The ENTCHEV GIS Blog

Q: How is a GIS professional like a maxillofacial surgeon?

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:16:00 GMT

A: The general public has no idea what either one does, but would readily pay the surgeon 10 times more.

I just came up with this. Funny much? Didn’t think so.

A new All Points Blog entry popped in my RSS reader as I was in the middle of drafting a blog post on marine navigation (temporarily put on hold in favor of this one). Actually, on the disconnect between what the GIS industry produces and the general public’s awareness thereof, with marine navigation technology as a setting. The APB entry is about GIS for cemeteries. Different setting, same phenomenon.

This got me thinking: Why the disconnect? Why does The Real World seem to care so little about what we GIS folks do? It must be either because we GIS folks are horrible marketers, or because what we do isn’t all that interesting beyond our own immediate circle.

I submit it is both, with a heavy emphasis on the latter.

Consider this: my friend John Reiser spent a month of his own time on a fancy and sophisticated web GIS implementation showing urban growth and open space loss in New Jersey from 1986 through 2007. The local (NJ) press didn’t even give him a mention, or a link to the project website (they wrote up the project, though).

Or consider this: James Fee, one of the most-popular and widely respected GIS tweeple, has 1,496 followers. By comparison, Lindsay Lohan’s ankle bracelet has a Twitter account with 3,072 followers and 10 tweets. Not Lindsay herself – the bracelet!!! Kanye West jumped on Twitter yesterday, and already has 302,539 followers. It’s not that there is a disparity – it’s the *magnitude* of that disparity that’s hard to grasp.

I don’t have a good closing. I’ll just stop here.

OpenStreetMap Conference in Atlanta

Randal Hale — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 02:37:00 GMT

I know this is a bit of a late notice for everyone - but the first US State of the Map conference is coming to Atlanta.

A little over a year ago I ran into a Cloudmade Ambassador in Chattanooga, TN. A few phone calls and emails later they came to a GA URISA meeting at Gainesville State College . Flash forward from that meeting almost a year later and the conference is coming to Atlanta. I'll be speaking at the conference on OSM and Education or as I like to call it how to get a classroom full of kids interested in maps.

There will be quite a few vendors (Microsoft, MapQuest, etc) and speakers. I know a lot of those speaking and at the absolute worst you're going to have fun. Plus - it's cheap - $35 bucks and $20 if you're a student.

Come down to Atlanta and visit!

cnet news: Google, LA hit speed bumps on move to cloud

Atanas Entchev — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:04:00 GMT

cnet news reports that the planned migration of all of Los Angeles' city employees to Google Apps (in "da cloud") has been delayed. One of the key issues behind the delay: security concerns by the city's police department. Google will eat the $100,000+ delay tab.

Full article .

IS GIS MORE LIKE AIR TRAVEL OR TOILET PAPER? (The Video)

Atanas Entchev — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:42:00 GMT

Now that I have come out against all audio and video in social media, it's time to publish my first video. Right?

Lauren Weinstein: Trusting Your Friends -- and Trusting the Cloud

Atanas Entchev — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:45:00 GMT

A must-read for all cloud-phobiacs. I agree with Lauren 100%. Excerpt:

"But for some who dislike the cloud, no amount of technical and legal assurances will ever suffice, simply because they have a fundamental distrust of remote services -- "We never really know what's going on in the cloud!" they say.

And yet, do we really know everything going on in our local computers, even those of us who have spent our professional lives building these technologies?

In most cases, the answer is no. Unless we've written every line of code ourselves, or have compiled every program personally from source code that we've inspected (and presumably understood!) line by line, there is a leap of faith involved in everything we do on these machines."

Full article.

GIS: Air travel or toilet paper?

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:43:00 GMT

We raised this question back in 2008, as the economy began to founder. We were wondering how a worsening economy would affect us GIS implementers, and whether GIS was considered a necessity or a luxury by its users. Or perhaps it is both?

From what I have seen since September 2008, GIS is definitely a luxury. GIS budgets were the first to go in many New Jersey municipalities. When the town has to lay off staff and cut back essential services, GIS really does look like an overpriced accessory we can all do without.

Not that I agree (or like it), but this is the reality: In economic parlance, GIS is a luxury, up there with Rolex watches and Maseratis. And we GIS implementers are purveyors of luxury goods and services.

The Vancouver Sun: Google gets data for free, B.C. gets a bill

Atanas Entchev — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:11:00 GMT

Subheader: "Government pays for licences after tech giant given free information". (My suggestion: "All your data are belong to us.")

