Reblogged from The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World:

Reblogged from Donoghue and Associates:

I have been trawling around for a while now trying to find a simple and understandable way of representing geospatial data in R, whilst retaining the ability to manipulate the visualisation in ggplot. After much searching I came across some articles which got me to a working product only after a lot of ball ache. All the coding is done in R, so if you don’t know what it is click here. I keep the code simple, mainly because I don’t need it to be more complex for my purposes, but it also helps newbies like me learn the syntax faster.

GGMAP is a package that was developed by David Kahle and Hadley Wickham (Hadley being the guy behind ggplot2). If you want more detail see David’s slides from the 8th International R User Conference.

 
1.0 Fetching a Map

Maps may be brought into R from a number of sources, the two main ones are GoogleMaps and OpenStreetMap. The code needed to fetch the map is slightly different depending on where you want the data from. Below are some examples:

 
libary (ggmap) 

ggmap(
	get_googlemap(
		center=c(-3.17486, 55.92284), #Long/lat of centre, or "Edinburgh"
		zoom=14, 
		maptype='satellite', #also hybrid/terrain/roadmap
		scale = 2), #resolution scaling, 1 (low) or 2 (high)
		size = c(600, 600), #size of the image to grab
		extent='device', #can also be "normal" etc
		darken = 0) #you can dim the map when plotting on top

ggsave ("/Users/s0679701/Desktop/map.png", dpi = 200) #this saves the output to a file

This outputs the following files:

maptype = “satellite”

maptype = “roadmap”

maptype = “terrain”

We can also obtain a map from OpenStreetMap:

libary (ggmap) 

ggmap(
	get_openstreetmap (
	bbox = c(-3.16518, 55.91899, -3.18473, 55.92716), 
	format = "png"
	),

ggsave ("/Users/s0679701/Desktop/map.png", dpi = 200) #this saves the output to a file

You may receive the following error:

 Error: map grabbing failed - see details in ?get_openstreetmap.
In addition: Warning message:
In download.file(url, destfile = destfile, quiet = !messaging, mode = "wb") :
  cannot open: HTTP status was '503 Service Unavailable'

This is because the OpenMapServer has issues, and so you just need to be lucky! Hence why there is no OpenStreetMap for this example…. yet.

 
2.0 Plotting on a Map

You can plot any [x,y, +/- z] information you’d like on top of a ggmap, so long as x and y correspond to longitudes and latitudes within the bounds of the map you have fetched. To plot on top of the map you must first make your map a variable and add a geom layer to it. Here is an example:

libary (ggmap) 

#Generate some data
long = c(-3.17904, -3.17765, -3.17486, -3.17183)
lat = c(55.92432, 55.92353, 55.92284, 55.92174)
who = c("Darren", "Rachel", "Johannes", "Romesh")
data = data.frame (long, lat, who)

map = ggmap(
	get_googlemap(
		center=c(-3.17486, 55.92284), 
		zoom=16, 
		maptype='hybrid', 
		scale = 2), 

		size = c(600, 600),
		extent='normal', 
		darken = 0)

map + geom_point (
		data = data,
		aes (
			x = long, 
			y = lat, 
			fill = factor (who)
			), 
		pch = 21, 
		colour = "white", 
		size = 6
		) +

	scale_fill_brewer (palette = "Set1", name = "Homies") +

	#for more info on these type ?theme()	
	theme ( 
		legend.position = c(0.05, 0.05), # put the legend INSIDE the plot area
		legend.justification = c(0, 0),
		legend.background = element_rect(colour = F, fill = "white"),
		legend.key = element_rect (fill = F, colour = F),
		panel.grid.major = element_blank (), # remove major grid
		panel.grid.minor = element_blank (),  # remove minor grid
		axis.text = element_blank (), 
		axis.title = element_blank (),
		axis.ticks = element_blank ()
		) 

ggsave ("/Users/s0679701/Desktop/map.png", dpi = 200)

This simple code should be enough to get you going making your own plots. If you have any questions about this code or your own, then please don’t hesitate with getting in touch via the comments below.

Happy Mapping!

There’s this idea in software development of the minimum viable product, which in my opinion isn’t the same thing as the minimum useful feature set, but there’s probably some debate.

