IMAGINiT Geospatial Solutions Blog

GIS Day ‘09

GIS Day is quickly approaching (tomorrow!!!), so be sure to look for a local event near you and be sure to check it out!

What is GIS Day you ask?

Well, GIS Day is all about ‘education’.  It is a day set aside every year for increasing the awareness of real-world GIS applications to the general public.  Many companies, software vendors and educational institutes host events for the general public to learn more about GIS,including what ‘it’ is, and how this impacts our daily lives. 

As you can see from the map, GIS Day is celebrated everywhere.  Including, over 50 events in Canada, hundreds in the US, and many more through-out the world.

One event I would like to mention is the GIS Day Celebration being hosted by the SAIT GIS Club.  There are going to be presentations on:

• Sky Base Mapping
• Seismic Slope Hazard Analysis & Rescue Plan (SSHARP)
• Endangered Species in Costa Rica
• Municipal Asset Management

The presentations run from 12:30pm – 5:00pm in the Orpheus Theater in the Campus Centre, and GIS Information Displays can be seen on the Main Floor of the Senator Burns Building. 

Having just completed my Bachelor of Applied Technology GIS Degree, I was really hoping to make it the SAIT event this year, but unfortunately, previous commitments are preventing me from attending.

If you happen to be a “Twitter’er”, check out: http://twitter.com/GIS_Day, and if you’re into Facebook, check out: http://www.facebook.com/gisday?ref=search

If you’re in the Calgary area, be sure to stop by SAIT and take in the event, OR, search for an event near you!

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

Point Clouds in AutoCAD Map 3D

My colleague, Jeff Morrow, has written a great article on Point Clouds as they relate to AutoCAD Map 3D and AutoCAD Civil 3D, so be sure to check that out!

In this post, I want to send out a big thank you, and report some of my experiences with the new Point Cloud functionality.

Over the last couple weeks, I have been working to finalize the presentation for my AU class, in addition, I am also preparing for Mike Schlosser’s Analyze This! class where I will be co-presenting.  This will be my 3rd time co-presenting this class with Mike, and it is always a great class, as it exposes users to the analysis capabilities of AutoCAD Map.  The goal of the class is to show the users ‘real-world’ scenarios, with ‘real’ data, and I usually find that people are quite surprised as to the extent of analysis capabilities that Map provides.  This year, Mike sent a survey out to the class attendees to get some ideas and suggestions as to what kinds of analysis people might like to see.  The responses were great, with some very detailed suggestions.

So where am I going with all of this?

Well, for my part of the Analyze This! class I’m going to discuss the point cloud technology and how it can be used to generate a 3D Surface that can be used for analysis, specifically, flood trace analysis.  I’m also going to show Feature Overlay Analysis to overlay parcel data, which includes address information, onto building footprints.

So…  my ideas are formed, and I’m ready to start putting the presentation together. 

One minor problem…  I need some ‘real data’.

Where can I find some LIDAR, and related geospatial data to test these theories?

It just so happens that we’ve had some recent discussions with the City of Saskatoon and I know they have acquired some LIDAR data and they have been looking for options to incorporate this data into their workflows and processes.  So a quick call to one of my contacts at the city and voila, less than 8 hours later I have a 6km x 6km area (36 million points) of bare earth, and full featured LIDAR, as well as the corresponding parcels and building footprints.

I owe a HUGE thanks to Ryan Ottenbreit and Kevin Shewchuk of the Corporate Geographic Information Services (CGIS) Section of the City of Saskatoon, for allowing permission to use this data for demonstration purposes.

The Process…

There are essentially 2 steps to get the LIDAR into a format that can be analyzed in AutoCAD Map 3D:

1. The raw data must be processed to generate the Point Cloud indices via the Point Cloud Manager.  This command allows you to choose your LIDAR data to process in the following formats: standard LAS format (.las ), raw XYZ files (.xyz), and the Pont Cloud file format (.isd).  The result of the Index Generation process is a 3 file set that make up the ‘Point Cloud’: .prmd, .isd, .iati. 
   
