Making Sense of Spatial Data - a public lecture by moi

Enquiries: L.Singh@paradise.net.nz

Free Geography Tools

The Free Geograhy Tools blog has a long list of free geostatistical tools...

http://freegeographytools.com/2010/the-big-list-of-geostatistical-geospatial-analysis-software-i-a-to-f

http://freegeographytools.com/2010/the-big-list-of-geostatistical-geospatial-analysis-software-ii-g-to-q

http://freegeographytools.com/2010/the-big-list-of-geostatistical-geospatial-analysis-software-iii-r-to-z

Hand drawn maps

I've always loved hand drawn maps and there are some wonderful examples at:

http://www.handmaps.org/index.php

http://www.mollymaps.com/Mollymaps/Gallery/Gallery.html

http://www.subk.net/maps.html

Worth a look ...

Statistical Mapping Lecture - Aileen Buckley, ESRI

Recently, the MGIS programme hosted Aileen Buckley to give a public seminar on Statistical Mapping in association with LINZ.  Below is the link on the VUW website.

http://mdsweb.vuw.ac.nz/Mediasite/Viewer/Viewers/Viewer320TL.aspx?mode=Default&peid=aba69cfb-0f2e-422c-9ad4-81762776ec59&pid=34c9adb7-0113-4c2d-83be-c911dfdc9b02&playerType=WM7

Enjoy!

Maps, maps and more maps

Looking for something to fill a bit of time?
Here's a few maps, I've been impressed by lately - some are just cool, others do things in interesting ways (but need a little more work!), but all are worth a look

Real time geo-located twitter feeds (tweets).  
Says a lot about time and resource dependent use of tech.

http://pure-waterfall-1016.herokuapp.com/


Print your own 3D model of part of the Earth
I CAN.NOT.WAIT to do this

http://www.landprint.com/

Geovisualization of time
Such an interesting example of how to map time and distance rather than space and distance.  Shows how far you can get from Amsterdam Central and makes use of train timetables.  Great job.

http://app.timemaps.nl/map


Interactive online ESRI/ArcGIS map
Shows whether current crop production can meet future demand.
The slider is a nice touch but not sure if it fully functions here - must remember for future though!

http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/feedingtheworld/

Data visualization - Journalism in the Age of Data

Came across a wonderful example of visualization which touches on many areas of geovisualization but with a focus on the public communication of data.  - via Chris McDowall's seeing (data) blog

“Using airborne lidar to map river morphology and habitat”: Talk by

GED Seminar Series

Thursday 3^rd May 2012

3-4pm, CO304 (NOTE CHANGE OF TIME)

Speaker: Associate Professor Noah Snyder, Boston College

“Using airborne lidar to map river morphology and habitat”

Much progress has been made linking the fields of geomorphology, hydrology, ecology and tectonics over the past 20 years using digital elevation models (DEMs) to study stream processes. The first-generation DEMs were generated from topographic maps, and with pixel sizes of 10 to 90 meters on each edge, these grids allowed investigators to make measurements of parameters such as stream gradient and contributing drainage area over entire channel networks. Next-generation DEMs generated from airborne laser elevation (lidar) surveys open up new opportunities for research on stream processes because they improve resolution by an order of magnitude compared to traditional DEMs. With pixel sizes of 0.5 to 5 meters and the ability to measure height down to 5 to 20 centimeters lidar DEMs enable researchers to identify channel features, such as the water surface, bank edges, and floodplains, as well as measure the slope of channels over short stream reaches. Furthermore, they provide new types of data about watershed land cover, such as the height and density of the tree canopy, because the laser instrument receives returns from both treetops and the land (or water) surface. In this talk, I will present several applications of airborne lidar data to study channel processes, morphology and habitat in North American rivers.

 

Writing Productivity: 1

I started a postgraduate research and writing group last year (Space) for my postgraduate students.  We schedule a meeting every two weeks to discuss people's projects and to work on our writing.  As a resource, I want to highlight different writing and writing related methods which may help others too!

