Custom Mapping with TileMill
Aug 26, 2010 @ 10:51 AM by Kumiko Yamazaki -- cartography custom gisHere’s something to keep your eye on: TileMill by Development Seed.
With TileMill, you can create custom maps by implementing your own design to GIS data, which you can then share to the public by embedding into your website.
It sounds and looks pretty amazing as seen with their example of the Afghan presidential elections in 2009.
The only drawback here is TileMill’s steep learning curve. Fortunately, Development Seed acknowledges the issue and promises to revamp for TileMill 2.0 and make it more user-friendly. Hooray!!
Not all mapping professionals are savvy developers, you know :)
What can ArcGIS.com and ArcGIS iOS do for me?
Jul 6, 2010 @ 9:58 AM by Kumiko Yamazaki -- esri gis ipad iphone
In recent weeks, ESRI has revealed ArcGIS.com, ArcGIS Explorer Online, a new logo, and now an iPhone/iPad app, all in time for next week’s mega User Conference in San Diego.
Naturally, I was curious to see what it can do for me. I have ArcView on my computer but it’s installed on Vista via Boot Camp on my Mac. It’s not ideal and is a pain having to restart the machine in order to switch operating systems. So how can ArcGIS.com help me, the lazy Mac user?
It can’t.
I had a CSV file of local brewpubs I wanted to plot (yummy!), and ArcGIS.com won’t accept it. A CSV file.. one of the simplest, most common file formats EVER. Instead, it only supports:
“ArcGIS map files (mxd, nmf, 3dd, sxd, ncfg, mpk, wmpk and pmf), ArcGIS layer files (lyr, lpk, and nmc), and ArcGIS tools (eaz, and esriaddin).”
Wrong wrong wrong. ArcGIS.com is hardly useful for the average user who doesn’t already have access to pricey ESRI products. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the potential was there and ESRI screwed it up.
This is all unfortunate considering they had the resources to develop a tremendous product that runs seamlessly across the web and mobile applications, and the ability to create and share the results. Their free app, especially the iPad app, is beautiful. You can browse through everyone’s maps or simply log into your account and bring up your own.
ESRI users are undoubtedly excited over these new developments but the rest of the world, which happens to be quite large, has been shafted.
HydroSHEDS- Global River Dataset in Hi-Rez
Mar 18, 2010 @ 2:06 PM by Britta Ricker -- cartography gisData sets are often segmented by political boundaries. Typically, who cares? People who deal with environmental phenomenon that do not stop or change across political boundaries, they are the ones who care. Normally a cartographer or GIS analyst will stitch together datasets, fight with projections and plow through for a quick fix to their problem. My former professor at McGill University, Dr. Bernhard Lehner, decided to take a different route when he ran into this problem when working with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to characterize freshwater habitats within a remote region of the Amazon Basin.
First Dr. Lehner built a map with freshwater habitats of the entire Amazon Basin, then South America and now THE GLOBE! German cartographers do not cut corners! The project is called “HydroSHEDS” (Hydrological data and maps based on Shuttle Elevation Derivatives at multiple Scales). Dr. Lehner used data gathered in 2000 by NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). He has produced the first high-resolution, seamless global river map in existence. You can read more about this project in the McGill Reporter, on Dr. Lehner’s website and on the WWF website where you can download the data set. This map in paper format will be featured in National Geographic on March 30!
(photo is from McGill Reporter article)
Kumiko Yamazaki: kyamazaki@mapkist.com