Tablet PCs, A History Lesson

I never used a Fujitsu tablet PC but I've had my share of experiences with other Windows OS tablets. Here is a history (of Fujitsu tablets), for those out there who believe that tablets came out of the ground in Steve Job's backyard, Fujitsu Tablets–A Tablet History Lesson…

The image is modified from the Tablet PC blog site's image.

Hurricane Sandy Flood Damage Maps from New York Times

I've been admiring the great work that the New York Times has been doing by not only telling about but showing through map visualizations the extent of damage brought on by Hurricane Sandy. The maps above and below are from Surveying the Destruction Caused by Hurricane Sandy.

When you click on a rectangle on the Flooding in NYC map, you'll get something like above from Brighton Beach NY which shows building footprints colored with the height of the water surge and photos of damages. These maps went live in mid- ot late-November and didn't include damage from New Jersey.

But now you can click on Regional Damage and you have the map above which gives some insight into the extent of damage across NJ and NY. And then below is a zoomed-in look at Long Branch/Monmouth Beach, NJ, showing destroyed and damaged structures and photos of the area.

As always, impressive work and effort by the cartographers of the Times. Here is the most recent article On Ravaged Coastline, It's Rebuild Deliberately vs. Rebuild Now. There was a slick graphic that accompanied the paper article but it seems to not yet be uploaded on to the Times online website.

 

Twitter and Maps

I like Twitter. And I like maps. Here at The One Two Million Tweet Map the two are mashed up. Pretty cool. 

Try showing tweets by a topic or a hastag. One map shows the tweets that use the word "football" in them, as they're happening, around the world. The other shows all tweets as a heat map.

I heard about the site at The Clever Sheep.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Flood Map and Flood Zones in New York and New Jersey

I saw this nice and clean map of New York and New Jersey shoreline inundated by Hurricane Sandy - Flooding v. Flood Zones - out of WNYC.

From the site: How Sandy flooded the New York & New Jersey coastlines, compared to storm-surge predictions by hurricane size. Sandy approached as a Category 1.

Mapping options include Actual Flooding and Predicted Surge Zones. The map with the blue regions (above) is zoomed in on Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey. All this blue was once swampy and marshy and probably deemed useless by early industrialists so it was filled in to make ports and housing.

The map was created with MapBox and OpenStreetMap. Thanks for the retweet, TheSteve0.

Google Earth in Education GSA Penrose Special Paper is Out

It's hard to believe that the Google Earth in Geoscience Visualizations Penrose Conference was nearly two years ago? The Penrose Conference Series volume (Google Earth and Virtual Visualizations in Geosicence Education and Research) is out now and thick with amazing work by mostly geoscientists and their use of Google Earth in teaching and research. You should definitely check into it. Here is where you can order it.

From our work presented at the conference, Kim Baldwin and I have a paper in the manuscript. Check it out here in Google Books.

Using Maps to Teach U.S History - Manifest Destiny

Check out Manifest Destiny. This is a great way to visualize and teach about the expansion of the United States through time. Plus the site is very slick and easy to use.

From the web site: Manifest Destiny tells the story of the United States in 141 maps from the Declaration of Independence to the present.

Hover over the Legend and the legend shows up (see above).

Hover over a thumbnail of a map and see the date (below).

Click on a map and get more information. You can also highlight the changes on the map (below)

Great work by data visualization consultant, Michael Porath. Thank you, Aprecido Leite, for the tweet.

Conflict Mapping Through Time

This is a useful web map showing conflicts through the ages - Conflict History. Built in Google Maps, the site loads somewhat slowly, but is filled with useful battle information culled from and linking to Wikipedia. Could be useful for some middle schoolers and such.

Thanks for the link Diana!

Underwater With Google

Google Ocean View. Underwater panorama photography like the Street View you've come to love for finding your way to unknown locales. Well, a reef is an unknown locale to many and this new offering from Google is yet another slice of geolocated beauty. Read more here at the Lat Long blog.