Writing tip 1: Get yourself a calendar

MGIS 2012

I'm just back from the field course for the collaborative MGIS.  It was a great week and Kaikoura is a wonderful location to get to grips with the programme and to present an introduction to the courses we'll be covering over the year.  

We carried out a number of field exercises as well as covered a number of different GISc topics.  The students in the photograph below are calibrating some indoor navigation tools.

We were also lucky enough to include a visit to Ngai Tahu's marae in Kaikoura.  Ngai Tahu provided a very informative afternoon discussing the GIS data they've been collecting and their future plans. 

This year, 10 students across the two campuses (University of Canterbury in Christchurch and Victoria University of Wellington) started their Masters or Postgraduate Diploma during the field course. It looks like it could be a great year!

Arcpy Code: Find duplicate values in an ArcGIS feature class field

I'm finding coding in arcpy a little more frustrating than I would like and decided to share useful code here in case it helps anyone else trying to the same or similar things.


###########################################
# identifyduplicates.py
# Created by: Mairead de Roiste, Victoria University of Wellington
# Date: 16 Feb 2012
# What does it do?: prints to screen a list of the values that are
# duplicates in a particular field in an ArcGIS feature class
###########################################

# Import arcpy module
import arcpy

# set up variables
# the feature class you want to sort then search
fc = "D:\\ISCR_transport\\code\\data\\NZTA_workhomepoints\\workhomepoints.gdb\\workloc"

# field to sort in ascending order
fieldname = "FIRST_uniquePerson"fieldascend = fieldname + " A"

# create UpdateCursor to search through the rows, field above sorted in ascending order
rows = arcpy.SearchCursor(fc,"","","", fieldascend)

#Create an empty list
dupValuesList = []

# the code needs to be updated for the name of the field
i = -1
for row in rows:
    if i == -1: #first time around       
        value = row.FIRST_uniquePerson
        i += 1
        print value, i
    elif row.FIRST_uniquePerson != value: #if a new ID       
        value = row.FIRST_uniquePerson
        i = 0
    else:
        dupValuesList.append(value)
print dupValuesList

Linking data to geography - the demise of privacy?

A rather grand title, but a topic which constantly comes up when I get into rather too detailed discussions with friends and random strangers at parties.

I'm woeful with names so the Whitepages Neighbors site sounds like a good idea.  They've launched an app which lists names and numbers for your neighbours overlaid on a map of your local area.  But my cynical side can already see particularly unsavoury uses for this - phoning to check if someone is at home before you break into their house.

Joining data to geographic locations, which was possible for individuals previously on a manual and labourious basis, can release a lot more information about individuals and families than they might care to make public.  The power of joining through geography is a double edged sword.

 

http://neighbors.whitepages.com/

SOPA Blackout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

MGIS and PGDipGIS live at VUW

I’m very pleased to announce the launch this year of the collaborative Masters and Postgraduate Diploma in Geographic Information Science (MGIS/PGDipGIS) at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW).  The MGIS/PGDipGIS qualifications are jointly offered by VUW and the University of Canterbury at the Wellington and Christchurch campuses.

The courses available from both Wellington and Christchurch are:

GISC 401: Foundations of Geographic Information Science (GIS)

GISC 402:  Geographic Information Science (GIS) Research

GISC 403: Cartography and Geovisualisation

GISC 404: Geospatial Analysis

GISC 405: GIS Programming and Databases

GISC 406: Remote Sensing for Earth Observation

GISC 410: GIS 2.0

GISC 411: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Health

GISC 412: Spatial Algorithms and Programming for GIS

GISC 413: Special Topic - Geomatic Data Acquisition Techniques

GISC 415: GIS Internship

GISC 690(UC) GISC 591 (VUW): Masters in Geographic Information Science (GIS) Thesis

Electives outside the MGIS programme are also possible with the permission of the Programme Director

Further information on the courses are available at www.mgis.ac.nz and I am happy to answer any questions or queries.  We can still accept late entry into the programme and courses.

We’re also in discussions about offering the programme at other New Zealand locations – so watch this space!