You are working on a map and know the ground distance and map scale but need to figure out what size your paper map will be. Try Scale Buddy. Depending on the parameters you know, you can calculate map dimensions, ground distance, scale, and unit conversions.
With what is happening in Nepal and surrounding areas, earthquakes might be on your mind right now, especially if you live and work in SoCal. Here are some maps, data, and resources you can check out.
USGS Seismic Hazard Maps and Data
USGS Latest Earthquakes
USGS ShakeMaps
Caltech Southern California Earthquake Data Center
California Seismic Hazard Zonation Program
American Red Cross PrepareSocal
Global Seismic Hazard Map (1999)
JPEG and PDF versions.
Please post in the comments if you want to share your favorite earthquake sites.
Planning on going to the ESRI User Conference in July? It looks like ESRI is asking everyone to pick the party this year. You can choose from San Diego Waterfront Park, Balboa Park, or Embarcadero North. Hurry and vote this week!
Once again ESRI is encouraging mappers everywhere who harness the power of GIS technology to enter the ESRI Storytelling with Maps Contest.
Submissions will be judged on a range of factors. Each Story Map selected will combine design, user experience, impact, and overall creativity with an interesting and engaging story.
ESRI will award first, second, and third place prizes in five categories:
One grand prize will be awarded to the best overall Story Map entry, as determined by the contest judges. Here are the prizes:
All entries must make use of one of the ESRI Story Map apps. Entries may be hosted in ArcGIS Online or on another server. Contest participants may and are encouraged to customize the Story Map apps to suit their needs.
Submissions must be received by 5:00 p.m. (PDT) on June 8. Winners and their Story Map entries will be unveiled at the 2015 ESRI User Conference.
Enter the contest and get full contest details at esri.com/storytellingwithmaps. Discover more about ESRI Story Map apps at storymaps.arcgis.com.
Submissions will be judged on a range of factors. Each Story Map selected will combine design, user experience, impact, and overall creativity with an interesting and engaging story.
This one came across my desk and I thought it was interesting to share:
Stanford University Libraries is introducing EarthWorks, their new geospatial data discovery application. EarthWorks allows you to discover and download GIS data and maps from a variety of institutions.
The software is built on top of the open-source project GeoBlacklight, which adds geospatial capabilities to the widely used discovery system Project Blacklight. GeoBlacklight is the product of an ongoing software collaboration between MIT, Princeton, and Stanford. Contributions and collaborators are most welcome! GeoBlacklight can be used on its own, or as part of GeoHydra, an emerging suite of tools for managing geospatial data assets within a Hydra data repository. For more information about GeoHydra, please see the interest group wiki.
Metadata sharing for EarthWorks is enabled through collaboration with the OpenGeoPortal project and the new OpenGeoMetadata initiative.
EarthWorks also uses GeoMonitor to monitor the availability of data being provided by the network of collaborating institutions.
Questions about EarthWorks, GeoBlacklight, GeoMonitor, or how we collaborate with OpenGeoMetadata can be directed to geoblacklight-working-group@googlegroups.com .
Upcoming related meetings and events:
Open Repositories June 8 – 11, 2015 Indianapolis, IN ,USA
Hands on GeoBlacklight Workshop ESRI Education GIS Conference July 18-21, 2015 San Diego, CA, USA
“GeoBlacklight, a New Discovery Platform for Geospatial Data” lightning talk ESRI User Conference July 20 – 24, 2015 San Diego, CA, USA
“Preservation and discovery for GIS data” presentation HydraConnect September 21 – 24 2015, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA – Hydra Geospatial Interest Group
LizardTech University is offering a free webinar on Demystifying Raster Image Properties and Compression:
Have you ever wanted to know more about raster imagery? In this webinar, we’ll discuss all the basic properties of raster imagery that you’re likely to encounter. By the end of the webinar, you’ll understand what image bands are, what compression ratios mean, what it means for an image to be 16-bit, and more.
This is the first installment in a series of webinars about raster imagery and GIS.
Date: Thursday, April 23, 2015
Time: 11:00 AM PDT
Duration: 30 Minutes
Interested in learning more about the Open Source GIS desktop software QGIS? Did you know it runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, and Android? MaptimeLA will have an intro session on QGIS at their meeting Thursday, April 16, 2015 at 6:30pm. Learn how to load data, set projections, style layers, edit data, and export a map with QGIS.
Interested to know what the most popular GIS software is? To see what the GIS industry is using, an article from GISGeography.com maps out the GIS software landscape and lists the top 30 GIS desktop options using the following ranking guidelines:
Looking for seismic hazards data in California? Visit the California Geological Survey website and download regulatory maps, reports, and GIS data.
Back in the 1970’s there was a US Forest Service Engineer who had a sense of humor and created a Cocktail Construction Chart. Years later this chart actually made it into the National Archives. Read the back story about who created it and how it made it into the National Archives. Click below to view the chart.
SoCalGIS.org 