WMS Inspector Extension For Firefox

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Et godt tip ...
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This surely comes in handy ...
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Adria Mercador writes to announce his WMS Inspector Extension (WMS = Web Map Service) for the Firefox browser:

• Load all WMS requests in the current page and their parameters
• Requests sorting by service or type
• Individual WMS requests (images or errors) visualization
• Copy services, requests or parameters to the clipboard
• Direct editing of requests parameter values
• Output GetCapabilities response as an HTML report or original file

Control screen:

GetCapabilities output (HTML):

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Read more: http://freegeographytools.com/2010/wms-inspector-extension-for-firefox

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Se huspriser på din smartphone med augmented reality

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Så skal KRAK bare komme med en Vis nummer applikation ... Peg, vælg og ring ...
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Only Danish ...
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Peg din iPhone eller Androidtelefon mod et hus og få prisen vist på skærmen. Det er nu muligt med en applikation, der er blandt de første danske eksempler på teknologien augmented reality.

Hvis den virkelige verden ikke er nok i sig selv, er det nu muligt at få lagt et ekstra lag oven på.

Konsulentfirmaet Grontmij Carl Bro er klar med en applikation til danskerne, som tilføjer virkeligheden nogle ekstradata om det, man ser på.

Står man foran et hus, kan man således hive sin iPhone eller Android-telefon op, pege kameraet mod huset og straks få alle offentlige tilgængelige data vist om blandt andet seneste salgspris, prisudvikling og areal.

Teknologien kaldes med et hype-ord augmented reality, ’forstærket virkelighed’, og udnytter kombinationen af GPS, kompas, kamera og internetadgang i smartphones.

Tanken er, at man kan vise alle mulige oplysninger knyttet til et bestemt sted direkte oven på billedet, man får vist gennem kameraet på telefonen. Også ansigter vil med tiden kunne genkendes, så man altid kan få genopfrisket navnet på dem, man møder.

Grontmij Carl Bro ser store fremtidsperspektiver i teknologien. Både til ingeniørfaget, som virksomheden primært er beskæftiget med, hvor oplysninger om tekniske installationer, farlige kemikalier eller kommende byggeprojekter kan blive vist på skærmen, oven i det rigtige billede.

Men også som en service til borgerne, som kunne tages med på råd inden store byggeprojekter blev sat i gang.

»Forestil dig for eksempel at du kunne have stået på Rådhuspladsen i København, tændt kameraet på din mobiltelefon og set den sorte busterminal, før den blev bygget. Eller have set Sverre Fehns Teaterfugl til Det Kgl. Teater i stedet for at bygge en model i fuld størrelse,« udtaler Nils Bo Wille-Jørgensen, direktør hos Grontmij Carl Bro, i en pressemeddelelse.

Applikationen, der viser huspriser, er gratis og kan hentes gennem Layar, der foreløbig kun fås til de iPhone og Android. Hent programmet Layar på Appstore eller Android Market og søg på Ejendomspriser. [...]

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Read more: http://www.version2.dk/artikel/14358-se-huspriser-paa-din-smartphone-med-augmented-reality

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Server GIS Buses In Change for Danish Public Transit Agency

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Fra A til B via Movia og ArcGIS understøttet ...
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Way to move ...
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Movia is Denmark's largest public transit agency, serving 214 million passenger trips per year in the Greater Copenhagen area and parts of eastern Denmark. With 570 bus lines and nine local train lines in its coverage area, Movia strives to meet the daily transit needs of 2.4 million inhabitants with an employment base of 1.2 million jobs.

As a public transit agency, planning and maintaining bus routes are vital parts of its business, but until recently, the workflows and processes of transit planners were not as efficient and streamlined as Movia would have preferred. Movia has many dedicated employees, but the transit agency's computer systems and internal processes needed a technological boost to streamline its business processes.

When planners needed vital transit planning data such as demographic characteristics and location of educational facilities for route planning, it became evident that Movia's systems made workflows and processes too time-consuming and complicated. The agency concluded that to meet the increasingly higher demands from its customers, it had to make some technical updates to provide the best possible customer service and communications.

Movia set some goals that it believed would make the company a global leader in the transit industry. The agency's main goals were to design a more efficient workflow, increase customer service by providing real-time transit information, and create an integrated planning system where all the vital parts of transit planning and operations are integrated into one solution. Movia also wanted to have access to relevant data to perform analyses and forecasting to enhance its transit planning.

"The core idea was to improve transit planners' workflows by ensuring that they all had the relevant information readily available to them on their screen," says Movia IT Manager Carsten Bo Jacobsen.

The integrated system that Movia was seeking did not exist in an off-the-shelf software solution. Therefore, the company sought a strategic cooperative relationship that could assist in developing and maintaining the desired solution. Movia found that Informi GIS A/S, the Danish distributor of ESRI geographic information system (GIS) software, offered the best solution and support to accomplish its goals.

