Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with gis

Maps of pipe networks

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:19:21 -0800

Pipe-filter: Where can I find maps of pipe networks in US cities? I'm doing some research on exploring patterns that result from the physical infrastructure of US cities. I'm curious if anyone knows of any sources of data that show where water and waste-water pipes are located (preferably in shapefile format).The specific city does not matter.

I have explored ESRI's free data; Googling, geodata.gov, and other random sites which have not resulted in any information. I realize this is not common information, but thought it was worth asking the venerable hive-mind for suggestions.

Website to sort and display different mountain heights?

seasparrow — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:56:36 -0800

Is there a website that would show the world sorted by elevation? I recently enjoyed reading Plague Year, a post-apocalyptic thriller. The main conceit of this science-fiction novel is that a nanotechnology plague that kills any warm blooded animal (including humans), but the disease self-destructs at altitudes above 10,000 feet. How much territory would this be across the whole planet? I liked the book. It isn't great literature, but the author, Jeff Carlson, thinks through the ramifications of a world where most mammals are now extinct and a tiny fragment of humanity clings to a few frozen mountain-tops. Carlson also doesn't shy away or sugar-coat the realities of such a situation. He also doesn't make it easy for his characters, unlike other authors in the post-apocalyptic genre. (Yes, I'm pointing at you, S.M. Stirling.) Some of the protagonists feel guilty about the cannibalism they had to resort to in order to survive, but at least they are alive, unlike 99.9% of the human race.

So, like I said, a fun read that got me thinking. My real question for the Hive Mind is-- in all the great variety of the internet, is there some sort of geographical website that would allow me to view the world through the filter of all elevations above 10,000 feet?

Which sparks another question: Have you seen the maps that occasionally appear showing what the world would look like if global warming caused the sea levels to rise 50 or 100 feet? Is there a website that will let you do that as well? Maybe even set your own parameters on how much you want the water levels to rise or fall, and then generate a map for you?

Does anyone work in the field? Isn't is called Geographical Information Systems? It sounds fascinating. I think I might enjoy working a GIS job eventually. Questions like these linger in my mind, so much so that I'm willing to spend my one-a-week currency of an AskMe question to see what the sophisticated and cosmopolitcal Mefite community has to say about it.

Thanks for your help, and I hope I'm not the only weirdo who thinks about these things!

How do I make a map from GPS data?

Kadin2048 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:38:05 -0800

How do I turn my GPS track logs into a nice-looking trail map? Do I need a GIS package? I'd like to make some high-quality maps of the hiking trails near my house. I have a handheld GPS, and I already have the downloading and conversion to GPX of the track logs worked out. However, that's as far as I've gotten. Starting from this big pile of data, which needs to be cleaned up substantially, how do I get a nice vector map?

I can load the track files into Google Earth right now, but that's not really what I'm looking for. I need some way to edit the tracks, choose how they're represented (some are the actual trails, some represent the boundaries of the park, some are surface roads, etc.), add labels, and generally turn it into something that people can use.

It seems like this is getting into GIS territory, but I admit to knowing next to nothing about GIS packages or really what they do, beyond a vague idea that it has something to do with maps. Do I need a GIS package? If so, which one? I'm willing to spend some money on this (although not the $2500 that ArcGIS apparently costs). Windows, Mac and Linux are all options, although Linux/Mac are preferred.

Some things I've looked at include GRASS, which seems to be raster-based; GeoServer, which seems intriguing but seems like more of a middleware/server component than a desktop editing application; Mapyrus, which seems something like what I'm looking for; and QCAD, which isn't a GIS at all but a CAD program, but maybe that's more what I need?

I've seen surveyors working with GPS units, so I know there must be some way of transforming that data into useful maps — how do I bridge the gap?

How much should I charge to be an expert GIS witness?

mollweide — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:05:04 -0800

I'm going to be an expert witness in a hearing regarding GIS data. What hourly rate should I charge? The hearing is in northern New Jersey. A friend who suggested me to the attorney was getting $75/hour to look over maps and data (he wanted nothing to do with the hearing and thought my credentials would look better). It seems to me that showing up and potentially testifying at a hearing should warrant more money. However, I have no idea what other professionals in this or related areas might charge. I don't want to rip myself off, but I don't want to way overshoot either.

