Self-employment in the GIS Geospatial industry My passion is conservation. I was an archaeologist for eight years before I got into my second career, GIS. I would be out on sites surveying for archeology and come across mass developments where they'd bulldoze everything in the way of a pipeline. It was crushing me. Read More

The long tail of geospatial It's not really about the technologies we use, its about understanding the principles behind the technologies, and where and when to apply them. Spatial thinking is the key skill, we don't need to master every new GIS tools, just knowing that they exist might be enough. Read More

COVID-19 Spatial Research For most people, when they think aboutthe relationship between GIS and COVID-19, the obvious solution is tracking data. At the highest level, if there is any spatial relationship between where we are in our societies, where we go, who we interact with, and spread the disease, our measurements, thenour policy tools must also have a geospatial component to capture that effect.It's not a question of whether spatial data and spatial analysis matter for COVID-19. The problem is understanding what tools exactly can be used for specific insights and decisions. Read More

Open Source Spatial GPU Processing GPUs have orders of magnitude more processors. However, they're not as general-purpose as CPUs. They do discrete bits of work that are more or less the same weight. If you can figure out how to subdivide a problem into 20,000 pieces of equal weight, they will do it in less than a snap of a finger. Read More

H3 geospatial indexing system It's a discrete system , breaking up the world into discrete cells. Every position in the world has a cell identifier associated with it. It's global. In H3, we subdivide each cell into seven smaller cells. If you try to draw that out, you’ll realize it doesn't fit right. We had to make some compromises ... Read More

Google BigQuery GIS - Geospatial in the Cloud Google Cloud’s enterprise data warehouse . It’s an immensely scalable and quick data storage and processing product that got a geospatial facelift a couple of years ago. Users interact with BigQuery with standard SQL verbs. It feels like a relational database except you can have relations and tables that are petabytes big ̶ but to the user, it’s still just a simple case of typing in SQL. Read More

A One to One Map Of The World We now live in an age where almost everything is customizable and can be adapted to our individuality. In previous eras, maps were physical documents. If you went hiking and you took a one-to-one map with you, where would you even put it? It wouldn't be helpful. In the digital realm, we capture the information from smartphones, from IoT devices, intelligent cars driving around, satellites, and building sensors. We put these into place and have a perfectly clear picture of the world in its digital format—this is your digital one-to-one map. Read More

The Spatial Internet of Things The spatial internet of things is the ability to connect low-cost sensors over the internet and track devices, equipment, and people in real-time. It’s the next generation of the internet. Read More

Spatially Enabling Customer Relations Segmenting data and audiences is really big at the moment, its about getting the right message to the right person at the right time. Geospatial is a big part of that, it's about putting your data in context. Read More

spatio-temporal Everything happens at a location and at a specific time. Why have GIS standards ignored the temporal aspect of data, why don't we have the same kind of functionality for spatial-temporal data that we have for spatial data? Anita Graser, the creator of the time manager plugin for QGIS answers these questions. Read More

Polygons of Ownership Property is surrounded by a legal space that the government defined and sectioned off to the owner with a street address for tax purposes. It’s a polygon, rectangle, or square space. A host of other information is connected to that parcel, such as when it was first subdivided, is there a structure on it, and does it have utility hookups? What are the permissions, zoning, and taxes owed on it? Read More

Introduction to Jupyter Notebooks Jupyter Notebooks are an interface for combining code, documentation, and data access. Previously, your data was held in one location. You coded somewhere else and output it to a different folder which you opened to see what your code did. A notebook is a single place where you combine code, workflow, documentation, and the results. Read More

Radio Frequency Data Collection Remote sensing with a difference. That’s what Ellen Christopherson , CEO and founder of clearGrid , is here to talk about. Their unique way of collecting radio frequency (RF) data makes them a valuable partner for utility and energy companies that do any type of meter readings and billings. Ellen’s background in aviation engineering gives her an edge to see how technology can deliver efficiency in this space. Read More

