GPS/GIS

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

Something of interest for those who know something about GIS, RS, etc. (and seeing how I'm taking this in class, it interested me):

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2003/0 ... er=newscom

While the 30 feet range is true of most civilian stuff, if ya shell out the bucks it's much more accurate. We have surveying equipment that's accurate up to 1 mm per kilometre when surveying, for example.

I also thought it interesting to see that one of the first things the US hit in Baghdad were the GPS jammers (though, not unexpected).

All in all, a rather alluring and useful topic.

[[PX] Nebuchadnezzar]

nice indeed. good read... I read it. Although I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE TO DO! still a good read

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

GIS-related (might as well re-use an old thread):


http://maps.county.oxford.on.ca/mapyourfarm/



Oxford is actually quite technologically advanced with this stuff.

[Ghost [PX]]

Oddly enough, that doesnt surprise me...

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

What may surprise you was that they were the first county in Ontario (and maybe even Canada.......not sure on that one) to have a GIS database like this. Ryerson actually took students to Woodstock for a tour of the facilities in the early to mid-90's.

[Ghost [PX]]

That is cool!

I found my house on this thing...
Its kinda cool actually... I can see the pool and the barn and the house and all the trees and everything...

[[PX]Kal Bob]

pool shmool, i found The Tower at my farm!

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

Seeing as how I've been hearing about this thing in class for a few years, it's kinda cool to see it start up.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1450386


Galileo is Europe's civilian alternative to the U.S.' military GPS. Now I'm just waiting for Russia's Cronos to go.

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

Just to give ya an idea of some of the applications of geomatics in civil engineering:

http://news.digitaltrends.com/featured_article60.html

My friend actually did his thesis on the MTO van. They used PII 400's because they're cheap, get the job done, and have a low thermal load. I was pretty shocked that they did all that mapping with PII's.

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

Open source GIS:

http://www.qgis.org/

http://grass.itc.it/

http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/

http://www.gdal.org/

http://openev.sourceforge.net/

http://thuban.intevation.org/

http://www.vividsolutions.com/jump/

http://vterrain.org/ (good one with tutorials and links)

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

Decent car GPS unit:

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/gr236.php

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/article ... pand,41188

http://www.mobilegadgetnews.com/index.p ... opic=11646

http://www.buygpsnow.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=468


Bluetooth support is kinda spotty, but the battery can be replaced with a readily available Nokia cell phone one. Since you can also use USB and there's a fairly simply fix for the Bluetooth, it seems like a decent deal.

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

An excellent article explaining how parts of GPS work:

http://www.geardigest.com/2007/02/23/th ... ns-of-gps/

It tells how a good looking Jewish actress helped bring about GPS and how some levels of encryption work.

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

GPS and the bombs of the future:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=11928

In the comments, one guy says how they could just turn off the civilian GPS. More likely, they would encrypt it like they did in the early 90's. However, the civil eng. equipment I use could still decrypt/work around it to the point that we had accuracy within 5cm.

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

How to counter GPS jamming:

http://sidt.gpsworld.com/gpssidt/Innova ... ail/523633

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

I recently bought a Garmin Nuvi 750 and love it. It gives great directions, plays MP3's, and has generally helped cut down on my commute. The peace of mind that I'll always have a way home more than justified its cost.

However, if this product comes to Canada, I'm sold on it:

http://dash.net/index.php

http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/27/dash-express-review/



Dash Express has live traffic features which are about the only thing missing from my current device. The perks of answering my cell phone and voice to text are nice, but traffic management and routing are my main concerns.

Oh, yeah. It's open source and uses Linux, too, so you can make your own programs to run on it:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/02/dash ... ware-plat/