Tag Archives: webmapping
Fun with GIS #23, Using the Web: Sketch-A-Map
The ESRI EdCommunity is now hosting another cool tool for educators using GIS! This one is based on the power and speed of high-performing base maps from ArcGIS Online. On the Community Web Mapping Tools page, webmeister Tom Baker has built some nifty little tools to use for educational purposes. The Lat-Long Finder allows you to find the decimal degree coordinates of any place on Earth. The Sketch-A-Map allows you to draw on a map.
Sound boring? Imagine building a set of GPS coordinates for a virtual field trip, with just the Lat-Long Finder and a text editor or spreadsheet. Piece of cake! You can easily set up a whole banquet of precise coordinates across the community or around the world. Then, use the Sketch-A-Map to highlight the area of interest, and save the output to an image file.
Zoom in to see the block or zoom out to the continent. Sketch a quick “My Community” map and have kids compare community boundaries. (It works best as an educational activity if people draw it themselves on plain paper first, then draw it using the map. How accurate were they?) Since both tools allow users to float between different base maps, lots of interesting comparisons are available, with just a web browser, on Windows or Macintosh!
The two applications require the Flash player 10 or above, which can be downloaded automatically and installed for free (if you have install privileges). Enjoy!! (You will!!)
- Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI Co-Manager for Schools
Yes, you can create mashups using ESRI software!
Have a look at this cool demo, presented by Jack Dangermond and Jeremy Bartley, at the recent Where 2.0 conference in San Jose.
The video resolution is rather poor, however you’ll get the idea.
http://en.oreilly.com/where2009/public/schedule/detail/9102
Pay special attention to the demo part, starting at about minute 9.
If you are not a programmer, some of Jeremy’s presentation might sound like gibberish: Silverlight, Flex, JSON, REST interfaces, etc. But show this video to a programmer, especially one in the 15-30 year-old range, and you’ll like get a “cool!” kind of response.
A lot of people out there (GIS world) are under the impression that map mash-ups are necessarily wedded to Google Maps. Wow, demos such as this one show clearly how similarly interesting mash-ups can and are being created using “real” GIS software platforms. What’s the difference? Mainly, that there’s a huge collection of analysis capabilities behind the GIS-based mash-ups. Not simply pretty web maps.
Those of you attending the upcoming User Conference will see more of this, live!
- Mike Gould, Director of Higher Education
EdCommunity Case Studies Released
The ESRI GIS Education Community unveiled the Case Studies collection this week. These case studies are rich, real-world stories of GIS in education – across several educational categories. These stories represent best practices of GIS planning, implementation or evaluation in education. To find stories most relevant to your needs, search by keyword or browse by category.
The Case Studies collection will continue to grow in the coming months. If you don’t find something useful, drop in again or contact us with your needs.
GLOBE At Night 2009
GLOBE at Night brings people outside to observe the constellation Orion from 16-28 March 2009. Participants simply choose a clear night on which stars are visible, take measurements of stars in this portion of the sky using GLOBE’s Magnitude Charts, and enter observations. Students — alongside teachers, parents and community members– amass a data set from which they can begin to explore the concept of light pollution and to research the patterns of light pollution across the globe.
Participation in GLOBE at Night is open to anyone who lives or works in one of the 110 GLOBE countries and can get outside and look skyward during 16-28 March. You can enter your observations on the GLOBE at Night Report web page from 16 March – 7 April.
Examining Spatial Patterns of Oil and Gas Production in the USA
As our Nation wrestles with issues surrounding energy use, one excellent data set to explore is a new oil and gas exploration and production map. The data can be used in several ways: (1) As a PDF file; (2) As an interactive, web-based GIS map; (3) As a service within ArcMap; and (4) As a series of layers downloaded and analyzed within ArcMap.
Start by accessing:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-069/dds-069-q/text/cover.htm
You will see the Internet Map Service link on the right.
To work with this map service in ArcMap, add the ArcIMS Server http://certmapper.cr.usgs.gov. Once added and selected, choose the map service: US_Production4ArcMap.
