GIS.org.nz

I have just uploaded the following guideline to gis.org.nz. It is also accessible in the wiki.

The purpose of this Guideline is to unlock the government Geospatial Divide that is holding back NZ Inc.

Geospatial data is a key component of the governments Digital Content Strategy, and Geospatial Strategy, key initiatives of the Digital Strategy with its vision of “New Zealand will be a world leader in using information and technology to realise its economic, social, environmental and cultural goals, to the benefit of all New Zealanders.”

This Guideline focuses on the key questions of;

• What information to deliver
• What web channels should be used to deliver that information
• What web presence should be used
• What information barriers should be used if any

The New Zealand Geospatial Office is pleased to announce that John Clegg from ProjectX has been awarded second prize for his Mashup - Crime 10K.

Check out Crime 10K at Geospatial Mash-up 2008 Participants .

Came across this article about the increasing adoption of GeoPDF for distributing maps amongst the US military and intelligence community. The map is store in a pdf, and the client installs an Adobe toolbar to provide more mapping functions within the Adobe Reader - the plugin is called GeoPDFToolbar. The software is produced by TerroGo Technologies.

The Intergovernmental Committee on Survey and Mapping have released a report covering these key tasks.

Task 1 - Conducting an audit of key agencies involved in emergency management and response to compile a nationally consistent Incident Management System (IMS) symbology resource catalogue.

Task 2 - Conducting an audit to define the major categories of symbols for all-hazards used or required by Emergency Managers and response personnel and develop documentation outlining which categories of symbols are relevant to different types of organisations and events, gaps in existing categories and priority areas for additional work.

The report is available from this page.

In an effort to ease the sharing of GIS references and publications, we have added some web-based bibliography software to the website. We are currently testing this through the addition of references obtained during the production of the GIS and Emergency Management Guidelines.

The key reason to take this approach is to move to a data format that is appropriate for storing bibliographic reference information. BibTeX is a long-standing and suitable format that can be used to store this information. The web-based library will act as the central repository, but it is easy to export some or all of the references in BibTeX format to install in bibliographic software that can be used on your computer.

The State Services Commission has released a new webpage that provides an overview of Geospatial Information Standards. Comments are being solicited on this introduction to GIS standards.

The OGC has released for comment a standard specification designed to provide a directory service of available geospatial services entitled the Catalogue Services Specification. This has the potential to go a long way towards enabling a shared network of easily-searchable geospatial resources.

OASIS Open Standards 2006 is the fourth annual Asia
Pacific event where both management and technical professionals from the business and government sector can gather to share expertise and promote open discussion on the latest technologies, applications and services supporting the global e-Business community.

Presented in conjunction with OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), Open Standards is an event focused on encouraging the use of standards-based technology to improve efficiency and interoperability between business partners.

The Open Geospatial Consortium has made available on the website
outlining the new interoperability standards that are being
developed, and shows how they could work in an Emergency Management
context. Some of the key aspects covered include Rights Management
and access to a variety of different sources of spatial information,
including spatial-aware sensors connected to the Internet. For more
information, see the OGC Web Services Phase 3 Initiative.

I have just published a report I finished last month for the Wellington Lifelines Group to the knowledgebase to see how well it handles longer documents in one page. Let me know if you think it is too long for one page. I will probably end up putting a pdf version available for download as well.

Download in pdf format
Report in wiki - GIS, Lifeline Utilities and Emergency Management