slashgeo.org

The popular open source web mapping library OpenLayers version 3.4.0 has been released today.

Some new features according to the announcement: “Dateline wrapping has been added for tile sources, you can most clearly see this in the new wms-tiled-wrap-180 example. The draw interaction can now draw circles as well, check out the updated draw features example and select Geometry type Circle. […] Another interesting change is the ability to allow GeoJSON to be serialized according the right-hand rule, this refers to the orientation of the rings. This is very important for interoperability of GeoJSON, with systems such as Elasticsearch. […] In version 3.3.0 support for ArcGIS REST services was released […]”

Here’s the full changelog for all version from 3.1.0 to 3.4.0, versions that were not mentioned over the official OpenLayers blog.

The UN reports about Humanitarian Open Street Map Team (HOT) support of Cyclone Pam recovery in Vanuatu.

HOT reported: “In the space of less than 24 hours, the HOT community more than doubled the amount of map data in OpenStreetMap. This was done by first covering all the priority islands to map with both Task Manager about 99% completed. The community used existing imagery and added this to our Task Manager tool to divide up the tiles (blocks on a map).”

More information on Humanitarian Open Street Map Team HOT link.

OSGeo is pleased to announce that the pycsw project has graduated from incubation and is now a full fledged OSGeo project. Angelos Tzotsos, a long time member of the pycsw Project Steering Committee (PSC) has been appointed as project officer.  The full post is available on the OSGeo website.

The project powers numerous high profile activities such as US data/geoplatform, Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), US National Geothermal Data System (NGDS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the WMO World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre (WOUDC) (more info).

Congratulations to the pycsw community!

Here’s the recent geonews in batch mode.

From the open source / open data front:

• Beautiful progress and maps, The first ten years of OpenStreetMap, nice progress map, and somewhat related, Mapping turn restrictions and speed limits with Mapillary (crowdsourced Street Level photos )
• A new open source database, GeoWave aims at linking popular geospatial tools to “big data” technology
• For Seoul, FOSS4G Call for Presentations/Papers/Workshops
• Collection of open source geospatial software, OSGeo-Live 8.5 released
• New open data site for New Zealand, Wiki New Zealand
• In CityGML, Metropolitan Lyon makes its 3D Data Reference available
• Another Turf webGIS example, Chicago crime data with Turf
• In recent updates, Geopaparazzi 4.2.0 is out, with offline tiles, and GeoServer 2.5.5 Released and GeoTools 11.5 Released
• QGIS news:
• - A QGIS plugin to run (common) spatial queries with PostGIS
• - For version 2.10, New geoprocessing tools in the QGIS Processing toolbox
• - A new QGIS tool (based on ogr2ogr) to import vectors in PostGIS
• - Semi-Automatic Classification Plugin v. 4.1.0

From the Esri front:

• Running ArcGIS Pro while not on Windows, ArcGIS Pro in VMWare Horizon View
• New wizards, Introducing Smart Mapping, “new ways to symbolize your data with ‘smart’ defaults”
• Always more, ArcGIS Open Data: What’s New for March and What’s New in ArcGIS Online (March)

From the Google front:

• A new API! Google Maps welcomes the new Roads API
• This is also useful, Introducing the Google Maps API checker
• StreetView in the jungle, Zipline through the Amazon Forest with Street View
• StreetView in Greenland, Greenlandic fjords and viking ruins await your discovery in Google Maps
• Differences between Maps and Earth, Maps ‘Earth’ view FOV
• Tips, Measuring in Google Earth Pro

Discussed over Slashdot:

• Is this getting real? Self-Driving Cars Will Be In 30 US Cities By the End of Next Year
• SmartEyeglass, Sony To Release Google Glass Competitor
• Locating bikes, Inside Bratislava’s Low-Cost, Open Source Bike Share Solution
• Destroying satellites with style, How Activists Tried To Destroy GPS With Axes

In the everything-else category:

• An informative entry named Why Are Geospatial Databases So Hard To Build?, including “Computer Science Does Not Understand Interval Data Types”, “Database Engines Cannot Handle Real-Time Geospatial” and “Correct, Fast Computational Geometry Is Really Hard”
• Also pertinent, GeoTiff Compression for Dummies
• Helping indoor positioning, FCC adopts rules forcing wireless carriers to provide accurate indoor positioning of E911 calls, related, HERE adds indoor maps to its Android app
• MapBox wants to help educators do more maps, Mapbox Education is here!
• Webinar on upcoming OGC standard on Augmented Reality, Augmented Reality Markup Language (ARML 2.0)
• Apple Maps; Apple Adds ‘GasBuddy’ and ‘GreatSchools’ as New Maps Data Partners and it’s getting real-time animations by showing the correct time on Big Ben and reveals the London Eye rotating
• Via JF, the next step for spatial databases? Direct visualization of databases in the browser, that’s what does the Periscope software
• Help me help you, Boston Is Partnering With Waze to Make Its Roads Less of a Nightmare
• Jumping deeper into mapping, Uber bought deCarta
• On drones, International Conference on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Geomatics in Toronto, August 30-September 2
• On the same topic from SpatialLaw, How White House Privacy Rules Will Impact Commercial Use of UAVs
• It was coming, it’s here, DigitalGlobe now selling 30cm imagery
• Yeah, you can be tracked this way too, Spying your phone’s location with its battery usage
• We all have to start somewhere, JavaScript for Geospatial: Getting Started

In the maps category:

• Polarized map, Weather duopoly. America divided by temperature anomalies.
• Not WikiVoyage, USE-IT EUROPE, Crowdsourced Tourist Maps
• Many fans, The Unofficial Game of Thrones Map

Releases of the popular open source desktop GIS software QGIS are always good news, and it is now at version QGIS 2.8 LTR.

LTR what? “LTR stands for “Long Term Release”. This means that QGIS now has a system in place to provide a one-year stable release with backported bug fixes. The idea behind LTR is to have a stable platform for enterprises and organizations that don’t want update their software and training materials more often than once a year.”

Here’s the official visual changelog and its table of content: