What is special about Geospatial?

The GeolocationAPIprovides the geolocation of a device running a Gears-enabled web browser. The Geolocation API allows web apps to retrieve the user’s current position. The API should provide the following features:

• One-shot position requests (e.g. for recommendations sites — “where am I right now?”)
• Repeated position updates (e.g. for continuously updating one’s location on a map)
• Ability to get the last-known position cheaply before doing an expensive new request
• Compatibility with future use as a singleton in the standard DOM (e.g. window.geolocation)

Link: http://code.google.com/p/google-gears/wiki/GeolocationAPI

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

The keynote of Google’s IO Event lasts about one and a half hour. The talk includes some of the Development news at Google including:

• GWT
• Ajax and Apps API
• Gears
• App Engine

But the most exciting part for me was the presentation of Steve Horowitz, from the Android team, showing first Android applications on a mobile phone. For example it is possible to virtually walk around US-cities. For this application Streetview photos are used. The navigation is done via a touchscreen and a build in compass.

The used phone (no logo which indicated the manufacture) has a touchscreen from Synaptics where the user can log in with an user defined gesture.

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Mozilla will soon release the third version of their Browser Firefox. With this release, which is expected in mid of June they want to break the download world record. For all who want to support this:

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Google’s 3D data has escaped the client and is now available for your Browser. Today at Google I/O a Google Earth Browser plugin was released. With the plugin it is possible to view Google Earth mashups in the comfort of their own browser instead of having to pull up a separate client.

A small excerpt from the O’Reilly post:

This release does not change Google Maps, the mapping site on Google’s domain; it will not be serving up Google Earth imagery (yet). This release does not change all Google maps mashups into Google Earth Mashups. Instead the plugin enables developers to offer Google Earth imagery to their users very easily. I think it is notable that this is being offered to developers first. Why developers first? For one the plugin is being released at Google I/O, Google’s developer conference. I think that we should expect many developer-only treats today and tomorrow. Second, mashups can really help with distribution and help gain mindshare with those who don’t make it to Google’s sites on their own.

As Paul Rademacher, the creator of the first mashup (Housingmaps.com) and the technical lead on the project, pointed out to me during a call last week “The goal, apart from opening up Google Earth, is to bring Earth to the user. You can’t help but see Google maps when you surf now you’ll also see Google Earth.” The final reason, I am sure, is to keep Google’s main mapping site clean. Google Maps has had a lot of features added lately; they will need to spend some time figuring out a 3D UX.

Here are some sample apps for trying out. You will be prompted to download the plugin:

• www.google.com/earth/plugin/examples/samples/ - A developer sandbox. It has a list of the possible API commands. (the screenshot above)
• www.google.com/earth/plugin/examples/template/ - Go to any location you want.
• www.google.com/earth/plugin/examples/milktruck/ - A cute game where you get to drive a Milk Truck around different locations. How many developers will take on the gaming challenge?
• www.google.com/earth/plugin/examples/mapsapi/ - A potential implementation of how a 2D app could share space with a 3D one. The last screenshot (after the jump) shows this one; it’s got a really nice shot of the web-based Google Earth controls.

[via http://radar.oreilly.com/geo]

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Dave Bouwman has done an informal “2008 Geospatial Developer Survey“. 320 people took the time and have completed the survey. He has now published some results.

I’ll sumerize some interesting points:

The role of people, who participated:

His statement:

The split across titles was somewhat interesting - almost even between “Analysts who write code”, and those who consider themselves “GIS Software Developers”, with “Software Engineer” trailing slightly. I see this as a progression from “getting things done” coding towards more “built to last” coding.

Primary Development Language:

The idea of this question was to get a feel for what you most commonly work with. “.NET” was the prominent platform with a 61% share.

Here is how the “other” broke out by count of times they were mentioned. As Dave I’m also surprised that there are still people using VB6 and VBA.

Use of ESRI products:

This is an interesting resut showing the dominace of ESRI in the GIS community.

Link: http://blog.davebouwman.net/2008/05/27/GeospatialDeveloperSurveyResults.aspx

Written and submitted from Home, using my 802.11g WiFi network.

Searching the own home place with Google Earth or Google Maps is definitively one of the most popular activities for many users. “Geoimage-Austria” has provided Google with new imagery for Burgenland, Upper Austria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Salzburg. All data is older than one year, but it should be possible to recognize an object with the size of an football.

Until 2009 a new, updated image is planned, which covers whole Austria.

Sample: Villach (this is older data, but also high resolution)

[via derStandard]

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2 FH Kärnten (Carinthian University of Applied Sciences) students have published a great 3D modell of the Hypo Group Arena in Klagenfurt. In a few days the Euro 2008 will start and more people will see the Euro stadium.

The 3D model was designed in a project course in the period of August to November 2007 by two students (Daniel Lesjak, Matic Mrak) of the degree program Telematics / Network Engineering at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences.

Link: http://www.fh-kaernten.at/euro2008/

Google Earth Model: http://www.fh-kaernten.at/tel-projekte/stadion.kmz

Written and submitted from CUAS, using their network.

Google is planning a german edition of “StreetView”. For “StreetView” pictures from street scenes of all major cities are taken. One major issue for StreetView in Europe is privacy. The European version will definitifely include blurring mechnaisms for faces and code plate, as it was introduced in the USA.

The german newspaper Focus has interviewed Peter Fleisch from Google. He said that, they are en route around Europe and want to come to Germany. Furthermore the magaize reported that Deutsche Post is working on a simmilar project. This was accredited by Deutsche Post, and they are working on a picture database for german cities.

“Die Post möchte die Bilder unter anderem für ihre Adressdatenbank statistisch auswerten und einen virtuellen Stadtbesuch anbieten”, teilte eine Sprecherin der Datenschutzbeauftragten Nordrhein-Westfalens mit.

[via winfuture.de]

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I’ve found this great video on Google Earth Blog. The application was developed with Apple’s iPhone SDK.

Is this the way we will interact with geospatial data in near future?

[via Google Earth Blog]

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ESRI has announced enhancements for ArcGIS Server in version 9.3. I will shortly summurize the most improtant ones of the new release:

• REST and JavaScript APIs
• Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Services Support
• PostgreSQL Support
• Collaborative Design Activity (COLLADA) File Support
• Improved Performance
• Better Diagnostics
• Enhanced Security
• More Documentation

ArcGIS 9.3 is expected to be available in the third quarter of 2008.

Interesting for Developers:

ArcGIS 9.3 will support Visual Studio 2008 in ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Engine, and ArcGIS Server for customization and development. In addition, ArcGIS 9.3 will continue to support Visual Studio 2005. ArcGIS 9.3 will still have the Visual Basic (VB) 6 Software Developer Kit (SDK) for ArcGIS Engine and ArcGIS Desktop, but it will be the last release that will support VB 6. ArcGIS Server 9.3 will support .NET 3.5.

ArcGIS 9.3 will not support Visual C++ 6.0. In fact, ArcGIS 9.1 was the last release that supported it. However, if you want to do COM Visual C++ development at ArcGIS 9.2 and 9.3, ESRI will support that language via Visual Studio 2005 (not Visual Studio 6).

ArcGIS Server 9.3 will support the following operating systems:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS/ES 4.0 Update 2
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
• Sun Solaris 10 (SPARC)
• Sun Solaris 9 (SPARC)
• Windows 2000 SP4 Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter
• Windows 2003 SP2 Server Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter
• Windows 2003 SP2 (64-bit) Server Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter
• Windows Vista SP1 Ultimate, Enterprise, and Business
• Windows XP SP2 Professional Edition

[via ESRI.com]

Written and submitted from CUAS, using their network.