If you're feeling like a little vacation to a warm and lovely place, spend a some time swimming with the sea turtles, rays and Nemos in the Google Gallery.

Then check out this "hangout" they did while shooting the reef.

Wish I could have helped out with this project when I was living in Barbados.

(Another) Waterproof iPad Case

The NY Times had a Gadgetwise brief ("Another Way to Take Your iPad Underwater") on the LifeProof waterproof case for the iPad. Those who follow along on this blog will know that I mentioned another rugged, waterproof case because, if your taking an iPad outside, you ought to be able to do it in any weather! The LifeProof case looks much lighter and thinner than the Griffin Technologies option.

Teaching About Meteors and Crater Impacts

Here's a nice web site for showing students the size and density of a meteor and the impact that piece of rock or ice might make on the ground (or in water). It's called Impact Calculator.

You can put in various parameters for the piece of "rock": diameter, trajectory angle, velocity, density of the rock material, density of the landing site, and distance from the impact.

Click Submit and you get the impact values. If you select a place around the world from the dropdown menu and then click on the map, you can see the size of the hypothetical crater. This is under the Crater Size tab.

Look at what you get under the Crater Depth tab. In the interest of this summer's revolving around all things UK, I chose Big Ben as a scale bar for this hypothetical imapct structure.

Saw this on a tweet by eSpatial.

Adding Photos to a Spreadsheet Mapper 2 Doc

My collegue wants to add photographs to a Spreadsheet Mapper (Google Doc spreadsheet) file that I created. Information on the original Spreadsheet Mapper discussion is here, but scroll down a ways. Spreadsheet Mapper allows you to place geotagged photographs into one network-linked KML file, plus each placemark bubble can be given the same template. My colleague may wish to update our file to using Spreadsheet Mapper 3 but I'll leave that up to her.

To get started, I've given her access to the original spreadsheet so she can add her new points. When opening the spreadsheet, it'll look like the above image. This is the first sheet in spreadsheet and it's called "start here." There are instructions on this sheet but I'll give you most of what you need to know right here. 

You'll definitely want to update the Basic Information by typing in new or additional information in the "About your KML Document" section. Keep in mind that this is, as are all KML placemarks, a mini web page so the language is in HTML. Ask me if you need help with tagging.

Your photos and their locations and metadata will go under the Placemark tab. There are 130 photos in the KML now. You can have up to 400 photos (I think). Here's the plus for using Spreadsheet Mapper 3, you can add 1000 images. I used template 6. It worked fine so don't change that.

Here's what's in the metadata. These are the 17 columns you'll need to fill.

• (use sort to keep like folders together)


• (for label & Places list)


• latitude


• longitude


• address I didn't use this one


• 1 (this is the template column which is 6)


• Title


• Subtitle I didn't use this one


• Photo URL


• Paragraph1Text


• Paragraph2 Text


• Link1 URL


• Link1 Text


• Link2 URL


• Link2 Text


• Next Placemark ID


• Previous Placemark ID

When you take a look at the spreadsheet, you'll see what is needed. It's not difficult. You'll see you'll need a photo URL. The photos need to be on a web server. Ask Kim if you can put your shots on the CERMES server. Some of the columns (like the project website) you can just Control D and fill down.

 

Once you're done with editing, republish. Add a location or two and then republish, just to make sure it's all working properly. But then after you feel confident that it's gonna work, add away!

Then after you've edited and republished in the spreadsheet, go to Google Earth and the KML link to the photos, right click (or Control click) on the file name (it's under Photographs and Videos) and go to Refresh. That's it.

If you need to get to the KML for the MarSIS project, here it is. It's on the Grenadines MarSIS project page under the Google Earth data tab.

One more thing, Aly, in these photos, the link to the "MarSIS project blog" is no longer working. Unless Kim has another idea for what to put in that location, I say just erase that dead blog link. It would mean deleting data in these columns: Link2 URL and Link2 Text

And as always...have fun!