Hyper-accurate indoor location Indoor positioning and navigation are still done on a case by case bases and generally only offer sub-meter accuracy. But what if you had millimeter accuracy? what problems could you solve or use cases could you dream up? Read More

Digital Twins A digital twin is a digital replica or model of a living or non-living physical object. Geospatial and CAD data often provide the physical context for these objects but no digital twin would be complete without different real-time or near real-time data streams. Read More

Geospatial Python Anita Graser is a legendary open-source geospatial Python expert. With her extensive knowledge of the subject, she is here to convince us of why Python is a great language and how we can all get started learning it. Stick around to see the benefits and learn why Python may or may not be an option for your GIS project. Read More

best free GIS apps for data collection Two free and open-source apps that will help you collect GIS data in the field and synchronising that data to a centralized database. Online or offline these apps are integrated into the QGIS ecosystem and they just work! Read More

The Future of GIS, Leadership and Rebranding Geospatial GIS technology is underutilized. There is a huge opportunity for professionals in the geospatial industry to be leaders and not just mapmakers. Cartography is an important part of what GIS professionals do but it does not have to be the only thining that they do. Read More

GIS CAD Differences Historically, CAD was used to draw buildings and facilities. These systems were never meant to store complex attribution we take for granted in the GIS world today. This geospatial podcast episode explores the differences between Computer aided-design and geographic information systems. Read More

Robotics, remote sensing and facilities management The Mars Rover Project. Autonomous robots monitoring substations. How is this all relevant to the geospatial community? Scott Nowicki is happy to clarify. He explains the technology that enables robots to integrate detailed maps, orientate, and move around their environments as they go on their daily business and build detailed change detection maps for substations and facilities management. But the question is, can they and do they truly add value to operations where human presence is difficult or unnecessary? Read More

GIS job seekers - advice from a geospatial recruitment expert Learn how to apply for entry-level GIS jobs and geospatial internships. Find out what it takes to move from an entry-level GIS position to a mid-level / leadership role in GIS. You will also discover what recruitment looks like in the broader geospatial industry. Read More

The overlap between Business Intelligence tools and GIS software This week on the podcast Kent Marten from Tableau explains the cross over between business intelligence tools and traditional GIS software. We also explore the challenges around self serve mapping and answer the question "Is location still the next big thing" Read More

Dynamic vector tiles straight from the database Serving dynamic vector tiles might not be as difficult as you think. Paul Ramsey from Crunchy Data starts off by walking us through the early days of PostGIS, explaining what a vector tile is and the advantages over image tiles before explaining how you can easily and safely serve your own data as vector tiles straight from a PostgreSQL database. Read More

Earth Observation, platforms and data A dive into the differences between remote sensing and earth observation, we walk through 4 major data collection platforms and the data that these platforms provide and where and how we might find it Read More

QGIS - An opensource geospatial project QGIS is rapidly becoming the default opensource geospatial desktop tool for the GIS community. Today, Kurt Menke who has written serval books on QGIS shares his insights and experience with the QGIS and talks about so of the more exciting features that are built into QGIS Read More

Serverless Geospatial Serverless architectures provide an instantly scaleable application environment so that IT infrastructure may dynamically scale up and down to meet the demand of both machine and human users. Read More

Earth Observation - machine learning and artificial intelligence The changing world of eath observation and some of the challenges facing the industry at the moment. We also discuss remote sensing space with regards to the Gartner Hype Cycle and discuss the role of non-traditional players in the earth observation space. GIS / Geospatial podcast about remote sensing and earth observation. Read More

Is R the language of geospatial data? R is perhaps the most powerful computer environment for data analysis that is currently available. Tim Appelhans joins me on the show today to talk about his journey from learning R too developing new packages and extending the geospatial visualization capabilities of R Read More

Geospatial intelligence from the sky, automating the mining industry Drones are changing the frequency, resolution, and scale of geospatial data collection. SkyCatch is applying drone-based data collection to the mining industry which might just be the first step on the journey to an autonomous workplace. Read More