   From here, the data can be added to the Map just like a regular FDO Feature Class.  Once the Point Cloud layer is added to the Display Manager, the following Ribbon UI will appear to allow control of stylizing the Point Cloud:
   
   
   
2. The next step is to generate a 3D surface from the Pont Cloud Data.  This surface can then be used for a wide variety of display themes and surface analysis.

A Problem…

I did experience one problem as I was attempting to generate indices on this Point Cloud data…

The data provided from the City of Saskatoon is in the NAD83 CSRS98 coordinate system, so naturally, I tried to specify the proper coordinate system during the index creation process. 

Apparently it did not like this, as the generation failed every time with the following message whenever I tried to specify the CS.

I need to investigate this further, but for now, the moral of the story is…  Don’t try to set the coordinate system during the Point Cloud index creation.

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M.

Design Week ‘09

Design Week ‘09 has been running this week in Saskatoon. 

What is Design Week you say?

Design Week is an open invitation to the public to learn about the different areas of design through a series of free lectures and other educational events such as tours, open houses and symposiums, all open to the general public.

The Design Council of Saskatchewan hosted this event, and by all accounts the week was a great success.  The DCS is a collection of six organizations that represent design professionals from a wide range of disciplines, including: engineering, architecture, community planning, landscape architecture, interior design, and graphic design.  The council was established to: promote public awareness and understanding of applied design, and Design Week is a major initiative of the council.

The week provided an an opportunity to take in a wide variety of speakers discussing topics ranging from: renewable energy resources, urban planning, sustainable design practices, and more.

The Design Week ‘09 wrap up was held last night with the Premier’s Awards of Excellence in Design Gala.  These awards recognize applied design being done right here in Saskatchewan.  The evening included a Pecha Kucha style presentation, which included some fantastic presentations, and then the presentation of the awards.

IMAGINiT was a sponsor of this event, and I was attending the gala to present the role of Autodesk geospatial products such as AutoCAD Map 3D and AutoCAD Civil 3D in verifying and documenting LEED certification points for Neighborhood Development.  Those in attendance were very attentive, and the presentation was very well received.  However, I cannot take the full credit for this…   A huge thanks goes out to Mike Schlosser for providing guidance and content for this presentation.  Thanks Mike!!!

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

MapGuide 6.x – Unable to turn on layers

Here’s a little tidbit of information that might prove helpful for those orgaizations running the MapGuide 6.x technology.

Thanks to my friends at the City of Grande Prairie ITS and GIS departments, they have discovered the cause of a problem that some of their clients were experiencing when accessing the cities MapGuide applications.

It seems that recently some users were saying they couldn’t turn on layers in the MapGuide applications.  The city did all of the typical troubleshooting like verifying the IE browser versions, and even re-installing the MapGuide ActiveX plug-in.  All of this to no avail.

They then realized that the users that were experiencing these problems had dual monitor setups.  Apparently:

If the users had the second monitor set as the primary monitor instead of the actual monitor that was connected to the primary outlet, MapGuide got confused.  It's a nasty little thing to pin down because it never showed any odd functionality except the layers not working.

Thanks to all the crew at the City of Grande Prairie for digging into this to determine the cause.

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

Windows 7 and Autodesk Products

Well, the day is upon us… The latest and greatest Windows OS, Windows 7, is now shipping.  So the next logical question is when will the Autodesk products ‘officially’ support Windows 7?

According to the latest press release, starting today the following products are supported:

• Autodesk Inventor 2010
• Autodesk Inventor LT 2010
• AutoCAD 2010
• AutoCAD LT 2010
• AutoCAD Architecture 2010
• AutoCAD Electrical 2010
• AutoCAD Mechanical 2010
• AutoCAD MEP 2010
• Autodesk Algor Simulation 2010

Hmmm, what’s missing from this picture?  No geospatial products are listed here!

Hopefully this will be addressed in a future Update release…  Time with tell.

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

AutoCAD Map 3D 2010 - Subscription Advantage Pack

Great news for those Autodesk customers who are on the Subscription program!  Autodesk has just released a series of the ‘Advantage Packs’ for the various vertical products, and are available for download from the Subscription Center.

From an AutoCAD Map perspective there is a new download available that I have been waiting for, for some time…  This new feature download is called ‘Point Clouds’, and this feature is for anybody struggling with dealing with LiDAR data, especially, LARGE, LiDAR data sets.