Toilet Access: Mapping the Facilities in a Mumbai Slum

Access to a toilet is something we can all understand. When I'm walking around an unfamiliar city and I or one of my children need to use a restroom, finding one, especially a clean facility, becomes a single focus. In North America, we usually can.

This article ("Mapping Toilets in a Mumbai Slum Yields Unexpected Results" in the NYTimes) on toilet locations in an Indian slum - Cheeta Camp - got my attention.  A MPH student at Harvard mapped the toilets in Cheeta Camp and found there to be roughly 1 toilet for every 170 people.

The map, which you can get to here, is striking. As you look at it and click around on the placemarks, you can quickly see that there just aren't that many toilets. Some don't work. Some are being built. Often there's a fee to use the better toilets. Check out the article and photos too. This a clear example of environmental injustice.

I'll try and remember this next time I'm standing in a long line at a sports event or play, waiting to use the restroom.

Thanks, Beth, for sending this article my way!

New York City in the 1940s

This is a fun map to explore, if you're into old maps and/or NYC. Welcome to 1940s New York City complete with old fashioned-looking banner.  Try searching by address.

Here's more information about the site from the Gothamist mentioning the painstaking scanning by Steve Romalewski.

Twitter in Teaching and Learning: Talking about Twitter in Higher Ed - #TwSIG

Two weeks ago I was part of a one-day mini-conference on using Twitter in higher education which I mentioned in an earlier post. My talk was on using Twitter in teaching. All of the slides are posted on the NERCOMP page. Mine are posted there too, but I pasted them in below.

Twittter for Teaching and Learning

View more presentations from Meg Stewart

First, it must be stated that this SIG (special interest group) was crowd-sourced on Twitter. I saw a tweet by a colleague that sought participants for a Twitter SIG and I, then, passed it along as a retweet. I put my name on a Google Doc the organizers were collating and I stuck with the process. The organizers (Carrie Saarinen (@clsaarinen) of Brown, and Adam Lipkin (@yendi) and Sarah Walkowiak (@swkowk), both at Brandeis) made it all happen by holding regular meetings in Google Hangout and started and collected a series of Google Docs to make the process authentically collaborative. The process was a model of effectiveness and everyone rose to the occasion. In fact, of the nine presenters, I knew only one (former colleague Cristian Opazo (@elguary)). There’s a paper in there somewhere!

One of the suggestions from one of the many presenters was to have a second screen to show how the Twitter backchannel operates. Here is the captured backchannel (using the hashtag #TwSIG) from the conference.

As I said, my talk was about teaching with Twitter, which, I dare say, I’ve never done. But that doesn’t stop an intrepid Academic Technologist! The slides above have very little text so I will try to give you a narrative of what I talked about and the information I gave.

To open I talked about the reasons for wanting to investigate the use of Twitter in teaching. From teaching for the Innovation Age, increasing student engagement, to increasing the number of student voices and giving alternative avenues for engagement, to help “reduce” the size of a large classroom, to keeping the conversations going outside of class time, to encouraging engagement and connections with others around the globe, to acknowledging the fact that current faculty may not know how to get this social media conversation started because they are ill-prepared for it, there is a lot to be said about Twitter in teaching and learning.

I got loads of information for this talk from Twitter users, the people I follow or who follow me back. I put out two tweets in December and got a tremendous amount of feedback on examples of uses of Twitter in teaching.

Here they are:

Check out dana boyd’s (@zephoria) comprehensive list of Twitter references (not just her work).

The white paper “Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities” by the London School of Economics and Political Science is very useful.

Reynol Junco (@reyjunco) is a faculty member at Lock Haven University and his written and spoken extensively on using social media in classes. Not only that, he tests the effectiveness of these tools. He has a 2010 co-written paper (with Greg Heiberger and E. Loken) that should not be missed -“The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades.” (PDF) One awesome thing that arose from talking about Junco while folks in the audience live-tweeted was that he took note and responded to what was being said. In fact, when asked (by me), he said that he has another paper from 2012 to recommend: “Putting twitter to the test: Assessing outcomes for student collaboration, engagement and success” (PDF) co-written with C. Michael Elavsky and Greg Heiberger. The bottom line … Twitter increases student engagement and student engagement increases student grades in the course!