The first term pivots on the  idea of “viability” — whether this means financially viable, or something else is debatable. The second term talks about a set of features that are useful, or those features that can complete a workflow or task. In my opinion, “viability” or “marketability” is a fuzzy term because I’ve seen things that are marginally useful, and many that are not useful at all, be marketed and make a lot of money.

Regardless,  TrueNorth reached the second milestone a few months ago when I actually started using it to do some research (see my post on measuring GPS accuracy; we used TrueNorth to do the file format and unit conversions), which I went on to present at a national Search and Rescue conference.

Then I found myself using TrueNorth more and more often to accomplish minor tasks that needed doing; look at the terrain at a certain place, compare Google Satellite to OpenStreetMap, convert coordinate systems, or just to print something for a friend’s hiking trip.

Finally, last week I realized that I was using TrueNorth to print maps to send to the local police in an ongoing missing person’s case. That’s when it hit me; TrueNorth is being used. It’s useful. Even if only to me.

So today we announced that TrueNorth is officially in beta testing.

Over  the next few months we’re going to field test TrueNorth in the environment of a Search and Rescue team, a group of unpaid backcountry professionals. It’s a big milestone, and a very exciting time for BlueToque. If you want to follow along, go and read the TrueNorth development blog. If you want to be a tester at some point, sign up for the email list. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to let the outside world take a look.

This article is the fourth and final part of a 4 part series on Geography’s Role in Online Internet Marketing.

How does Geography inform Location Based Applications?

Geography is a central function to a Location Based application. There are several mobile applications that require a user’s location prior to providing search results. These applications are great for gathering information on a customers commercial tendencies, but rely on a customer to opt-in to having their physical location captured.

Often times Location Based applications, such as FourSquare and Yelp!, do not actively solicit a customer to use their application and rely on the user’s interaction. They encourage users to share their location by awarding game-like achievements for frequenting a given place. They also rely on local businesses ( or Franchises ) to award coupons and discounts for check-in’s. This is advantageous as often times users have their location distributed to their social media profiles, which creates a ripple effect that could potentially be used to market a business’ products or services to a user’s internet friend base.

One disadvantage to location based applications is that their geodata tends to be fixed in a certain place. Much like physical billboards seen decorating a given street, business profiles are linked to a specified space. These spaces tend to be points composed of point data, relying on a Longitude and Latitude value and do not travel too well. This causes an issue for businesses that are mobile, such as food trucks and vendors at a farmer’s market. Most location based applications will not allow you to check-in with a given business if your location is further than a specified distance from the business’ point location.

Another geographical disadvantage to location based application is reporting. There isn’t a clean way to report on where customers are looking for a given destination. For instance, if a user is looking for a Belgian bar on a particular cross street, or if they were looking for a florist next to their work, there isn’t a way of capturing that data and exposing that back to the community. Imagine how useful this information would be to an economic development agency or a business improvement district.

Thanks a ton,
@ROB_MOR

Call for Papers

January 24th, 2013 by Gabriel Bodard

Total CAD Systems, Inc.’s

AIM for the Sky

Workshop

Join Us February 28, 2013!

The "AIM for the Sky" hands on workshop will show that the Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler (AIM) is not just about pretty pictures. AIM can also be used as a preliminary design analysis tool. Join us to find out how AIM can quickly do surface analysis and get area calculations, then see how to convey your design by developing a quality video to present to your clientele.

Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler (a.k.a. AIM) is pre-construction visualization software that can aid in civil engineering, transportation, and urban planning. The software helps to create, evaluate and communicate proposals prior to construction. It can also be helpful in driving stakeholder buy-ins. The decisions of the stakeholder buy-ins can be made with visualization proposals for transportation, land, water, and energy projects.

Discover how to:

Connect data through the Data Sources dialog box
Stylize the models that are connected
Add 3D models from Trimble® 3D Warehouse (formerly known as Google 3D Warehouse) to the Style Palette and then place them in your workspace
Basic measurements and surface analysis
Create a video flyby
…and more!

About the Speaker

Todd Rogers worked in the Civil Engineering field for 16 years before he made the transition to become a certified Autodesk Instructor and Support Specialist in 2007.

Todd is a Certified Partner Service Expert (P.S.E.) in multiple Autodesk platforms. He provides hardware and software solutions for customers using engineering applications within different engineering principles. Todd is a leader in customizing company standards to fit their everyday workflow and creating solutions to problems due to software or hardware error.

When

Thursday, February 28th

9am to 4pm

Where

Total CAD Systems, Inc.