The evolution of geospatial file formats and data exchange ﻿An interview with one of the founders of Safe Software, Dale Lutz (an all-around nice guy and a thought leader in the geospatial world) . Dale walks you thought the evolution of the problems that Safe is solving , and gives you insight into the fallacy of the one “ file to rule them all ” theory and talks about trends in the geospatial file formats and data exchange in general. Read More

Travel Time - A better way of doing location based search n some respects, we are all drowning in data and one of the big challenges going forward will be filtering the data we have so we can make sense of the world by removing the noise. The Travel Time Platform approaches location-based search form the perspective of the time it takes to reach a destination. Read More

Remote sensing - building the globe in 3D Vricon is on a mission to build the most accurate 3D model of the surface of our planet. They have access to what might be the largest stockpile satellite imagery in the world and are using a technology stack that focuses on very large scale image processing and in particular multiview 3D reconstruction. I this podcast interview the Vise President of Vricon, Isaac Zaworski walks us through what the process of creating the most accurate 3D model of the world looks like today, what challenges they face when process imagery and what this might look like in the future. Read More

Addressing the world - a coordinate system from humans What3words divides the world into a 3 * 3-meter grid, each square is uniquely identified by three words which creates a global reference system that allows people to identify and navigate between these 3*3 meter squares using 3 words instead of longitude and latitude. Read More

Don't just make the dots, connect them The job is not to make the dots but to connect them. It is the realationships between and among objects that give context to the world. A discussion about the past, present, and future of geospatial and GIS. Read More

Building geospatial truth sets Collecting and validating geospatial data for every commercial location in the USA and Canada is not an easy task. It requires aggregation of data from multiple sources and formats. This data then needs to be validated and decisions need to be made about which data sources represent the truth. Read More

Mapping the interface between vehicle traffic and pedestrians The curbside might not seem like the most obvious focus point in terms of mapping the urban environment but when you start to think of the curb as a highly regulated space and when you consider the number of arrivals and departures that that place on the curb in crowded urban environments. Read More

Creating maps for journalists The move from printed media to digital media has had a huge impact on the way cartography is used and consumed. News rooms around the world are not only using maps to illustrate their written content but also as a form of branding. Read More

Geomob - Geoinnovation for the people by the people Geomob provides a forum to learn and exchange ideas about any interesting services and projects that deal with location. Everyone working in or curious about the location space or with location services is welcome. Read More

Building footprints at scale The confluence of open data, just enough availability of hardware, software, computing power and being laser focused about the industry you are trying to serve. Read More

Remote sensing and future of earth observation The future of remote sensing and earth observation might be open, collaborative and involve much more end user education that you expect. DR Aliastra Graham shares his observations based on 20 years of experience in the industry. Read More

A marketplace for geospatial data and workflows Geospatial data is not always easy to find. The open data revolution and the abundance of data available on the global market have created a very fragmented environment and it is often difficult to know where to look to find what you need. Read More

Geospatial visualisations matter - Civil engineering meets online gaming Removing the barriers to entry by making it easy to create immersive geodata visualisations that tell a story and explain a process. Maple Precision has incorporated insights from the gaming industry to create a platform that organises spatial data for a variety of .... Read More

Using the geomagnetic field of buildings to navigate indoors Every building has its own geomagnetic fingerprint and by mapping that fingerprint against a floorplan of the building IndoorAtlas is able to provide accurate location and navigation inside. The genius of this system is that it takes advantage of an existing geomagnetic infrastructure. Read More

The location context platform Location gives context to data but it can also be used to give context to experiences. Radar is a platform for geofencing and location tracking. In this interview with Co founder Nick Patrick we discuss the opportunities around using location to deliver contextualised experiences to users Read More

Geospatial gives context to risk WatchKeeper International is using real time data feeds from a variety of different sources to monitor and mitigate risk and location is the thing that gives context to the data. Read More