WorldCAD Access

Pretty Viewpoints: Iceland

An Icelandic glacier spills out near the Atlantic Ocean:

Google-ized Nanaimo

Google marketing yesterday pushed out the story on Nanaimo being the "Best Known Google Earth Town," as one Google corporate blog named it.

The story is that all of the City of Nanaimo's mapping is run on Google, and some of it in real-time through the use of GPSs attached to city-owned vehicles. The silliest example is also the most prominent: no need to look around for where the fire engine is sounding its siren. Instead, just head indoors, start up your Windows computer, wait several minutes for it and the IE browser to launch, and find the location of the fire engine in real time on the Nanaimo city's Web site.

The real story is that Google has a success that affects traditional suppliers of GIS software: ESRI, Intergraph, Autodesk, and others. My home town uses Intergraph's mapping software, which is okay (even shows all the utilities running underground through my lot), but isn't particularly interactive.

The Google GIS may be more interactive, but the city of Nanaimo has made it restrictive. I was able to view the deep link that showed fire engine activity -- or lack of, since Nanaimo can't have its fire engines running all day around just to satisfy Google marketing's dreams. But when I attempted to view the maps from the top level of the Web site, it would not let me in, for my computer was not running the de-rigeur Microsoft browser.

Checking for required components:
Checking for MS Windows .................................ok
Checking for Internet Explorer 6.0+ ..................not present
It looks like you do not meet the minimum requirements to run City of Nanaimo CityMap. If you want to run the application, please install all necessary software.

It doesn't matter if Google Maps are designed to work with Opera and FireFox; city of Nanaimo staff cut out the 1/3 of the population that prefers a Web browser that isn't thrown in for free with the Windows operating system.

Well, at least my home town's online mapping is Web-browser-inclusive.

BC FerriesVessel Tracking Maps

My wife's aging aunt used to visit us for Christmas, taking a 1000-mile bus ride through winter conditions. Inevitably, the Greyhound Canada bus was late, but staff at the local bus station had no idea when it would arrive -- other than receiving a phone call from the nearest bus stop city.

I'm not talking 1890s here; this was the age of the cell phone, the 1990s. I found it remarkable that Greyhound Canada had no idea where its busses were, especially when they were driving dangerous mountain passes in the Canadian winter.

I dunno if Greyhound Canada has implemented bus tracking yet, but it no longer matters, since the aunt is now too old to travel. In contrast, several Web sites now provide tracking of aircraft, although with a major bug: when an airplane crosses the International Date Line, the mapping software screws up.

Imagine my surprise (well, you don't need to imagine) when a local monopolistic transportation organization began posting the locations of their craft. BC Ferries is famous for running late; so famous, that regular travellers arrive a half-hour late to be at the ferry terminal "on time." But now BC Ferries has mounted GPS units on their fleet, and broadcasts the info to its Web site.

When you hover the cursor over one of the ship icons, you get the current speed, direction, etc.

Mt St HelensWeb Cam

A Web page I visit every day is the Mt St Helens webcam. I like visiting it, because it shows how dramatically weather changes on mountain tops: fog, snow, rain, dust storms, and sunny days. Sometimes icicles dangle in front of the camera lens; other time, a fly or beetle rests on the lens.

(The mountain is in Oregon USA, and in 1980 blew its top during a dramatic volcanic explosion. Steam and ash come out of a vent hole every day. The Web cam was set up on a nearby mountain, in the hopes of capturing any future eruptions.)

Yesterday morning's image was especially spectacular. In the image below, you can see the snow-covered canyons carved by the lava flow from 27.5 years ago. The mountain used to have a pointy tip, so the huge bowl represents the amount of rock that was blown away.

3D City ViewsCrowdsourced

Brady Forrest of O'Reilly Radar reports:

Everyscape is a new service that takes 2D photos and 3D-fies them to create an immersive street-side experience. Today they are launching their service with four cities (Boston, New York, Miami, and Aspen). Their technology will allow anyone with a decent camera and GPS to contribute...

See 3D WorldViewer Everyscape Launches for more, or visit Everyscape directly.

Low-power GPS Data CollectorFor Digital Cameras

A problem with GPS units is that they consume a lot of power, due to their antennae collecting data from satellites on a non-stop basis.

Now we learn from Imaging-Resource (a digital camera Web site) about a new GPS data collector that consumes so little power that it (apparently) can run a year on a single lithium button battery. There is much detail at I-R (including a link to a video interview), but here is a taste of how it works:

Rather than try to do all the processing that's normally required for computing a GPS fix, the NXP device simply takes a digital "snapshot" of the raw GPS data whenever it wakes up. This only takes a tenth of a second, and consumes almost no power. Later (back on your computer), their client software queries a server they maintain, that's continuously logging the detailed "ephemeris" data for all 32 GPS satellites.

This system works only when you can wait to get to an Internet-enabled computer, to download the complete GPS data. I-R sees all digital cameras as an obvious application; but this system isn't going to work for tourists relying on handheld GPS units in the twisty streets of downtown Prague.

Whaa? GPS Runs CAD Tutorial

TomTom is a GPS brandname more familiar to Europeans, a brand that features the high price that Europeans are resigned to paying. In a press release revealed by tenlinks.com, Lista Studio of Italy has loaded Alibre's MCAD tutorials onto the video-playing GPS unit. The idea is to use the GPS function to drive to your destination, and then learn MCAD.

Price is a mere e1995 -- about US$2,300 and about 10x more than what I would pay for a portable GPS unit. The tenlinks.com item is here.

Who's Better: Navteq or Tele Atlas

If your GPS comes with maps, then they are most likely from sourced from one of two companies: Navteq or Tele Atlas. If you use Google Map or MapQuest or Yahoo Maps, their maps are provided by one of those two, as well. The copyright notice tells you which.

In many cases, old maps work just fine, because roads don't change a whole lot. I still use a printed map of British Columbia from 1986, the last time a major highway was added to our road system. Primarily, it's new subdivisions that get added and downtown streets get one-wayed. But sometimes a government starts spending big on roadworks, usually to get reelected, and then serious updates are needed.

I became aware of the flaws in mapping when my financial advisor got lost on a deadend road near our home. The mapping software had told him to go that way, because it incorrectly showed the road went through (and straight up a very steep hill). Researching the problem, I found the were maps provided by Navteq, and that they had other errors: one road in our neighborhood has never existed, another was changed more than 15 years ago. The maps from Tele Atlas don't have those mistakes.

A major highway near us is being four-laned; one road is now cut off and has been rerouted through a tunnel; others are changing to right-turns-only on and off the divided highway. I'll be interested to see how long it takes for Navteq and Tele Atlas to incorporate the changes. Weeks? Months? Years? Ever?

For more about the competition between the two mapping providers, read Wilson Rothman's Map Quest on Wired.com.