LandSat 7 GeoRSS Feed

October 1st 2008 marked the day when the entire LandSat ETM+ data archive was released to the general public completely free of charge.  They have also started publishing the latest editions to their archive via GeoRSS.  What better way to visualize this feed than in a map!  I put together a Yahoo Pipe that processes this feed and plots it out in a Yahoo Map.  It took approximately 2 minutes to create and publish this pipe, however the Blogger style sheet is doing funny things with the Pipes Badge! Try clicking on the link below to see the full feed directly in Yahoo Pipes.


Interested in viewing LandSat 7 data in the GeoPDF format?  Click here for a previous post. As always, gain access to the GeoSpatial content in the PDF file by downloading the free TerraGo Toolbar.

GeoServer and GeoPDF

Earlier today, Dave Gura forwarded me a pretty interesting website that takes full advantage of both GeoServer and the GeoPDF file format.  This website, hosted and maintained by the University of Wisconsin Department of Soil Science and the NRCS, is a great example of how to get a lot of valuable data out to a large audience.  More importantly, because the data is published to the GeoPDF format the end user can download and take with them any or all of the tiles they are interested in working with.  Click here to jump over to this web mapping application.  

There are many ways to publish your spatial data!  I have mentioned before that with TerraGo's suite of tools, you are able to index and publish your data directly on a web server like the NRCS did with the University of Wisconsin. From there you can access it through something like GeoServer or a medium as simple as KML like you see below...

I have grown quite fond of the "KML" method and see great potential as a way for those folks with a lot of data to get it out to those who need it.  I guess the question is, are your users  (who have no clue what GIS, KML, GeoServer, Google Earth, etc.)  going to know what to do with a KML file and the data it references?

Chris Spagnuolo on Social Media...

Check out developer/geo-blogger Chris Spagnuolo's facts on "The power of social media".  Isn't it absolutely facinating how fast a popular article can spread throughout the world wide web?  Thanks to Chris for passing along the statistics of one such article!

ERDAS GeoPDF Webinar

This is just a quick reminder to register for the ERDAS webinar next week entitled, "Create High Quality PDF Maps in ERDAS IMAGINE (Map2PDF for IMAGINE)."

20 November 2008

Do you need to quickly and easily create intelligent maps and images? This webinar introduces Map2PDF for IMAGINE, a new tool that combines TerraGo Technologies’ Map2PDF (now part of TerraGo Publisher Suite) with the power of ERDAS IMAGINE®, the industry’s leading and most complete collection of software tools designed to manipulate, process and understand imagery and vector data. Map2PDF for IMAGINE puts highly advanced maps and images in the hands of soldiers, emergency responders, utility workers, property assessors and others, so they can respond faster, make better decisions and be more productive. With Map2PDF for IMAGINE, you can transform and optimize any map or image into a geo-enabled PDF, also known as a GeoPDF®. Professionals who have limited or no knowledge of complex GIS systems can now access and interact with intelligent maps and images.

Click here to register for this web event...

Integration with Google Earth

It is often overlooked that a GeoPDF file can be placed on a web server and viewed in a browser. The TerraGo Toolbar also works in this environment which means that you still get all the great functionality in a web browser as you would on the desktop.  This includes the coordinate display in MGRS, USNG, UTM, State Plane, etc..., the advanced measurement tools and the GeoTool used to connect the PDF to other applcations.  

Integration with Google Earth is easy because once a map book is created from Composer for Acrobat, you may use the KML file that is generated in the process to view your map book contents directly in Google Earth.  If your GeoPDF files are stored on a web server, anyone with access can view your data over the web.  

To test for yourself, create a map book from your data set and use the KML that is generated from the process to launch Google Earth...

Zoom in to one of your tiles or search for an address and find the closest pushpin to select.  

Launch the GeoPDF directly in Google Earth to get the best of both worlds!  You get everything Google has to offer as well as all the attribute data from your data set as its stored in the GeoPDF file. 

Use the Adobe search capabilites in the GeoPDF file to search for attributes from your own data. To get more information than what you have stored in your file attribute table browse through the Google archive of street view data, traffic, weather, etc...

Finally, extend the GeoPDF interaction with Google Earth with the help of Adobe Live Cycle and GeoJavascript.  With these workflow enhancement tools, you are able to add custom context menu options to the GeoTool in the TerraGo toolbar and also enable the file for direct KML support between the file and Google Earth. 

Image Interpretation with GeoPDF

Image interpretation has traditionally been a specialty task within most military organizations. By this I mean that the Analysts would typically go through a specialty school where they are trained on what to look for and more specifically, how to use the software needed to view the remotely sensed data.  Some of the more popular applications used for this type of image interpretation are (and certainly not limited to) ERDAS IMAGINE, SOCET GXP, ArcGIS, etc.  These are all very powerful image processing applications that are worth their weight in gold but, not everyone who might need to see the data are going to have access to a full-featured desktop application.  This is where the GeoPDF comes in handy!!!  We are able to stack several images of the same spatial extent on top of each other in a single PDF to show any change that may have occurred at a specific location.  Please see the screen shot below which depicts 2 input images that equaled nearly 600 megabytes in their raw form and only 54 megabyte as a GeoPDF.  

We are able to capture view state using Adobe Bookmarks which means that the Analyst creating the map could set a Bookmark for a specific date or to zoom to a specific location in the image space.  

As you can see from the screen shot below, a Bookmark was created as an area of interest at this particular facility.  By selecting this Bookmark, the end user can zoom to the "Submarine Dry Dock" where they can perform further analysis in the GeoPDF file.  This can be something as trivial as marking it up as a confirmed area of interest or digitizing the perimeter of the dry dock for export to another system.
Now that we know that certain features in the area have changed, we can mark up the document and export those markups as KML or SHP for exploitation in other applications if need be.

Download the full GeoPDF by clicking here...Select the "Download" icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and as always, make sure you have the TerraGo Toolbar properly installed.

Software used in this example:  Map2PDF for Raster and Map2PDF for Acrobat Professional