What can you see in satellite photos?

k. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:33:01 -0800

Satellite photos: what interesting features can be seen or measured in them (or other aerial photos), and where can I get a supply of images? Examples I have already seen, from some crude Google-searching:
Roads
Buildings
Degree of development (urban/suburban/rural)
Oil spills (apparently these are usually hard to see)
Blooms of algae (cyanobacteria) in the Baltic Sea
Damage to buildings from earthquakes

More would be appreciated--the more specific, the better. These will be used in a computer vision system, so I'd especially like to know where I can find a supply of images containing whatever feature I'm looking for (including the above)--easy for buildings or roads, but hard for rare events like oil spills. Natural disasters seem interesting, if there are pictures available.

I would also consider some other kind of non-photographic data as well, if it could be combined with maps or photos. Don't worry whether you think it's suitable; any idea you have will help!

My Taxes paid for that satellite... can I at least have pix?

tmcw — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:43:15 -0800

I want to download a bit of Landsat data - two small countries worth - but can't find any way to efficiently do this via GloVis or elsewhere. Where can I just select places on a map (or use my GloVis-exported) scene list to download these in bulk? Given 200MB/scene and the 80 scenes I need, it'll be 15.6 gigs downloaded (and likely around 40 unzippped), but that's not the problem; there just doesn't seem to be a way to do this. Also, huge bonus for any source that offers even a rough natural color (simulated) version of these files so that I don't have to do the merging myself. GeoTIFF is probably the format I'm going for (I'm using a completely open-source stack, and may have access to an ArcGIS install, but it's way way inconvenient for me).

Yes, this is an obscenely specific and obscure question. I guess I am testing the outskirts of askmeta utility by asking this one, but seeing all of these interfaces to the data and high prices and all of this bs, I have a feeling that smart people must know a better way to get lots of this data in a good form quickly.

Thanks!

Problem-solver in search of suitable problems

McBearclaw — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:15:20 -0800

I think I finally understand what I like to do. So... what would I like to do? After many a year of soul-searching, I think I'm getting close to pinning down the things that I would like to do for a living. The problem now is identifying the jobs that would best bring those things together.

What I like: statistics, geography/GIS, and programming. In general, investigation and problem-solving. I like the first two because of their system-level perspective; I like the third because it's like magic, y'all, and it makes boring work disappear (although sometimes it is replaced by equal or greater quantities of interesting work; whatever). Best of all, I like combining all three, with healthy doses of data visualization thrown in.

These interests, of course, suggest some pretty obvious career choices: statistician, geographer, programmer. I find all of these appealing in theory, but I have some concerns:

I don't know enough about being a statistician, especially in academia; I worry that I might be too application-focused for that. I also have serious concerns about what's going to happen to the life academic over the coming years. Similarly, I don't know much about being a statistician outside of academia. The Census and related government organizations have been suggested to me, but they are out; while I have tremendous respect for the work they do, I greatly prefer analysis with a specific problem in mind.

I've read enough AskMeFi and thedailywtf to put the fear of career programming into me. I get the feeling that combining some programming skills with a domain area is the way to go for me - especially in a smaller organization - but I'm open to suggestions.

Of the three, I think "geographer of some sort" is the most promising, primarily because it could potentially include both statistics and programming. But what is it really like to be a geographer? Where do geographers find work? Are academic geographers in the same boat as academic statisticians?

For contrast, my current job is really wearing me down. I write reports about reports. I thought that I was getting hired into a fairly quantitative job, but I haven't done much more than a few t-tests in months. The best parts of it so far are when I have managed to turn boring work into awesome work: I automated several weeks' worth of copy/paste reporting work, and have learned a fair bit of HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

Any input is sincerely welcome. I'll happily consider jobs that are way outside of what I've mentioned above, too - I've often been told that I would make a good criminal investigator, and I really love woodworking and homebrewing. The fundamental keys are learning and problem-solving, I think.