Also check out Junco’s video (below). I didn’t show it in the presentation but it is worth viewing.

Some other good examples of Twitter in teaching:

Professor Javier Corrales at Amherst College is using Twitter to increase student engagement in a political science class. This was sent to me by Andy Anderson (@GeoObservatory) who also checked in while the SIG was on-going.

Derek Bruff’s (@derekbruff) blog is an invaluable resource for Twitter-related topics like this one: Structured Twitter Assignments. He’s also well-known for using clickers in teaching. And he checked in to our #TwSIG conference!

University of Connecticut professor Margaret Rubega (@ProfRubega) uses Twitter in her Ornithology class to get students tweeting bird sightings. The post was written in 2010 and she’s still using Twitter in the recent class.

“Teaching to the Text Message” by Andy Selsberg is a 2011 New York Times Op-ed piece on how short descriptions, written well, are quite possibly more valuable than ever. Learn to be concise! Tighten up your language! Write the most superb YouTube comment!

I gave a few examples from “60 Inspiring Examples of Twitter in the Classroom” One was Howard Rhiengold’s (@hrheingold ) use of Twitter to hold “office hours” another was giving pop quizzes through a pre-class tweet or yet another: daily word games on Twitter. Check out the list for more ideas.

To make sure to provide some caveats for Twitter use, I said that one should be very familiar and comfortable with Twitter before jumping in to using it in teaching. Twitter in not Facebook and the do’s and don’ts are not as apparent on first blush. Actually, I think Twitter adoption has been slow on the social media front (it only has, like, 13% of the share) because using it is uncomfortable at first, like ballet point shoes. The examples I gave were from people who regularly use Twitter, some might call them power-users, and they chose not to use Twitter in teaching for reasons such as: concern for student privacy, not seeing the need, worry about inappropriate (and, hence, distracting) comments on Twitter, and low participation on the part of students.

One can imagine that a lot more work goes into a course if a faculty member (especially a lone prof without grad students) has to keep up with course twittering along with everything else. If you're interested in using Twitter in teaching, learn how to use it before jumping into the teaching arena. It could increase student involvement in the materials, open minds, increase participation and may even make students smarter (at least on the topic you’re teaching). Lastly, don’t assume students know how to use Twitter. They don’t! Like all of us, we’re learning these things as they come at us, and we all need to be shown the ropes. The end.

Again, check out the other slide presentations and the tweets from the day. There's some good nuggest to be found!

I didn’t even get into how I really use Twitter. It is my news feed. My network. My personal professional development tool. I’ve met colleagues on Twitter that I would have never met. I’ve given co-delivered talks that grew out of these virtual meetings (like the one described here!), I’ve heard of conferences to attend, attended conferences without ever leaving my chair or spending a bit of money on conference fees or using fossil fuel, I heard of the Hacking the Academy project on Twitter and submitted a manuscript, and I heard about a newish Fulbright program (Alumni Ambassadors) that I am now involved with -- all of these were on Twitter!

Twitter questions? - Hit me up! @meg_stewart

Ballet feet photo modified from CC-licensed photo by Heather-Wilson.

New Spreadsheet Mapper 3

There's a new version of Spreadsheet Mapper out. I used version 2 in the past and thought it was terrific. I was under the impression that Google Fusion Tables would replace Spreadsheet Mapper but I guess I was mistaken.

If you have a spreadsheet with up to 1000 places marked by longitude and latitude, and you need to map them as nice-looking, template-driven placemarks, give Spreadsheet Mapper 3 a try.

