Please be sure to register for the 2008 Geospatial Summit coming up next month May 21, 2008 at the Welch-Allyn Lodge in Skaneateles Falls, NY. The list of notable speakers for this year include: Jack Dangermond- ESRI, Allen Carol- National GeoGraphic and Ed Parsons- Google just to name a few. The Early registration deadline is April 30th at $85 (after that the cost goes up to $135) so be sure to get your registrations in ASAP.

The conference is worth every penny. Here are my comments from last year. There are others including pictures here.

Don’t forget the series of upcoming GIS Web Services workshops being conducted by the NYS GIS Clearinghouse. From the NYS GIS Site: “This workshop will introduce attendees to the fundamental concepts of GIS web services and raise awareness of the means of leveraging the Internet to utilize geographic data without having to host the GIS data and/or develop necessary tools. Topics to be incorporated in this workshop include explanation of the web services and the basics of data use via web service platforms. Demonstrations will cover the existing methods of integrating GIS data with web services.” The second one starts On Thursday in Syracuse, NY and the next one will be in Elmira. Please check the workshop website for schedule, registration and more details. 

What: 23rd Annual New York State GIS Conference
When/ Where: October 1 & 2, Holiday Inn Albany at Wolf Road
Registration: $175 full after 9/6

From the Conference Site: The conference has a long standing tradition of providing attendees with an opportunity to meet fellow New Yorkers active in the GIS field, exchange information and real experiences, and seek solutions to your geographic data management needs. Professional networking opportunities help you develop a network of fellow GIS users which will continue through the years. In the exhibit area, GIS vendors and consultants display the latest in GIS hardware, software, analytical techniques, and services.

More Info: http://www.esf.edu/nysgisconf/

What: Meeting of the North American Cartographic Information Society
Where/ When:  Saint Louis, Missouri, 10-13 October 2007 Hilton St. Louis Frontenac
Website:  http://www.nacis.org/index.cfm?x=2

The group (according to Bob) is a very interesting group, a mixture of academics and professional cartographers. The basic orientation is toward producing maps, so there’s a lot about technical map drawing issues–using Adobe Illustrator, etc. But also now more on producing maps online, etc. It’s not about GIS, although most people are conversant with it. Check out the Prelim Program
http://www.nacis.org/documents_upload/2007_prelim_program.pdf

When/ Where: NYC: October 4th, Albany: September 7th

Registration: Secure/online ($399)
Audience: Beginners, anyone interested in mapping their community
More Details: This hands-on workshop focuses on teaching the fundamentals of using
a Geographic Information System (GIS) for community analysis. Participants will learn to create thematic maps with Census data, Geocoding (Address mapping) and Spatial Queries. Other features of the workshop are learning to extract Census data and good map layout and design.

For a detailed description of the New York workshops, please visit
https://www.urban-research.info/newyork-gis.htm

Workshop Host: New Urban Research, a national professional research
organization and ESRI Business Partner.

For those of you who did not make the Synergis meeting this past Wednesday on “Taming Google Maps”
and for those of you who did, below are the resources as promised by Jan & Bob.

Thank you to Jan and Bob for their contributions regarding Google Maps. Here are some resources for those who would like to continue learning.

Resources from Jan:
NY State Group Quarters on Google maps:
www.google.com/ apis/maps/ documentation/
www.mapki.com
www.econym.demon. co.uk/googlemaps /
groups.google. com/group/ Google-Maps- API
googlemapsapi. blogspot. com/

Resources from Bob:

“Here is the link to Bob’s experimental interface. We haven’t added the data for all countries, so better to experiment with central Europe. I’d be interested in what people think.”

Google API:

• Google Maps API: http://www.google. com/apis/ maps/

• Google Maps API blog: http://googlemapsap i.blogspot. com/

• Google Maps API discussion group: http://groups- beta.google. com/group/ Google-Maps- API

Books:

• Gibson, Rich. Google Map Hacks. Sebastopol, CA : O’Reilly, 2006.

(also online at Cornell)

• Erle, Schuyler, Rich Gibson and Jo Walsh. Mapping Hacks: Tips and Tools for Electronic Cartography. Sebastopol, CA : O’Reilly, 2005.

Other Map Servers:

• MapServer at the University of Minnesota
• Open Layers

Resources from Cattyann:

• Google Maps Mania- Tons of Mashup Examples and other resources check out their map creation tools, the list is growing everyday
• Gmap EZ- easy way to get started if you have your own site and not too scared of some code

Remember our SynerGIS meeting is today, Wednesday, June 13 at 12:00.

This will be a really interesting meeting on developing customized
interactive maps on your own web pages using Google Maps’ API ( Not
“using Google Maps”–you’ve got to figure that out on your own!)

The meeting will be held in room 703 Olin Library. Coffee, drinks
and
snack courtesy of Cornell University Library, but feel free to bring
your lunch.

Agenda:

12:00–12:15 Business and Networking

12:15-12:30 Susan Hoskins will help put Google Maps in perspective,
reporting on her trip to ASPRS (American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing). The kick-off speakers there were Michael Jones,
Chief Technologist at Google Earth, Maps and Local Search, and John
Curlander, General Manager, Microsoft Boulder.
These online mapping services are not a toy–they’re an important
element of the new interactive Web and offer a way to provide
interactive maps simply and easily–and for free. And these maps are
presented in a well-known, easily navigable interface.

Check these out:

http://www.tastypop sicle.com/ maps/cta. asp ;
http://www.housingm aps.com/

12:15–1:00 Jan Wink from CISER will demonstrate his work there:

Mapping Group Quarters in preparation of Census 2010
Google Maps is used to publish the geographic information contained
in our Group Quarters database. The goal of publicizing this
information and the GIS application is to generate feedback and
corrections to this database. The presentation will give some
background on the Group Quarters data we collect, but mainly focus
on
a demonstration of the Google Maps application.

1:00-1:15 Bob Kibbee will demonstrate and attempt to explain an
experimental interface to the Cornell Map Collection using Google
Maps.

If any one else has attempted a Google Map application and would
like to share it with the group, please plan to do so.

Thanks, hope to see you in 703

For those of you who work with Engineers you more than likely will come across a CAD file or two. In the past working with CAD files in ArcGIS has not been the easiest thing and the two didn’t get a long all that well for my taste but in ArcGIS 9.2 ESRI has supposedly improved things a bit. There is an upcoming free online seminar “Working with CAD Data in ArcGIS 9.2” coming up on Thursday, April 26, 2007- 12 PM, 2 PM, & 6 PM for those of us on the East Coast and 9 AM, 11 AM, & 3 PM for those of you on the West Coast. BTW be sure to check out the GIS and CAD Blog if you work regularly with the two.

Greetings GIS zealots! Yesterday’s presentation regarding the City of Ithaca Cemetery GIS was well attended, but if you missed it, here are a couple of sources of info that were mentioned. The City is utilizing software from Spatial Generations and the birth date calculator (to convert from age at death in Days-Months-Years).

One of the difficulties of working with cemetery data is that there is a multitude of information that needs to be digitized and resources are scarce. So this is a plea for comments from the group- can you recommend some resources for GIS enthusiasts who are working with private or public cemetery management?

Don’t forget about the SYNERGIS Brown Bag Lunch Series at 300 Rice Hall, Cornell University Wednesday from 12:00 noon to 1:30 PM. Presenters from the Cornell University Institute for Resource Information Sciences (IRIS) will be demonstrating their new web application for scanned images. Come out and bring your lunch. Snacks will be provided.