Presentations Spotlight Critical Role of Free Map Data in Humanitarian Work
Katherine Maher Interim
open source
CrowTrax Open Source Webmap Maps Crow attacks
This time of year in Western Canada the crows start getting a little aggressive. As a result, a University Professor at Langara College has developed a webmap using nothing but open source software to share a real world use for a community webmap. Crowtrax identifies locations where crow attacks and aggressive crow behavior has been spotted and reported. The maps are available for Vancouver and Victoria, B.C and appear to reveal patterns such as increased activity near areas with restaurants and public parks, likely where there’s plenty of food to be scooped up!
Langara College offers classes in GIS and even have an Open Source GIS Certificate program
Open Government Tour 2014 #OGT14 Hits Victoria BC to Stimulate OpenData Dialog #opengov
A topic that is hugely hot these days, particularly with the GeoTech crowd, is Open Data. I spent an evening in the meeting chambers at our local City Hall discussing OpenData with about 2 dozen other geeks with nothing better to do on a Monday night. The event was planned by and run by opendata enthusiast and co-founder of CitizenBridge, Richard Pietro and brought together about 10 very knowledgeable speakers and enthusiasts to share their stories and advice. The tour, which is supported by sponsorship from the Microsoft backed Open Source project, Make Web not War, is designed to ignite the open government conversation in areas that may not have had the chance to experience the conversation – that may not be the case in Victoria BC but it is always a great idea to re-ignite the discussion.
Tripomatic – Custom Maps Built entirely with OpenSource Mapping Tools
An interesting update comes our way from the developers of Tripomatic – custom maps for iOS, Android or BlackBerry that focus on the features tourists really appreciate! What’s way cool about this app is that Tripomatic is based on OpenStreetMap and the Mapnik rendering toolkit while the symbology was designed using TileMill software developed by Mapbox.
[Read more…] about Tripomatic – Custom Maps Built entirely with OpenSource Mapping Tools
State of the Map US @sotmus 2014, April 12-13, Washington DC
This comes via the official SOTM website regarding SOTM 2014… We’re happy to announce that the 2014 State of the Map US conference will take place in Washington DC at the Convention Center April 12 and 13. Plan to join us to connect with other mappers, learn how to work with OpenStreetMap data, and hack on the latest OpenStreetMap improvement. Connect with other OpenStreetMap users from an amazing ecosystem of enthusiast mappers, businesses, government agencies, and non profits, all collaborating around the free and editable map of the world.
See the web site and and register today at the early bird rate.
Check out last year’s schedule for an idea of what’s in store.
Open Source Leader, Boundless, Rolls out OpenGeo 4.0
The open source hipsters and geogeeks are being treated to a release this week as OpenGeo errrrrr Boudless has announced the availability ofOpenGeo suite 4.0. According to teh company, this release brings new features and improvements, including component upgrades to PostGIS 2.1, GeoServer 2.4, GeoWebCache 1.5 and support for OpenLayers 3 and QGIS. Additional developments include a GeoServer clustering extension which allows high availability and better scaling under load.
[Read more…] about Open Source Leader, Boundless, Rolls out OpenGeo 4.0
OSM Mappers take to the Streets for October 19-20 Fall #editathon
This week-end OSM mappers , GeoGeeks, and mapping enthusiasts will get together in about 12 cities to take a shot at updating the ever popular OpenStreetMap open data product. Using popular map editing tools, the geeks will add features, make edits and improve upon the OSM map for everyone to enjoy. This from the OSM blog about the event… [Read more…] about OSM Mappers take to the Streets for October 19-20 Fall #editathon
Mashing-up Opendata for a B.C Liquor Outlet Map with CartoDB
All the twitter chatter today from #FOSS4G and the hype surrounding CartoDB got me wanting to mashup some data with the awesome open Geo tools out there so I decided to go look for some data and see what I could come up with. It took me a few minutes by I managed to locate some opendata from the DataBC providing me with locations of beer, wine, and liquor outlets, both public and private within the Province. Using my free CartoDB account I could quickly drop in my data, geocode it (almost) and publish a nice map for simple visualization and sharing.. took me about 5 minutes in total and I haven’t used CartoDB in months! Pretty darned sweet… I guess I better go fix the stragglers in my dataset! Jump directly to the BC liquor store locator map here or see the live map below… [Read more…] about Mashing-up Opendata for a B.C Liquor Outlet Map with CartoDB
OpenGeo Rebrands as Boundless
In case you haven’t heard or noticed, open source solution provider / leader OpenGeo is now Boundless – according to the company, a new corporate brand to better reflect the growing range of platforms, applications, and services the company develops and sells.
Boundless was spun out of its longtime incubator, OpenPlans, in April 2013 and has sold much of its company stock to its employees. Along with the corporate rebranding, Boundless announced a public beta release of OpenGeo Suite 4.0 and the official release of Mapmeter, a management and analytics tool for monitoring the health of production geospatial deployments. To sign up for Mapmeter, including a two week trial visit https://app.mapmeter.com/signup
See more about the new company brand from the official announcement
Video – Meet Steve Coast, new Head of OSM at Telenav
Here’s a nice video from Steve Coast describing his history with OpenStreetMap and introducing himself in his new role at Telenav… “OpenStreetMap is its own reward…” read more about Steve’s new adventure here