Plotter looking for loving and caring home

Miistakis has a HP DesignJet 2500 CP that we currently do not use enough to keep the ink lines from drying up. It works, as far as we know, but has been idle long enough that it will need a cleaning at the least.

Please email me: ken at rockies dot ca if you are interested.

Ken

Atals of the Biosphere - free data resource

Hi everyone;

I subscribe to a blog with weekly(ish) posts on the subject of free GIS data, and this week's post is about a new initiative by the University of Wisconsin called the Atlas of the Biosphere:
http://www.sage.wisc.edu/atlas/maps.php

The Atlas provides access to maps and associated data related two four main themes: human impacts, land use, ecosystems, and water resources. I encourage you to take a look and see what's available.

The data sets are global scale and hence may be too coarse for some finer-scale analysis or applications, but may be useful for providing a general overview, or for filling gaps where no finer-scale data exists. It's also a great example of a simple, well-designed web site that allows free access to data - something that many of us would likely be happier to see a lot more of.

A more detailed description of the Atlas of the Biosphere is available at the above mentioned blog:
http://free-gis-data.blogspot.com/2009/04/atlas-of-biosphere.html

Take care,
greg

Out with Hawth's Tools, in with GME

Hi everyone;

I don't know how many of you previously used the Hawth's Tools extension in ArcGIS - for those of you who haven't, it was (is) a free extension with all kinds of really valuable analysis, conversion, and data management tools.

Unfortunately, many of the modules in Hawth's Tools stopped working in newer versions of ArcGIS.

Luckily though, Hawthorne has developed a replacement for Hawth's Tools, called GME. It's still free, though there is an option to make a donation to support the Tool's continued development.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with this extension and its capabilities, but I think it might be of general use/interest to many of you.

Have a great Friday and weekend,
greg

Example of GIS Data Consolidation

The City of Houston recently began the move to a more centralized system. Read the details here:

http://www.govtech.com/736224

New Openess Directive

The US Government has released a Directive that relates to data access.

FYI

http://www.govtech.com/734482

Interoperability

This article may be of interest to some of you:

http://carboncloud.blogspot.com/2010/03/transparency-through-interoperability.html

APPLIED GIS-RS LISTSERVE

Good Morning everyone;

As mentioned at the last Technical Committee Meeting, I am passing on a link to the Applied GIS and Remote Sensing Listserve, that might be of general/practical interest to many of you. Here is the link:

http://www.matox.com/agisrs/Applied_GIS_RS_Member_Map.html

To join the listserve, follow the instructions in the left, under the heading "How to Join" (duh....). When you send your email to join, the instructions that come back to you will be in french (the listserve is hosted from Laval University in QC, PQ) - so you will either have to ask Patricia to translate for you ;-) or just intuit the procedure - it's basically the same as any other list I've ever joined (send email, receive verification, verify, ...).

The subject matter discussed ranges broadly, from non-software-specific technical questions (e.g. how do I build my own DEM?) to new or existing data sets to conference and publication info. I've included a sample posting below, just because I think it's really cool!

Have a great weekend,
greg

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This animation, made up of eight Envisat radar images, shows the 97-km long B-9B iceberg ramming into the Mertz Glacier Tongue in Eastern Antarctica in early February. The collision caused a chunk of the glacier’s tongue to snap off, giving birth to another iceberg nearly as large as B-9B.

More at:

http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMUD27K56G_index_0.html

ESA

ESRI in the Cloud

This is interesting news. Those of you having an ELA agreement with ESRI could benefit from this:

http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2010/02/24/reflections-on-the-2010-esri-feduc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spatiallyadjusted+%28James+Fee+GIS+Blog%29

Modified Stylesheet for ArcCatalog

I was asked about the style sheet used by the data framework and if it could be used within ArcCatalog.

You may download the stylesheet here.

In order to view within ArcCatalog you must first put unzip the stylesheet and put it in your ArcGIS stylesheet folder. This will vary by system, on mine it is:

C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Metadata\Stylesheets

If it is different for you, do a search on a file name of FGDC ESRI and it should show up and show you the folder you need.

Once the file is in place, open ArcCatalog. Once you are viewing a metadata file you may change the stylesheet from the default, to the new one, via the drop down to the left of your metadata editing tools.

Please note this stylesheet was not designed for this purpose and has extra code built into the stylesheet. It works fine in testing, but mileage may very depending on versions of ArcGIS and other system factors.

Ken

Web Editing (ESRI)

Some of you might find this worth reading...

http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/winter0910articles/web-editing.html