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Archive for the 'GIS' Category Page 5 of 20

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FalconView Released As Open Source

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in GIS. 3 Comments

FalconView is the Windows mapping part of the Air Force’s Portable Flight Planning Software (PFPS), under development by Georgia Tech since 1994; see this link for an interesting history of the politics of software development in the military. This mapping part, stripped of all mission planning components, has recently been OK’ed by the Air Force for release by as Open Source software. The program has an strong list of features, including:

  • Support for many raster/vector map formats
    • GeoTIFF
    • TIROS TopoBath
    • Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) / LIDAR
    • Vector Product Format (VPF)
    • CADRG
    • MrSID
    • GeoPDF
    • WMS
    • ArcMap .mxd (requires that ArcGIS be installed)
    • Shapefiles
    • KML/KMZ (including network links)
  • Moving map supported if you have a connected GPS
  • Generate and overlay contour lines from elevation data
  • Skyview mode lets you fly through terrain with overlays by keyboard/joystick control

skyview

But this open source version is labeled as alpha software, and it definitely is:

  • It wouldn’t install successfully on two separate Vista systems, claiming problems with MapServer initialization; was finally able to get it installed on a Windows XP system
  • It’s a huge download (about 500 MB), partially because it also contains critical supporting applications like DotNetFX and Windows SQL Server that must be installed in order to run the program
  • Some operations can run slowly on older systems
  • Occasional crashes on my system

A bigger problem is that it’s a complicated program with lots of features and a non-intuitive interface. Documentation is currently limited to the help file, which is clearly intended for someone who’s already familiar with the program; no manuals or other documentation is currently available. I struggled for several hours trying to figure out  the simplest task possible, add a raster image to the map and view it, before finally giving up. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I’m not the dullest, either.

FalconView also installs GeoRect, a program to georectify imagery and export it in GeoTiff format. I had hopes that this could be used to convert GeoPDF files into GeoTiff format, since it does open GeoPDF files. But I was defeated on this score as well; while the help file is substantially more helpful than that for FalconView, I was unsuccessful even following their step-by-step instructions. And it appeared as though it would only convert a beta USGS quad in GeoPDF format to a GeoTiff far smaller than would be necessary for full resolution.

I welcome comments from anyone who’s used this program before, and can offer pointers, and I’ll keep an eye on it for the future. But until there’s substantially better documentation available, I’m not going to spend a lot of time struggling my way through this software.

HT to Thomas Larsen.




Map Maker Gratis: Free Map Editor

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in GIS and cartography. 5 Comments

Map Maker Gratis is the free version of the professional $400 GIS and map editor Map Maker Pro. I’ve been meaning to try it out for a while, since even the free version has a very strong feature set. From the website:

  • Unlimited number of layers, raster and vector.
  • Colour, mono, and grey-scale bitmap backgrounds.
  • Large range of fill, line, and symbol styles
  • Translucent and semi-translucent fills.
  • Curved, stretched, and outline text.
  • Arrows, and dimensions.
  • Easy to create scale bars, north points, legends, text panels, inset images, etc.
  • Point-and-click to pop-up images, documents and internet links.
  • Print accurately scaled maps on any true Windows compatible printer.
  • Multi-sheet printing of large maps.
  • Create from new or import and edit.
  • Vector drawing and editing.
  • Intuitive cutting and joining of polygons.
  • Create polygons with islands.
  • Simple editing of common boundaries.
  • Numerous “snap-to” options.
  • Drag, stretch, rotate, duplicate groups of objects.
  • Create buffer zones.
  • Calibrate raster images.
  • Use data from DBF files to colour up a map or determine symbols.
  • Generate legends.
  • Measuring areas and lengths is simple.
  • Edit data sets.
  • Import vector data including ArcView SHP, MapInfo MIF, AutoCAD DXF, Idrisi VXP.
  • View BMP, TIF, Geo-Tiff,  and JPG raster data.
  • Export BMP, JPG, TIF.
  • Export DBF data to Microsoft Access, Excel, dBase etc.

The Pro version adds support for 3D, raster-to-vector, on-the-fly reprojection, export of vector features from the native .dra format to standard formats (shapefile, MapInfo, etc.),  and more; see the comparison chart for all the differences. And the install program lets you try out the Pro version for 30 days before it reverts to the free Gratis version. So it seemed worth a look on a simple map project I was doing for a friend as a favor.

Having struggled with the program for a few days, I can see that it does have many features; unfortunately, it also has a fairly steep learning curve, especially for those used to more conventional GIS programs. For example, modifying vector file display attributes isn’t done by modifying the layer properties, but rather by defining a “style”, a set of descriptions for things like symbol, line width, fill patterns and more, and figuring out how to do that effectively takes some work (and sometimes doesn’t work the way you expect). Getting labels to appear in the position I wanted was a chore, and some of the label controls didn’t seem to work. You can have multiple layers of vector data loaded, but it seems that you can only work with data in a single, “active” layer, i.e. you can’t edit or add points to layers other than the active layer.  There’s a large PDF manual that comes with the program, and at first glance it seemed to be comprehensive. But when I ran into problems and looked in the manual for answers, more often than not I couldn’t find them.