480 N. Sam Houston Pkwy. E. Ste. 234

Houston, TX 77060

Directions

Presenter

Todd Rogers

1 Day

$150

Space is limited. RSVP Today.

Register Now

After registration, you will receive a confirmation email. 

Stay Connected

There were some very interesting concepts and applications being shown at DGI. Many vendors had systems that allowed exploring detail of a landscape. This included things like terrain mapping from imagery, flood prediction overlays on the coast, and determining how boggy ground is when planning an operation.

Also on show was an application that takes a live video stream and positional data from the camera, and converts that in to aerial photography polygons which can be overlaid in real time on to a map. I had an interesting conversation with this chap, as he did not believe any database could take the metadata for all the frames and positional data and catalogue them in real time, given the rate of photography. I personally think with MarkLogic this can easily be done, but there was no convincing him!

Of particular interest to me was the fact that in all these applications they were running limited amounts of data through relational database systems. BAe System’s GXP Xplorer, for example, currently uses Postgres. They haven’t tested a huge rate of queries, so haven’t yet hit performance issues. I predict they, along with the other app vendors present, will (especially with Oracle support on their road map!). In addition they for some reason are only able to do a basic ‘show me whats in this square’ geospatial query. I made sure to let them know about MarkLogic’s advanced geospatial functionality. Apparently they really want circle (lat/lon and radius) query, but can’t currently do this! This is easy for MarkLogic.

There were a couple of our partners there we’ve worked with before.  As I said, I was working with SGI on their stand, talking about Big Data and their DataRaptor appliance with the MarkLogic database installed, validated and supported by them. I also had brief chats with ESRI and Raytheon who we have worked with before on large US DoD and IC projects.

The main session talks were good. Lots of input from the British Military. Several RAF and Army senior officers giving opinions on what’s going on with Geospatial and multi source intelligence, along with the restructuring going on. Only downside was the really badly laid out exhibition hall where booths were cramped together in the middle rather than laid out logically on the conference room edges. A few good conversations had though, and some useful insights gleaned.

We know that global geospatial adoption is far from uniform and we see the effect of localized differences requiring specific approaches. Data availability, infrastructure, education, and market development all play a part along with differences such as language. As a result, a user in Lebanon is likely to have a different set of desires and constraints from a user in Eritrea. But how might these differences impact opportunities and challenges in 2013?

In recent years solution providers have tended to move away from feature led, one size fits all to solutions more tailored to end users. With geospatial now serving as an information hub underpinning critical information systems, decision makers want to leverage this by employing systems that more closely reflect their day to day workflows. This makes sense since solutions should always fit the task (rather than the reverse). This transition is surfacing in distinct ways in international markets, often with large organizations driving change. Having already invested in geospatial for a number years for these organizations 2013 is likely to be about decentralizing, collaborating, and sharing by transitioning to systems that accomplish this more easily. Mobile will also play a role as devices become more pervasive, users in the field will want to take these benefits with them. Here geospatial apps will deliver the change.

Outside of this group demand for solutions which offer bundled functionality will continue to grow. This is either because the task remains specialized or the infrastructure required to power a more connected workflow places limits on deploying a cloud solution. Interestingly, for many countries, the adoption chain for geospatial may look very different. In some African countries mobile data networks are more reliable and pervasive than cable, supporting the rapid expansion of mobile where personal computing stalled. A geospatial revolution here lends itself to cloud/app infrastructure rather than client/server. As a result these countries could bypass this initial adoption stage completely.

So what of the challenges?  Increasingly geospatial capability will be delivered in an environment where budgets are under increasing pressure and where infrequent capital expenditure is replaced by frequent operational budgeting. This aligns well with new cloud based offers but again the effect is not uniform. Countries hitting their stride in 2013 will want to invest and catch up quickly and so may continue to favour capital led investment.

Globalised geospatial data sharing will also drive the need for systems that are able to fuse multi-source data from many sensor types into multi-modality analyses. With increasing users turning to RADAR, LiDAR, and FMV, coupled with big data and the growth of satellite sensors in 2013, user expectations require that everything works together seamlessly. This relies on continued advancement of successful format standardization.

This year I hope to see the emergence of a more flexible data market. Within recent years the GIS data market has opened after being challenged by the emergence of competitive and innovative providers. This is more complex in the imagery market because the emergence of drone collection data could trigger low cost competition. And that competition could lead to increased accessibility of up to date remotely sensed data for all, no matter where they are in the world.

