Checking Out the GDAL/OGR Plugin for ArcGIS

A while back, I blogged the availability of a GDAL/OGR plug-in for ArcGIS desktop by Ragi Burhum at AmigoCloud. At the time, I was hoping to dig into it fairly quickly but that didn’t happen and I’m finally getting to it. Anyone who has followed this blog for a while knows that I have had more than a passing interest in integrating new data sources with ArcGIS over the years. This comes from the fact that, as a technology geek, I am fascinated by all forms of technology and enjoy the process of integration and, as a consultant providing services to the Federal Government, most of my customers have standardized on Esri tools. Integrations such as GeoRSS, PostGIS, GeoCommons and GeoJSON have directly benefitted my customers for real-world applications so I continue look for ways to remove the barriers between them and the data they seek.

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MSDN Article on Mapping with WPF

I found this article today about using VB9 and WPF to draw thematic maps. It’s a good walk-through of how to do it. The article admits that the coordinate transformation used is not terribly accurate but that can be rectified. This article is a good example of how to build a mapping application without any … Read more

Stealing GPS…

The following was reported on the local news in Washington, DC: WRC-TV updated 7:37 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov. 26, 2007 BETHESDA, Md. – On two nights earlier this month, several cars were broken into in Bethesda, police said. The break-ins occurred overnight Nov. 7 to Nov. 8 and overnight Nov. 11 to Nov. 12, police … Read more

DDJ on “The Return of the Desktop”

Okay, I swear I’m not on the DDJ payroll, but this article caught my eye immediately. Michael Swaine has been on a roll lately but I think this one just drips with significance for the GIS community.

Over the past 10 years, as everyone has run screaming from the desktop, I’ve been a little mystified as to why it was considered a good thing to reduce a CPU more powerful than everything NASA had in 1969 to a mere vehicle for a browser. The browser-based model reduced our computers to really cool-looking equivalents of a VT220 so it’s nice to see that the market is starting to gain back a little sanity.

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Interesting Washington Post Article…

For those of you familiar with what Northern Virginia is like now, the following article may be of interest: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102407.html It’s about how archaeologists are using some recently discovered aerial photos of Fairfax County from 1937 to analyze change over the decades.

New DDJ Column on Concurrency

Anyone who has browsed this blog enough has probably figured out that I am a fan of Doctor Dobb’s Journal. This month’s issue inaugurates a new column by Herb Sutter dealing with concurrency. In my opinion, the confluence of mult-processor/multi-core systems with a greater emphasis on server-based GIS makes concurrency a huge issue for the … Read more