"We chose a GIS platform, key in the IT architecture, as we believed that in travel planning and customer information, the map is the key element," says Jacobsen. "We chose Informi GIS and ArcGIS Server because we believed that at a strategic level, the pairing had the most to offer in relation to GIS collaboration and product development."

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Read more: http://www.masstransitmag.com/web/online/Online-Exclusives/Server-GIS-Buses-In-Change-for-Danish-Public-Transit-Agency/5$10915

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Design Around the World: Metro Maps

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Farvede linjer med punkter på ...
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The art of lines and points in bright colors ...
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Every city looks and feels unique. Regional culture, typography, dialect, local customs and many more factors play a part in defining a city’s differences.

Those differences determine how that city sees its citizens and how it wants to represent itself to others.

For each city with one, the metro plays a part in defining those differences. The metro maps in this post show the skeletons of these cities. Each map explores the paths taken by the residents of that city.

The design and style of the maps appears reflective of the particular place. They may be seen as not only maps, but individual expressions of a local identity.

Here’s a great compilation of metro maps from around the world… [...]

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Read more: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/03/design-around-the-world-metro-maps/

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Overlay OpenStreetMap Data Transparently On Google/Yahoo Maps

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Ingen Bing ...
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No Bing ...
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The transparent com site lets you select a base map layer from Google or Yahoo, and then overlay an OpenStreetMap (OSM) data layer on top with user-definable transparency. Zoom in to your area of interest, pick the base and overlay layers by clicking on the “+” sign in the upper right:

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Read more: http://sautter.com/map/

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Crumpled City

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Strygefri kort ...
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Let's call it a wrap ...
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When using traditional large-scale city maps, I realised just how awkward they can be to use. They are not easy to use on the move, as you need to stop regularly and spread the map out to find what you are looking for. It is also very difficult to open and fold the map back up to its initial upright size. The end result being that you aim to use the maps as little as possible.

Crumpled City Maps are soft, yet hard-wearing, waterproof and meant to be creased and crumpled. You can place the area that you’re interested in on the palm of your hand to spot street names then just screw it up, stuff it back into its case or your pocket, and carry on.

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Read more: http://www.pizzolorusso.com/index.php?/progetti/crumpled-city/

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Heat Mapping With Google Fusion Tables?

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Et meget undervurderet værktøj ...
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A tool not so well known as it deserves to be ...
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[...]

Well, Google recently announced some exciting new additions to the API. According to the announcement you can now upload and map large amounts of geographic data. This used to require a developer, but now you can do it yourself. You can also now hide and show different data depending on your own criteria.

The folks at MTBGuru.com detailed their use of the new capabilities in a blog post. Some of the screen shots from their application can be seen below. The data driving their application is stored in a Fusion Table. I’m particularly impressed with the capability of creating heat maps as seen in the second figure.

Here the heat map shows the density of bike tracks in a certain area.

Google is continuing to push the envelope in the mapping and visualization space. Fusion Tables isn’t getting the press is deserves at this time, but I think that is going to change rapidly as people get a better understanding of how it can be used. [...]

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Read more: http://geochalkboard.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/heat-mapping-with-google-fusion-tables/

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How To Market Your Mobile Application

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Mobil markedsføring ...
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And last but not least ... be mobile ...
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App Store is a competitive environment. Against more than 140,000 apps, all screaming for attention, how do you make sure your app gets its time in the spotlight? What does it take to get good media coverage? How do you get people to talk about your app—and, ideally, how do you get them to buy it and show it to their friends?

Following the simple rules laid out below, you will increase your chances in the battle for fame and glory. These tips might seem rudimentary or in-your-face obvious, but they are so often neglected in the heat of the moment.

By the way, what was the last time you visited our sister site Noupe? Subscribe to Noupe's feed for more inspirational and design-related articles. [...]

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Read more: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/03/how-to-market-your-mobile-app/

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Make your own map-based mashup

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Her er stumperne til din egen mashup applikation ...
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Mash your own applications ...
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Summary: Map-based mashups abound these days. Mashups require services that can be mashed up. Location-based mashups need services that provide boundary information. With Web-based mapping providers, you can easily create a map-based mashup with little or no capital investment. In this article, learn how to create a KML boundary service from an ESRI shapefile to be used in mashups.

Introduction

Map-based mashups are omnipresent nowadays, largely because services that can be mashed up are widely available. For a map-based mashup, you need services that provide cartographic boundaries. The U.S. Census Bureau releases data on state, county, and ZIP code boundaries in Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) shapefile format. In this article, learn how to create a simple service to deliver KML files from ESRI shapefiles using open source software.

