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By markgreninger, on January 26th, 2012  NASA today released a new, high-resolution “Blue Marble” image of the Earth taken from NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite — Suomi NPP. This composite image is 8000 x 8000, and uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on Jan. 4, 2012, according to NASA. For those of you on slower connections, it could take some time to download the 16.4MB file.
Suomi NPP carries five instruments on board, the biggest and most important of which is the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which took the photos used to make this high-resolution composite.
By markgreninger, on January 26th, 2012
 Your neighbor's phone numbers Looks like they’ve geocoded the entire white pages – this could be good in case of emergency, but not great from a privacy perspective (although I’ve seen a lot worse on other site):
http://neighbors.whitepages.com/
By markgreninger, on January 20th, 2012  Flyer I wanted to pass this along. It’s a good opportunity for the GIS and Surveyor communities to talk shop.
The meeting is Thursday, February 2nd at 6 PM.
Here’s the meeting flyer: CLSA_LA_February 2012 (pdf file)
By markgreninger, on January 17th, 2012  Glendale Annexations (sample) Our Public Works department has been doing some neat maps showing annexations for all cities in LA County – this is both interesting (to see how cities have grown) and valuable, since these are high-quality and give the legal changes over time.
Here’s a sample from my city (Glendale): Glendale Annexation Map
Here’s the link to the full FTP site: ftp://dpwftp.co.la.ca.us/pub/mpm/SDU-GIS/City Annexations
Thanks DPW!
By markgreninger, on January 12th, 2012  Please find the agenda for next week’s meeting attached: January – 2012_0117.eGIS meeting notice and Agenda
I’m looking forward to Wendy Harn’s demonstration of the Sheriff’s new Crime Mapping and Analysis site which includes information from both LASD and LAPD (it’s an internal application). I have attached a screenshot to the right.
Importantly, there are three draft GIS policies that I would like everyone to review and comment on. These policies follow directions that most County departments are already moving, but formalizing them and gaining feedback to resolve any questions is critical.
Here they are: Technology Focus Area – Recommended Enterprise GIS Policies
One of them relates to ESRI software – I’ll be bringing copies of the most recent pricing list related to the County’s Master Purchase Agreement with ESRI – don’t forget to leverage that.
And for more interest, I’ve completed a test of the new ESRI Geocoding engine that was released with version 10. The current, LA County developed rules seem to do a better job at geocoding (98.6% rate vs. 94.3% rate). Download the full results: Comparison of LA County 931 geocoder and ESRI v10 geocoder.
Note – I’m fairly familiar with the test data – it is pretty dirty so many of the 1.4% rejects are caused by bad address data so don’t blame the geocoders.
ESRI is interested in working with us to identify where the differences are, and how they can increase their accuracy (as are we of courese).
Have a great weekend everyone (it’s a holiday). See you Tuesday!
By markgreninger, on January 12th, 2012 I just got this post forwarded from ESRI – it appears to have a great set of courses to help you do Python scripting (Python is the scripting or automation language from ESRI). I’ve always had issues with Python – I used to be an expert ArcView 3.3 Avenue (here’s a little guide for old times sake), and I find the the geoprocessing tools are very brittle, but that may be because I don’t know enough.
Anyway, here’s a link to the ESRI Support Blog Page
Here’s the full text of the posting:
Continue reading Taming Python Scripts in ArcGIS
By markgreninger, on January 9th, 2012 Thanks Junior for passing along – I think you’ll find it interesting.
| Remember about a year ago you filled out a census form? Well, here are the result of this process. What you will see is a Map of the US – not just the 48 states but all of the 50 states. Territories are not in the census – but they did provide information during this process.
So let us say you are in Virginia , you can go by county and as you zoom in by city to see the increase or decrease and then you can see the changes of the various races within these cities. Case in point Crystal City, VA raised up 74,2% overall from 2000… while all around Kansas City , KS has lost at least 15% around the city.
Look at places you know and also look at the map at thedarker brown location.You can zoom in and out to get the information on the places you know.
Use your cursor can move map around and you can zoom in on specific counties to get current stats. It is very interesting!
Fascinating!
Just glide your cursor over the map and it displays every county.
Can’t imagine how long it took to create this map!!
click the The”2010 US Census” Map Below.
2010 U.S. CENSUS MAP |
By markgreninger, on January 6th, 2012 Passed along by Carol Ostergren
“The Amador County Transportation Commission (ACTC) is seeking an entry or mid-level Information Technology (IT) Manager and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Technician to help operate a newly constructed teleconference/telepresence facility and a GIS mapping and planning tool (UPlan). This person will join a small staff of four people working at the direction of a local government appointed six member Board of Commissioners in one of the most beautiful regions in the world. AmadorCounty, with a population of 35,000, is located in the Sierra Nevada foothills two hours east of theSan FranciscoBayarea and one hour from downtownSacramento. The County is home to gold rush area communities such as Sutter Creek and Volcano and abounds with outdoor recreational activities from golf and boating to miles of backcountry trails and skiing (Kirkwood Meadows). Above all, Amador has friendly people, strong communities, good schools, and a lot of pride. “
Here’s the full job listing: Amador_County_IT_GIS Job Description (word file)
By markgreninger, on January 6th, 2012  US Map This is a must read for all GIS folks! It’s a quick read.
Isaac Martinez from CSS forwarded this link to me. This is one of the best articles about the art of making maps, and why good maps take a long time to make. If you use the County’s cache maps, we try to put as much thought as this into our maps, but we don’t have the 6,000 hours it takes to make a really fantastic cartographic map …
“American mapmaking’s most prestigious honor is the “Best of Show” award at the annual competition of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society. The five most recent winners were all maps designed by large, well-known institutions: National Geographic (three times), the Central Intelligence Agency Cartography Center, and the U.S. Census Bureau. But earlier this year, the 38th annual Best of Show award went to a map created by Imus Geographics—which is basically one dude named David Imus working in a farmhouse outside Eugene, Ore.”
Click here to see the full article.
By markgreninger, on January 6th, 2012 Hi everyone,
I’ll be doing a webinar next week in conjunction with the Public Technology Institute (PTI) about our Location Management System (http://gis.lacounty.gov/lms) . Thought I would pass it along.
Thursday, January 12, 2012, 2:00–3:00 pm Eastern Time (note this is 11 AM Pacific Time).
The County of Los Angeles Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Program has developed a single, comprehensive geographic database of locations countywide. The scope of this information is broad, including locations of services, points of interest, physical features, to name a few. To provide the most authoritative source of locations, this initiative’s goal is that the jurisdiction (city, department, and agency) that provides the service will maintain the information. A web-based Location Management System provides a single place to maintain this information. Agencies and the public will access it through all of the applications and maps that the County develops.
Examples include the County’s service locator and the County’s GIS Viewer.
Agencies will also be able to access the data directly through geographic tools, other related GIS software and data downloads.
Presenter: Mark Greninger, Office of the CIO, Los Angeles County, CA
This webinar is presented Free.
To register – https://publictechnology.webex.com/publictechnology/onstage/g.php?d=669418999&t=a
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NASA today released a new, high-resolution “Blue Marble” image of the Earth taken from NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite — Suomi NPP. This composite image is 8000 x 8000, and uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on Jan. 4, 2012, according to NASA. For those of you on slower connections, it could take some time to download the 16.4MB file.