I know this is vague, but I'll happily clarify anything I can. I know I'm lucky to have a relatively good job right now, but the recession won't last forever. I've got 3-4 years to work on getting ready for my next job, and I'd like to have at least some idea of where I'm going.

Thanks.

I don't work for the government, promise.

McBearclaw — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:32:32 -0800

I'm trying to map protests in the United States, but I'm grappling with data sources (and will eventually tangle with data management). Any ideas? I'd like to map out protests, riots, bombings, and other cheerful social outings - ideally in the United States, where I have the most contextual knowledge, but that's not a necessity.

My original plan was to scrape AP's US news RSS feed, store everything in some sort of XML database, and then query that for what I need. I just checked their RSS format, and it unfortunately doesn't include the full article. Nor does it include a separate tag for the location, which would make geocoding a bit/much nastier. NYT's feeds are basically the same story. I don't really know where to go from here.

There are basically five steps, and I would love advice on any:
1. Scrape database of news articles.
2. Store in a format that would allow querying by date or location. I'd like to keep all the articles, too, because... really, that would be an awesome dataset.
3. Tag protests (method: NLP, Mech Turk, or caffeinated McB).
4. Tag with date and location.
5. Make pretty maps.

Step 6 is going crazy with spatial stats, but I've got that part covered. I've been letting this project fester for too long, and it is now certifiably brain crack. Any advice on 1-5 would be greatly appreciated.

Aside: I really have thought about the ethical consequences of this. If you're concerned, MeFiMail me and I'll do my best to assuage your doubts.

I can haz demographic displays, plz?

WidgetAlley — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:09:46 -0800

I am in need of a program that will allow me to display demographic information by county on a state map. Recommendations? I am interning for the Legal Aid society over the summer, and part of my work includes compiling demographic statistics about their client population and figuring out a way to display it in a way that ties in with a map of our area (Tennessee.) I am looking for a program set up for this, and that will allow me to create some quite sophisticated displays-- for instance, percentage of total population vs. percentage of clients per county, dominant type of cases per county, etc.

Legal Aid is fairly well-funded, but we are still a non-profit; we are willing to make a cash commitment but don't have a whole lot of money to throw around, so cheaper/free is better! Thank you from a lowly intern!

Any interesting map theory books?

slab_lizard — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:06:27 -0800

I'm looking for suggested book(s) for backgrounding myself in map theory. Think somewhere between a history of maps and a technical textbook. I've been looking at maps for 30+ years as a non-geographer, and will be taking some GIS and mapping courses this autumn. So, plenty of text-and-classroom exposure there. What kind of semi-technical background reading would be useful over the summer?

dbf + dbf = 1992

tmcw — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:53:00 -0800

I'm working on some code for quickly pulling together shapefile data and other data (statistics, etc) and spitting out maps. That means JOINs. Thanks to the 1990-quality standards of GIS, attribute tables are in dbf files. How does one deal with these blasts from the past? I'd ideally like something like sqlite which can use dbf as a backend or quickly import and export dbf files. The line of thought of using xBase, xHarbour, xcetera seems to lead to this bizarro world of programming-language-database-solutions which makes 0 sense in the modern world.

What's a guy to do?

Also - I know, ideally, a spatial database is the way to go, but in this situation, I want people to be able to do this quickly, and I know that they'll have shapefiles and tables in csv, etc., not database-ed data.

Thanks for any guidance! I've hit my google limit and am now thinking there's something obvious I'm missing...

Where in the world is.........

micklaw — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:47:52 -0800

Please pass on your favourite online mapping websites, with an emphasis on interactive applications. I really love maps. I spend a lot of time using a variety of (mainly educational) online maps such as the WWF Wildfinder, NationMaster, Reuters AlertNet, Globalis and the very excellent Geoscience Australia Sentinel Bushfire tool and so on. Maps of War is also an excellent resource in a similar vein, although not as interactive as those previously listed.

Anyway, the internet being what it is, I am sure there are many more fantastic resources online that I have not yet come across and I would love to tap the collective mind of Metafiler users to help me expand my mapping horizons.

