Geonode to share golf data

We recently installed a Geonode instance on one of our servers to host golf data here at www.golfgis.com.  The purpose is to share golf maps and golf specific data.

What is golf specific data?

• Fairways
• Greens
• Tee Areas
• Bunkers
• Water Hazards
• Trees
• Cart Paths
• Buildings
• Playing Lines
• Markers
• out-of-bounds
• water-hazard-front
• water-hazard-side
• 100m to green front
• 150m to green front
• 200m to green front
• Biotop posts
• Semi-rough
• Rough
• and more...

Now the geometry alone provides valuable information like square meters and perimeter values for each area that the Greenkeeper can use for calculating fertilizer amounts per m2.

Geonode is still a new project based on several open source software projects: Geoserver, Geonetwork, Postgresql, PostGIS, OpenLayers and GeoExt plus Django.

Lots of configuration goodness to get it all play nice together but it works.  Now we are busy making it work better for all the non GIS folk who are going to use this portal to access and use the golf data.

Please let us know if you want more information about www.golfgis.com  you can reach me at   www.gomogi.com.

cheereo
Michael

Postgresql PostGIS How to set your search_path

The problem:
You want to have all your spatial data in a schema other than "public" in your Postgresql PostGIS database and don't want to have to always specify the schema.tablename when creating new tables.

The solution:

1. Close the connection to the database you want to change
2. run the sql query    

            ALTER DATABASE DatabaseName SET search_path = '$user','geodata', 'public';             


in this example the schema 'geodata' is the primary schema where I want to store all my spatial tables.  The order in which Postgresql "searches" where to create the table is then defined in the same order as you have listed in your SET search_path statement.


If you just want to change the search_path for a current session you can use:
SET search_path = '$user','geodata', 'public';

now you can merrily go and create a new table and it will automatically be created in your 'geodata' schema.

if you already have the tables in the 'public' schema and want to move them to your new shiny 'geodata' schema it is really easy to do:

ALTER TABLE name SET SCHEMA new_schema

now if you do this don't forge that your geometry_columns won't automatically reflect your schema changes and must be updated by using

SELECT Populate_Geometry_Columns('geodata.myspatial_table'::regclass);

cheers
Michael

How to upgrade Geoserver 2.1.1 to 2.1.2

From 2.1.1 to 2.1.2, Ubuntu 10.04 Server, Tomcat6

Note: all those commands need to be done as root (or alternatively, run sudo before the command)

1. Stop Apache tomcat:

   /etc/init.d/tomcat stop 
   

2. Backup the your directories, this could be different from your own installation: /var/geoserver-data, /opt/tomcat/webapps/geoserver/  

   tar -cf geoserver-data-nov-17.tar /var/geoserver-data # takes quite long on current geoserver installation (orthofotos, ...)
   gzip geoserver-data-nov-17.tar
   tar -cf geoserver-app-nov-17.tar /opt/tomcat/webapps/geoserver
   gzip geoserver-app-nov-17.tar
   

3. Additionally, backup web.xml file from WEB-INF directory:

   cp /opt/tomcat/webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/web.xml web-backup-nov17.xml
   

4. Download latest (in this case: 2.1.2) geoserver version (war archive)

   wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/geoserver/geoserver-2.1.2-war.zip
   

5. Unzip it

   unzip geoserver-2.1.2-war.zip
   

6. Copy it to the tomcat webapps directory

   cp geoserver.war /opt/tomcat/webapps/geoserver.war
   

7. Delete old geoserver installation

   rm -rf /opt/tomcat/webapps/geoserver/
   

8. Start Tomcat again

   /etc/init.d/tomcat start
   

9. Wait... (this can take a while, monitor CPU usage via htop or other tools)
10. Check /opt/tomcat/webapps/ directory, you should see a subdirectory geoserver very soon

    ls -la /opt/tomcat/webapps/
    

11. Verify that new geoserver version is running by trying to access  http://gs1.gomogi.com:8080/geoserver/
12. We're not done yet, let's put the old configuration file in place again:

    cp web-backup-nov17.xml /opt/tomcat/webapps/geoserver/WEB-INF/web.xml
    

13. Restart tomcat once again and all should be good in update land.

    /etc/init.d/tomcat restart

Why use OpenERP in a small business

Well it did take more than 1/2 hour to get OpenERP up and running last night.  To be precise it took exactly 4,75 hours. I must say that I'm impressed with the modules, features and useability.   Now I need at least 1 week to play/customize it and we are off to the races.

Why did I install an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) web application for my small business? Well my company GOMOGI  like all other small businesses around the world need to do all the same stuff like big companies on a smaller scale like:

• manage and engage customers (Customer Relationship Management (CRM))
• marketing our products
• write bills/invoices
• manage projects with AGILE  SCRUM  methodology
• Getting Things Done way to organize my busy multitasking days, weeks, months and years

This keeps all our STUFF in one place and accessible online at anytime no matter where I am (onsite with a customer, traveling, anywhere). No backing up issues since our hosting provider takes care of that for us.