January 2013

Happy New Year!

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is the nation’s primary source of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT).  As a Department of Defense combat support agency and a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community, NGA creates GEOINT using remotely sensed data, physical geography, land cover and cultural data collected by a myriad of sources to help its mission partners visualize and understand the world.  NGA’s mission is to provide timely, relevant and accurate GEOINT in support of U.S. national defense and natural disasters.

NGA offers careers in Springfield, Virginia and at two facilities located in St. Louis, Missouri.  In addition, mission requirements continuously offer deployment opportunities to NGA employees in worldwide locations, providing intelligence expertise in support of national defense objectives.

NGA careers consist of a variety of work-roles to meet our robust mission!  The skills of interest include Analytical, Business, and Technical backgrounds.

Our recruitment teams are committed to continuing a campus partnership that provides us the opportunity to meet so many outstanding students.  Spring 2013 graduates receiving degrees in relevant studies are encouraged to explore the opportunities.  A career at NGA offers training, benefits, and a variety of unique experiences.  Explore career choices and agency details at www.nga.mil.

Thanks to students, faculty, and campus affiliates for another year of exciting recruiting on campus!

Very Respectfully,

Recruitment and Career Development

Human Development Office

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Metadata Publication from MaCGDI

Normally, there are few things that I will check before buying an item. Among others the brand name, expiry date, nutrition content, etc. these are important information for consumer and we are grateful most of the consumer friendly manufacturers oblige with the labelling guideline & regulation.

In most occasions, the labelling standard is strictly regulated and the consumers do not need to second guess the contents because someone else has done the quality control and inspection for us. For example, we do not need to worry the fuel from our petrol stations will be damaging to our car engine, as long as we do not mixed up diesel and petrol fuels.

I can’t imagine what will happened if our fuels were without proper ISO standard or labelling (diesel, RON 95, RON 97, etc), without knowing the gasoline content, without knowing the quality rating, etc. how are you going to know either you are choosing the right fuel type for your car?

Similar in geospatial industry, we need proper labelling for our GIS data. This is one of the important milestone in national geospatial development and MaCGDI (Malaysian Centre for Geospatial Data Infrastructure) is actively promoting the importance of metadata among GIS users.

The U.S. FGDC (Federal Geographic Data Committee) defines geospatial metadata as: “A metadata record is a file of information, usually presented as an XML document, which captures the basic characteristics of a data or information resource. It represents the who, what, when, where, why and how of the resource. Geospatial metadata are used to document geographic digital resources such as Geographic Information System (GIS) files, geospatial databases, and earth imagery. A geospatial metadata record includes core library catalog elements such as Title, Abstract, and Publication Data; geographic elements such as Geographic Extent and Projection Information; and database elements such as Attribute Label Definitions and Attribute Domain Values.“

Unless you are operating in isolation, else in most instances you will need to exchange data with someone else. In order for your data to be discoverable and meaningful to your potential users, your data need to have few simple labels among other like title, content description, keyword, date of creation, data owner, data limitation etc. These will provide your users with sufficient details to understand the source of the data that he or she is going to use with greater certainty.

Simply put, Metadata is label for your data. Without a proper descriptive label, your data (product) will not be meaningful to your users. Even in small operation, as a manager it is always a good practice to instil the discipline of maintaining your metadata for easy retrieval and reference in future.

–

Mobile software competitors–Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, and a host of others–all share the same hunch that maps sit at the core of our digital future.

–

“We think there have been three big shifts in what people were asking online,” says Hans Peter Brondmo, Nokia’s head of new product innovation. “The first was ‘what’–Google won that battle. The second question was ‘who,’ and Facebook won that. The next big question is ‘where,’ and that’s what we’re fighting to become, the Where company.”

–

All these companies will keep pouring money into cartography because of its inherent, unknowable promise. Inevitably, though perhaps not anytime soon, any successful effort to wring big money from mobile devices seems likely to depend on knowing exactly where users are and where they want to go. Mapping requires, and creates, huge troves of user data. The bet is that the data will lead to insights into user behavior that can then be turned in to new products. Or, failing that, to methods for predicting customer actions in order to serve up better ads. “We think there’s a lot of potential,” says Matthew Quinlan, Bing’s maps chief, echoing his peers’ feelings. “Future potential.”

via Google, Apple, Nokia, And The Quest For The Perfect Map | Fast Company.

