New Maps

Posted on August 8, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

For you map collectors, here is a list of new maps and books that might interest you:

Kaufmann, Obi. The California field atlas. 1 atlas (608 pages), scales differ. Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday, pub. 2017. ISBN: 9781597144025

Mad Maps. Scenic road trips of Northern California: Avenue of the Giants, the Lost Coast, Napa & Sonoma, Mount Hamilton, Santa Cruz Mountains, Monterey & Carmel. 1 map, scale ca. 1:600,000. San Francisco, Calif.: Mad Maps, pub. 2016. ISBN: 9781933911397

National Geographic Maps. Mojave National Preserve, California. 1 map, scale 1:125,000. Evergreen, Colo.: National Geographic Maps, Trails Illustrated topographic map 256, pub. 2016. ISBN: 9781566953832

Continue reading →

Paper Maps Are Still Alive

Posted on July 31, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Thought that traditional paper maps are dead? Well, at least not yet! Here is a Minneapolis mapmaker that has stayed in business making custom maps in niche markets from dog parks to UFO sightings.

Guerrilla Cartography Kickstarter

Posted on July 27, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Guerrilla Cartography has a kickstarter for their upcoming Water Atlas project. Contribution options include adding your location to the collaborators map, receiving a copy of the book, or even donating a copy of the book to your favorite school, library, or community center with your name printed on the inside cover. Check it out.

Thanks goes to Chandler Sterling for pointing this one out!

Drugged Counties

Posted on July 21, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Interesting infographics and maps about roadway fatalities by substance type. Data includes drug and alcohol related roadway deaths from 1995 to 2013. Looks like LA County drivers like stimulants.

World Imagery Firefly

Posted on July 20, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

World Imagery Firefly was created for thematic maps. Currently in beta, Firefly is an alternative view of the default World Imagery basemap, and is designed with desaturated colors. When zoomed out, the map appears grayscale, but as you zoom in, the colors become more saturated until the full color detail of the imagery appears. World Imagery Firefly is especially useful for overlays of brightly styled layers when you want an imagery basemap, but do not want the imagery to compete with the layer styling. Check it out.

Laser Cut Dymaxion Globe

Posted on July 7, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

If you like to make stuff, maybe making a laser cut Dymaxion Globe is something you would like to do? Click below to read the article and download the needed files for your laser cutter … you have one right?

Fireworks 2017!

Posted on June 29, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

July 4th will be here soon and that means Fireworks! The fireworks app I have used for the past few years has been updated. It includes the cities in LA, Orange, Ventura, and Riverside County. If you love fireworks and want to find out where you can legally buy and shoot them off in SoCal, check out the app!

Bring LARIAC5 Early Access Imagery into ArcGIS Desktop

Posted on June 27, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

If your organization participates in LARIAC, then you probably know that right now you have Early Access to the 2017 imagery (both orthos and obliques) in Pictometry’s online CONNECTExplorer application. Keep in mind the Early Access imagery still has work to be done on it, but at least you can take a look at the new stuff while they are working on it.

One thing you can do is bring some of the ortho imagery into your ArcGIS Desktop environment. Here are the simple steps to do so:

Login to ConnectExplorer and zoom to the area you are interested in. Make sure to set the imagery date to “Early Access”.
Next, set your Export Image preferences to output a GeoTIFF and turn off scale image, north pointer, and image date if you want. You do not need a world file for a GeoTIFF.
Next, bring up the ortho view of the area you want. Make sure to zoom in quite a bit to get the higher resolution.
In the lower-right corner, click on the export icon and select Export Entire Image.
Now bring the GeoTIFF into ArcGIS Desktop. Here I have the new 2017 ortho displayed on top of the 2014 ortho.
Your image might look a little choppy. To fix that, open the layer properties, select the Display tab, and change the “Resample during display” setting to “Bilinear Interpolation”. The “Nearest Neighbor” setting will make your image too choppy looking. Bilinear does a great job smoothing it out.

The GeoTIFF images are actually using geographic coordinates (WGS84), but they reproject very well into State Plane.

This is a very quick way to bring in the new 2017 Early Access imagery into your maps if you need to. As the imagery is cleaned up and worked on to create preliminary images, there will be map services setup for you to consume in your applications. But for now, you can use these steps. Enjoy! -mike

The Billion Dollar War Over Maps

Posted on June 23, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

For much of the last decade, digital maps have helped people pull up basic directions while walking and driving. But tech and auto companies are investing in a new generation of maps for a much more demanding audience: self-driving cars. Click below to read the article about “HD maps”.

ArcGIS for Local Government UC 2017

Posted on June 22, 2017 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Today there will be a meetup, June 22nd at 11am (PDT), about what’s coming in the ArcGIS for Local Government UC 2017 release as well as ArcGIS for Local Government events at the ESRI User Conference in July. If you are interested, please join the meetup today by registering here.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

SoCalGIS.org

Southern California Government GIS User Group – Working together locally in GIS

Category Archives: Maps/Apps/Charts/Data