CENTER FOR GEOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS NEWSLETTER
November 2006
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CGA NEWS
CGA Colloquium: GIS-Based Resolution of Geographic Problems
By Joshua Comenetz, Ph.D., Department of Geography, University of Florida Thursday, November 16, 2006, 4:00pm-5:00pm, CGIS Knafel Building, Rm. N262 Digital cartographic methods can be used to combine multiple layers of information and incompatible data sets to answer demographic questions. Better results are achieved when census and other digital data sets are enhanced with information from non-GIS-based sources, such as historical maps and the literature of international relations and sociology. Studies of the demographic consequences of climatic disaster in Ethiopia, and the settlement patterns of American Indians and Hasidic Jews in the US, illustrate this process.
GIS Training Workshop
CGA plans to organize short technical training workshops to introduce GIS concepts and teach the basics on how to use GIS software. The first workshop has been scheduled: Topic: Introduction to GIS Instructor: Sumeeta Srinivasan Date: Wednesday, December 6, 2006 Time: 12:00-2:00pm Location: TBD (will be posted on the CGA website)
Software Upgrades
CGA has recently received ERDAS IMAGINE Ver.9.1, Leica Photogrammetry Suite ver.9.1, ArcPad ver.7.0.1 and ArcPad Application Builder ver. 7.0.1. Leica products will be available for user download from the CGA website (http://www.gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&pageid=icb.page28957) in a few working days. ArcPad will be available by individual request immediately. Please email contact@cga.harvard.edu if you need the upgrade. Based on a recent notice from ESRI, ArcGIS ver.9.2 should be shipping shortly. CGA will make the software available on our download site within a few working days from receiving the package.
Update on the Remote Sensing Technology and Applications Workshop
The workshop has been scheduled on Friday, February 16th, 2007. For updated information about the event, please visit http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic34492.files/announcements/RSTAworkshop.html.
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HARVARD GIS COMMUNITY NEWS
A Geographic Information Sharing Tool for Google Earth
Lex Berman of the China Historical GIS Project will introduce and demo a new tool for sharing geographic data using Google Earth at the November meeting of the ABCD-GIS Working Group. Wednesday November 15th at noon in the Lamont Forum Room, 5th floor, Lamont Library.
URISA Conference Summary
David Siegel attended the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA)’s annual conference in September 2006 at Vancouver, Canada. To read his summary on this conference focusing on open source tools for GIS desktop and web applications development, please visit http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic34492.files/announcements/URISA_06.html.
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GIS INDUSTRY NEWS
A new LIDAR extension for ArcGIS (LP360 version 1.3 from QCoherent Software) can access and draw LIDAR points directly from LAS files in ArcMap, eliminates the costly requirement of developing and managing multiple derivative ASCII and Grid deliverables. http://www10.giscafe.com/goto.php?http://www.QCoherent.com
NAVTEQ announced the availability of NAVTEQ Parcel Boundaries that encompasses over 50% of the US population. It hopes to provide a consolidated, one-stop source for parcel boundaries. Parcel boundaries will provide more accurate information than street addresses for a variety of spatial analysis. http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/prnewswire/20061108/08nov20061112.html
Microsoft released Virtual Earth 3D on Nov.6. It’s not a stand-alone application like Google Earth. Rather, a 5Mb download of a browser plug-in, and you have to use Internet Explorer 6 or 7. 3D models of 15 cities are available now: San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, San Jose, Phoenix and Houston. More than 100, including international cities, are expected by summer 2007 and perhaps 5,000 in five years. Microsoft offers a developer API for the 3D environment similar to its existing one for Virtual Earth. (Unfortunately, Virtual Earth hang the browser window repeatedly when this editor was trying to explore the 3D cities.)
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GIS RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS
Earth Observatory publishes new image on population density of the US and the World http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17439
Stephen Weinberg, associate professor and director of linguistics at George Mason University, has collected more than 600 samples of regional accents around the world, and mapped a subset of them. http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_atlas.php (source: Direction Magazine).
An article about Contemporary GIS and Future Directions, by Joseph Berry http://www.geoplace.com/uploads/FeatureArticle/0611_BeyondMapping.asp
For readers with a Harvard ID, the following link leads to an article by Jeffrey R. Young: With Digital Maps, Historians Chart a New Way Into the Past - A push to make historical data more visual could yield a better understanding of events. http://chronicle.com.ezp1.harvard.edu/weekly/v53/i12/12a03301.htm
For those who wish to learn more about geography in higher education in recent years, a good place to start will be “Geography’s Place in Higher Education in the United States” by Alexander Murphy in the 2007 volume of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education. The Association of American Geographers’ Guide to Geography Programs in the Americas is also worth browsing. (Information provided by George E. Clark, Ph.D. in Geography, Environmental Resources Librarian, Harvard College Library)
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Editor of this issue: Wendy Guan
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