Summary: Vancouver City government gives to Google tons of free high-resolution spatial data. Gets a handful of Google Earth Pro licenses in return. Licenses expire after one year, so government has to pay to keep using them. And that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Excerpt:

"Google received the province's high-resolution, one-metre to one-pixel satellite imagery, which it used to dramatically sharpen the aerial images of B.C. on Google Earth and Google Maps.

The government also agreed to convert its numerous databases on water, air quality, topography, fish, land ownership, land use, mining, parks, tourism and wildlife into the Google Earth format. Google does not physically possess that data; instead, the province spends time and money to retool its information into a format readable by Google and Microsoft mapping software."

This photo below, courtesy of the Government of B.C., shows the Province's high resolution imagery provided to Google on the left and previously existing imagery on the right.

Read the full Vancouver Sun article here. (via the All Points Blog).

Everything old is new again....

Randal Hale — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:48:00 GMT

Gather round Children.....lets talk about some really old stuff.....

So way back in the early 90's (really not that long ago), Young Randy started his GIS career. When I first started out there was this company called Intergraph that pretty much ruled for mapping in the agency for which I worked. They are right down the road from Chattanooga in Huntsville Al. You had all this very boring looking software running on very complicated computers of which I had no clue. The only clue I did have is that we used Intergraph software in combination with Microstation to map stuff. We had 1 or 2 onsite techs. Arc/INFO eventually shut them out. It was a bit sad - a local company gets dumped for a non local company....but that is the way it works.

So about that same time (or a little later) I had to take a trip to Muscle Shoals and printed out my maps from Mapquest. Mapquest rocked. No more fooling with giant Atlases for me - I would print out where I needed to go when I needed to go there. If I remember correctly, and I most certainly don't, that same trip I passed Intergraph off the side of the interstate while holding my Mapquest printouts swerving all over the road. I haven't looked at mapquest in probably 5 or 6 years.

So twice in one week the past came rocketing back.First off - Intergraph was bought by Hexagon. Hexagon it seems is in the business of "precision". From their website "Hexagon is a world-leading supplier of systems for measurement of objects in one, two or three dimensions.". What makes this Interesting for me is that Hexagon also owns ERDAS. I've had a long standing relationship with ERDAS. I've watched them jump around a bit over the last few years as they were bought by Leica Geosystems..... and then Leica Geosystems being bought by Hexagon...... to the re-emergence of ERDAS as a solutions provider for imagery and other stuff (Apollo). So ERDAS and Intergraph are pretty much in the same 6 sided church. ESRI doesn't much care for wither one. Absolutely nothing could come of this.....or everyone is so busy building flex sites they wont' be paying attention.

Second - Mapquest just announced a $1,000,000 dollar investment in OpenStreetMap . I can't remember the last time I went to Mapquest to print out a map. I do remember however the last time I went to Google Maps and printed out a map...and cussed because it was wrong. So is it a bid to remain relevant? Do they really want to make a better map? I don't know but I am interested just because of all the work I've put into the the Chattanooga portion of the map. Plus there is the US State of the Map conference in Atlanta....at which I will be speaking.

Anyway - two things I had pretty much forgotten about suddenly came rocketing back out of the past this week.

US Department of Labor releases Geospatial Competency Model

Randal Hale — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:14:00 GMT

So for my first official post I decided to dive a bit into education...or standards.....or just go full nerd and call it Episode IV: A New Hope (for GIS).

So how did I get into GIS? I just kinda fell into it. A stint with a government agency led me from folding maps to digitizing roads off a 1:24k topo sheet. Unfortunately for the rest of the geospatial world, they left me with a full set of Arc/INFO 6.00 manuals and my fate was sealed. From that I went on a tour of the department from producing orthoimagery to creating DEM's (or DTM's) to troubleshooting every GIS problem that could possibly occur. It was fun...it was interesting......It drove me nuts toward the end and I quit and started consulting .

One of the things that has intrigued me over the last 18 years was watching how people got into GIS. I was absolutely positive that by 1995 schools would be turning out GIS students right and left and I would become a fossil. A relic confined to my SPARC 2 under a single lightbulb cranking out very angry scripts. It didn't happen.

