Follow
Blog: Chris Harlow on ITSearch The Harlow Report Archives
ESRI announced support for Adobe Acrobat 9 software and new geospatial capabilities available in PDF with the release of ArcGIS 9.3. ESRI has collaborated with Adobe Systems Incorporated over the past year to ensure a seamless workflow for geographic information system (GIS) professionals using ArcGIS who wish to widely distribute maps in PDF. Recipients of PDF map documents can find and display a location in the file using x,y coordinates as well as measure features directly on the map. This enabling capability enhances both existing customer workflows and creates new ones because recipients without ArcGIS can directly interact in new ways with maps using Acrobat 9.
ArcGIS 9.3 users can author a map document and export it in PDF for wide distribution while passing along the ability for increased end-user interaction with the document beyond simple viewing. “We are excited that our collaborative work with Adobe allows our users to distribute their GIS maps to a wider audience,” said Damian Spangrud, senior ArcGIS product manager, ESRI. “The portability and pervasiveness of Acrobat and Adobe Reader software allows ArcGIS users to better share their geographic information with their end users. The advanced features in Acrobat 9 mean users can now do more with PDF maps than ever before.”
first published week of: 03/15/2021
Beginning in June 2005, NOAA will perform a general readjustment of the horizontal position and ellipsoidal heights in the National Spatial Reference System using high accuracy global positioning system (GPS) data. The NSRS is a consistent national coordinate system that specifies latitude, longitude, height, scale and gravity throughout the nation. This data provides the foundation for transportation, communication, mapping, charting and a multitude of scientific and engineering applications. Using GPS data, the readjustment will improve accuracy and consistency of the NSRS and provide a local and network accuracy measure for each coordinate. The readjustment of NSRS will provide surveyors with a highly accurate, consistent set of coordinates with specifically defined point accuracies. Airports and harbors rely on NSRS data for a variety of navigational needs, including identifying obstructions and hazards in the air and under water. NSRS data is also critical in identifying subsidence and flood plane areas that are critical for identifying safe flood evacuation routes and other hazards.
first published week of: 06/07/2021
Dash Navigation™, Inc. is teaming with Yahoo! Inc. , allowing Dash Express™ users to search Yahoo! Local for nearby products, services or businesses from their cars – a GPS industry first.
With Yahoo! Local and Dash Express, local search in the car is becoming a simple and easy-to-use reality. When a user enters their search term into their Dash Express, the device wirelessly begins a Yahoo! Local search on the web. Within seconds, the results are formatted into address cards and presented to the user as a simple listing of nearby businesses. With the press of a button on the device, the Dash user is routed to their desired destination. … “When you use Yahoo! Local search in your car, you will be amazed by the freedom that it delivers,” said Dash Navigation chief executive officer, Paul Lego. “For the first time, drivers will be able to leave their homes knowing that they can easily find whatever they need - right from their car. It's that simple.”
first published week of: 05/10/2021
Based on fourteen years of working on SEAMLESS USA, a 3,140 county open records national parcel layer (NPL), BSI developed a white paper to share some thoughts about the NPL’s current realities and future prospects.
After its first full decade of development, about 85% of all US parcels now have a digital parcel map. However, there are emerging problems:
With annual report records showing the property tax base of “Have Map” counties growing far faster than “No Map” counties, and with near every urban county now having a map, increased (accelerated?) urban-rural economic disparity is an unwelcomed possibility. For-profit sponsored digital parcel maps of “No Map” counties, offered at prices the county and most others cannot afford, causes the total accumulative benefit of these modern property records to fall far short of what is possible when all are using the NPL.
All these problems stem from the NPL not being finished and not being universally open records.
The remedy is the following two proposed campaigns:
Open Records USA:
Earlier annual report record analysis is expanded to 2009 to show that property tax base growth trends observed during “the bubble” continue (amplified?) during the “burst”. When shown to recession-weary GIS managers, they opt to go open records as a quick fix to their fiscal austerity woes.
SEAMLESS USA:
Adding a map to all “No Map” counties is expedited by 1) Recalculating ROI based on increased transaction levels observed in hundreds of comparable counties upon adding an open records map; and 2) Mapping companies recruiting private/NGO interests to fund digitizing of parcel maps they “just have to have” in exchange for the free use of parcels maps of hundreds of counties they “just like to have”. The end game is a 3,140 county NPL in place by 2015, not just complete but open records, to best sustain the NPL’s quality, currency and accessibility needed to maximize its delivery of the greatest good to the greatest many.
first published week of: 04/26/2021
A Dartmouth researcher says the mapping technology of GIS is a powerful political tool, but it does not resolve the basic conflict of how to create voting districts that are both representative and competitive. Benjamin Forest, an associate professor of geography, has studied the recent history of redistricting, and says that three things currently affect political representation.
Forest’s study appears in the Oct. 17 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
first published week of: 04/12/2021
A Dartmouth researcher says the mapping technology of GIS, or Geographic Information Systems, is a powerful political tool, but it does not resolve the basic conflict of how to create voting districts that are both representative and competitive. Benjamin Forest, an associate professor of geography, has studied the recent history of redistricting, and says that three things currently affect political representation. First, the U.S. population has become more racially and ethnically diverse in the last 40 years. Second, there has been a growing legal commitment to fair political representation. And third, GIS allows states to create districts with very precise political and demographic characteristics.
"The growing power of GIS technology has increased the potential for abusive gerrymandering," he says. "On one hand, the technology has been very useful for voting rights enforcement, and particularly for creating districts with African American or Hispanic majorities," he says. "But GIS also increases the potential for sophisticated gerrymandering. In most states, legislatures control redistricting, and they typically use it for partisan advantage and for incumbent protection. The ability to evaluate and predict voting behavior and to then create districts based on these analyses can give political parties more control over election results."
Forest's study appears in the Oct. 17 [2005] issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Read full story at Eureka Alert…
first published week of: 03/08/2021