Vince Lombardi once said “practice doesn’t make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect”. This is one of those quotes that just sticks with you and can be applied to so many parts of our daily lives. It reminds us in work and play to step back and ask am I just practicing or am I truly perfecting what I do?

For the assessment and parcel mapping community, ensuring fair and equitable taxation for your constituents is something certainly worth perfecting, wouldn’t you agree?. To do this there are many geospatial tools and programs you can leverage that help you take an auditing approach to ascertain the validity and reliability of your tax parcel information. To perform an audit of your real property we recommend you take multiple steps for identifying gaps or inconsistencies between graphic and non-graphic databases such as your GIS and CAMA data.

Steps to Performing a Real Property Audit™

There are various steps you can take to perform an audit that compares real property databases to ensure the right data is being used for proper assessments. As most modern CAMA systems use the sketch to derive a base value, the first step would be to export the sketches from the CAMA system. Once exported, they can be placed on the parcel centroid, scaled and rotated to match the orthophoto. This allows you to visually classify each sketch with potential error types such as undersized, oversized, or wrong sketch. An error report utilizing an automated analytic process that compares the sketch areas with what’s in the CAMA system can then be generated. This answers the question of do your CAMA sketches match what’s on the ground. In the examples below I think we can agree the answer is no. In these examples the blue polygon is the CAMA sketch and the red is what’s actually on the ground.

In addition to auditing sketches, it is necessary to validate the topology of your data. While topology may be typically checked during the edit process, some errors still slip through the cracks. The best way to identify these errors is to run a detailed and thorough topology audit to make sure that there are no gaps, dangles, overlaps, undershoots, or any other connectivity issues. These small and often overlooked errors can have a big effect on any analysis performed on the data. Another efficient method of locating errors in the data is to have an accurate orphan record report that identifies the following errors

• Records in the graphic database with no match in the non-graphic property database
• Records in the CAMA database with no match to the graphic database
• Records in the CAMA database with multiple matches in the graphic database

The same tools used to produce the orphan record report can also used to verify whether or not the acreage (or square footage) in the CAMA and the acreage in the GIS match.

Benefits

The art of perfecting what you do through more accurate data produces a whole host of benefits including:

• Ensuring fair and equitable taxation
• Fewer appeals due to better data
• Discovery of missing tax revenue
• Substantial reductions in field work
• GIS & CAMA database become tightly coupled to eliminate future discrepancies
• Increased level of public confidence

Audits can be performed internally if you have the extra staff and resources to dedicate enough time to get it done quickly and efficiently. If this is the case in your county then we encourage you to start the process for the betterment of your communities. For those that don’t have the resources, we have created a Real Property Audit™ Program that rolls all of the previously mentioned processes into one nice neat package. Once you become a part of the program we provide an independent review of the data, perform all of the various audit phases, and deliver back the coded sketch layer and a report of findings for each type of audit with recommendations. We also provide, for a limited time, an online GIS viewer with the errors color coded to help you visualize and review the discoveries. Whether or not this is a program you do internally or you look for a partner, I would ask once again are you practicing or perfecting?

Email sales@sds-inc.com or fill out the form below if you would like to learn more about our Real Property Audit Program™

Sure, we might be taking a potshot with that comment – but in using software that we have already paid for, we can develop interactive maps right within Microsoft Excel and publish them to our Web site.

Actually, no one can even come close to the kind of branding that we can put into our analytical portals.  With Microsoft Excel and SharePoint we have complete control over the kind of branding that we provide in our solutions for customers.  It makes it much easier for the end-users to interpret their reports quickly and make decisions.

When you have that kind of visual insight, it is a productivity GAIN and not a DRAIN.

Enjoy, Patrick

This article is the second part of a 4 part series on how Geography’s Roles in Online Internet Marketing.

Search Engine Optimization is an internet marketing tool that businesses use to promote their website content.  A good SEO strategy involves all facets of a website and mixed forms of media, including rich images and videos.  However, text is the most important part to an SEO campaign.  This is due to how optimization relies on two things – search engines and websites with business content.  Search engines, such as Google and Bing!, use algorithms behind the scenes in order to provide you with the most accurate and relevant results based on your query.

How does Geography inform Search Engine Optimization?