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Technology and software products

GIS — Geographical information systems

KML — Keyhole markup language

Mashup — A Web hybrid application that combines data from more than one source into an integrated experience

TIGER — Topologically integrated geographic encoding and referencing

There are many tools and products, both commercial and open source, that you can use to work with spatial data and create mashups. The example in this article uses open source software: PostGIS as the database, GeoTools Java™ library, the OpenLayers mapping library, and Apache Tomcat as the application server.

PostGIS

A spatial extension to the open source relational database PostgresSQL. PostGIS supports spatial data types and functions as described by the OpenGIS Simple Features Specification for SQL standard.

GeoTools

A Java library to perform manipulation of spatial data. GeoTools includes:

• Support for various spatial data formats (such as ESRI shapefile, Geography Markup Language (GML), MapInfo Interchange Format (MIF)), and spatial transformations.
• Java Topology Suite (JTS) from Vivid Solutions that defines Java classes to represent spatial data.

The example solution uses GeoTools for spatial transformations and JTS for converting the binary large object (BLOB) data from the database to a geometry.

OpenLayers

An open source JavaScript mapping library that lets you add dynamic maps to Web pages. You can overlay markers, lines, and polygons on top of base maps. The example in this article uses OpenLayers' capability of adding a layer on top of a base map from a KML file.

Apache Tomcat

An open source J2EE JSP and servlet container used in the example to deploy the service.

Download the sample code used in this article. See Resources for the software used in the example.

Back to top

Getting ready

This section explains what you need to prepare to create the example application in this article.

Logical architecture

Figure 1 shows the logical architecture of the example solution.

Figure 1. Logical architecture

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Read more: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-kmlservice/index.html?ca=drs-

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Introducing the new Google Geocoding Web Service

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Væk med API nøglen, men istedet en restriktion på 2500 daglige hits ...
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API key no longer required but limitations on 2500 hits per day ...
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Geocoding - finding the geographical location of a given address - is one of the most popular features of the Google Maps API. Both the JavaScript Maps APIs and the Maps API for Flash include classes that enable applications to perform geocoding, and there is also a RESTful web service that offers the option of making geocoding requests from server side applications with output in both XML and JSON.

The Google Maps JavaScript API v3 introduced a new format for geocoding responses that offers a number of improvements over the format used in the v2 API:

• A flatter response format for address components that is easier to parse
• The ability to tag an address component with multiple types
• Both full names and abbreviations for countries and states
• Differentiation between rooftop and interpolated geocoder results
• Both the bounding box and recommended viewport for each result

We're happy to now announce a new Geocoding Web Service that adopts these improvements.

The Geocoding Web Service is intended to enable precaching of geocoder results that you know your application will need in the future. For example, if your application displays property listings, you can geocode the address of each property, cache the results on your server, and serve these locations to your API application. This ensures that your application does not need to geocode the address of a property every time it is viewed by a user. However we do ask that you regularly refresh your cache of geocoder results.

Note however that it is a requirement of the Maps API Terms of Service that you use the Geocoding Web Service in conjunction with a Google map. This means that when it comes time to use cached geocoder results in an application, the application must display the results or any data derived from them on a map generated using one of the Google Maps APIs or Google Earth API.

If your application needs to geocode arbitrary addresses that are entered by your users while they wait we recommend that you use the classes in the appropriate client API. This ensures that the requests your application generates reach Google directly from your users, which will improve the performance of your application and ensure it is resilient to unexpected spikes in use. For more details, I highly recommend this excellent blog post by our very own Mano Marks.

In addition to an improved response format you will notice some other changes in the new Geocoding Web Service. Requests no longer require a Maps API key, and Maps API Premier customers must sign their requests. In addition CSV output is not supported because we found that the minimal amount of data in a CSV response makes it is difficult to identify false positive results.

2,500 requests may be sent to the Geocoding Web Service per day from a single IP address. This is independent of any geocoding activity generated by applications using one of the client Maps APIs for geocoding. Maps API Premier quotas remain unchanged.

A forward geocoding request to the new Geocoding Web Service with XML output looks like:

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=sydney&sensor=false

A reverse geocoding request with JSON output looks like:

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?latlng=-33.873038,151.20563&sensor=false

Check out the Geocoding Web Service documentation for more details on the options available for language and biasing of results.

In conjunction with the launch of the new Geocoding Web Service we are also announcing the deprecation of the current service, now retroactively named the "Geocoding V2 Web Service". Existing applications using the V2 Web Service need not worry though. Deprecation indicates that we no longer intend to pursue any further feature development, but we will continue to maintain and support the service in accordance with the deprecation policy set out in the Maps API Terms of Service.

We hope that you find the new Geocoding Web Service easier to use and useful. As always we encourage you to check out the Google Maps API Google Group if you have any questions or comments relating to the APIs. We look forward to adding more great features to the Geocoding Web Service in future.

Posted by Thor Mitchell, Maps API Product Manager

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Read more: http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/03/introducing-new-google-geocoding-web.html

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