Flash forward and I found myself sitting as the education chair at GA URISA in January 2010 after a three year affiliation with them. So now I'm "in Charge" so to speak of providing educational opportunities to the professional community. I need to provide training that is useful and interesting. One of the things that being in GA URISA did was introduce me to Gainesville State Community College . They went from a two year degree in GIS to a four year Bachelor's program. They are also a Geotech Center . If you are in the Atlanta area - make a side trip. Go visit.

Anyway, I kept hearing about something called a DACUM and a competency model. Someone was working on one - GA URISA was involved but I was a bit new and didn't understand exactly what was occurring. Apparently it was going on at all the Geotech centers. This past January I was invited to a "summit" where GA URISA, the Geotech Centers, and a host of other people from the area sat down and talked about education, students, and a Competency Model that was running through the Department of Labor. It became pretty clear then what was happening.

Standards are a great thing. Probably the closest the GIS community has had for a standard display of competency is the GISP and the ASPRS certified tests . I know before the flame war starts - there are problems with both. I'm a GISP and will hopefully test for the ASPRS certification shortly. These two things are great for those who have been in the field. What do you do if you're just starting out? You pick a school and run with it....and do a bit of hoping in my opinion. I have seen great GIS Programs....and I have seen programs so bad they should be dragged out behind the library and shot.

Well today (July 8th 2010) the Department of Labor today released a Geospatial Competency Model . So what? This what: we have a education plan for GIS people. We are, more or less, a defined field now (I know - do the job and you'll see how defined it is). In my opinion this is a large step for the Geospatial community. From being able to communicate effectively to knowing when to use the right spatial model - it's all laid out. I saw a bit of the work going into this - just a small piece - this was detailed and took some time to roll out. This was by no means a rushed job.

To quote: "The model will serve as a resource for career guidance, curriculum development and evaluation, career pathway development, recruitment and hiring, continuing professional development, certification and assessment development, apprenticeship program development and outreach efforts to promote geospatial technology careers."

Check it out - take a look at the website . Visit the Geotech center's website - read up on these guys. I know it's probably not that exciting, but for a small business owner and a GIS Practitioner who is in this for the long haul: this is excellent.

How excellent? Probably not this excellent but close!

Sweden's Hexagon buys Intergraph for $2.1 bln

Atanas Entchev — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:24:00 GMT

Who saw that coming? Not me.

Here's a link to the Reuters story. More thoughts and analysis when I make sense of it all.

For those who may not know: Hexagon owns Leica Geosystems -- purveyor of fine (and expensive) GPS equipment. Leica seems to be going from being an ESRI partner to becoming a competitor with the flip of a switch. What will happen to the MobileMatriX -- Leica's flagship ArcGIS extension?

Stay tuned.

Welcome to new blogger Randal Hale

Atanas Entchev — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 13:39:00 GMT

I am pleased to welcome new blogger Randal Hale.

Randal wrote his bio using vim, which earns him instant cred in my book (as it should in yours). But if you need more, here it is:

Randal Hale is the founder of North River Geographic Systems, Inc. (NRGS). Randal spent fifteen years in the GIS department of one of the southeast's largest utilities before leaving to start NRGS. In 2005, he became a GISP. In 2008 Randal’s company became an ESRI Business Partner and Randal became an ESRI Authorized Instructor. He currently resides on the board of three geospatial organizations: Mid-South ASPRS (American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing), Georgia URISA (as Education and Outreach Chair), and TNGIC (Tennessee Geographic Information Council).

Randal will be sharing his thoughts on the state of the industry, the business of GIS, and whether or not soccer is worth watching.

ArcGIS 10 Server or MapIt on Windows Azure?

Atanas Entchev — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:18:00 GMT

Decisions, decisions.

With most of the GIS blogo-, twitter- and other- spheres in full “All ArcGIS 10, all the time” mode, it’s easy to miss an important Microsoft case study published on 6/29/2010.

The study showcases ESRI’s MapIt software solution for the Windows Azure platform, and quotes generously ESRI lead developers Arthur Haddad and Rex Hansen.

Sums it up James Fee on his blog: “You don’t need ArcGIS Server and tons of IT admins to have geospatial applications on the web.”

My view on GIS in the Cloud

Trish Long — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:55:00 GMT

A GIS colleague recently told me that, to him, I seem completely un-excited about GIS in the cloud. I find this amusing. I guess it's true. I'm not really excited about GIS in the cloud, at least not in my professional life, as a very busy municipal planner and GIS user. One reason cloud GIS may not excite me is that I don't know exactly what it means!

