Infoterra and BlueSky announce GeoPerspectives

Infoterra Ltd and BlueSky Ltd have launched GeoPerspective, a new suite of airborne acquired geospatial data. From the company... Building on the most successful nationwide aerial survey previously marketed as UK Perspectives, GeoPerspectives has now redefined the standards for quality, type and coverage of aerial-based geographic information.  GeoPerspectives is delivering the next generation of data for England & Wales using the latest digital imaging technology. This enables the simultaneous capture of RGB and colour infra-red imagery and, via automated processing, the rapid creation of digital terrain and surface models. See www.geoperspectives.co.uk - Note, James from BlueSky wanted me to remind reaers that the annual AGI (Assoc. of Geographic Information) conference is taking place in London next week (12th-14) see www.agi.org.uk

another ESRI uc conference video and creepy cello guy??

I was just surfing youtube and found a 7 minute video from the ESRI UC. The video was posted by a group that calls themselves gisnation (sorry but I'm not familiar with them - think veryspatial knock-off!). Anyway, 3 gisers offer up a 7 minute take on the conference from the comfort of their hotel room (actually it looks like a motel) One funny bit though is their reference to "creepy cello guy"... if you were at the event and walked around the upper level you may have seen this guy and yes indeed, he was a bit creepy! The cello playinng was pretty nice but the whole package was definitely creepy. Made me think of middle age Fabio crossed with Mick Jager, gone classical! Anyway, turns out "cello guy" is actually a pro and has his own website etc... if you want more info about cello guy see Marston Smith's website at http://www.marstonsmith.com/main.html - if you want to see the ESRI videoblog see youtube and search "gisnation"

Blogger beta upgrade

In case any readers of Planet Geospatial are wondering why all of a sudden all the posts from my anygeo blog have reapeared it's likely due to the fact that i just "upgrade" the blog to blogger beta. Apparently it recreated/republished everything and as a result planet geo reindexed a bunch of posts as if they were new. James, sorry about that and hopefully the migration doesn't freak out anything else... a good test i guess!

2005 National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) county mosaic available

This from the North Dakota State GIS Coordinator, the 2005 NAIP county mosaic color aerial photo data is now available for download from the GIS Hub file server. These data are 1-meter and compressed (15:1) MrSID files and are very large. The files files are of type .sid, .aux, .sdw, .txt, .xml and placed the zip(s) into their appropriate directories. Some of the larger counties were split into multiple files to avoid a file size download limit. In those directories, for example Morton County, there are multiple ZIP files ending in a number. Please view the 'README_File_Joining.txt' in these directories for instructions on how to use the included utility software to combine the multiple ZIP files into a single ZIP on your PC. To access the data visit http://www.nd.gov/gis/mapsdata/download/ and click on the 'NAIP Aerial Photography' link. As soon as they are available, 2005 NAIP quads will be available and a statewide mosaic will be made available on the GIS Hub database.

update on the Free DRG internet archive movement

According to the most recent news update over at the DRG ransom project, the uploading of the DRGs to the Internet ARchive server should commence soon. According to the author (Jared) they will hopefully be available soon. From http://ransom.redjar.org/ ... "The hard drive full of maps arrived at the Internet Archive today. The maps have already been transferred to a temporary staging server. We hope to make them available for download with a very minimal web front-end soon". Note, once completed the DRGs that the GIS community reimbursed Jared some $1600+ for will be freely accessible to all via the Internet Archive. More on this effort can be found at the Libre Map Project - http://libre.redjar.org/maps/ and the Internet archive can be found at http://www.archive.org/. Does anyone have any more info or background about the Internet Archive org? I'd love to hear some comments on this movement.

GIS Interns needed at $11 hour??? Come on, get real!

I had to laugh.. well actually, its kinda sad... I just ran into an ad for a GIS intern (proficeint with ArcGIS 9.x, geodatabse knowledge etc...) and the hiring county is actually offering up a whopping $11 hour for the lucky candidate. I have no idea how someone is supposed to live in Ann Arbor Michigan on $11 hr let alone cover EDU costs etc... but really, $11.. is that what an inntern is worth? Geesh... I made more (much more) babysitting a plotter on one of my first internships way back when. Of note, the job ad I saw was just posted and has a closing date of Sept 11 (that's in several days) so obviously the interest hasn't been that great.. for obvious reasons. I think the people at Washtenaw County need to open their wallets a bit wider anad maybe take this a bit more seriously. Are any of you working for $11 hr for a countyas a skilled GIS Analyst... I sure hope not!

CBS News now with Katie Couric and available via Google Earth KML

I've always been an NBC news guy but now that Katie Couric has taken over the lead anchor on the evening news at CBS I may have to try switching that dial at 6 o'clock. Add to that, I can now access CBS headline news updates using Google Earth as they are now streaming KMLs to users... sweet!
On a side note, kudos to my GISuser friend Warren Vick over at Europa Technologies... way cool seeing that company credit front and center when you fire up Google earth...nice stuff Warren! Google has licensed Europa's International borders and place names for use in Earth - check out their global Discovery vector data product at http://www.europa-tech.com/gd.htm - this is THE dataset for small scale mapping projects and those needing a Global database

Autodesk University attendees flocking to registration

According to Autodesk evangelist Lynn Allen registration for AU is rockingn this year with somme 1,000 more attendees already registered compared to this time last year. Perhaps people are simplly getting organized and registering prior to the EDU budget being blown, or perhaps AU is preparing for another record year... I'm thinking people are pretty hyped about getting back to Vegas this year (nothing against Orlando) as IMHO Vegas is a much beter venue for Autodesk U. Recall this year the bash will take place at the swanky Venetian so you better pack a few more dollars in the expense wallet. Rumor has it though that the tables and dealers are kinder to you at the Venetian compared to the MGM.. we'll wait and see about that one! More on AU 2006 can be found at http://www.autodeskevents.com/au2006/