Features:

• More placemarks: Support for 1,000 placemarks and ability to add more as needed
• Flexible balloon design: Take advantage of even more balloon design templates and simplified starter templates
• Simplified publication: Just click “Publish to the web” to share your map (no more fussing with URLs)
• New customization options: Advanced users can change the default view and network link details

Twitter in Higher Education - Tweet The SIG! #TwSIG

If you're in the neighborhood of Norwood, MA, on May 9, consider this one-day meeting on the use of Twitter for higher educators. The event is called Tweet This SIG!, and will feature discussions by technologists, faculty members and librarians talking about the use of this social networking tool in a variety of contexts. I'll be there!

Check it out:

Can Twitter really be useful in academia? Tweet This SIG! will cover everything from Twitter basics to advanced uses in higher education. Participants will walk away with a deeper understanding of this powerful real-time communication tool along with a Twitter toolkit to help get them started on a new and exciting Twitter adventure.

Whether you are a skeptic, a new user or an advanced user, Tweet This SIG! will introduce you to a variety of ideas and best practices for using Twitter in teaching, learning and research.

Sorry for this off-topic post and lack of geospatial reference. Twitter is useful for geospatial types, too, so sign up and come on out to the meeting!

Food Deserts - It's All In the Mapping

Today's New York Times has a front page article on food deserts in the US by Gina Kolata (Studies Question the Pairing of Food Deserts and Obesity). Food deserts are places that are believed to be lacking in healthy and affordable food.  It's long been taken on faith (or personal observation) that it's more unhealthy to live in the inner city or in a rural area than in the suburbs. This article discusses two new reports that show that the food desert concept is not entirely accurate and that some locations may be more akin to 'food swamps.' I think its all in how you use your GIS, the data you enter (by US Census tracts, zip codes areas, or addresses by points), and what you want to find. An example of how to lie with maps?! Perhaps. 

In the article there is a link to the US Department of Agriculture Food Desert Locator that should be checked out. Apparently, I live on the edge of a desert. I kind of don't agree. The downtown shaded tract in the screen capture (along the Hudson River) might be more accurate but not the one near the red dot. Interesting how the three colleges in my neighborhood are not within a 'food desert' tract. Play with the site and see for yourself. Enter an address and take a look.

From the Food Desert Locator About page:

Part of the First Lady's Let's Move! initiative, the proposed Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) will expand the availability of nutritious food to food deserts—low-income communities without ready access to healthy and affordable food—by developing and equipping grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores, and farmers markets with fresh and healthy food. The HFFI is a partnership between the Treasury Department, Health and Human Services, and the Agriculture Department (USDA). 

Need Scholarship? Study GIS

From David Tulloch's blog, I wanted to pass along some information about scholarships to study geospatial sciences. These awards are for high schoolers through doctoral candidates. 

Info about the USGIF:

The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) is the only organization dedicated to promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and building a stronger community of interest across industry, academia, government, professional organizations and individuals.

Info about the scholarships:

USGIF hopes to inspire students who are interested in all that GEOINT has to offer to invest their futures in this incredibly exciting and relevant field of study....Last year the Foundation awarded $94,000 to 20 recipients and plans to award equal or greater amounts for the 2012 program. Five Ph.D. candidates, eight master’s students, five undergraduates and two graduating high school seniors received scholarships from the 2011 program. High school recipients received $2,000 scholarships, and all others received $5,000 scholarships.

Wind As A Visualization

A wind map of the lower 48 U.S. states. The first map is zoomed in on the northeast right now and the second are screen shots of past days/times.  The lines indicate wind speed, as "delicate traceries." These lovely visualizations look like salt marsh grasses blowing in the breeze.  If it doesn't work for you, try Chrome.

From the site: "An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us—energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future. 

This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US right now." 

Thanks @dianamaps! She posted about this.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Google "Street" View?

Take a look at these Street View views of the Amazon Basin from the post at Google Lat Long. Pretty slick. I like the view ahead and the view from behind with the wake.

As my friend, Alex, says: Can't wait for underwater Street View.

And from NYT Science Times on Tuesday, James Cameron just might make that a reality.

See the full gallery on Posterous

How's Your Cellular Coverage?