Associating keywords with content is central to an SEO campaign.  Often times internet marketers rely on geographical references, such as a city or neighborhood, to ensure that their website ranks high among a given search result.  This is one form of geographies influence on internet marketing, but doesn’t necessarily include any sort of spatial data as to where the customer physically conducted their search from.

Sure, SEO could be used to measure the amount of times a given geographical keyword was referenced in order to bring traffic to a given website.  However, this relies on a potential customer to project their spatial identity into the search box.   This is to say, that a customer needs to think of themselves as a person in a place in order to refine their search results.  The issue here is that there are multiple cities, towns and neighborhoods that could make up a media market.

Ultimately the big advantage of internet marketing is the fragmentation of audiences.  Not just their fragmentation in taste, but their fragmentation in space.  This allows marketers to fine tune a message to a particular neighborhood, but relies on these messages being crafted in a manner that are relevant to a given place’s identity.

Thanks a ton,
@ROB_MOR

究其遠近成因，大致有幾，短期內應無改善跡象：

• 代議士幾無資通訊背景出身，部分邏輯訓練不佳
• 資通訊產業變化快速， 從事政治的代議士助理，多無相關背景知識，亦無相關的人際脈絡

而實際來看，則有幾個很基本的概念，望代議士諸君與助理，天天開車，至少能有個初淺的認識：

• GPS 是全球定位系統，並不是指地圖。若有所謂的「GPS 資訊內容」，也不包含圖資 (map data)
• 目前通用的 GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System)，有美國的 GPS、俄羅斯的 GLONASS、中國北斗星以及歐盟的 Galileo 等。台灣常見到的車用導航機，全部支援 GPS，但支援其他系統的 GNSS，仍屬少見。車窗前的那一台車用導航機，僅是使用此類 GNSS 系統的一個終端載具
• 台灣沒有所謂的「國家版的 GPS」
• 在圖資部分，與車用導航較為相關者，有交通部運研所的的路網數值圖，以及各家廠商，無論是國內或是國外登記立案者，所自行建立和加值的導航圖資
• 早期國土測繪的權責單位，並無產生可用於車用導航的路網數值圖。給車用導航機使用者圖資和一般的印刷地圖，是很不一樣的

在管制作法的背景概念部分：

• 對所謂的「不合格圖資」進行檢驗，甚至訂定罰則等，就是對「內容」做審查。或是更精確的來說，是對「資料」做審查和管制。我很好奇，目前國內什麼樣的單位，還在對資料或是內容做審查，甚至可以因為資料之不正確，導致資料的使用者有損失時，還需要資料載體 (device) 的生產單位，附上連帶的賠償責任？
• 殊不知，這些圖資內容，多數的原始路網數值資料，則是來自於不同的政府單位
• 政府各單位所釋出的圖資，無論是可供車用導航機所使用，或是僅僅為印刷之需求所製圖者，品質仍參差不齊、訛誤多有。此事幾乎各國皆然，只是程度的差異

在車用導航機廠商「應負」的責任部分：

• 廠商因行銷策略而造成駕駛人對於車用導航機之期待、使用，以及其他衍生性行為，是市場、行銷、教育以及期待管理的問題，絕大多數不是法規管制的問題。例如車用導航機的先天使用限制，冷啟動和熱啟動，車用導航機 GPS 晶片優劣、導航圖資呈現，以及路徑規劃結果之合理期待等問題

在此簡單陳述上列幾點，實際狀況更為複雜，但問題是錯的，當然解法也不會是對的。本意良善，但無的放矢，則不可取。要避免民眾迷路，那就找 Toyota 做無人駕駛汽車好了。

Thanks to all who participated contributed to our discussions, and I wish you safe travels.

Take a look at the image below…

Note that the building looks absolutely fine.  BUT, there is a way to get more detail out of this.  For instance, look again at the balconies.  Wouldn’t it be nice if they were actual balconies and not just an image draped on the structure?

This can be accomplished very easily.

Click on the Application menu in the upper left corner and select Options…

Once in the Options dialog box, choose 3D Generation.  To the right, change your Building Complexity to High and select OK.

The changes will not take effect until you regenerate your model.  To do this, click on the Manage tab.  Under the Generate panel, select Generate Model.

After the regeneration takes place, the result is as seen below…

Notice now that the balconies are actual balconies and the windows have depth to them.  You can also see that the poles are now objects projected from the building. 

