Politics, IT, Spending, and GIS

Mar 312010

image With an impending election in the UK, the Conservatives, the current opposition party have decided to try and win some votes by cutting spending in IT. On the upside they plan to scrap ID cards if elected. Which GIS projects this may affect is impossible to tell as:

He [the shadow chancellor] was unable to cite specific projects, as opposition parties are not allowed to inspect government contracts.

What would be ideal is if IT projects were able to be scrutinised by the opposition parties, and the public. It appears Australia is far more open with their government tenders, and even include the actual costs involved which would be considered as extremely sensitive business data in other countries.

image

Continue reading »

The Seven Bridges of Königsberg

Mar 292010

..or do geodevelopers require mathematics?

MyCircle.Area seems simpler.. Alan Skorkin has a great post on “you don’t need math skills to be a good developer but you do need them to be a great one.” Geo-technology developers have similar requirements, and the majority of GISs revolve around CRUD operations. However due to the nature of spatial data we occasionally get to meddle in the world’s of projections, geometry, typology, and set theory more than our counterparts in other sectors.

The Ancient Mysteries

There are now five bridges in Königsberg..Whilst concentrating on algorithms and recursion is a definite benefit to all developers, us spatial developers need a few more specific tricks.  Euler’s 1736 paper on Seven Bridges of Königsberg is one of the first academic writings on modern topology. The titles of these mathematics puzzles create an aura of mysteriousness and arcane knowledge that definitely sweetens the somewhat dour algebra underneath.

The solution (or non-solution) to this problem underpins many of the more advanced techniques used by GIS packages today. The “Travelling Salesman”, whilst conjuring up less interesting images, relies on similar principles of graph theory. Continue reading »

Does SQL Azure have Allure?

Mar 262010

image I love SQL Server 2008 spatial functionality. Not only because it has effectively killed off the middle-man GIS database software, but it even sticks to OGC standards allowing the same data and tables to be used in nearly all GIS software. However I have some reservations about the use of SQL Azure for GIS applications.

FAQ

How is SQL Azure Database different from working with a hoster using SQL Server?

Developers do not have to install, setup, patch or manage any software. High Availability and fault tolerance is built-in and no physical administration of hardware, storage or servers is required.

If you have a good hosting solution then the same benefits apply (well maybe not the “self-healing” also mentioned). The only real difference I can tell is that you pay a lot more, to be able to scale more easily. Its unlikely your Local Planning Mapping system is suddenly going to need to scale up to meet the expectations of millions of new users, no matter how great the system looks.

Continue reading »

6 Tips for Developers Moving into GIS

Mar 162010

With the rise of the neogeographers, along with the increased awareness and use of GIS thanks to the web, more and more positions are open for developers looking to move away from writing business accounting logic, and into the exciting “new” world of spatial data. I’ve noticed a few gotchas that have happened to developers with no GIS background while working on projects, so this list may at least raise awareness of some of the hurdles.

image

1. Get to Know your GIS Application

Most desktop development in GIS involves building extensions to an existing application using an existing programming library. In order to avoid reinventing the wheel you need to be able to use your GIS desktop package.

Before developing any automated tasks, manually go through the process to get a feel for any issues that may arise, and learn some of the terminology used by the program for the various functions. If the application has an option for hatched polygon fills, this option is also likely to be buried somewhere in the API. If you can’t find what you are looking for then run what you are trying to accomplish past a GIS user.

Continue reading »

7 Reasons for ESRI not to Drop VBA

Sep 272009

I recently learned from James Fee’s blog that ArcGIS 9.4 will be the last version that supports VBA. I can see why this is being dropped – Microsoft no longer promotes or updates VBA. Microsoft now promote “Visual Studio Tools for Office” as its replacement for VBA in MS Office products, however VBA is still in Office 2007, and looks to be kept in for at least the next version. Is ESRI acting too prematurely? I can think of 7 good reasons why VBA should be kept.

vba

1. VBA is great for prototyping. There is no need to open up Visual Studio, create a custom tool, implement all its interfaces and constructors etc. before you can even get round to writing the code for the OnClick event of a button.
Continue reading »

Geomedia WebMap v5.2

Feb 202009

I’ve recently been working again with Intergraph’s Geomedia WebMap 5.2. Development can be done in .NET, which seemed very advanced a few years ago when ESRI’s flagship product was ArcIMS..

However it seems that line features can only be rendered as solid lines (no dots or dashes)..a very strange oversight, especially when it appears the outlines of polygons can have linear styling!

I’m going to be installing version 6 soon to see if it has been resolved, and see if there are any new features.

Newer Entries