Personally, I love Google Maps, Bing 3D, Streetview, MapMyRide, and similar services. My husband thinks I'm nuts when I talk about these things. I am amazed that they exist and very curious about how they work. But are these services considered GIS in the cloud? I'm not really looking for an answer to that question. But I would like to talk a little more about why I'm not particularly excited about GIS in the cloud:

Unfortunately, I don't have the time for this new cloud GIS thing. I need something that works now. I do not have the luxury of finding time to search for some JavaScript that someone has written or to wait for someone to write an app that I have to find and figure out how to make work. Or, to test out a new technology that may change a year from now.

I have been working for city government for seven years. I have never been responsible for so many projects as in this job. And since I do not hold a GIS job title, I spend most of my time on non-GIS tasks. I do not feel like I have the luxury to play around with the cloud at work. Am I missing out? Yes. But every workday I need to make decisions about the best way to spend my time. When my director asks for a map, I can make a choice between using ArcView on my desktop, and using the cloud to respond to the map request. At this time, ArcView will win my vote hands down.

I thank all the techno geeks out there for doing all they are doing in the cloud. But I guess I feel like cloud GIS is not quite ready for prime time yet. When it is, I'm sure I will be ready to learn to use it and be fascinated by it.

Welcome to new blogger Trish Long

Atanas Entchev — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 15:47:00 GMT

It with great pleasure that I welcome new blogger Trish Long.

Trish Long is a Senior Planner with the City of Trenton, New Jersey. Before joining the city staff in 2003, Trish was a GIS Specialist with the New Jersey Office of State Planning. She has also worked for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the National Park Service and the Soil Conservation Service.

She received her Masters degree in Environmental Monitoring (GIS and remote sensing) from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Trish has a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Science from Cook College, Rutgers University and is a member of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association and the American Institute of Certified Planners.

In addition to her impressive academic and professional credentials, Trish brings to the discussion the viewpoint of a regular GIS user. This viewpoint is often ignored (or entirely missing) in our heated new-media-GIS-for-GIS’s-sake-centered exchanges. Trish is an experienced GIS user, but for her GIS is not the ultimate goal; it is a tool for accomplishing her primary objective, which in Trish’s case is being a good city planner.

Trish represents the silent majority of GIS users, whose voice is being drowned out by the very vocal GIS blogging community (guilty as charged). I am very pleased that Trish will be sharing her thoughts with us, and we’ll all do well to listen.

Bing Destination Maps is teh awesome!

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:09:00 GMT

I just created the map below (ENTCHEV GIS Architects office location in New Brunswick, NJ) using Bing Destination Maps, and I am beside myself with glee. This Microsoft Research application is creative, imaginative, awesome! You won't hear me bashing Microsoft any time soon.

Latency in technology adoption

Atanas Entchev — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:41:00 GMT

A recent post (and the subsequent reader comments) by James Fee about how people use Excel for things the application was not designed for (e.g., database, mapping, grid-making) got me thinking about how this relates to my own experience. Not just with Excel (mis)use, but with computer technology in general.

I have plenty of stories illustrating the same phenomenon. People storing their data in Word documents. Building inventories in Cardfile (Windows 3.1 app). Typing a Word document, printing it out, scanning it to a PDF and emailing me the PDF to post the text on their website. And so on.

Why is it that so many people misuse technology? Or do not use it to its full potential?

If you are a geek (I am), your natural reaction is: “People are just stupid.” But if you are an older geek (I am), age having softened your arrogance, you may consider the possibility that people aren’t actually stupid, just disinterested. Or too busy with other, more important things than technowizardgadgetry.

For months now I have been talking to people about The Cloud. The verdict? “The Real World” couldn’t care less about the cloud. The field of nanomicroscopy is not yet sufficiently advanced to measure¹ The Real World’s interest in the intricacies of cloud computing. That does not make cloud computing a bad idea, but its adoption will be neither fast nor certain.

For the same reason so many people still keep their data in Excel.

¹ Phrase borrowed from David Foster Wallace, “Infinite Jest”, p. 1012

ArcGIS 10 Desktop System Requirements

Atanas Entchev — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:51:00 GMT

ESRI has published the system requirements for the upcoming ArcGIS 10. A snippet:

CPU Speed -- 2.2 GHz dual core or higher
Memory/RAM -- 2 GB or higher

Windows XP (Professional and Home) is supported (with SP3).

