tommy's scratchpad

Just read a neat article from Directions Magazine. Great article on how someone got a start in GIS, technology and the like with a great internship. This got me thinking about how I got started in GIS.

After finishing undergrad with a geography degree, I found myself woefully underemployed. In 1997, I decided to move to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and pursue GIS, as I thought it would combine the desired technical skills to make myself marketable, as well as my love for maps and travel. Within a couple of months, I had an internship at Natural Resources Canada (now that’s a story!) which had me working on aerial photo selection in the map library to start.

Soon after, I was right in the GIS thick of things, building a GIS database from the ground up and publishing it to the web. The Ground Control Database was my first real project which allowed me to apply the power of GIS, and, in my case, expose me to the world of GIS and the Internet.

So how did you get started in the geospatial / GIS field? I find this interesting because our field brings people from so many disciplines and backgrounds.

So Firefox 2.0 is here, and silently put out a day before launch, which caused some kerfuffle as a result.

For me, I like the microsummary stuff, the close tab button embedded on each tab, the RSS reader support, and JavaScript 1.7 support.

All in all, the browser is alot more “alive” — so will you be going to your local Firefox Party?

It’s exciting to see GeoRSS published as an official 1.0 specification — congratulations to the GeoRSS team in putting out this useful RSS add-on spec.

So I’ve put together a hack of allowing for WordPress users to geocode their posts, as well as publish them as GeoRSS. This work is based on the original GeoPress work. The plugin also allows for setting what encoding of GeoRSS you want to publish (simple, gml, or w3cgeo). It’s very simple (uses existing custom fields to define x/y tags, and existing WordPress hooks to extend to GeoRSS). The main blog post page also now adds a neat little WMS-based map.

Other work: Ed Parsons also developed his own plugin. The GeoRSS folks also have an implementation. You can download my GeoRSS WordPress plugin hack and give it a go if you wish, however I’d suggest going with GeoPress, which is what I’ll be moving towards (as soon as I get whip up a script to port my coordinates into GeoPress).

Nothing too much to report yet, other than everyone’s pretty much homebound. I’m interested to see who will win the Sol Katz award, as well as the closing panel discussion.

James Westervelt’s closing plenary presentation on GRASS and views on FOSS was very interesting in discussing the history of the GRASS project, what made it successful and the value of great, passionate people who thrive on sharing (code, projects, data, etc.).

So now it’s time for the Sol Katz award. The winner this year is Markus Neteler, who is a great choice, especially from his contributions to the GRASS community. Congratulations Markus!

The panel discussion raised some interesting points:

• open source geospatial technology is ever increasing across the community. Just as geographic information comprises 80% of all information, open source geospatial technologies must be ubiquitous
• another key for open source geospatial is between integrating with mobile devices

In conclusion, our community and space has grown immensly. We can do things we only dreamed of in the past. Implementations of open source geospatial are everywhere: public service, military, many walks of industry. Location is huge. The barrier to entry is lessening.

So, FOSS4G2006 is officially complete. A truly successful conference. Well planned, well executed, great presentations, workshops and discussions. Can’t wait until next year!

Well, as for me, I’ve got one more night in this town, and leaving tomorrow. It’s time to go home.

Today’s keynote was interesting in finding out about FOSS4G activities in Asia. Wow, there is and has been quite a bit happening in that region for years. I gave a talk on ResEau this morning, which was well received.

Sitting in Raj Singh‘s presentation on OGC‘s Lightweight Standards Initiatives. Great to see their recognition of simple things like GeoRSS, tiled WMS and WFS basic, however the “not so simple” is just as important.

Assefa, Bart and I gave the OGC and Open Source presentation, which produced a little ‘testbed’ of open source packages supporting OGC and how they play with eachother. I’m looking forward to MapServer exhanced Filter spatial predicates now that geos is integrated.

52 North did a great presentation on OGC SensorWeb and their supporting software. It will be great if/when their native data bindings increased in flexibility. They also mentioned the SensorWeb Alliance, an international group on the use and advancement of SensorWeb.

Catalog/Discovery BOF: great intentions, no time. This went by quick and we started discussing various approaches. I’m worried about things getting too complicated. At the same time, this can’t become too simple that we keep revisiting it in the future for modificiations to the model, etc. The most important part is the content model for data and services. As for protocol, I hope GeoNetwork OpenSource will help with forthcoming CSW ISO profile support.

The evening event was a beautiful boat cruise, and visit / dinner at the Chateau de Chillon. The night concluded (for most people) with drinks and dancing at a local nightclub. Following that, a few of us decided to enjoy the scenery more so we stayed out all night. We were lucky that some places were opening up for breakfast, as we were hungry!

Check out the photos (which will be posted soon) on FOSS4G2006. Also, once we all get back and settled, I’ll update this page with links of the fun night (everyone had a digital camera).

Time for bed.

It’s a good thing overall.

Just sitting here at the lightning talks at the plenary session where camptocamp ran us through conference logistics. The conference is well organized and the EPFL/UNIL campus is a great location.