To download the data, select “Layer Information” and then select the USA map. You can download a shapefile, a coverage export file, or an ArcGIS geodatabase. I selected the geodatabase for fastest drawing and more powerful analysis.
The well information was retrieved from over 3,000,000 points in IHS’s PI/Dwights PLUS Well Data, a proprietary, commercial database. Cells were developed as a graphic solution to overcome the problem of displaying proprietary well data. No proprietary data are displayed or included in the cell maps. Data are current through 10/1/2005. Selected state databases supplement the national data.
Kansas and Oklahoma’s extensive fields can easily be seen by examining the data in ArcMap, symbolized based on the information in the metadata document, and overlaid with rivers and state boundaries. Each cell in the data represents a quarter-mile square of the land surface, and the data symbolizes whether the wells within the cell are predominantly oil-producing, gas-producing, both oil and gas-producing, or the well production within the cell is unknown or dry.
What influences the spatial pattern of oil and gas exploration? How is the pattern of natural gas production different from or similar to that of oil production? Which states and regions produce the most oil and gas? How far does offshore drilling extend? Show the online video about how production has changed over the past century. These questions and more can be examined with this extensive dataset.
- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager
ESRI GIS Education Programs Map
The ESRI Education Community is pleased to release the first version of its GIS Education Programs map, an interactive map depicting K-12 State-wide licenses, K-12 school district licenses, and university ESRI Development Centers. See the map online at http://edcommunity.esri.com
The First Global Land Cover Map and Data Set
The POSTEL Service Centre / MEDIAS-France have made the first global land cover data at 300 meters resolution freely downloadable. This land cover map discriminates continental ecosystems according to 22 classes validated by independent experts at the highest resolution yet available. The map was generated by the GlobCover project, through the European Space Agency (ESA) and other partners, using data acquired between December 2004 and June 2006 by the MERIS sensor on board the ENVISAT satellite. The GlobCover Land Cover product is labeled according to the UN Land Cover Classification System.
To obtain the data, register at the POSTEL Service Centre site first.
You will be asked to choose a user name. The system will then register you and send you a password in a confirmation email. Next, download the data.
Select “biogeophysical products,” and you will see the GLOBCOVER link on the page that follows. This site provides other data that you may wish to explore in the future, such as the Normalized Difference of the Vegetation Index (NDVI), the canopy leaf index (LAI), burn areas, albedo, surface reflectance and temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, water level, water bodies, and more.
You will see a link to the FTP server at postel.mediasfrance.org. Once you log in, drill down to the following folder:
ftp://postel.mediasfrance.org/Vegetation/LandCover/GLOBCOVER/
Inside, a documents folder contains a legend file (XLS format) and a metadata manual (PDF format). A data folder contains the LandCover data as a grayscale geotiff, as a quality file, and as an RGB file.
Land cover data for Spain and Morocco as displayed in ArcMap. I created the legend based on the values in the metadata file. This data set, with its RRD file, is over 1 GB in size.
When using the GlobCover Land Cover data, acknowledge its source as: Source data: © ESA / ESA GlobCover Project, led by MEDIAS-France, Image: © ESA / ESA GlobCover Project, led by MEDIAS-France.
More information can be found at the European Space Agency.
- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager
Demonstrating Spatial Analysis Functions Online
How many times teaching GIS have you wanted to quickly illustrate a function such as geocoding or viewsheds but you didn’t have GIS software or spatial data loaded on the instructor’s computer? Many key GIS functions are available on the ESRI Resources pages that allow you to demonstrate the functions without any software required, thanks to ArcGIS Server technology combined with application programming interfaces available through JavaScript and other tools.
To access these tools, visit: http://resources.esri.com. You may wish to bookmark this source for useful online maps, data sets, tools, and more. Next, select “ArcGIS Server.” On the following screen, select the “Resources” tab at the top and pull down the “Online SDKs”. These are the Software Development Kits, and can be used with JavaScript, Flex, .NET, and Java to develop your own mashups, geoprocessing tools, and more.
