If you have road data in KML or GML that you would like to serve dynamically using Java, a GIS-savvy database and the Google Maps API, then this post by Mark McLaren will save you hours. It’s a meticulously documented step-by-step account of the process.
All posts by Stefan Geens
Standby for Google’s geo developer day
It looks like a lot of people going to Where 2.0 also want to attend Google’s geo developer day the day before, on June 12. The event has been filled to capacity for some time, but it turns out you can now put your name on a waiting list, and Google will let you know by June 1 if they’ve found a bigger place with more room. If you’re registered for Where 2.0, you’ve got nothing to lose by adding yourself to the list.
Belgian military sees no danger from Google’s imagery
Belgeoblog has news (in Dutch) of the Belgian military’s stance on Google’s high resolution imagery. The verdict? Unlike the Dutch, the Belgians are “not afraid” that Google’s imagery might be useful to terrorists, according to the Belga press agency, citing military sources.
Transcribing more fully, then, from the original article posted on Belgeoblog:
The Belgian Ministry of Defence is not planning on censoring Google’s imagery, as the Dutch have done (blogged here and here), a spokesman has told Belga. The spokesman points out that in any case, such imagery has been available for years from commercial providers.
According to the article, Belgium’s defence experts further maintain that mere access to high-resolution images is not sufficient to glean anything useful from them. Image analysis is a specialty that takes advanced training, and requires combining information from images with other intelligence sources, they say.
Glad to hear it. Proud to be Belgian:-). Perhaps Google could reward such a positive attitude by giving Belgium some high-resolution love, say, around Antwerp?
Pin in the map
In the mapping simplicity stakes, there is a new player: Pin in the map, a Google Maps API-based web app announced with a press release by UK developers Eden Development.
Pin in the map is nothing less (or more) than one-click placemarking, to which you can add text, a picture, an optional password for later editing, and then email the resulting unique URL to friends (example). I’m reviewing it on Ogle Earth because every URL, if appended by “/earth”, will also open in Google Earth.
The business plan: “Premium pins”, minus the Google ads and plus your business name in the URL.
How does it compare to contenders? Tagzania is far more powerful, offering tags and feeds, different map options and javascript to put readymade maps onto your own site, but you also need to set up an account first, and that may just be overkill if all you want to do is send somebody a link quickly. And Tagzania doesn’t let you make private placemarks, whereas Pin in the map does.
The latest iteration of Microsoft’s Virtual Earth offers something nearly as simple to use as Pin in the map, and its enhanced “collections” feature lets you group placemarks, which I can see even casual users wanting (Pub crawls, photo collections, house hunting candidates…). These collections can be private or public, too. As with Tagzania, however, you first need to log in before you can use Virtual Earth’s placemarking features. And there are no links to Google Earth in Virtual Earth, of course:-).
Pin in the map‘s unique feature, then, is that you need no account to use it, and this will speed adoption by casual users. Having in the past called Tagzania a “del.icio.us for places”, there is no escaping the obvious conclusion that Pin in the map is the TinyURL of places.
DIY phylogenetic trees in Google Earth
Roderic Page at Iphylo points to Bill Piel’s Experimental Google Earth Phylogenetic Tree Server, which lets scientists upload georeferenced phylogenetic trees as textfiles and then visualize them in Google Earth. (Definition of Phylogeny, tree map).
Here is a sample (ZIP). It shows views like this:
That’s an awesome bit of automated visualization.
You may remember Guiology‘s work on tree maps using Google Earth, posted a few weeks ago, using the phylogeny of the H5N1 avian flu strain. Bill Piel’s work lets anybody visualize this kind of hierarchical data.
Iphylo’s Roderic has some very interesting ideas about what these geospatial tree maps can tell us, and it’s well worth reading. (His suggestion of using node height as a indicator of age was even anticipated by Andrew @ Guiology.) Roderic also suggests that panbiogeographers (definition) take to using Google Earth as a visualization tool.
Bill Piel asks that only taxonomic phylogenetic trees be uploaded to the server, presumably because the network link will show them. But his work could easily be adapted to visualize non-scientific tree maps that have a geospatial component — for example, distribution channels for businesses, or the diffusion of technological and cultural ideas.
Where 2.0 freebie contest: And the winners are…
Eleven people entered the contest by 21.00 UTC for a free pass to Where 2.0. I went to random.org, got a sequence of three numbers (11,1,9) and applied them to the list. The winners are: Michael Leahy, GeoSpot; Reid Watkins, City of Anaheim; and Greg McCullough, Adacel.
Congrats to the winners, thanks everyone for playing, and thanks to Nathan Torkington at Where 2.0 for the random act of kindness.
Win a free pass to Where 2.0 with Ogle Earth
Where 2.0 is almost there, coming to San José, California, on June 13-14. It’s not too late to register, at $1,495 a pop, or you can try your luck with Ogle Earth: Where 2.0 Program Chair Nathan Torkington has kindly offered three free registrations to give away to Ogle Earth readers.
After thinking about it for a little while, I’ve decided that since this blog has a global readership, disbursing these three passes to the first three responses wouldn’t be fair, as at any given time fully one third of Ogle Earth readers are asleep:-)
So instead, for the next 8 hours, until 21.00 UTC May 26, 2006, please email one-off address ogle.where@gmail.com if you’re interested in a free pass and you can make it to San José in mid June. Please write a sentence telling me who you are in the body of the message. Duplicates will be disqualified. Anybody is eligible. I will then run a random number generator and choose the nth email, thrice. (I’ll be announcing the winners.)
What I really like about this competition is that it embodies everything I stand for: Leave everything until the last minute, maybe you’ll get lucky:-)
(Much as I’d love to go to Where 2.0, I can’t make it, unfortunately. I’m moving to Cambridge (UK) for the summer to work on a new web development project, and can’t really wander off to California for a week. I’ll be blogging Where 2.0 vicariously, however.)