This RIVM (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheit en Milieu)website includes a comprenehsive Atlasof public health in the Netherlands. For example, this map of smokers in the Netherlands, by region. While the average has dropped since 2001 from about 33% to 30%, there has been little change despite bans on smoking in many public places in 2004. The 30% rate, according to the BBC in a November 2004 article, was higher than all other European countries except Spain, Greece, and Germany. Also to be noted, in September 2007, RIVM launched a new “Milieuportal“, targeting environmental professionals (and consumers), tracking air and water quality.
Archive for September, 2007
To compare the coverage offered by these two Web online mapping tools, a programmer, Ryan Jonasson, in South Dakota has come up with a “side-by-side” viewer. While Microsoft’s VE is really a cross between Google Maps and Google Earth (right now), it lacks detailed “aerial” views outside of the US, UK and France. (The default on this viewer is “aerial”, so be sure to change to “road” if you zoom in to a European city.)
Coverage is changing every time the earth turns. Google Lat Long announced (Sept 15) detailed maps of 54 more countries, from Aruba, to Iran and Iraq, to Yemen.
Here’s a list of the new Google countries: Continue reading ‘Microsoft VE vs. Google Maps’
James Fee wrote about the Sept 13 Microsoft announcement that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has licensed Microsoft Virtual Earth (for one year, with possible extension to two) for “mission critical” applications. According to an article in Federal Computer Week (FCW), the partnership between Microsoft and ESRI contributed to the selection, as the EPA can leverage its existing ESRI GIS resources.
Why not Google Earth? According to a Bloomberg interview with EPA’s Pat Garvey, the fact that GE requires that the user download an application, whereas VE is all browser based was a key factor.
An alternative path to putting “real GIS” on the web with MS Virtual Earth (and ESRI’s geodatabase ArcSDE) is using ISC’s MapDotNet Server. This product competes with ArcGIS Server, and according to the ISC blog they were “kicked out” of the ESRI partner program last spring.
Now this is really, really cool. MERL (Mitsubshi Electric Research Labs) showed a tabletop ”touch-and-gesture-activated” screen, hooked up to an ordinary laptop and ordinary projector (suspended above). It is billed (in the online fact sheet) as “the world’s first multi-user touch technology”. Maybe gaming will be the killer app for this product, but disaster response is the GIS-related application which brought MERL to EUC2007. Continue reading ‘EUC2007: Diamond Touch’
An exhibitor at EUC 2007 in Stockholm was HNIT Baltic from Lithuania, makers of Cellular Expert, an ArcGIS extension for wireless telecommunications networks planning, optimisation and data management. A technical article in an ESRI’s Telecom Connections Winter ‘07 (see page 4) publication describes research done by Ball State University, using Cellular Expert together with ArcGIS and various extensions.
At ESRI EU conference in Stockholm, 3DConnection, a division of Logitech, demo-ed SpaceNavigator for use with ESRI’s ArcGlobe (but of course, it works with Google Earth, too). Its a 3D mouse priced for consumers (59€ or $59, so guess where I’ll buy it.) This has been available for a year, launched in Australia, so maybe I’m the last to know about it. Beautifully constructed and intuitive, there are various more expensive models with more features . This works with SketchUp and other 3D design applications.
The CCsP conference September 12 and 13 in Den Haag included many fascinating presentations by climate experts from the Netherlands, other European countries, Brazil and the US. Many ongoing projects are looking at risks, costs, and even opportunities, focusing on two concurrent approaches: mitigation and adaptation. Dr. Jeroen Aerts from the Vrij Universeiteit discussed Climate adaptation: cross-sectoral approaches in relation to land use and spatial planning (ppt, 17.8Mb) .
All Points Blog recently commented on an interactive map of Harringay (a London borough) showing on a house-by-house basis the amount of heat at the time of a “flyover” in the year 2000. This public website has been somewhat controversial, but may point the way to a future application which could help identify soruces of . A new flyover took place last March so the map will be updated. An article in the Times (May 4, 2007). A company called Hotmapping carried out the survey and is offering their services to other boroughs.
According to a Times article: “Almost 60 per cent of a household’s heat is lost through uninsulated walls and lofts, according to the Energy Saving Trust (EST), costing the average home up to £380 each year. Insulation is estimated to reduce each home’s carbon emissions by about two tonnes annually. More than half of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions come from the domestic sector, taking into account both homes and transport. “
On Sept 5th Google Earth Blog (top GE watchdog) posted the news that the license agreement for Google Earth Free and Plus Version 4.2 (released August 22) has been revised significantly, though this wasn’t publicized earlier. Business users can now use the browser for internal communications. This is good news for “business geographic developers”. We can now write customized KML files with internal geographic data which can be distributed within a company to employees, and viewed in the Google Earth browser, the free version as opposed to the costly Pro version. It appears that it is still illegal to use Google Earth for “external business (commercial) applications”, but the internal license opens up some very interesting possibilities! More on this change is available at GEB, and also James Fee.
A post today on the interesting Free Geography Tools blog provides a summary of some of the great digitized historical map collections. For example, the British Library has a large scanned maps collection, and an oddly anachronistic feature: London: A Life in Mapsfeaturing red google pushpins identifying the point of focus of various antique maps and prints of London.
Another interesting British Library holding is the Christofel Beudecker collection of Dutch maps, purchased by the British Museum in 1861. An example is this charming Leo Belgicus which reminds us that maps were fun even back then.
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