Post your recommendations, particularly with an emphasis on non-US maps (global or other regions would be most useful) as these will be used in a non-US school.

Thanks in advance!

Online collaboration tools.

mmahaffie — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:13:51 -0800

Please help me identify online collaboration tools that might be appropriate for a national (USA) organization of (mostly) state agency staff. I am communications committee chair for the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC). We are an organization of state-level GIS coordinators. I'm looking for online collaboration tools to facilitate group discussions of policy, large-group communication, and development of documents and web-published information. Preferably open-source or low-cost. Go....

How to convert TIGER line file into

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:28:13 -0800

Super-specific-GIS-filter: Converting TIGER/Line Files into a network of nodes and links? Has anyone ever converted a TIGER file into a network matrix? I've done extensive googling on the topic and found one piece of java code, but could not get it to work as there were lots of errors, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong (it was also pretty old).

I'd appreciate hearing if anyone has done this or knows of a way to do so. I'm interested in converting TIGER to this format so that I can do some network analysis processing in matlab.

I'm fairly new to this type of analysis, so perhaps I'm missing something obvious. Thanks!

Please point me to a schema for describing accessibility features of a physical location

bleary — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:48:06 -0800

Is there a description language for defining accessibility features of a location? I stumbled upon Talking Points in a news article and have been following them with interest. They are creating mobile app prototypes for orientating blind users around cities, buildings, and other points of interest.

In the interest of helping, I would like to help vet or create a markup language to help tag locations. I've heard of kml and gpx, found http://www.opengeospatial.org/ and am quiet out of my element.

Using "accessibility" as a keyword usually turns up web authoring stuff, but not a location description language geared towards describing accessibility features of a point of interest.

Given something like that, you could have a mobile app that knows where you are, or knows where you are going, and can tell you the height of the counters, whether someone speaks ASL, ... other stuff?

Point me in a good direction. Thanks!

Wish I still had my class notes...

bellbellbell — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:01:34 -0800

Looking for a specific article on text placement on a map. I am trying to find a specific article (it may have been a book chapter) about text placement on maps. It was required reading in a cartography class c. 2004-2005, but referred to as THE authority on the subject. It could easily have been fifty years old. It had helpful little illustrations.

Any ideas?

Did the earth move for you too?

genghis — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:24:08 -0800

GISfilter -- I have a PostGIS table containing spatial data in the form of a few thousand shapefiles. Anybody know a quick way I can move *all* of them by about 40 metres? Due to a bizarre set of circumstances I need to work with a data set of things contructed from GPS in Ireland. Because of a systemic error, every multipolygon I have is out of whack slightly. Boo!

Yet, because the country I live in is small enough for this to work, I can have a bunch of stuff accurate to within 2m if I globally move every multipolygon 50m to the North and 23.4m to the West. Yay!

But I'm too unfamiliar with both Postgres and Python (I'm working with Geodjango for the first time) to figure out which 10-line loop script will do that lateral translation for me. Boo!

So... um... can anybody lend me a hand here? I don't really care which language the one-use-ever script I need is written in. And my multipolygons are strings of co-ords using WGS84, where each X&Y value is separated by a space, and each pair separated by a comma.

The application of your collective genius is warmly appreciated.

Adventures in Data Interoperability

agentofselection — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:20:25 -0800

How do I convert a large raster image into a table for analysis and manipulation? I have a bunch of raster-format GIS data (e.g. DEMs, satellite imagery) which I would like to perform a regression analysis on (among other things) in a statistics package. I have often started with a table, performed my analysis, tacked some parameters onto the top of the table, and had ArcGIS treat the table as a raster. This time, I'm starting with a raster, and I want to convince my stats package that it's a table. (If it helps, image formats available include .bmp, .jpg, .jp2, .img, .png, .tif, and ESRI GRID.)
So, briefly: help me convert a raster into a table, where every entry in the table represents one cell of the raster. (I am aware that this will be a very large table.)