With the Point Cloud feature you can:

• Import LiDAR data in LAS and ASCII file formats
• Visualize large point clouds in 3D
• Stylize point data based on LAS classifications, RGB, elevation, and intensity
• Filter point data by spatial extent and LAS classification, elevation, or intensity
• Mask and delete points
• Extract point data to create surface models
• Snap to points within the point cloud using standard AutoCAD® software tools
• Export surfaces as digital elevation models (DEMs) in GeoTIFF and ESRI® ASCII GRID file formats
• Export point cloud layers to LAS, ASCII, and SDF file formats

I’m just in the process of downloading this now, so I will get it installed, run some tests and report back.

Some important points I found in the Readme file (who actually reads these? )

If you have either of these software programs installed, please uninstall them before installing the Subscription Advantage Pack:

• Autodesk MapGuide Studio 2009 (you may reinstall this program after the Subscription Advantage Pack is installed).
• AutoCAD Map 3D 2010 Surface Creation Extension Utility (the Surface Creation utility has been replaced by this Subscription Advantage Pack and does not need to be reinstalled).

So… If you’re on Subscription…  And you need to deal with LiDAR… 
What are you waiting for…  Go download this feature now!

Until next time
Take care.

Warren M

Autodesk Geospatial Tour ‘09 – Saskatoon, SK

Just got back from the Saskatoon version of the Autodesk Geo tour.  Pete Southwood and Mike Schlosser were playing to a PACKED house, which once again proves to Autodesk that folks in Saskatoon don’t just say they will show up to a seminar…  they actually show up!  Way to go Saskatoon!  and, for that matter, way to go Saskatchewan as I did see a few familiar faces from the Regina area.

The content for the most part was the same as the previous shows, but Pete was question during his presentation about surfaces and DEMS, so without missing a beat, Pete being the consummate professional presenter that he is, demonstrated the Surface Creation Toolkit and how surfaces can be created.

After the break, Terry Burton, who is the GIS Manager for the City of Lloydminster, discussed with the group the recent Topobase implementation that they have been working through over the last few months.  Terry highlighted why the choose an Autodesk based solution, and presented some of the challenges and successes they’ve had to this point, and what the envision in the future.  There were some great questions asked by the audience, and Terry and Richard Burton fielded the questions like seasoned pro’s.  Great job Terry and Richard!

Mike Schlosser then presented how the Autodesk Geospatial solutions can be used to improve the integration between CAD & GIS.  Mike highlighted Topobase points and referenced the City of Lloydminster as an example during his presentation.  Another great, informative, session and you can see here for more details on Mike’s presentation.

IMAGINiT then hosted a lunch for attendees where a TakeAIM presentation was given by Mike Thomas.  A special thanks goes out to Mike for handling this presentation, as I was actually on a vacation day today…  but I couldn’t miss the show!

Thanks again to all attendees, and special thanks to Kathleen Kewley of Autodesk, for her hard work behind the scenes.

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

Autodesk Geospatial Tour ‘09 – Winnipeg, MB

Autodesk Geospatial Integration Tour - Bridging the Gap for Better Workflow

On my way home from Chicago yesterday I had to fly through Winnipeg, so this was a great opportunity to stay the night, and attend the Autodesk Geospatial Tour today.  This show is an Autodesk event to showcase the Autodesk Geospatial solutions and how they can be used to improve data integration between CAD and GIS.

The Show started out with Autodesk’s Geospatial Evangelist, Pete Southwood.  Pete gave a great presentation on AutoCAD Map 3D and highlighted many reasons why AutoCAD Map 3D is a better option than vanilla AutoCAD.  Pete demonstrated how easy it is to work with Geospatial data that might reside in a variety of formats, including ESRI SHP files and ArcSDE, and how simple it is to publish that information to the web through AutoCAD Map.  Pete also used the ‘F’ word, as in FREE, and showed how Autodesk Design Review, a FREE download, can be utilized in the design process.

The morning continued with a short presentation from the Winnipeg Transit as they showcased how they are managing their transit data in an AutoCAD Map based environment.  Map was chosen for it’s ability to visualize the transit data in a 3D environment.

