Articles

Walk Score To Go Open Source

Caitlin Dempsey

Walk Score is preparing to go open source which they announced on their blog and in a press release..  At ...

Digitizing Using ArcGIS

Caitlin Dempsey

This tutorial reviews basic digitizing using the editor toolbar in ArcGIS desktop.  

American Red Cross Uses Trimble Technology and RDMS to Speed Hurricane Disaster Relief

Geo Contributor

Since 1881, the American Red Cross has been the United State’s premier emergency response organization. In addition to offering neutral ...

NASA Drone Mapping Earthquake Faults

Caitlin Dempsey

Wired has a pictorial on the latest effort by NASA to map California’s earthquake faults: In hopes of understanding California’s ...

Preserving Geospatial Data

Caitlin Dempsey

Digital Preservation Coalition has released a new publication in its series of Technology Watch Reports: Preserving Geospatial Data by Guy ...

LiDAR Resources

Caitlin Dempsey

Find resources, tutorials and tools for working with LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) elevation data, particularly within the GIS environment.

The cover of a report entitled "Geospatial Information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Current Issues and Future Challenges" with an outline of the D.C. capitol building.

Congressional Report on GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

In June 2009, the CRS published a report, "Geospatial Information and GIS: Current Issues and Future Challenges," providing an overview and analysis of GIS-related subjects.

A map showing the earth's topography with low elevations are purple, medium elevations are green and yellow, and high elevations are orange, red, and white.

Topographic Map of the Earth Released

Caitlin Dempsey

NASA has release of the most complete topographic data of the earth with 99% of the surface mapped.

Remote Sensing Principles

Caitlin Dempsey

Online tutorials and articles on what remote sensing is, digital imagery analysis and applications.

Five Themes of Geography Explained

Caitlin Dempsey

The Five Themes of Geography started out as a framework for making geography accessible to kids from kindergarten to high ...

Excerpt from sheet 1 of USGS Open-File Report 2014–1214 produced by the California Seafloor and Coastal Mapping Program. This view shows color shaded-relief bathymetry (seafloor depth) offshore of Half Moon Bay, California, approximately 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of San Francisco.

Relief Shading

Caitlin Dempsey

There are different methods for achieving a shaded relief map and resources for understanding this cartographic technique are listed here.

This Satellite Image of Algae Bloom Looks Like a Painting

Caitlin Dempsey

Satellite imagery can show us fantastic and beautiful views of Earth.  This image captured on November 22, 2008 shows vibrate ...

Hands typing on a silver laptop with the words GIS overlaid.

Implementing GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

Implementing GIS is intricate. Factors like user base, funds, accuracy, and area of interest must be assessed before adopting GIS software. #GIS #Implementation

Heidelberg-3D – Interactive 3D City Mapping Based on OGC Standards

Geo Contributor

The inaugural version of the interactive 3D city information system, Heidelberg-3D.de, was launched online, offering free access to anyone.

A scanned image of a USGS topographic map.

Online Mapping is Not the Death Knell for Maps

Caitlin Dempsey

Despite fretting by some, the rise of online mapping is not end of cartography and map making as we know it.

TypeBrewer – Font Tool for Cartography

Caitlin Dempsey

TypeBrewer is a Flash application that “offers a quick and easy way to explore typographic alternatives and see the impact ...

As Dynamic as Paper Maps Get

Caitlin Dempsey

Panamap is a physical map that uses layered plastic sheets to display three distinct map views on a single page.

A photograph of peaks and glaciers in the Swiss Alps taken from the International Space Station.

Fighting snowmelt with a windshield

Caitlin Dempsey

Geographer Hans-Joachim Fuchs is convinced that the use of windscreens to funnel katabatic winds (cold winds that blow downhill) in ...

XML – eXtensible Markup Language

Caitlin Dempsey

XML is a web-based language used to interact data behind the scenes. With projects like GML by the Open GIS ...

A view of the esri logo seen through the upper level of the SD conference center.

Early Tidbits from the 2008 ESRI User Conference

Caitlin Dempsey

Updates from the 2008 annual Esri User Conference

What is the GeoCloud? Defining the GIS Cloud

Caitlin Dempsey

What does GIS cloud mean?

Using Location Intelligence, Office Max Grows Business and Improves Operations

Caitlin Dempsey

Mapinfo has provided a case study on location intelligence in the retail sector with this article on OfficeMax’s use of ...

The Many Names of Crowdsourcing GIS

Caitlin Dempsey

The advent of tools that invite and encourage even non-GIS trained users to provide geographic data and mapping in a ...

Why ArcView 3.x is Still in Use

Caitlin Dempsey

While Esri is pushing migration to its ArcGIS suite of GIS software, some GIS groups continue to use ArcView 3.x.

Crime Mapping – Step by Step

Caitlin Dempsey

Here’s a step by step accounting of the manual process by which one local paper maps out their crime.  What’s ...

The Re-birth of Pen and Paper in Mobile GIS

Geo Contributor

Field data collection is vital to the work of many enterprises and government agencies driving important decisions that ultimately affect ...