July 2007

cga_newsletter

CENTER FOR GEOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS NEWSLETTER 
July 2007 
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HIGHLIGHTS

  • ArcGIS / Google Earth Interoperability Products
  • Howard T. Fisher Prize Winners Announced in June
  • ESRI 2007 Technical Workshops Available Online
  • CGA Purchases ESRI Business Analyst Data and Software
  • New Orleans Project Geocoding Document
  • ASPRS and ESRI Conference Reports
  • Emerging Mashups For the Geospatial Community
  • ERDAS and FME Software Upgraded

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CGA NEWS

ArcGIS / Google Earth Interoperability Products 
By using Google Earth’s KML file format it possible to display ArcGIS data and maps in Google Earth. Google Earth also provides users the ability to map features using GE’s global imagery as a basemap. The mapped data can then be loaded into ArcGIS for analysis or advanced cartography. Several software tools have been created and are very useful in helping to automate this exchange process:

Howard T. Fisher Prize Winners Announced in June 
The Howard T. Fisher Prize for excellence in Geographic Information Science was established in 1999 to promote and reward student work in this broad and potentially interdisciplinary area, from both undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard University. Winners for the academic year 2006-2007 are Jaclyn Hatala, Adam Sachs, Kevin Bunker, and Corina Graif. Click the link below for more information about Howard T. Fisher, the award, and this year’s award winning projects.
http://gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&pageid=icb.page23202

Google Earth Pro Licenses Available 
The CGA now has a limited number of Google Earth Pro licenses available for Harvard ID holders to use. In addition to accessing the same worldwide set of aerial imagery that is provided through Google Earth (free version), a Pro license allows for the import of shape-files, movie making, saving and printing the imagery in high resolution format, and more. To decide if the functionality GE Pro offers may pertain to your work, here is a comparison chart:
http://earth.google.com/product_comparison.html 
Contact CGA for license availability and installation procedures.

ESRI 2007 Technical Workshops Available Online 
Each year ESRI provides technical workshops to educate GIS users on specific topics. These are 1.5 hour long seminars made available in audio visual format following the annual users conference, which concluded June 22 this year. CGA has uploaded the 170+ workshops for viewing, found on our Conferences and Events web page (click link below) under the 2007 ESRI Technical Workshop Sessions heading.
http://gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup7644 
Users need to be logged in to access the page containing links to the workshops, and then login again with the username and password listed to view the individual workshops.

Enhanced ERDAS Imagine Available for Download 
This enhancement addresses several urgent issues in ERDAS IMAGINE 9.1 remote sensing software. In particular, HDF, TIFF and FORMOSAT formats have undergone significant improvements and several bugs were also addressed in AutoSync, Mosaic, Viewer and Painted Relief. Find the service package available for download under the heading “ERDAS IMAGINE and Photogrammetry 9.1” at the web page below:
http://gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&pageid=icb.page28957

New Version of FME Available 
The CGA has Safe Software’s Feature Manipulation Engine conversion software release 2007 for Windows and UNIX. Contact CGA to upgrade your FME to this version.

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HARVARD GIS COMMUNITY NEWS

New Orleans Neighborhood Analysis Project Geocoding Document 
During the spring semester of 2007 a group of students, researchers, and professors at Harvard and Cornell University worked together on a project aimed to provide public access to neighborhood, housing, economic, and market data for New Orleans. The information provided through this project (all performed pro bono) was used directly by communities still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. As part of this venture the New Orleans Neighborhood Analysis Project (NONAP) was launched in an effort to eventually create a web-enabled internet mapping service. NONAP members are actively working on several documents to be incorporated into the web portal, one of which goes into great depth regarding lessons learned and best practices of geocoding, written by Harvard Student (’07) Irina Gumennik:
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic109643.files/Geocoding_Best_Practices-draft.pdf

Another interesting article on the evolution of geocoding:
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2492&trv=1

Discount for International SPOT Imagery 
The SPOT UCSB program offers subscribed universities a significant discount on SPOT satellite imagery for North America (see http://www.spot.ucsb.edu/). Just recently, it added a 30% discount for imagery outside of North America with the same subscription fee ($10,000/yr). Please contact CGA if you think this program is worth subscribing to for Harvard.

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CONFERENCES

American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Conference Report 
CGA staff member Ben Lewis attended the 2007 ASPRS conference in May. Read his conference report under the heading “Summaries of Previous GIS Events” at the web page below.
http://www.gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup7644

ESRI International Users Conference Report 
The annual ESRI users conference was held in late June. Over 13,000 GIS users from across the globe attended. The CGA was honored to receive a Special Achievement in GIS Award during the event, presented by President Jack Dangermond to CGA Director of Research Wendy Guan. A conference report can be found under the heading “ESRI User Conference Report – 2007” at the web page below.
http://www.gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup7644

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NEWS ON GIS RESEARCH AND SERVICES

Emerging Mashups For the Geospatial Community 

A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source (usually public) into an integrated experience. Mapping mashups are quite common, one of the leading mashup examples is Google Maps and Earth, which allow for a novice computer user or “armchair geographer” to map features of interest on a global scale, and easily publish and share the mapped content. Additional players in the web mapping sector such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and MetaCarta are now offering mashup interfaces. A podcast from Directions magazine nicely summarizes the emerging and growing application of mashups and how it involves the geospatial industry at:
http://www.directionsmag.com/images/podcasts/070529_don.mp3

Links to websites mentioned in the podcast:

Mashup Examples

  • Vehicle commuters unite to answer the question: Where can I find the cheapest gasoline on my route home?
    http://gasbuddy.com
  • Who is sick? Ill people enter their geographic location and symptoms, and view statistics on other afflicted people in the area. Find out if your illness is the latest bug that’s been going around at:
    http://whoissick.org/sickness/



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Editor of this issue: Jeff Blossom
The CGA Newsletter is published monthly.
For the latest information, please visit our website http://gis.harvard.edu 
For subscribe/unsubscribe, please email contact@cga.harvard.edu 
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