Canadian Place Name Trivia

Some interesting Canadian place-name trivia. In all, we have a lot of pleasant places, but we’re not all that creative when it comes to lake names! (“hey – that lake looks pretty long, let’s call it Long Lake!”)

Source: http://geonames.nrcan.gc.ca/info/trivia_e.php

Most Common Place Names in Canada

Rank	Place name	#
1.	Mount Pleasant	16
2.	Centreville	15
2.	Lakeview	15
3.	Pleasant Valley	14
4.	Fairview	13
5.	Rosedale	11
6.	Salem	10
6.	Bellevue	10
6.	Springfield	10
6.	Glenwood	10
6.	Richmond	10
6.	Riverside	10
6.	Westmount	9
7.	Maple Grove	9
7.	Greenfield	9
7.	Victoria	9
7.	Sunset Beach	9
7.	Sunnyside	9
7.	Little Harbour	9

Most Common Feature Names in Canada

Rank	Place name	#
1.	Long Lake	203
2.	Mud Lake	182
3.	Long, Lac	164
4.	Long Pond	152
5.	Rond, Lac	145
6.	Green Island	132
7.	Long Point	125
8.	Big Island	120
9.	Narrows, The	118
10.	Truite, Lac à la	113
11.	Round Lake	109
12.	Otter Lake	108
13.	Black Rock	103
14.	Long Island	101
14.	Perdu, Lac	101
14.	Moose Lake	101
15.	Little Lake	100

Beer for Data Sharing in Afghanistan

The Taj in Jalalabad, Afghanistan is indeed an oddity. Not only is it the only bar in eastern Afghanistan, it is also the location where an ingenious "Beer for Data" program began. Put simply, if visitors to the bar have useful data (gps plots, imagery, technology white papers...) they can trade this information for a beer.

source: Human Technology Network

Palin's foreign credentials tested

In response to Palin's comments about her foreign policy experience based on being able to see Russia from Alaska, Michael Koswowsky has set up a special map using his "HeyWhatsThat" tools. Looks like there are only 4 very hard to reach spots where you can see Russia in Alaska.

GPX2SHP - Win32 with C# source code

I have been searching for some time for a simple GPX to SHP file converter. Both of these file formats are used extensively in geospatial applications, but for some reason no one has created a converter between these two files.

So, being a programmer, I decided to remedy this situation.

Download GPX2SHP Binary- for Win32

the binary version requires the .Net 2.0 framework to be installed on your computer. You can download the framework here.

Currently only waypoints are converted - tracks will be added in the future.

If you're a programmer, you can download the Visual Studio .Net 2005 C# Source Code for this project here.

If this program works for you (or if it doesn't), you can email me at jsuwala@gmail.com.

April 13 2009 update: the download links above are now working!

Google Earth layer of Myanmar cyclone data

The UN Institute for Training and Research Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) has released a Google Earth layer showing the path of the cyclone and the extent of the flooding that recently hit Myanmar.

Click on this link: http://services.google.com/earth/kmz/nargis_n.kmz

(source: http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/05/unosat-layer-of-myanmar-cyclone-data.html)

Here’s an interesting website:

This guy asks people to walk around places connected to a lie-detector and a GPS.

Out come maps of “locational physiological arousal”.

Maps are viewable in Google Earth.

http://biomapping.net/

OpenSource real-time trip-routing

Hi All:

For any of you that have played with the real-time trip-routing in Google Maps, there is now an OpenSource version available.

A demonstration is available here: http://boston.freemap.in/routing.html

This system utilizes the following parts:

1. UMN MapServer for WMS based map image generation;
2. TileCache for tiled WMS generation and caching;
3. PostGIS for data storage;
4. pgRouting for postGIS based route finding;
5. OpenLayers for the javascript based map viewer

The demonstration is a little bit clunky compared to Google’s (probably all because of server speed), but shows the power of what OpenSource can do!

Google says Lasqueti Island doesn't exist

Do a search for "Lasqueti Island" on Google Maps (maps.google.ca), and you will see that Google says that this island, between Vancouver Island and Texada Island, doesn't exist. Only when you turn on satellite or hybrid views will Lasqueti Island actually be shown.

I wonder what the 350 residents of this approximately 8 km wide and 22 km long island have to say about this!

GPS to PostGIS data import pipeline

I have found an interesting OpenSource based system that should allow you to import GPS track/route/waypoint information from your GPS into the OpenSource spatial database PostGIS. Here are the steps and tools:

1. Convert your GPS data to the GPX format using GPSBabel
2. Use the GPX2SHP program to create a SHP (ESRI Shape File)
3. Import the SHP file into PostGIS using shp2pgsql

With your GPS data in PostGIS, you should be able to do all sorts of cool things.

For PostGIS data import, the following tools are interesting:

• DXF -> PostGIS
• E00 -> PostGIS
  

Mapping with WMS

Some quick map links:

To add your own WMS (Web Mapping Server) to Google Maps, check out the javascript here: http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOSDOC/Google+Maps. They talk about GeoServer (a Java Map engine), but the javascript doesn't rely on any WMS server in-particular.

If you are using a standards compliant WMS, check out this SLD (Style Layer Discriptor) to style your maps like Google does (or very close).

Map Layers from All-Over

Creating maps that integrate data from all-over the place would be super-spiffy. You have corporate GIS data; you have beatiful Microsoft Virtual Earth imagery; you have functional google maps imagery.

OpenLayers is a Javascript API that is trying to bring all this stuff together. Unfortunately it has some pretty major usability issues to deal with.

This guy has a hack for adding your WMS imagery to a google map. See it in action here. An even better example is here (it brings together layers from TerraServer, Google, and a WMS). Or do it with Virtual Earth.

My short-term goal is simply to figure out how to join our corporate GIS data visually together with any WMS server. It may mean hacking, but hopefully not.

Microsoft Virtual Earth does 3D

Microsoft is trying to compete with Google Earth.

Local.Live.Com now has a "3D" version. It requires Internet Explorer, .Net 2.0 and other purely Microsoft tools. You'll have to trust an ActiveX control to get this view also.

Too bad it's only for Windows/IE; doing 3D in a webbrowser has so much potential.

Steve Ballmer Sells Windows

Steve Ballmer sells Windows 1.0.

Un-be-lievable! It comes with Write and Reversi and runns bla-zing-ly fast on a 286! And all that for only 99 Dollars!

Married!

As of August the 12th, I'm a married man!

Photos taken by Gaalen with our camera are here:

• the rehearsal dinner
• the ceremony
• picture time
• the reception

Official wedding photos and pictures of our honeymoon in Bali are soon to come!