I suspect that if I worked long enough with the program, I would eventually figure out what it can and can’t do. There are some limited tutorials available for download at the site, along with links to tutorials by other users. Given the feature set, and the price point of $0 for the Gratis version, I can’t complain too much, and can see myself revisiting the program at some point in the future to give it a more complete review.

I should mention that the program authors generously offer free licenses for the Pro version to any non-profit organization, educational institution, or students in Africa. Also, there’s a world clock / sunlit area display program called Sun Clock available for a 30-day full-featured demo; at the end of 30 days, some features disappear (like views of the sky and stars), but the world clock /sunlit areas feature remains free.

SunClock




Disaster Response Map Symbols

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in GIS, Google Earth, KML, MicroDEM and cartography. 3 Comments

The Portuguese chapter of the Association Of Volunteer Emergency Response Teams, in collaboration with Peter Guth and Donald Springer, is working to create a general-purpose set of symbols useful in mapping the position and condition of infrastructure, resources and incidents during emergency situations. You can download these Disaster Response Map Symbols as a True Type font from the DRMS website, along with a PDF file that documents the symbols There are 253 symbols depicting infrastructure, resources and incidents (graphic from the help file for MicroDEM, Peter Guth’s freeware GIS):

drms table

And additional dot symbols that represent the status of the higher-level symbol:

drmsstatus

These status symbols would be plotted directly below the higher-level symbol, to indicates its condition/status:

commstatus

Any GIS software that can use True Type fonts for symbols or labeling can use the DRMS symbol set directly. But MicroDEM has some special capabilities built in for working with this symbology. Make sure you’ve used the most recent program install, which includes the DRMS True-Type font; also, download the latest executable and copy it into the program directory.

From MicroDEM’s File => Tools menu, selecting Military icon generator brings up the icon composer window; make sure the DRMS tab is selected:

iconcomposer1

Double-click on an icon to select it, and then modify it as you like:

  • Use the color button to modify the color
  • Use Left/Right/Top/Bottom to add text around the symbol.
  • Select the Infrastructure status to plot dots depicting the status of the feature underneath the symbol
  • Modify the test and symbol size using the arrow keys

iconcomposer2

Once the symbol design is complete, you can save the symbol to the clipboard to paste into a graphics program, or choose “Save to file” to save it as a PNG, GIF, JPG, BMP or Targa format graphic file for those GIS programs that let you select graphic images to represent points.

You can also plot these symbols directly on a map in MicroDEM. Open up a georeferenced raster image in MicroDEM:

raster

Clicking on the Map Annotation button on the toolbar (second from the left), choose Military icons from the drop-down, and then enter a filename to save the locations for the icons you want to place. You’ll then use the same Icon Composer interface as above to design your DRMS icons. The Left text is used as a feature ID in the DBF file, and also in the KML file you have the option of creating later on. Once you’ve designed your icon, you can double-click on the raster map to place the icon on that map:

mapwithicons

Click on the “Close” button in the Icon Composer when you’re done. You can now export this map image directly to a generic image file or GeoTiff using the appropriate File => Save … option. But by right-clicking on the map, choosing Load => Google Earth overlay, you can export both the raster image and vector points to Google Earth. Here’s the raster overlay in Google Earth (vector overlay is turned off):

drmsraster

And here are the vector points, with the selected icons, for the same area (raster overlay turned off):

drmsvector

These data files are loaded into Google Earth automatically, but they’re not saved; to keep them for future use, right-click on the dataset listed in the Google Earth Places pane, choose “Save Place As”, then save it as a KMZ file.

Closing the Icon Composer will also open up a DBF  table window with the locations of the points you’ve just created; you can convert that to a point shapefile by clicking on the Report button, then selecting point shapefile. There’s also an option with this Report to create a KML file, but make sure you save this KML file in an empty folder. As I found out by testing it, this option creates a KMZ file, copies every single file in that folder into the KMZ file, then deletes the original file from the folder. If this happens to you, rename the KMZ extension to ZIP, then use your favorite unzipping program to extract out the original files. Also, the KMZ file contains only the KML text data, which  references the graphic icon files in a local directory on your computer for display in Google Earth. If you want to save this file for future use on your computer or another computer, and keep the graphics, you will need to open the file immediately in Google Earth, then save it as a KMZ file (right-click, choose “Save Place As”,etc.).




LandSerf – Vector Functions

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in DEM, GIS and shapefile. Closed

In a previous post, I gave a random overview of LandSerf’s strong terrain analysis functionality. But it  has some some useful vector functions as well, some derived from or related to raster elevation data, others more general. I won’t talk about the general vector data creation functions here; they’re perfectly fine, but lots of free GIS program can do that; instead, I’ll just highlight a few of the more distinctive vector functions that aren’t as common. Note: Save the derived vector data if you want to keep it; LandSerf doesn’t save created, modified or derived datasets automatically.