I saw this fun site, OpenSignalMaps, that gives web heat maps of cell coverage for the U.S., U.K, Italy, Germany and Spain.

From the site:

"With your help, we're creating a comprehensive database of cell phone towers, cell phone signal strength readings, and Wi-Fi access points around the world. This data is collected via our Android application and uploaded to our servers, taking care to use as little processing power and battery life as possible.

You can use this website to browse the data we've collected, including heat maps that show exactly how strong signal is in any particular area, as well as all the nearby towers for your carrier. Take a look around, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions or feedback."

If you're zoomed in to, say, Poughkeepsie, the coverage is apparently along major roadways and highways.

But if you zoom out, it looks like the coverage in the northeast of the U.S. is "pretty good." Ha! 

Zoom to Germany and see real coverage!

Thanks, Diana, for the tweet.

What Participatory GIS Looks Like

I've been following the work of Aly DeGraff and her mentor, Kim Baldwin, as they continue building a space-use planning dataset for the Grenadine Islands. Here is a blog post from Aly showing the sausage-making that goes into participatory GIS or PGIS.

3rd Workshop for the Marine Multi-Use Zoning Plan for the Grenadine Islands: February 2012

 This event was the final workshop in the Marine Multi-Use Zoning Plan that brought together stakeholders to review the potential multiuse zoning scenarios. Since the second workshop (August 18-19, Union Island), Kim Baldwin (UWI), John Knowles (TNC), and I spent countless hours creating maps of the various marine multi-use zoning scenarios. Following this, a marine resource users (MRU) sub-committee convened in Mayreau in November to provide feedback on these scenarios and a smaller number of feasible zoning scenarios were selected as the foundation for Workshop 3. These multi-use zoning scenarios were then used as a decision-support tool to assist the group with the drafting of a marine multi-use zoning plan for the Grenadines. 

We held the third workshop in Hillsborough, Carriacou, Grenada and had 38 MRUs, government officials, SusGren interns, and facilitators attend. Here a group from the Grenada side of the Grenadines discuss the marine space-use planning of Carriacou, Petite Martinique, and the cays all the way south to Isle de Rhonde (just north of Grenada mainland):

  I facilitated the central Grenadines group of participants from Canouan, Mayreau, and Union with Katie McLean (SusGren Intern) as my note taker:

The group felt pretty good about the results that the computer program Marxan with Zones had given us but hoped to remove the Tobago Cays Marine Park boundary from the leeward side of Mayreau so that the entire island is not inaccessible to fishermen.

  We had a long debate about how to zone Chatham Bay on Union to accommodate fishing and tourism while minimizing tourism impacts (damage from anchoring yachts) on sea grass which is an essential food for sea turtles. There needs to be better conservation practices in the area, but not necessarily a conservation zone. Unfortunately, the northern part of the bay is the best for fishing, sea grass, and mooring causing a conflict of interest. In the end we decided on an eco-tourism zone which would limit further development on land but continue to allow for recreational uses and local fishing.

Read more ...

Another Mapping iPad App to List - GIS Kit

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm looking into mapping solutions for an iPad 2. I listed apps I had tried and got lots of retweets from the post. I think there's a lot of interest in the geospatial community in finding an app that can meet the needs that I stated yesterday: create new data; accurate location; import maps; export map data; and use a pen.

An app not on the list is GIS Kit by Garafa. When I heard about it last summer or fall, I had already been well into the project and I ran out of funding for apps. Plus, the cost is high. GIS Kit is $99.99 (for iPad and iPhone) and the higher-end version, GIS Pro, is $299.99 (also for iPad and iPhone). There is an educator's discount, however (50% discount for purchases of 20 or more copies). But thanks to the kindness of Garafa (and from a little Twitter outreach), I was sent a promotional copy to test out. There. Full disclosure.

The iTunes page for GIS Kit is accurate (click on More...). You really don't, in my opinion, need previous GIS experience to use GIS Kit. Check out the match up between GIS Kit and GIS Pro (scroll down) to see the featured left out of GIS Kit.