ArcGIS Desktop System Requirements at the ESRI Resource Center .

GIS elevator pitch: Summary of comments

Atanas Entchev — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:05:00 GMT

First off, I want to thank Andrew Turner, James Richards, Bob Kull and Jim Cser for their comments (here is the original post). As promised, here is a summary of the comments (in the order they were posted):

Elevator pitches in general are difficult - but especially in the broad, fast growing, and widely misunderstood aspects of mapping and geospatial tools. (Turner)
Leveraging the common element of location to visualize and analyze complex data for better decision making. (Turner)
Nearly everything has a place and time - maps provide an excellent context in which to understand the relationships between otherwise disparate information. (Turner)
"Google maps on steroids" + an example of what the steroids can do above and beyond what people get for free on the web. (Richards)
GIS is the software and data used to analyze and inform relationships among data in time and space, much as Excel analyzes numbers and databases analyze words. (Kull)
"the intersection of maps and computers". (Cser)
a good elevator pitch must also include the WIIFM -- What's In It For Me? So we can say that A Good GIS Pitch = What Is GIS + WIIFM, or AGGISP = WIGIS + WIIFM. (Entchev)

GIS elevator pitch

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:49:00 GMT

This is the issue that won’t go away – how do you explain to someone intelligent but non-technical what you do in two minutes or less? In my near 20 years in the profession I still haven’t found the simple yet clear explanation that makes people go “A-ha!” More people today *think* they know what GIS is, but that doesn’t make the task of explaining it any simpler.

I badly needed a good pitch earlier this week when I found myself in a fancy room full of people wearing expensive suits. I think I managed OK, but I am determined to do better next time.

A Google search for "GIS elevator pitch" returned no results, which encourages me to throw this out to all of GIS geekdom: What is your GIS elevator pitch? (Wikipedia on “elevator pitch”)

I have tried the following (off the top of my head):

Digital mapping
Digital spatial analysis
Design, build and maintain spatially-aware databases (I know...)
Google Maps on steroids
etc.

I don’t love any of them, although the “Google Maps on steroids” seems to get the most nods and smiles.

Is data software?

Atanas Entchev — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:22:00 GMT

It depends on whom you ask.

The All Points Blog posts about a recent round in the never-ending tug of war between digital data custodians and those who want free and unfettered access to the data. In a nutshell, Orange County Superior Court Judge James J. Di Cesare has declared that digital data is actually software, "and thus do not fall under the state public records law." The ruling is being challenged by the Sierra Club.

New Jersey is no stranger to such challenges. In 2003 Robert Bradley Tombs filed an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request with the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority (BTMUA) for a digital copy of the MUA's GIS data. The request was denied and litigation ensued.

Another thorny FOIA issue arises from the multitude of GIS data formats. OPRA prescribes that the data custodian must deliver the requested data in the format the data are in. Clear and sensible. However, it is further prescribed that if the data are requested in a different digital format and the request is easy to accommodate, the data should be converted to the requested format prior to delivery. An example given during the March 26, 2010 New Jersey Geospatial Forum (NJGF) general meeting: "If you keep your data in Excel and the requester asks for a CSV file, you must give them a CSV file."

In my opinion this puts the issue on a slippery slope, and several NJGF members voiced a similar sentiment during the 3/26/2010 NJGF meeting. What if I keep my data in Oracle Spatial and the requester wants a shapefile? A coverage? A DWG? A DGN? A PDF? KML? How far do I go to accommodate the request? When does "easy" cease to be easy? If only GIS data conversion issues were as simple as XLS – CSV.

The 59-page final report of the NJGF OPRA Task Force does not address the multiple digital data format issue. It contains two mentions of "format" (pages 15 and 58), both quoting the same paragraph (below):

"Whenever the nature, format, manner of collation, or volume of a government record embodied in the form of printed matter to be inspected, examined, or copied pursuant to this section is such that the record cannot be reproduced by ordinary document copying equipment in ordinary business size or involves an extraordinary expenditure of time and effort to accommodate the request, the public agency may charge, in addition to the actual cost of duplicating the record, a special service charge that shall be reasonable and shall be based upon the actual direct cost of providing the copy or copies ..." (Emphasis added.) N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5.c.

Clearly GIS data and its myriads of formats present a challenge for data custodians and policy-makers alike. My interest in this issue is more civic than practical, since I neither make nor respond to OPRA requests. But I will further research the issue, for clarity's sake, and will report here any new findings and developments.