Archive For February, 2011
If you’ve ever needed to export a shapefile or feature class to a GeoJSON text file, there’s a handy ESRI-supported Python script available. It’s easy to install into your ArcToolbox, and works quite well: http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=15545 So what is GeoJSON? JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, an encoding format for web object data. GeoJSON is just […]
Dr. Matthew Wilson, a Geography professor at Ball State University (Indiana) recently posted a reading list for critical GIS. What exactly is critical GIS? It’s not a synonym for emergency GIS. What Dr. Wilson actually means is critical thinking about GIS – not how to use GIS, but why to use GIS. The list is […]
The hypsometric contour interval on the classic USGS quadrangle maps is 40 feet. Although it’s not a nice round number, I think it looks fantastic at that scale. It’s good at representing many different terrain types. Which is why USGS contours have become a bit of a standard for many GIS and cartographic applications. But […]
One source of data that I feel is under-utilized is the USGS Board of Geographic Names. The BGN is a (mostly) comprehensive list of definitive feature names, covering most of the United States. The features are organized by state, by county, and by feature type, and each one has a latitude and a longitude. The […]
If you ever get the opportunity to work with bathymetric data, you may encounter CARIS files. CARIS is an enterprise GIS suite that is well suited to marine and hydrographic applications. Many GIS offices don’t have access to CARIS, but that doesn’t mean the data is out of your reach. CARIS offers a free data […]