From their site: "The ‘Kit’ version of this software is intended to allow individuals to collect accurate & sophisticated field data without being tied to an expensive server or IT unit. Anyone can easily create their own feature classes & datasets and use them to gather & interpret useful data in the field."

If you want to import rasters and export shapefiles and CSVs, you'll need the 'Pro' version. If you're good with exporting KMZ and GPX, then the 'Kit' version may be for you.

I uploaded GIS Kit to an iPad (with 3G turned back on) and figured out how to use it relatively quickly. Here's some of what I observed in a pretty short test run.

Adding your own data points, as above, is quite simple. There's a lot of templates, many natural sciencees-related, already within the GIS Kit app that makes data collection easier. You can also, through iTunes interface, add shapefiles and KML/KMZ files. Above is a hydrography shapefile for the state New York, colored blue. It loaded somewhat slowly but loaded nontheless.

This is a simple line file showing the Bing Image basemap...

...and Google Satellite basemap, same location. There are many other basemap options. I still like to import my own USGS topo quads for the area I'm mapping (I tried last night and it didn't work), but that will require the 'Pro' version. For Poughkeepsie aficionados: Notice the Bing image above shows the Arlington District prior to the roundabouts going in and the Google image for the same intersection, but with the (awesome and totally safe) traffic circle, corner of College View and Raymond. I digress.

Exporting: The point file and the line file shown in these images easily exported as KMZ and opened in Google Earth. It will also open in ArcGIS or other geospatial programs. I could email the files to myself or copy them over from iTunes on my computer.

The above and below images are screen shots from my Grenadines KMZ work. I tried with other apps (listed yesterday)  to upload my project KMZ and couldn't get it to work. This Grenadines project, which has multiple layers and sublayers, opened rather easily and looked great, if I do say so myself.

This shot is of shallow water habitat, dive sites, and shipping lanes near Mayreau.

GIS Kit never crashed. I still need to really get out in the field and kick it around a bit, but it looks like GIS Kit is the closest thing to a smooth and easy mapping application that I've come across. It's just not free. But 'free' wasn't on my list, right?

More to come.

iPad Investigation - Field Mapping on an iPad 2

In June 2011 I had access to an iPad 2 with 3G connectivity. I used it on a summer project with a student to  investigate whether the iPad 2 could be used to collect geographic and geologic field data.  The student was making a geologic map of a summer camp and the idea was to do a head-to-head test using the new iPad 2 and a tablet PC while he mapped. Prior to the project, in January 2011, I put out a call on a GIS list and on Twitter to see what was being done with iPads and mapping. Not all that much. “But keep us posted.” Long overdue, here is some of what I found out.

To make a long story short, the student and I decided to forgo the match-up investigation and just map using the tried-and-true tablet PC. It just works and there was limited time to do the mapping.

First, let me state that the goal of using an iPad 2 for field mapping is to 1) create new data on the device,  those data can be points, lines or polygons; 2) locate ourselves fairly accurately from within the app (using the 3G); 3) load maps (shapefiles, KML/KMZ and/or raster maps) that we want to use as a basemap; 4) export our points, lines or polygons as shapefiles or KML/KMZ; and 5) use a pen (aftermarket purchase) to tap and draw points, line and polygons.

Now, for what we did find out about using an iPad for field mapping. The work is on-going, by the way. But we are giving a poster at the northeast GSA on what we did find out, geologically if not technologically.