The answer is not in Help > Aboot.

avocet — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:12:34 -0800

Is there a way to make ArcGIS spell -meter like a Canadian? For example, inserting scale text pops out -meter, but I'd like to see -metre and sometimes -mètre. I know that I can subsequently convert these to graphics and edit the text from there, but is there any way to skip this step entirely by changing language or spelling settings within the program? Altering my XP language/international settings didn't do anything. Thanks in advance!

Is there a free (cheap) KML editor for the Mac?

brokekid — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:45:53 -0800

Is there a free (cheap) KML editor, like NorthGates' KML Editor or KaMeLwriter, for the Mac? I haven't had much luck finding one, extMate doesn't do the job and running either of these in Parallels would kill my machine. Thanks for your help.

where to take night GIS classes in NYC?

nanhey — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:14:50 -0800

where can i take GIS night classes in new york city? i took an introductory GIS class in college and would like to build on it. anyone know a place/school that offers GIS classes at night?

Help me find a pseudo-cartogram of the world's largest cities.

brownbat — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:58:53 -0800

Help me re-find a cartogram-like picture of the 100 largest cities by population. A few months ago I saw a chart of the world's largest cities (maybe the cutoff was all cities with over 1 million people, maybe it was the 100 largest). The picture was a large rectangle and the cities were rectangles as well. Tokyo was in the upper-left with a bajillion people (35 million ish), then the next 5 or so cities had in the 20 millions.

There may have been color coding to indicate what country of the world they were in.

I might have seen a story about this chart on Lifehacker, the Freakonomics blog, or maybe just reddit. Can't remember, and I'm apparently not Googling for the right keywords.

I have a GIS question.

BoldStepDesign — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:37:10 -0800

Basically, I want to build mapping system, similar to google maps, using something like Map server & open layers. Take in my own image, such as a building map, define roads or “hallways”, and import points via a XML or RSS feed. I want an interface that I can take the xml feed and run it under the map in a box, displaying it under the map, allowing users to click on the event, and being able to see where they need to go, and using a current fixed position, being able to see how to get there.

Mapgeek looking for a career

desjardins — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:56:45 -0800

What kind of career can I pursue that involves maps, apart from the obvious (cartography, GIS, geography teacher)? I love maps. Correction: I LOVE maps. I want to think outside the box and compile a list of alternative career opportunities that involve maps in some way; either creation or analysis. My minimum is $40K/year. Domestic or foreign travel is fine but I don't want to relocate outside of the US (preferably midwest or west coast). Not-for-profit is OK. I'd love something I can do as a consultant, though I realize that might be tough in the current economic climate. I'm mostly interested in demography/human geography/sociological issues. Not especially interested in environmental/sustainability issues. I have a Master's in urban planning with a concentration in GIS.

My skills/education (not exhaustive):

GIS (ArcGIS, MapInfo, Idrisi)

Cartography

Urban planning

Web design

Basic graphic design (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign)

Basic database development & management

Research/statistics/data analysis

Basic VB

Excellent writing and editing

Good presentation skills
Good troubleshooting/problem solving

Intermediate spoken/written French

Skills I want to acquire:

Web dev (PHP, AJAX, ASP.net, etc.)

Programming (C#, etc, open to suggestions)

Expand RDMS skills (MySQL, etc)

Spanish

I welcome contact through MeFi mail or my gmail listed in my profile.

Will asp.net work on a Debian server?

desjardins — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:29:02 -0800

I am trying to teach myself asp.net. My hosting company is iPower and apparently their server platform is Debian. Will asp.net run on this platform? The (really basic) aspx pages I've tried sort of work but not really, and I am copying code verbatim from Microsoft's site so I'm sure I haven't fucked up the code. I'm fine with HTML and CSS but this stuff is a bit beyond me. If asp.net won't work, what other language should I teach myself? iPower definitely does support PHP, Perl, MySQL, and PEAR (I've never heard of the last one). Basically I'm bored and I want to learn something useful during my downtime at work. It won't be useful to my current job, but I want to get into the GIS field so if one of these would be better than another please advise. (Similar to my previous question) I can't install anything on my work machine (Windows XP).