OpenERP with its modular design allowed me to install only the modules I need now to keep me running with  the ability to expand and add new features easily when I need them as we grow as a company.

I also have a biased view since I love technology and OpenERP  in the background uses my favourite things Python as its development language and Postgresql as its database, both things I use for my spatial work load.  PostGIS the spatial extension of Postgresql and Python the scripting language of ESRI products.

What Python version do my geospatial apps/libraries use?

Setting up a new PC and I was interested to know what version of Python is being installed and used by various GIS applications and libraries.

The problem many new users have is finding what version to install with what software.  So here is the run down of what is using what Python Version.

• FWTools 2.4.7 (Windows 32bit)  uses Python 2.3.4
• ESRI ArcGIS 10 uses Python 2.6.5  on installation
• ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 uses Python 2.5.1
• OSGeo4w  uses Python 2.5.2
• Google AppEngine as of 08.06.2011 uses Python 2.5.2   Roadmap has 2.7 in sight
• Ubuntu Server 10.04 has Python 2.6.5  as a standard instal
• Django supports any Python version from 2.4 to 2.7

 A quick note
GdalOgrInPython GDAL this link for details


     Dependencies

• Python 2.X (and 3.X since GDAL 1.7.0). Python 2 versions known to work range from 2.3 to 2.7.
• libgdal (1.5.0 or greater) and header files (gdal-devel)
• numpy (1.0.0 or greater) and header files (numpy-devel) (not explicitly required, but many examples and utilities will not work without it). Note that at the time of writing, there's not yet any Python 3 port of NumPy.

Michael

Quick Start Guide to OpenStreetMap (OSM)

As I find myself teaching more and more people to get started with the OpenStreetMap (OSM)  project the first "Newbie" steps are just still to complicated for non - tech users who want to add a simple house or Point of Interest based off Bing Images aka not using GPS.

It is really quite straight forward. Lets take for example I want to add a parking lot as  POINT so the parking lot symbol will show when rendered with the standard mapnik renderer aka the main map you see when first starting to us OSM maps.

1. Register for a free account here you need this to do editing.
2. Zoom to a small area where you want to add some data using the map interface. If you can see your entire city that is to much and is not allowed, try zooming in on a smaller area it will be faster too.
3. Select the online editor by just holding your mouse over the Edit Tab and select the online editor for this example I'm using Potlatch2 (You need FLASH installed) .
   
4. Now double click one time on the sport where you want the parking symbol to show up. Then select the type of object using the drop down list and select "Car Parking".
5. Add a Name like  "guest parking" if you don't know it you can ignore it.
6. Add the number of spaces if you know how many there are if not just ignore it.
7. Click Save in the upper right hand corner and add a simple comment like "added parking spot"
8. DONE

I managed to keep it under 10 Steps.  I hope this helps those of you just starting out and wishing for quick bang introduction to OSM.

Please feel free to let me know if this works out for you.

Free Geodata

Whenever you have a spatial project it usually begins with some data.  Now what if you don't have any data?  Well here come some sources to your rescue. EDEN Data Archive  has a huge list of free data sources

OpenStreetMap

1. GeoFabrik
2. Cloudmade

International

1. ADDS - Africa Data Dissemination Service
2. Natural Earth
3. Data Depot's Country List
4. GeoBase: Canadian site for sources of free GIS data
5. GeoGratis: Canada's National Digital Atlas
6. Geoscience Australia
7. Gridded Population of the World
8. GoGeo GIS Database (UK)
9. Russian Federation Digital Data
10. Southern Africa Regional Science Initiative (SAFARI) 

Imagery

1. Arizona Regional Image Archive (AVHRR, AVIRIS, MSS, TM, SPOT for six southwestern states including California)
2. Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure
3. Earth Explorer (Landsat, AVHRR and aerial photos)
4. Earth Observing System Data Gateway (Atmosphere, land, ocean, solar and cryosphere imagery)
5. Geoscience Australia (Free Landsat 7, MODIS & AVHRR data)
6. Global Land Cover Facility (ASTER, Landsat, MODIS, AVHRR)
7. Global Visualization Viewer (Free ASTER, MODIS and Landsat Imagery)
8. Landsat.org (Huge collection of Landsat imagery; not all free)
9. NASA Image Server (Landsat 4,5,7)
10. Terraserver (Quickie air photo images from Microsoft)
11. University of Nevada Landsat TM Archive (State of Nevada)
12. USGS EROS Data Center (Many sensors with links to data access)

Land Cover Data

1. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Land Cover Data Directory
2. Global Land Cover 2000
3. Global Land Cover Facility
4. GAP analysis program (land cover data by U.S. State)
5. USGS Geographic Data Download (older LULC data)
6. National Land Cover Dataset from USGS (seamless and the most current for the US)
1. NLCD Class Definitions in html or EXCEL .dbf format