Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data

Posted on February 29, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

The Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD) website, HIFLD Open, provides National foundation-level geospatial data within the open public domain that can be useful to support community preparedness, resiliency, research, and more.

HIFLD Open represents the initial evolutionary first step to provide online access to HIFLD Data. HIFLD Open provides publicly available datasets previously contained in HSIP 2015. These 270+ public domain datasets consist of both re-hosted public domain data AND when possible, live pointers to dynamic web services direct from the source. Data is available for download in a variety of formats to include: CSV, KML, Shapefiles, as well as access to APIs – such as GeoJSON, and GeoService.

Please note that in alignment with a recent vote by members of the HIFLD Subcommittee, the release of this new data portal represents a new branding and packaging approach to the HIFLD product line. The legacy term ‘HSIP’ is now represented by Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data. For questions or additional information related to this announcement, please do not hesitate to contact the HIFLD Support Team at HIFLD@hq.dhs.gov.

Maps of the Earth’s Most Cursed Destinations

Posted on February 25, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

If you know someone that loves maps, then they would probably enjoy the Atlas of Cursed Places: A Travel Guide to Dangerous and Frightful Destinations.

The book, organized into eight geographical regions, chronicles sites across the globe that have been afflicted by a miscellany of misfortunes.

You know you want this book!

Geocortex User Group Meeting March 22nd

Posted on February 25, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Mark your calendars, the next Southern California Geocortex User Group Meeting will be held March 22, 2016 from 1-4pm at the City of Burbank. The meeting room address will be:

Burbank Community Services Building
Conference Room 104
150 N 3rd St
Burbank, CA 91502

Coffee and refreshments will be provided. Parking details soon.

Join fellow Geocortex users, administrators and partners for interactive discussions and presentations.

Tentative agenda:

What to expect from the upcoming releases of Geocortex Essentials 4.5, Geocortex Viewer for HTML5 2.6 and Geocortex Mobile App Framework 2.0. This release is packed with dozens of new features and effectively closes the feature gap with our Silverlight viewer.
A demonstration of the major improvements made to our mobile architecture; we’ve simplified the way clients deploy disconnected Geocortex applications for users in the field.
A Geocortex user presentation.

To attend, please register here.

Interactive Tours of New California National Monuments

Posted on February 24, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

On February 12th three new areas were designated as national monuments in the California desert: Mojave Trails National Monument, Sand to Snow National Monument, and Castle Mountains National Monument.

Encompassing nearly 1.8 million acres of public lands, these new monuments are the culmination of decades of hard work and collaboration between government, conservation organizations, and local communities.

The Wildlands Conservancy played a major role in the creation of the Mojave Trails National Monument and Sand to Snow National Monument. For the last 20 years they have acquired significant landscapes and saved them from development while stitching together California’s largest nature preserve system.

So you can better understand the new monuments, The Wildlands Conservancy has created two interactive tours of the Mojave Trails National Monument and Sand to Snow National Monument. Check them out and go visit soon!

ArcGIS 10.4 Now Available

Posted on February 22, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

The ArcGIS 10.4 release is now available for all who have current licenses. You can download the software from your my.esri.com account.

The new release includes new geoprocessing tools and updates, Python 2.7.10 with additional third-party libraries including SciPy, pandas, Sympy, and nose, and other updates to Mapping, Editing, Geodata/Geodatabases, and Network Analyst. For more info, visit the 10.4 What’s New page.

Five Forces Catapulting Geography onto the World Stage

Posted on February 16, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

This is an interesting short article which emphasizes the need to advocate to the public the value of “geoliteracy.”

Earth Wind Map

Posted on February 11, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Check out this interactive Earth Wind Map. The app is a visualization of global weather conditions forecast by supercomputers and updated every three hours. You can view air currents, ocean waves and sea surface temperature, CO/CO2/SO2 surface concentrations, and air containing particulates. You can change projections and display settings by clicking in the lower-left corner of the app.

PostgreSQL Client Libraries for ArcGIS 10.3

Posted on February 9, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

After installing a PostgreSQL database to be used by our 10.3 version of ArcGIS Server and Desktop, I was looking for the PostgreSQL client libraries to install on my Windows machine. And guess what? There were none!

In the installs I could see the usual ones for Oracle and SQL Server, but nothing for PostgreSQL for Windows. How am I going to use ArcCatalog to create a new Enterprise Geodatabase in PostgreSQL?

Digging around on the internet revealed that it was not needed anymore. As explained in the ArcGIS 10.3 documentation, ArcGIS 10.3 Desktop, Server, and Engine now contain the necessary PostgreSQL client libraries. You can now connect directly from ArcCatalog to a PostgreSQL database from ArcGIS 10.3 without having to install those pesky client libraries!

Think about that for a moment. If you have to install ArcGIS Desktop on a bunch of user workstations, you don’t have to install the PostgreSQL client libraries as well. It will just work. That saves a lot of time for sure.

And think about this one … if ESRI is making sure PostgreSQL databases will work out of the ArcGIS box, what direction are they leaning toward for future Enterprise Geodatabase implementation? They did not choose Oracle or SQL Server. Think about that.

Web Mercator Visual and Data Analysis Fallacy

Posted on February 8, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

Many of you know my disdain for the Web Mercator projection. Even the NGA in 2014 released a cease and desist regarding web mapping products for navigation and targeting due to inaccuracies.

Check out this post by Glen Bambrick as he demonstrates the problem with Web Mercator when it comes to data analysis of areas and visual presentation issues.

The Changing Geospatial Landscape

Posted on February 1, 2016 by socalgovgis - Michael Carson

The National Geospatial Advisory Committee released a report in December 2015 titled “The Changing Geospatial Landscape: A Second Look.”

The report states:

In this document, the committee contributes its perceptions of incipient technologies that we expect will guide, define or determine the development of this industry in the near and medium term. Of even greater importance, the report highlights those aspects of innovation that bear directly on public policy and on individual privacy and security. The NGAC has also prepared this report to help inform the development of the next iteration of the strategic plan for the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) and the development of transition recommendations for the next Presidential administration.

You can view the report here.

SoCalGIS.org

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