Select JavaScript, and on the next screen, ArcGIS JavaScript API. You should now be on the page: http://resources.esri.com/arcgisserver/apis/javascript/arcgis/index.cfm?fa=home.
Select the “Samples” tab to see online samples on the left side. You can use them to illustrate specific functions, the power of spatial analysis, and even have students use the source code to build their own applications. For each sample, select “View Live Sample” above the description and source code.
Say you want to illustrate the difference between geocoding an address and a reverse geocode. Simply access the Geocode Task and the live sample for both types of geocoding. Population Zonal Stats will estimate the population in the area that you draw on the map. Buffering, projecting, and viewsheds (shown below in orange) are other handy samples.
The “Message in a Bottle” sample uses a particle tracking model to show where a bottle would travel after a specified number of days if dropped in the ocean, and hence, it serves also as a good illustration of ocean currents.
Often, a quick demonstration is the perfect way to illustrate GIS processes, and these samples allow you to do just that. Try them and let me know how it worked.
- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager
Learn How to Use GIS in Your Instruction at the 2008 National Conference on Geography Education
The National Conference on Geography Education provides an excellent means of networking with over 600 colleagues at primary, secondary, and university levels, as well as those in government and industry. ESRI staff and some of our colleagues are teaching two days of hands-on GIS at this year’s conference in Dearborn, Michigan. While some adjustments may be made before the final program is issued, the following workshops are planned. See http://www.ncge.org/ for the latest information. We will also staff an exhibit at the conference and look forward to the opportunity to speak with you one-on-one about the implementation of GIS at all levels of the curriculum.
· “Using AEJEE to Explore the United States: A Bird’s Eye View”, Carol Gersmehl, Hunter College
· “Studying Sports Through GIS”, Joseph Kerski, ESRI
· “Intro to Collecting Data with GPS and Mapping it with GIS”, Anita and Roger Palmer, GISetc
· “Explore Your World with ArcGIS Explorer”, George Dailey, ESRI
· “Georeferencing Images”, Shannon White, University of South Florida
· “Detroit/Dearborn Urban Heat Island”, Paul Baumann, SUNY Oneonta; Nancy Hultquist, Central Washington University
· “Web-based Mapping”, Tom Baker, ESRI
· “Lewis & Clark in the 21st Century”, Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI
· “The Great Lakes Region: Living by the Inland Sea”, Al Lewandowski, Michigan Geographic Alliance
· “Thinking Spatially Using GIS”, Charlie Fitzpatrick, ESRI
· “Analyzing Our World Using GIS”, Anita and Roger Palmer, GISetc
· “On the Road Again”, Joseph Kerski, ESRI
· “Election Geography”, Tom Baker, ESRI, and Joseph Kerski, ESRI
· “Geotagging Photos and Media”, Tom Baker, ESRI
- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager
KML in ArcGIS 9.3
The ability to export maps and layers to KML files is now built into ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 for all users at all license levels using the Layer To KML and Map To KML tools in ArcToolbox. Previously, these tools were only available with the 3D Analyst extension.
Using the new HTML pop-up functionality in ArcMap, you can specify pop-ups for KML features containing attributes, URLs, or formatted Web content. The ability to define HTML pop-ups can also be found in ArcGlobe and ArcScene at 9.3.
You can put the KML files you create with these tools onto the Internet so they can be accessed in applications like ArcGIS Explorer and Google Earth. You can also load your KML files into Web maps like Google Maps (via the My Maps tab) and Microsoft Virtual Earth (via the Collections menu). This functionality provides new ways for you to share maps and data with others and tell your geographic story.
KML can be accessed directly in ArcGlobe or in the free ArcGIS Explorer 3D client. ArcMap users can add KML into their maps by accessing their content as GIS features using the ArcGIS Data Interoperability extension. A number of third-party scripts and tools for ArcGIS Desktop have also been created for importing and exporting KML files.