Purchased (or free) apps that have GIS/geospatial capabilities or potentially so:
ArcGIS - A visual aid, nothing more. This make no sense to me. I cannot make or create any new data on this app. Why, ESRI? Or is that Esri? If I’m wrond, please let me know. (free)
Avenza PDF Map - Has potential to allow for data creation. “Dropbox integration. Easily export and import maps and waypoints to and from Dropbox.” I would like this to work. (free)

EarthObserver - Good for educational purposes. ($0.99)

Google Earth - A visual aid, nothing more. Can there be a Google Earth Pro app some day? Please? (free)
GISRoam - A GIS that I couldn’t get to work. This app is free, but to make your GIS data available you need to purchase a subscription on their server (free app - subscription is about $20, I think)
GPSNote - Add a note in geospace. Not all that useful. (free)
KMZ Loader - Loads Google Earth KMZ files for use in other apps. Couldn’t figure out the usefulness of this one. (free)
QuakeWatch - Good for educational purposes. Real-time EQ information. ($0.99)
Terrapad Lite - Free, but has ads. “Terrapad gives you the flexibility to enter, query, modify and export your geographic data” This app has potential but kept crashing. (free)
Terrapad Pro - “The pro version is also more feature-packed allowing Shapefile import and export, GPS tracking, raster map imagery, spatial queries, detailed information about geometries and a host of other features. All extensions are free in Terrapad Pro.” Sounds good, right? This was very crashy. Please send information on how to use it! ($49.99)

 

Geology NY - It was recommended that I get this one because I live in New York and the mapping was to be done in NY. It was not all that informative but might be useful for educational purposes. (iPhone app only $9.99)
Star walk - Love this! But it’s not a mapping app. Never mind that, if you’ve got 3G on your iPad, take it out in the evening and look to the sky! Very fun and certainly educational. ($4.99)
Strike and Dip - Works great. Forget your Brunton Compass and take your iPad (or iPhone (this is an iPhone app) Save outcrop fieldnotes to the app and send them to yourself or to someone else on the mapping team. ($4.99)
Strike Line - Also works great for getting a strike and dip, or trend and plunge, minus the note-taking feature. (free)

Compass HD - This is a compass. (free)

Emerald Observer - I’m not recalling why I bought this app. I don’t see it listed on the iTunes store anymore but I paid $0.99. It may have been replaced by the Emerald Chronometer HD. A watch on your iPad. ($4.99)

Coordinates - “Coordinates makes it a snap to convert between the three formats for latitude and longitude: decimal degrees, degrees and decimal minutes, and degrees-minutes-seconds.” So useful! ($0.99)
iCMTGIS - This is a real GIS. And it really worked. It was not elegant to use but it did do mapping. And the cost cannot be beat. Here was a nice tutorial showing how to iCMTGIS provided by John Van Hoesen, a professor at Green Mtn College. (free)
iGIS for iPad - “iGIS represents a new era in mobile GIS solutions by enabling users to load, view, investigate, create and export their own data over a background of Google maps satellite imagery.” I couldn’t get this to work. Would love to have some help on this. (free for a limited time(?))
MotionX GPS Drive - Useful for replacing your in-car navigation system. ($2.99)
MotionX GPS HD -  Same as above? Not sure the difference. Sorry about that. ($1.99)
MapBox - This is a GIS. “MapBox has a suite of open source map-making tools. Use this app to take your maps offline and on the go.” I want this to work. Can’t figure out how to do that. (free)
iSeismograph - An educational tool for showing students how earthquakes are measured “using the internal G-Force Sensor.” ($0.99)
Theodolite HD - This app allows you to take photos that encode the direction that you are viewing, levels out the shot, which is really useful for field work. “Theodolite is a multi-function augmented reality app that serves as a compass, GPS, map, zoom camera, rangefinder, and two-axis inclinometer.” Their words, not mine. I like using this app. Example below. ($3.99)

Keep in mind that, if you’re using an iPad for field work, you should buy a case, ideally a rugged one. Check out this one. I saw these for sale at Best Buy. Also, you need a 3G data plan and the minimum cost per month for that is $20.

One very unfortunate aspect of using an iPad for field mapping is the tie you must have to a desktop (or laptop) machine. The apps are housed on your office Mac or Windows PC and so are your data. If you want to upload more data (or download them) you have to go back to that computer. If I’m wrong about that, please let me know because I found that to be a total hassle. I did not have my home computer (where I downloaded the apps to) out in the field with me.

I will continue to hone in on how to use the iPad for mapping, but for now, this is the update.