Import Cartography points to a segment on NPR about the USGS’s National Grid. This in turn prompts an “angry listener” post on DoRealTime, which asks, in part,

How can military and civilian emergency teams collaborate if they’re speaking different mapping languages? And why is GoogleEarth, who I would expect to be on the cutting edge of mapping technologies, NOT on a par with this free service over at USGS?

Because latitude and longitude are understood in New Orleans and Pakistan alike? Because in Google Earth you can roll your own layers if you want something? Because Google Earth is free and looking a gift horse in the mouth is unseemly?

There is some debate about the usfulness of different grid systems on All Points Blog as well, in response to this article on he US National Grid on FCW.com.

(Find out how to read US National Grid spatial address here. Convert between USNG and lat/long using this PC application courtesy of the National Geodetic Survey, or a rather impressive-looking Corpscon 6, courtesy of the US Corps of Engineers.)

Not sure if this is viral marketing, unintentional or unauthorized, but over on Google Earth Hacks somebody has posted some excellent 3D architectural models of HCI bank’s buildings in Miami, Chicago and Hamburg, adding some boilerplate about HCI in the description.

If you’re going to turn on 3D buildings, then you might as well have these as well… which makes for an interesting advertising opportunity for companies with signature headquarters. It would even make good PR, being able to show potential clients directions to your office via a model in Google Earth downloadable from the corporate website.

From another perspective, this “donation” of 3D architecture to Google Earth is not at all surprising, if the application is meant to become an accurate virtual representation of the real world, over time. Companies should be dolling up “their” real-world equivalent spot, then, lest cybersquatters or protesters get there first with their own popular but unflattering renditions of HQs.

Ogle Earth is undergoing some design tweaks, so please excuse the rougher edges today and tomorrow. Behind it all lies a more modular system that should make it easier for me to keep the content on the right fresher. If you’re reading this in a news reader, come on over and have a look.

The look is pre-emptively optimised for Internet Explorer 7 and other browsers that can show transparent PNG files, while still looking okay in Internet Explorer 6. For now, Firefox is where it’s at.

On the to-do list: A linklist to non-English sites (which I’ve promised to several), A feed of GIS-tagged Connotea bookmarks, more social browsing linkage, an OPML reading list, and an anti-spam comment solution. Trackbacks could not be saved and had to be taken out the back and shot.

[Update 18.08 UTC: And I forgot to add: Some kind of categorization solution that works. Unfortunately, I am no fan of tags, but I might have to be.]

Don’t let the fact that some of this is in Hungarian throw you off: The AlertMap by Hungary’s National Association of Radio-Distress Signalling and Infocommunications is a truly useful near real-time mashup for all the world’s disasters in all categories, from bird-flu to traffic accidents to hurricanes to biological disasters. I don’t remember seeing anything that has this combination of timeliness and breadth. It should be a newsdesk editor’s dream.

And, of course, they have output in KML. It’s not quite a network link, so I made one that you can access here (KMZ). But before you do, visit the Alertmap to get a good look at what’s on offer. Perhaps we could persuade them this would be extremely valuable in English as well?

Violaine Paquereau points to an article about France’s upcoming map app that contains some extra details gleaned by actual reporters. Here they are, translated, for those of us who don’t speak Freedom:-)

The first 2D Google Maps-like version is due in June 2006 and is being developed by Teamlog and Digitek… The National Geographic Institute (IGN) says Google Earth currently only covers 20% of France at the resolution that GéoPortail will cover it at… GéoPortail will be a website, and not an application like Google Earth, and yet by 2007 it will have 3D capabilities.

Géoportail project chief Patrick Leboeuf (really) says that they’ve been thinking for years about how to present their datasets, but that it’s true that the arrival of Google Earth showed them that there is great demand by the public for this type of data. He also says that over time, he doesn’t exclude having commercial links to the site. “But such things would have to be much more separated than on Google,” he adds, cryptically. Finally, IGN says they expect to have 500,000 unique visitors during the first year, which sounds very low to me.

Adam Schneider’s GPS Visualizer is a collection of web apps that, among other things, converts GPS data into KML files. Now this workhorse learns yet another trick, letting you create overlays for areas you specify from USGS, Landsat or Canadian data, including topological and political maps. Behold the GPS Visualizer KML Overlay input form.

(USGS data availability (via TerraServer-USA.com) is spotty, Adam says, so for a sure result, experiment with the other data sources.)

[2006-02-24 00:20 UTC: Post edited to atone for my ignorance of the fact that GPS Visualizer in fact does far more than just cater to Google Earth. The question, rather, is what doesn’t it do? Check out the geographic calculators, many of which output to KML. And don’t forget the geolocator. And here is some eyecandy.]

Eyebeam’s Michael Frumin, who’s behind the OGLE 3D extractor that impresses so, is appearing live in Second Life today/tomorrow, Thursday 15.30 PST (Friday 0.30 UTC). Second Life Future Salon has more info on the meetup as well as the slides Michael will use to illustrate exactly how to go about grabbing an avatar from Second Life and plonking it into Google Earth.

Me, I still have to figure out how to get out of Second Life’s sandbox.