GeoSpatial Knowledge Hive

GDAL & OGR libraries allow you to perform various GIS operations like, Flow Direction or working with DEM few raster & vector analysis outside GIS environment. Image by  Gerd Altmann  from  Pixabay   What Knowledge one should have :  Basic Programming, Python What software you need : Python IDLE or command line, GDAL libraries files (explained later) Installation : 1- Once you have Python installed. 2- Start python IDLE to check which version of python you are using available at top as shown        Python IDLE 3- Install two files available at link below based on your version of python. Download  Link :  http://www.gisinternals.com/query.html?content=filelist&file=release-1500-gdal-2-1-2-mapserver-7-0-2.zip Install first :  gdal-201-1500-core.msi  and then:   GDAL-2.1.2.win32-py2.7.msi * Note specify the path C:\Python27\ArcGIS10.3\Lib\site-packages\ for GDAL-2.1.2.win32-py3.2.msi as shown in figure for (ArcGIS lib installed in python) Pyth

Polar Beer will become first ever specie to "extinct " because of adverse effect of Global Warming Image by  skeeze  from  Pixabay   What Ecologist are doing : Ecologist are using Satellite Images, to count polar beer. What Issue they Encounter : Differentiating Polar beer from white rock , issue is solved in a sense that polar beer has moving motion while rocks are static. image source: Sci-News.com image source: My Travel Tales   

ESRI Story Maps  Link to website: http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2013/airports/ Image by  Emslichter  from  Pixabay   Which airport are among first 25 busiest : Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Beijing Capital International Airport London Heathrow Airport Tokyo International Airport O'Hare International Airport Los Angeles International Airport Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport Dallas Fort Worth International Airport Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Dubai International Airport Frankfurt Airport Hong Kong International Airport Denver International Airport Suvarnabhumi Airport Singapore Changi Airport Amsterdam Schiphol Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport Madrid Barajas Airport Ataturk International Airport Shanghai Pudong International Airport San Francisco International Airport McCarren International Airport Charlotte Douglas International Airport Phoenix Sky Harbor Internatio

SmartMine technology team at GeoEngineers are tracking whales using GIS and Sensors  Image by skeeze from Pixabay Data Set: Cascadia Research, data set of whales around Hawaiian Island. (Dr. Robin Baird) Its visually pleasing:  http://whales.smartmine.com/ image source: http://whales.smartmine.com/ 

GeoSheets  relates google sheet data for Geo-spatial queries Image by digital designer from Pixabay Common Application : Geo-Coding, Business Maps Applications : https://www.geosheets.com/use_cases  Image Source: Geo-sheets  Image Source: Geo-sheets  Image sources: https://www.geosheets.com

Noise Pollution Mapping  Objective of website : Compute the noise level in your city Designed For:  DESIGNED FOR ACOUSTICIANS, RESEARCHERS, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS Data Set : GIS based  http://noisemap.orbisgis.org/ http://noisemap.orbisgis.org/

Mapping of population & climate change indicators made easy by Terra Populus to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGS ) Imagesource:Pixabay  What it Does : It provides GIS based data set, that combines population and climate data of 160 countries approx. Explanation : Picture below explains data cycle image source: https://data.terrapop.org/ Kinds of Data Available: Census and survey micro-data describing the characteristics of individuals and their families and households. Aggregate census and survey data , describing the characteristics of places, including aggregate population characteristics, land use, and land cover. Data derived from remote-sensing describing land cover and other environmental characteristics Climate data describing temperature , precipitation , and other climate-related variables Vector-based geographic information system (GIS) data delineating administrative and census unit boundaries   (Text source: https://www.terra

Geo Marketing is evolving field of marketing that uses GIS & Geography with modern IT Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay What it does : It analyze Target Market Customer Dynamics Market Expansion Strategy and much more using customer location. Any Example : Store wants to open a new chain in sector A, to select best location it will analyze a point that catches maximum customers using GIS. Around the world various companies provide Geo-Marketing services. How can you benefit:  A layman can make simple decisions using Google Maps or like products or online available tools like cartodb, mango maps etc  for simple decision making. image source:  Assignment Point

How GIS started, how it evolved, what was first application of GIS  John Snow’s analysis of the cholera outbreak in London in 1854 was the first ever application of GIS. Cause of disease, was examined spatially and water well were found to be the source of spreading cholera. Although this was all human visualization and interpretation on paper maps, but it is marked as first ever GIS Application .                                                                Happy GIS Day 2016  image source : https://blogs.esri.com

How can farmer benefit from Remote Sensing Satellite Images can be used to study vegetation. Farmer can monitor health using satellite images, Using Satellite Images to calculate NDVI   Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ,  NVI   Normalized Vegetation Indice.  Example of Satellite Sensor : SMOS (Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity), can forecast crop production, depict drought as well. How it works : Near Infrared & Red Band can be used to study vegetation since in NIR band vegetation gives maximum reflection and in Red it gives minimum  Crop Monitoring can help farmers in monitoring their fields by giving them real-time information about possible risks that could threaten their crops image source:  Tata Chemicals

Scientist who want to study gravity can take help of GIS & Remote Sensing  Image by  mohamed Hassan  from  Pixabay   Which data set to use : Grace What it does:  It makes Detailed measurement of earth's gravity Investigates about Earth's hydro reservoir  Investigates physical changes earth encounters  Investigates Disasters Official site:   http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/ image source: http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/

China launches world largest telescope "Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST" Investment :   $180 million Importance : Research, military, Space Control Research Area :  Tracing sign of intelligent extraterrestrial life.  Detecting gravitational waves.  Detecting radio emissions from stars and galaxies. image source: http://www.nydailynews.com/