Happy New Year, good luck and check back often.

With the official announcement of the Intergraph Geospatial 2013 portfolio of products that included GeoMedia 2013, Erdas Imagine 2013, ImageStation 2013, LPS 2013, Erdas Apollo 2013, GeoMedia WebMap 2013, GeoMedia Smart Client 2013, Geospatial Portal 2013, Geospatial SDI 2013, Intergraph has also introduced some new online resources and changed the licensing system.

Geospatial Product Downloads site

I have already written about the new Geospatial Product Downloads site that is available at Intergraph Resources page or from the Download tab on the individual product pages.

Geospatial TV

Intergraph has a new resource called Geospatial TV with online movies (which they call webisodes) that will be three to eight minutes in length and will be capturing developments and other happenings within Intergraph Geospatial. All of these videos will be also available on YouTube Intergraph channel.

Common licensing system for all products in Intergraph Geospatial 2013

As the Intergraph Geospatial 2013 portfolio is now united, Intergraph has introduced a common licensing system for all products in Intergraph Geospatial 2013 portfolio.

It is part of the foundation for, but does not define the scope of the project (WBS does). they can be very frustrating or very useful, depending on how they are used and applied. For example funding agencies need to consider funding participatory approaches if they want them to be relevant – there is little point in me as a Project Manager writing it in a darkened room late one night to support a funding application – Whats the point. They are very good in theory, but in reality they quickly become dated, and don’t work in every scenario, they can quickly become irrelevant without involvement of the target community or a feedback loop – waiting until the end of the project to update it is illogical.

I first became interested in Logical Frameworks in 2005 when working for a funding agency and used them to gain support form the board for projects to demonstrate the use of new technology – And then again while I was working in Iraq and Afghanistan on USAID funded projects, in that context they were very useful when describing a project to provincial government official to gain their support when we were implementing 19 enterprise spatial data management systems (GIS) for tracking infrastructure and donor funding. In my current role we will be using them this year in support of the development of a series of a GeoSpatial strategy development.

The Logical framework is a document prepared after need/requirement data is collected and analysed. This approach is also sometimes called Goal, Objective or Results Orientated Planning, it is relatively unknown outside of the development environment, and the document prepared as a result is referred to as a Logframe.

What I like about the Logical framework in particular is the coordinated linking of goals and outcomes, outputs and activities. All to often we are exposed to lofty corporate goals and ideals, and as managers expected to “make it happen”.

Within our Conservation focused PMD Pro workshops, I introduce this topic by a show of hands to this question: “Ever worked on a project and wondered why am I doing this task?” typically the answer is 100% yes every time. Sharing a simplified one page logical framework with project team members can help reduce this information gap and improves understanding and project buy-in. 

PMD Pro Logical Framework

“The logical framework matrix identifies and communicates the logical relationships in a project by tracking the vertical and horizontal reasoning that connects the levels of the matrix. While there are many versions of project logical frameworks, the PMD Pro subscribes to a four-level logical framework model:

• Activities are actions taken through which inputs (financial, human, technical, material and time resources) are mobilized to produce the deliverables (training, constructing, etc.) of a project for which staff can be held accountable and which, when aggregated, produce outputs.

• Outputs are tangible deliverables resulting from project activities. They include products, goods, services and changes (e.g. people trained with increased knowledge and skill; quality roads built) that aggregate and contribute to outcomes. 

• Outcomes are what the project expects to accomplish at the beneficiary level (e.g. use of knowledge and skills in actual practice over time; transportation of goods on constructed roads over time) and contribute to population-level changes (reduced malnutrition, improved incomes, improved yields, etc.) that aggregate and help bring about accomplishment of goals and impact over time.

• Goals are the highest level desired end results or impacts (transformation, sustainability, livelihood, well-being etc.) to which the project contributes (the ultimate objective in many logical frameworks).” 

PMD Pro Indicators Guidelines by Logical Framework Level

 The development of Indicators, Verification and Assumptions is an art in itself, courses are available, and the New Zealand government even run train the trainer courses in a modified benefits analysis framework.

It is a tool to ensure the Right project is done, it will not tell you how to do the project right, it is not an implementation plan, and it should not be signed off as final, it should be updated and circulated widely and iteratively within the project team and appropriate stakeholders.

I have collected a number of documents relating to the development of Logical Frameworks that you can download at: www.pm4gis.org/downloads

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