Next up was Mike Schlosser. Mike discussed a few topics topics, but the focus today was primarily on CAD and GIS integration.  Mike made some great points, some of which I eluded to in a previous post, that today, this integration isn’t really a technology or software problem.  It’s a people and workflow problem.  More specifically, it’s peoples perceptions and the culture clashes between typical engineering and GIS people, which in turn affects many potential workflows that could be implemented to improve these integrations.  Mike demonstrated the following:

• How to use AutoCAD Civil 3D for parcel layout, and how that information can be brought forward into your GIS
• How Autodesk Topobase, or “AutoCAD Map for the Enterprise”, can be used to address the as-built backlog issues that many organizations experience. 
• 3D Digital Cities and showed how Autodesk LandXplorer can be used to aggregate your data from a variety of sources including, SHP, Oracle, MySQL to visualize the future, today.

The tour is continuing next week in the following cities:

MARKHAM, ON
October 14, 2009

WATERLOO, ON
October 15, 2009

SASKATOON, SK
October 16, 2009

EDMONTON, AB
November 4, 2009

KELOWNA, BC
November 5, 2009

If one of these cities above is near you, Register now!

Until next time,
Take care

Warren M

ILGISA ‘09 Wrap-up

So I’m sitting on a west bound train in Union Station in downtown Chicago waiting to head back to Naperville.  The problem is, I’m way earlier than I anticipated…   

It’s been an extremely disappointing evening as, this being my 1st trip to the Chicago area, I was really looking forward to be sitting in Buddy Guy’s Legends club right now enjoying some good ‘ol Blues… But unfortunately, there was a private corporate event (which btw was NOT listed on their website) going on tonight with Jackson Browne playing.  So needless to say, I was devastated when I walked up and saw the ‘Closed for private event’ sign on the door.  So I ended up calming my anticipointment in a great Chicago style thin crust pizza.

What does this have to do with the ILGISA Conference you ask?  Well, not much…

So, onto the business at hand.

The ILGISA conference wrapped up this afternoon and was a great experience for my first time attending this event.  Albeit, the event wasn’t as busy as I expected, and there are likely a number of factors that contributed to that.

This event is a GIS centric gathering for GIS Managers and Specialists in the Illinois area and it’s no surprise that ESRI is the tool of choice for the attendees.  In talking with many of these GIS folks about data sharing between CAD & GIS departments, it was great to hear that many organizations are using AutoCAD Map, and about 1/2 of those people did mention that they were sharing data to some extent via Map and FDO.  I’ll admit, that I wasn’t expecting the number to be that high, so that was a nice surprise.  Unfortunately, I also found many people that still had the ‘blinders on’ when it came to the topic of CAD/GIS integration.  The typical response from these people was usually a shoulder shrug, and a comment like: ‘oh, I use (or do) GIS’.  But what is really funny about this, is that these are likely the same people that grumble and/or complain when ‘engineering folks’ ask the GIS department to share some of their information so it can used in their engineering designs.

For years, I have always maintained that people should use whatever tool they need to, to accomplish their daily tasks.  The tool should be irrelevant as long as the data is accessible and open.  Data is the real asset and with the current offerings on the technology market today this data sharing scenario is no longer a wish, it’s here, now.

Until next time
Take care

Warren M

Illinois GIS Conference '09

Well, I'm en route today to Chicago, Naperville exactly, to take in the 15th annual ILGISA (Illinois GIS Association) conference. This is my first trip to the Chicago area, so I am quite excited about the conference and seeing Chicago.

The ILGISA conference is taking place on the Northern Illinois University (NIU) campus in Naperville and will provide attendees with the opportunity to take in many structured workshops, technical sessions, panel discussions, and technology demonstrations, and great networking opportunities.

Stop by the IMAGINiT booth and say hi.

On Wednesday we are going to be meeting with some clients that have been involved in the Chicago 'Deep Tunnel Project' (TARP) project. From the research I've done, this is a very impressive project that includes over 176km (109 miles) of tunnels and a series of reservoirs for diverting and temporary storage of storm water and sewage.  This project has been ongoing for over 30 years and is managed by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC).

Until next time,
Take care.

Warren M