety. I spent a little time yesterday afternoon gathering what is known about MapServer's thread safety and summarizing it in the form of answers to frequently asked questions.
23. MapServer 4.4.2 Released (2005-04-12T14:26:48Z): Many minor bugs are fixed in the 4.4.2 source release. The bugs are mostly related to raster layers, styled layer descriptors, and filter encoding. If you are using MapServer as a WMS or WFS server, particularly with FastCGI, an upgrade is recommended.
22. Protoyping a Matplotlib/Agg Engine for PCL (2005-04-11T01:01:45Z): Matplotlib (http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net), a 2D plotting library, is attracting well deserved attention from Python users. It is a readily installed and rich environment for 2D plotting and visualization with a fat users guide and many nice examples ...
21. PCL 0.8 Win32 Binary Release (2005-04-09T22:27:16Z): PCL-0.8-win32.zip (sourceforge) contains windows installer and 'dumb' binaries for Python 2.3.
20. Python Cartographic Library 0.8 Source Release (2005-04-08T22:07:19Z): It has been longer than I intended, but finally I have cut a 0.8 source release of the Python Cartographic Library: PCL-0.8.tar.gz. There are a few new features, but the major work was significant refactoring ...
19. Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You (2005-04-06T17:36:49Z): Three books related to MapServer and/or Open Source GIS are due to be published this summer. It's fascinating how a community with no paper books can suddenly cough up a trio. Almost like how Hollywood can burp up a pair of asteroid/volcano/virus ...
18. Celestial Cartographic Library (2005-04-06T07:31:27Z): Norman Vine (always a source of fun ideas) and I were speculating a few weeks ago about using MapServer to produce maps of the sky. I finally made the time to demonstrate that it is as straight-forward as we had thought. ...
17. Obligatory Google Entry (2005-04-05T18:23:50Z): The initial release of Google Maps was news worthy. But this? Satellite or aerial imagery layers in web mapping are commonplace. Privacy concerns voiced in the media are overblown, unless you have been trying to hide an illegal Olympic-sized pool ...
16. Graticule Hacking with OGR (2005-04-04T20:32:58Z): MapServer has a built-in graticule object that can be configured in the same way as its scalebar and reference map. PCL's MapServer-based engine, however, is not going to use the built-in graticule. Users will instead be required to render a graticule layer ...
15. Quick MapServer Extents Calculation (2005-04-04T14:32:13Z): MapServer's scripting module allows users access to the program's projection capabilities. One of these is particularly useful for quick calculation of map extents. Let's say you have a world-wide dataset with a lat/long WGS84 coordinate system ...
14. Python GEOS Module (2005-04-02T19:14:46Z): GEOS is the Geometry Engine Open Source, a library for programming with 2D geometries and spatial predicates. Just before the 2.0 release, I committed a SWIG interface file and Python distutils setup script for generating a Python 'geos' module on Linux. Hobu has put together a geos (from GEOS 2.1.1) module for Python 2.4 and is distributing it from http://hobu.biz/software/PyGEOS. This is the module that he and I will be using in our OSG05 workshop. It's easy to get started with the Python geos module ...
13. Goals for MapServer 4.6 (2005-03-29T18:53:53Z): There is no formal release plan yet, but MapServer users can depend on another release around the same time as this summer's OSG05 conference. In anticipation, I recently reviewed the MapServer bugs that I own to adjust priorities and set targets. ...
12. MapServer Anti-Patterns (2005-03-24T17:30:12Z): Reviewing recent threads on the mapserver-users list during a chat with a new MapServer user on IRC, I had a modest eureka moment: these particular struggles aren't just isolated cases. These are anti-patterns, ...
11. OSG05 Proposal Accepted (2005-03-23T15:52:53Z): Good news: heard from Steve Lime this morning that my proposal to present a talk about PCL and ZCO at OSG05 was accepted.
10. Sean Reifschneider Photoblogs PyCon (2005-03-22T22:18:28Z): Fort Collins' own Linux and Python advocate Sean Reifschneider blogs PyCon 2005. Interesting photos and fun commentary. My suggestions for code sprints at the MapServer Users Meetings has become a running joke among MapServer developers, but these ...
9. New Temporary Home for MapScript Documentation (2005-03-22T04:41:50Z): Until the new MapServer website comes online this summer, I will be hosting the most current mapscript API documentation here at http://www.zcologia.com/mapserver. Thanks to mod_rewrite, users should be diverted immediately from my old frii.com site ...
8. ZCO Application and Management Demo (2005-03-12T23:03:43Z): I'm taking a short vacation, and have just wrapped up the last things I wanted to finish before leaving: putting the ZCO demo application online, and setting up a limited role for guests to see the application from inside Zope's management interface.
7. Python to Drop filter() and map()? (2005-03-11T22:36:12Z): Guido van Rossum is thinking out loud about saying bye bye to lambda, reduce(), filter(), and map(). No comment on the first two, but filter and map are pretty much obsolete thanks to generator expressions and conflict with the most natural names
6. Paris-Nice Photos by Graham Watson (2005-03-11T01:26:01Z): I love sports photography, images of bicycle racing in particular. The racing season is underway in Europe and that means more excellent photos from Graham Watson. My favorite so far from 2005 is this picture of Alberto Contador (Liberty Seguros) ...
5. Artem Pavlenko's mapnik (2005-03-11T00:49:12Z): Artem is the developer of mapnik, a C++ mapping toolkit, and we have been talking about collaborating on a mapnik-based mapping engine for PCL that might, at a user's preference, be used in place of the current MapServer-based engine. Artem is keen tweofije...
4. Front Range MapServer Users Group Meeting (2005-03-08T22:01:36Z): Donnie Marino is hosting the first meeting of the Front Range MapServer Users Group tomorrow, March 9, at his home in Longmont. It's an open-ended social gathering from 7pm onwards. Sounds like it should be a good mix of users: academics, engineers, weofije...
3. Moving Project News From Sourceforge (2005-03-06T17:26:53Z): I'm disatisfied with Sourceforge's project news capabilities and starting this next week will be publishing news of the Python Cartographic Library and Cartographic Objects for Zope projects on this site.
2. Open Source Geospatial 2005 (2005-03-06T05:29:23Z): I am helping Howard Butler run a Python GIS Hacks workshop this coming June 16 at the 2005 Open Source Geospatial Conference in Minneapolis.
1. Flamebait in GIS Monitor (2005-03-04T17:59:11Z): Recently, GIS Monitor published some fantastic flamebait by Manifold's product manager. The editor has told the author of one rebuttal that his intention was indeed to rile up persons involved with open source projects. This seems a bit irresponsibleweofije...

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