Schuyler Erle’s talk about “Neogeography” was interesting, and so true. Everyone is a mapmaker now, with cheap GPS solutions, Google maps, the Internet, etc. Schuyler also makes a good point about not taking things too seriously, and generally more maps (even if they’re “wrong”) is a good thing, even if they are not cartographically pristine, or insanely accurate.

Steve’s talk discussed what’s new, how you can expose geos through MapServer mapscript, GeoServer now supports KML/KMZ output, and there’s talk of a tiling WMS.

Happy 10th birthday GeoTools!

Also evident is the open source and business collaboration theme. Companies like MetaCarta, Autodesk, and Orkney have become involved in our community and with open source geospatial. Add to that DM Solutions‘ fresh announcement of a MapServer premium support plan, and you can say we are maturing.

Frank (OSGEO President) spoke about a call to action for folks to contribute and get involved in the new foundation. OSGEO looks to have alot of momentum thus far.

The feeling I get from today is that our community has grown, with some pains (like anything, really). In general, the barrier to entry is much lower. I’ll be the first to admit that some things make me nervous (KML, supporting the web mapping API of the week, etc.), but overall we have come along a long way.

So that’s my report thus far today. Note that the entire conference (including slides, workshops, event photos and live video) is on the conference website.

Gotta run, it’s lunchtime and we’re giving the MapServer OGC Web Services Workshop this afternoon. So off to find bottles of water, check for showstoppers in the package and room setup. Stuff like that. Wish me luck!! I’ll post again after the workshop.

It’s a good thing overall.

Update: the MapServer OGC Web Services Workshop went well and was well received. Over 40 participants. Much interest in the new Mapscript WxS services scripting exposure.

(Update on luggage: they found it and hand delivered it to my room)

Things are hopping here in Lausanne. The conference registration was today (and yesterday for early birds).

The ice-breaker was last night at Taco’s Bar, and was partly sponsored by Autodesk (thanks!). It was great to see the people we constantly communicate with over email, irc, and the like. Some of us are paying for a late night this morning, so tonight may be a bit more quiet 🙂

Conference workshops run today. I’m currently at the GeoNetwork workshop and am finding it useful. Looks like a nice piece of software. Even more interesting will be when support for Cat2.0 CS-W is added, which is what I’m really looking forward to. GeoNetwork will also support the OAI interface. So all of this on top of an existing z39.50 interface, and we seem to have a repository which can interoperate on many specification levels. I’m looking forward to Jeroen’s participation in our Catalog/Discovery “birds of a feather” session on Thursday.

Well, that’s about it for now. Assefa and I are giving the MapServer OGC Web Services Workshop tomorrow, which I am looking forward to seeing new faces and participants who would like to implement MapServer for standards-based data and services.

More later, exercise 2 is starting 🙂

So I’m sitting here in Terminal one at Pearson International Airport, and quite excited to be commencing the journey to Lausanne for FOSS4G2006.

Checking in was a breeze, thank goodness for electronic check ins! Already I’m starting to feel international; you can just see it from looking at the folks boarding. This is how I felt when I went to Greece last year, and everytime I’ve travelled internationally.

In terms of Wifi access, I signed up with Boingo, which offers $20/month to any supported hotspot worldwide. Not a bad deal, considering who knows where I’ll be with the laptop for the next week or so.

So I’ve already taken some photos, but my transfer cable ended up in my checked-in luggage, so I’ll be sure to upload later. Hopefully there will also be an outlet in my seat on the airplane, as I’d like to post some thoughts about the FOSS4G2006 next week and what I’d like to see develop in the near and long term in our community. Which reminds me, I really should ask about this plug thing at the desk.

Gotta go. Next stop: Zurich en route to Geneva. Check back frequently for news, thoughts, updates and photos from the conference.

Update from Lausanne: I finally got to Lausanne, and they lost my luggage! Lovely. First thoughts. Very nice and beautiful city! And quite expensive ($10 CAD for a drink, $11 CAD for a combo at McDonald’s; no I didn’t eat there, but I checked). Good time to go on a diet 🙂

I took this week off, and decided to simply lay low and relax at home (relaxing in Toronto is a bit of an oxymoron, but I digress). So I’m enjoying my week by finishing up some small projects around the house, cooking, working out, and catching up in general.

So far, it’s been quite nice — I could get used to this! The only bummer comes in the form of my television, which konked out on me last night, sound and tube. Combine that with my stereo system (which is shot as well), and now I’m shopping for home entertainment — disaster!

At any rate, this is the last post you’ll see from me until after Canada’s Labour Day. In the meantime, check out Paul’s article about open source and users, as well as a response from Asa Dotzler of the Mozilla Corporation. Also worth checking out is Sam Bacharach’s podcast on OGC 101.

Have a good week!

Phew! I’ve finally been approved to attend this FOSS4G2006. Thank goodness. It will be fun to see the open source geo gang for a week of catching up, discussions, and setting the path forward.

I’ll be presenting use of foss4g in ResEau, co-presenting “How good does open source talk OpenGIS?” with Bart van den Eijnden (Netherlands) and Yewondwossen Assefa (Canada), as well as giving the MapServer OGC Web Services Workshop, again with Assefa.

Check back here when the conference is on, as I’ll be blogging updates, thoughts, and maybe the odd story 🙂