Join the 3rd Annual Drones Flying Free Mini-Conference on May 16, 2018. This is a free webinar mini-conference on drones and geospatial technology.
Drones Flying Free 2018
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Author Archives: socalgovgis - Michael Carson
Useless FCC Broadband Map
In February the FCC released their new broadband map showing the availability of high-speed internet in the US. Many of you might remember their previous map which turned out to be completely useless. Well … this new one seems to be about the same, not matching the reality on the ground. Click below to read more about the story.
A great example of how to lie with maps. Hey! There’s a book about that! You should get it, it’s a great book.
New LA County GIO
Congratulations to Steven Steinberg on becoming the new GIO at LA County!
Before joining the County, Steven was the Principal Scientist and Department Head for Information Management and Analysis at Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) a public agency for environmental research located in Costa Mesa.
Steven has extensive experience with geospatial analysis technologies including GIS, remote sensing, and image analysis in interdisciplinary applications. He has a B.S. in Natural Resources, a M.S. in Natural Resources Policy and Management, and a Ph.D. in Forestry (Geospatial Sciences). He also has co-authored books, such as GIS Research Methods: Incorporating Spatial Perspectives (2015) and GIS for the Social Sciences: Investigating Space and Place (2006).
Send Your Name to the Sun
In celebration of the summer 2018 launch of the Parker Solar Probe, NASA is inviting the public to submit their names to be added to a microchip which will be placed onboard the spacecraft.
Read more about it on Geo Lounge (click image below), which also has a link to the site for you to register your name. But hurry, you must submit your name by April 27, 2018!
Curbside Services Web App
The City of West Hollywood’s Curbside Services web-app provides information about curbside services, such as waste management, street cleaning, and permit parking areas. Just enter a West Hollywood address or click on the map. Check it out!
2018 CGA Conference
If you find yourself taking a trip to Cambridge, MA in April, you might want to drop by Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA). CGA, together with the Harvard Data Science Initiative and ESRI, will host a conference on Illuminating Space and Time in Data Science on April 26-27, 2018. This conference aims at bringing together mainstream data scientists and geographic information scientists, to review the status of both fields, explore commonalities between the two, and identify the relevance of space and time in Data Science. The event features keynote speakers Francesca Dominici and Michael Goodchild, as well as thirty distinguished scholars from around the world. It is co-sponsored by I/UCRC Spatiotemporal Innovation Center and MapD Technologies, Inc.
This event is free and open to the public. For more information and to register, please visit http://gis.harvard.edu/events/conferences/2018-cga-conference-illuminating-space-and-time-data-science.
ESRI Updates Landsat Services
Starting April 11, 2018, ESRI will update their Landsat Image Services. Improvements include revised scaling of Top of Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance values, daily updates, new QA band, a new field to keep track of Landsat product ID, and WCS/WMS compatibility. For more info visit ESRI’s blog posting here.
Tracking the Falling Chinese Space Station
The Chinese space station Tiangong-1 was launched in 2011. It stopped communicating with ground control back in March 2016. With no way to bring it down into a controlled descent, it is now slowly falling closer to Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists have only been able to wait for its orbit to decay and now it’s expected to tumble to the ground or ocean in the next few days.
Both amateurs and government agencies are trying to figure out where and when it will arrive. Some sites like SatView are running live streams of Tiangong-1’s current location and predict where it might fall to Earth.
The most current prediction at the time of this writing is Monday April 2 at 01:05 UTC. Check it out!
ArcGIS Offline Data Collection Without a Named User
Use ArcGIS Server? Want to edit data out in the field with disconnected editing capability but don’t want to be forced into the ArcGIS named user model just to use Collector? Webmapsolutions.com might have an answer for you! They have built an offline-enabled ArcGIS data collection app which works with ArcGIS Server (no named user required), but can also work with Portal and ArcGIS Online! Check it out.
LARIAC5 Imagery
Burbank received the LARIAC5 2017 imagery and I must say it looks great! Click to enlarge.
Also, this time around the imagery has 4 bands, band 4 being near infrared, so you can display color infrared (CIR) to make the vegetation pop. Just set the Red band to 4, the Green band to 1, and the Blue band to 2:
Very cool. Great job LA County! -mike
SoCalGIS.org 