Using Python to capitalize strings  - Add new field in Attribute Table - Go to Field Calculator  - Select Python  - use         .title()       .upper()       .lower() title= Abc upper= ABC lower = abc  Example=  FieldName.title() Image Source: Pixabay

Radiometric Resolution  is defined as magnitude of EM ( Electromagnetic Energy ) recorded by a sensor Units : Measured in Bits Formula: Each bit records an exponent Power of 2. 1 Bit= 2 2 Bit=4 4 Bit =16 8 Bit=255 digital values Note: 0 represents Black tone and maximum like 255 represents highest tone. image source  www.satimagingcorp.com 1 Bit will be Black & white 16 Bit will be colored 32 Bit will be more colored and will carry greater energy levels Higher Radiometric Resolution much variation in colors reflected. Image to left is of  higher radiometric resolution than that of Landsat below. image source: geoinfo.amu.edu.pl

Free Remote Sensing Software OSSIM Open Source Software Image Map What about OSSIM : Open Source Remote Sensing Software  Who Funds : US departments (Intelligence & Defense) Image Source: Pixabay  Specialty: Supports more than 100 Raster & Vector Formats, Plugin Option available  Suitable for: High resolution Imagery (Spatial) OSSIM APPS:  Command Line  Desktop Applications     What OSSIM say about itself:                                                                                                      Image Source:http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki Image Source:http://trac.osgeo.org/ossim/wiki

Visualize View From a Particular Point Using GIS  How many places are visible from your point, e.g. you want to construct a house how many places are visible from that sight.e.g. you want to practice shooting , how many visible spots can be shot from location (A Military Application)...likewise many other interesting applications can be performed using viewshed analysis. Image by  Tim Hill  from  Pixabay Performing ViewShed Analysis   Use any GIS software, e.g. i will use ArcMap, as a first step get data set of your area. DEM (Digital Elevation Model) that gives topographic information (lat, long, height) freely available online. A shapefile of your point of sight, which you can create it easily in GIS software Example :   plne , an elevation grid; and lookouts.shp , a lookout location shapefile. Step-1 : Start ArcMap , Add data  Search for Hillshade  and  specify  files plne or your grid file  Hillshade Tool Interface         Step-2 : Next search for Viewshed

Lidar Data is available free of cost  How it works: User generated data sets that are registered  Good Point:  Free LiDar data   Open Topograhy Tools and Softwares  Point2Grid Opal ToolKit myHadoop For more research about Open topography visit:   http://www.opentopography.org/

Maptitude is a low cost commercial GIS software solution. What it used for: Higher level spatial analysis  Example: Geo-scientific, Environmental, Demographic   What are its Competitors:  SAGA GIS, QGIS and Esri ArcGIS  image sourcce: http://www.geo-matching.com/ Interesting  Features: -  3D Rendering  -  Loaded with Data set (transportation, demographic and many more) -  Good for Vehicle Management Applications (Routing) -  Beautiful Visualization   Purchasing a commercial GIS Software, maptitude is also one option.  Want to know more about it: Geo Matching explains in detail Click here   for more details. 

Perform Geocoding Use google Earth search any place, & save the KML layer result by right clicking. Open ArcMap , convert saved KML to ArcGIS Layer using " KML to Layer " tool,  Add new layer. Add Base Map, thereafter export layer to shapefile . image source:  google-earth.en. image source:  www.arkzoft.net    

Have you imagined how satellites have surrounded earth surface  Click   ESRI satellite Map  which beautifully visualizes all satellites surrounding earth. Image Source: ESRI Satellite Map

T  his tutorial explains steps to generate 3D surface for visualization and analysis. Image by  lijunzhuang  from  Pixabay         Start ArcScene from start menu.       Add DEM layers        Go to properties        Choose Base Heights tab.       Click   Obtain heights for layer from surface       Click Ok  Image Source: 3D visualization        

Science of measuring shape and forces of earth. GIS needs Geodesic concepts to determine accurate positioning. Datum we use in GIS are core of Geodesy. Image by  Paul Brennan  from  Pixabay  

DigitalGlobe Free Product Samples What is the Resolution of sample imagery: You can almost see license plates with the 30 cm spatial resolution data from the newly launched Worldview-3 satellite. Download 30 cm product: Image source: http://www.digitalglobe.com/

Free Remote sensing Software   Why so special : Free and Open Source   Additional Features: Extendable Plugins, an open source option to ERDAS IMAGINE, RemoteView, ENVI, or SOCET GXP, What Opticks say about its features:                        image source: opticks.org Free and open source Supports the following file formats: NITF 2.0/2.1, GeoTIFF, ENVI, ASPAM/PAR, CGM, DTED, Generic RAW, ESRI Shapefile, HDF5, AVI, MPEG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP Zoom, pan, rotate spatially large datasets Quickly layer GIS features, annotations, results, and other information over your data to provide context Many image display controls such as colormap, histogram, transparency, etc. Support for datasets larger than four gigabytes Analysts can quickly combine steps using graphical wizards Support for processing data in its native interleave of BIP, BSQ or BIL Get  extensions  to drop in new capability. Text source:  opticks.org

Assigning  image  to behave as real earth position with true coordinates(lat, long) defines all three terms but there are differences. Geo-Referencing is general term that assigns a topo sheet true coordinates. Image Registration  is assigning an image coordinates on basis of another image. It is usually an image to image Georeferencing. Image Rectification  is assigning an image coordinates on basis of another vector data or shapefile or map. Share your thoughts by commenting below. Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay