As part of last week’s review of the Oxford New Concise World Atlas, I offered a free copy to the person who posted the best comment on how old-school geography sometimes beats new-school. Contest deadline was at midnight this past Monday, and there were a grand total of …. zero entries for the giveaway. So if anyone had posted anything, they’d have a really good $40 atlas on the way to them by now.
So, atlas giveaway contest Mark II: Post a brief comment below on what your favorite free geography tools is. It can be a web app, GIS or GPS software, neogeography (e.g. Google Earth), an iPhone app, whatever. Deadline is midnight PDT this Sunday, April 4; winner will be selected at random from all the comments. Eligibility is limited to residents of the lower 48 US States, to keep shipping costs from being too high. So take 15 seconds and post your favorite tool, willya?!
4/7/10: Congratulations to the winner, Cyberhobo, selected at random using Random.org.
Despite being geographically disqualified from the contest (I am from Europe), the best geo related tool for me is Geosetter. Helps me to geotag my photos.
there are so many tools out there now. this is a great time to be a map enthusiast. in the realm of free i have started using SAGA GIS and QGIS for work. i have been finding more and more publicly available GIS Sources to get the data from. recently a friend of mine put me on to bing maps very similar to google no shock there and for the weather enthusiast in me the new full screen weather underground map is great. being able to zoom out and pan to see the weather reported at all reporting stations on the map.
Despite being geographically disqualified from the contest (I am from the ~UK)
Sports Tracker (Nokia)
Use it for multiple sports or leisure activites – fast GPS fix, records your route.
the more geogeekers can save the route as kml (View in 3D Google Earth) or gpx which can be imported into Open Street Map. Which helps build a little bit more to the community built map.
“Sports Tracker has been a phenomenal success world-wide with millions of downloads and a total exercise distance of 31 times the distance to the moon — and counting!”
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/main/index.do
(just needs to be an iphone and blackberry app)
Quotes:
“There’s no map to human behaviour.” Bjork
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rk
I am using map window as a quasi portable app for public utilities, (telecos, electric, sewer, water, etc) I set up shp’s in a folder I provide with the software and setup at different offices is a snap. I email shp files updated as needed and the new set is dumped into the folder, overwriting the old shape. Road name changes and new addresses in the county no longer take months to filter down though the various agencies.
I check your website frequently and always enjoy your new discovery’s…….Thanks
I have to say mapedit and the mapset Tool for making garmin imgs for my gps. Using these programs have made it a snap to make forest trails and land parcels and adding them to mapsource.
I’m a Canadian but with access to an American mailbox….
As I was reviewing all the tools and tips that I use and that I’ve learned about here I reflected that most tie to how I can get the data to Google Maps or Google Earth for display or to then transfer to other uses. I always seem to be reaching for Google in the process. So my vote is for Google Earth/ Google Maps as the most useful tool.
I like the potential for MapOSMatic, and it was quite helpful on a recent overseas trip. Thanks!
http://freegeographytools.com/2009/usgs-topographic-map-overlays-for-google-earth linking to Matt Fox’s GELib site is my favorite…there are so many tools though: Garmin custom map tools, GE tips/tools, Open Source GIS software – thanks Leszek!
Well, to be a total suck-up…www.freegeographytools.com is one of my favorite geotools!
I really like the useful information that comes by, and the archives/related links work very well. It’s also a great place to point folks to who are new to GIS and open Source approaches.
QGIS is also in my favorites list- it handles most any GIS task and is easy to use and get others involved with too.
Honorable mention goes to a small program called PosteRazor (http://posterazor.sourceforge.net) which I heard about here. It takes a large image and splits it up however you need and saves those as pdf’s, so that you can print out a large map on a normal printer. 11×17 Ends up being a great size/price for printing. Of course you could use Photoshop or GIMP for this but this one is an easy 5 step process.
DNRGarmin. Period.
Useful for work or play, DNRGarmin works both as a standalone utility or as it “sniffs” for the presence of other open programs so as to work in conjunction them, including Google Earth, ArcExplorer, ArcGIS, ArcView (3.x) or Landview (I’m not familiar with this one). As a stand alone, DNRG will up/down load from shapefiles, text, GPX and download to KML format. Many worldwide projections are supported and the developers, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, are quite responsive to user inquiries and issues. When asked by me, they kindly added a custom projection to the list.
Working with ArcGIS or ArcView (neither at all free) DNRG will map you in real-time. I’ve used this functionality for years on land and while airborne. It smokes.
Other functionality includes image hyperlinking (useful for ArcGIS users).
It’s easy to use: I’ve walked remote users through it using NetMeeting sessions and is pretty much the standard in the wildfire community. I’ve trained up a bunch of law enforcement folks as well who use it’s real-time capacity to figure out their location while having GIS layers depicting regulatory information. They love it and the program saves much time and taxpayer monies.
Requires Garmin GPS receivers but will take a NMEA string for real time mapping.
A tip of the hat to the folks at Minnesota Department of Natural Resources /:>
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mis/gis/tools/arcview/extensions/DNRGarmin/DNRGarmin.html
GeoSetter and Viking have become part of my regular workflow, but I think I’ll vote for http://www.openstreetmap.org and its Potlach editor as my most recent discovery. So many mapping attempts to crowdsource fail, but I think this one will make it!
For obscure places you are talking raster maps and probably a Triton GPS. Triton RMP (and TritonRMP Helper). Realistically, the only way to get some decent maps into the Triton GPS units.
GeoDA is a great program. Excellent weight matrices and pretty solid geographically weighted regressions. Easy to use interface and most times I’ll take it over the fancier more expensive programs like ArcGIS. Check it out: http://geodacenter.asu.edu/
I’m only just starting to work with GIS tools through work, and while I’ve used quite a few (GeoMapper probably the “most” so far – because that’s what I was handed) I’m personally more on the Google Earth level. I keep hoping to find a one-stop web source for high resolution elevation data for the areas I need, but that seems to be understandably rare.