Continue reading ‘LandSerf – Vector Functions’




LandSerf – Terrain Visualization And Analysis For Windows, Mac And Linux

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in DEM and GIS. Closed

I’ve been waiting for LandSerf 2.3 to officially come out of beta before posting on it, and that finally happened about a month ago. LandSerf is a Java-based GIS program with:

  • Terrain visualization and analysis functions (its primary focus)
  • Some vector functionality related to terrain analysis, plus other basic vector functions
  • GPS and Google Earth utilities

Today, I’ll walk through some of LandSerf’s basic terrain visualization and analysis functions; upcoming posts will deal with the vector and GPS/Google Earth capabilities.

Continue reading ‘LandSerf – Terrain Visualization And Analysis For Windows, Mac And Linux’




New Free Stand-Alone MRSID Imagery Viewer/Exporter From LizardTech

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in GIS. 3 Comments

A long time ago, LizardTech had a stand-alone viewer for MRSID imagery that let you export subsets of the image as TIFF files -  GeoTiffs if the original image was georeferenced. For some reason, that viewer was withdrawn as a free download in favor of a browser plugin, though you could still find the viewer available at some sites. I never really cared for the browser plugin, and kept my copy of their old viewer software safely stashed away.

LizardTech has just released GeoViewer 3.0, a new stand-alone viewer for georeferenced imagery, and a replacement for their $299 GeoView Express product. Note: The initial download is only 670KB, but that’s not the full program; it’s a front-end that downloads the 21 MB installer from LizardTech, so you’ll need a working Internet connection to install the software. It can read:

  • MRSID
  • JPEG 2000
  • GeoTiff
  • ERDAS Imagine
  • ECW
  • Express Server Layers
  • WMS Layers
  • JPIP Layers

… and a bunch more, including vector shapefiles. It also opens JPEG and BMP imagery, and unregistered TIF images, but since it doesn’t seem to be able to use associated UTM worldfiles to register those images, it’s not clear how useful that is. If coordinate system data is embedded in the imagery, it uses the first file to set the native coordinate system, and re-projects successive files to match that native system. If that first file imagery is not in geographic coordinates (lat/long) and WGS84 datum, you’ll also have the option of re-projecting it immediately to lat/long, WGS84:

5-26-2009-9.34.06 PM

You can export either all the loaded data, or just the data in view, as a GeoTiff (Tools => Export), a raster PNG with worldfile, or JPEG with worldfile, in your choice of resolutions, using the Tools => Export menu:

5-26-2009-9.24.20 PM

It also has a path measurement function, which works but is nothing to write home about:

5-26-2009-9.26.48 PM

You can load in multiple layers and mosaic them, and set layer transparencies, but you’re probably better off using other software for that. Really, the big thing about this program is that there’s now an up-t0-date, stand-alone MRSID viewer and imagery exporter from the company that created the format, LizardTech.

Via GISUser.




Free Tools For ArcGIS Server (And A Request For Ideas For More Free Tools)

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in ESRI and GIS. 1 Comment

David Enns of MapItOut writes:

Subsequent to the development of low-cost tools by Map It Out in previous versions of ArcGIS Server, the company will now release these tools free of cost, starting with ArcGIS Server 9.3. It will be seeking input from users to develop other no cost tools. Map It Out Inc. hopes to offer several other ease-of-use and multi-functional tools at no cost in the upcoming months based on the input/demand from the GIS community.

The first available tools are:

  • Area & Buffer Selection Tool
  • Bookmark Tool
  • Hyperlink Tool
  • Export Tool
  • Custom Query Tool

I don’t use ArcGIS Server, so can’t evaluate them; for anyone who does try them out, I’d welcome your opinions in the comments section.




Additions To List Of Free GIS Programs For The Mac

Published by
Leszek Pawlowicz
 in GIS. Closed

A few more additions to the full list of free Mac GIS software, where they will be added shortly; you need only bookmark that preceding link to have it as a complete and regularly-updated reference.

Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) – “The Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) is an interactive desktop tool that is used for easy access, manipulation, and visualization of earth science data. The format of the data may be either binary, GRIB, NetCDF, or HDF-SDS (Scientific Data Sets).”

MARPLOT – “MARPLOT is the mapping application. It allows users to “see” their data (e.g., roads, facilities, schools, response assets), display this information on computer maps, and print the information on area maps. The areas contaminated by potential or actual chemical release scenarios also can be overlaid on the maps to determine potential impacts. The maps are created from the U.S. Bureau of Census TIGER/Line files and can be manipulated quickly to show possible hazard areas.”

Puzzle-GIS – “Puzzle is a Java Geographic Information Systems (GIS) development platform build on top of NetBeans6. The main goal of Puzzle GIS is to create a free, production ready and competitive tool as a valid alternative to commercial software.”

Spatial Commander – A free German GIS program. This link (in German) lists its features.

Spatial Data Integrator – “Spatial Data Integrator (SDI) is an ETL (Extract Transform Load) tool with geospatial capabilities.”

STEM – “The Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM) tool is designed to help scientists and public health officials create and use spatial and temporal models of emerging infectious diseases. These models could aid in understanding, and potentially preventing, the spread such diseases.”




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