Paul Shapley's Open Source Geospatial Blog

What is it?. I didn't attend FOSS4G 2011 but searching the around 'FOSS' blogs there is quite a buzz regarding the Mapnik 2.0 release. Mapnik is a free cross platform toolkit for creating desktop and web mapping applications, it uses the AGG library which enables first class anti-aliasing and rendering with subpixel accuracy for geographical data. 'Quantumnik' brings this technology to Quantum GIS in the form of a 'plug-in'. More information about 'Quantumnik' and of Dane Springmeyer the creator of the plug-in can be found here: https://bitbucket.org/springmeyer/quantumnik/wiki/Home and for information about his work: http://developmentseed.org/team/dane-springmeyer/ Mapnik-utils (Python utilities and project home page) http://code.google.com/p/mapnik-utils/

For anyone lucky enough to get to the seminars or for the rest of us who cannot, here is the url. Keep an eye out for the posted presentations coming soon. http://2011.foss4g.org/program

I haven't taken much notice of Satellite Images since Google Maps/Earth released them as a base layer and I did my UNIGIS Course back in 2004. I hadn't even been aware that this particular mid-resolution satellite's scanner had become permanently damaged, thus producing stripes of 'no data' in each band produced. I initially looked to GRASS GIS sure that it would have a solution but alas not as yet until the release of a long overdue module. I've tried 'r.fillnulls', 'r.neighbors' and 'r.patch' but no luck. I found out about the ' frame_and_fill_win32 ' the NASA solution based on the 'ENVI' IDL Virtual Machine and after some effort it worked on all bands except the 'B80 pan-sharpening band' (on Windows), on the Mac it is a £2,700 hit for a 1 year license... hmm maybe not!. Onward and forward to another link:  http://l7gapfill.sourceforge.net/ but alas another promise that ended abruptly...oh there has to be a ...

http://woostuff.wordpress.com/ 

Some experimenting as usual with OpenLayers

"The scientific study of landforms and the processes that shape them". That's the Wikipedia explanation of what must be a fascinating subject. Like a lot of Open Source GISers I have an unnatural curiosity about phenomena acting on the earths surface and how we can model the changes it creates. I'm a huge fan of QGIS too but today the new version (1.7.0) just crashed on me for the second time so in frustration i fired up GRASS GIS to try and investigate more about the landform character of Neath and Port Talbot in South Wales, UK (the area in which I work, itself full of steep but small mountains). I've always been interested in obtaining more information from a DEM and the GRASS GIS Module 'r.param.scale' has become the focus of some experimentation for me, Why? how sad you may say... perhaps not many people outside the British Society for Geomorphology would ever come across the phrase. Essentially, it is about the 'characterisation' of the...

It's finally here... http://www.qgis.org/