North River Geographic Systems Inc

Spatial Problem Solving

rjhale

Mobile Data Collection: Input

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If you flash back to 2008 you would have seen me sitting on my couch unwrapping a Trimble SB (?) running Arcpad. At the time I thought “collecting data” would be a beneficial add-on to me being a consultant. Spoiler alert – It wasn’t.

If you flash back to 2013 I was sitting in the Caribbean needed to collect data and I was holding a new giant yellow GPS unit that wouldn’t quit rebooting when it got hot. Spoiler Alert – It’s always hot (generally) in the Caribbean. What I did find is Fulcrum – and that allowed me and about 5 or so folk to disperse and work all over the place and collect data – WITH OUR PHONE. Which for 2013 was pretty awesome for me.Since then I’ve always been interested in how people are collecting data. I will make fun of you for doing it “Pencil and Paper” but I will admit to having a field journal and pencils in my laptop bag just in case.

A client asked a few weeks back “We need to take a copy of the data into the field” and that trip into the field was going to be with no to limited connectivity, no data collection, but they needed to know where they were. They are a IOS/Mac heavy group. Print a map seemed a bit harsh and working through some other hoops seemed unnecessary.

So my suggestion was Input. So what is an Input? Lutra Consulting developed a mobile app built off the QGIS Source Code. It runs on Android and IOS. There are tutorials out there on using Input. I can’t do better than the ones that are out so I won’t even try. I can throw in some screen shots and just general discussion on why Input is pretty cool from an avid QGIS user. When you get it installed on your mobile device of choice you get this:

input start screen

Simple. Home being the map screen, my projects being things you can work on, shared being projects that are shared with you from others, and finally explore just in case you can’t find your project.

So we will tackle this one of two ways. One way with Mergin and one without. What’s Mergin? Mergin is the commercial end of Input. Commercial? What? Yes – there is a commercial end of Input.

1. Install Mergin and Get an account. Don’t worry – it’s free for small projects. Download Mergin from the Plugin Manager in QGIS. Mergin will appear in your browser panel.

2. Build a project in QGIS. Import your data into Geopackage. Build the project the way you’d want it to be displayed on your phone. When I say “build your project” you’re going to build widgets for data input, set up labels, and set up your colors. I prefer boring as seen by this screenshot.

QGIS Project Screen

3. Import your project into Mergin (You’ll have to connect the plugin to your Mergin Account).

Give it a few minutes and you can now download your project into Input and start working. Edit your points, lines, and polygons….and attributes….

Input Project

 

4. Sync your project back to Mergin. Download it back to your computer.

One word of caution :

  1. You’re going to build a project .
  2. You’re going to COPY it to the server using Mergin.
  3. Move it to your mobile device.
  4. Edit it locally and sync it back to the server
  5. Eventually you’re going to download it back to your compute using Mergin
  6. So at the end you’ll have one old project and one new one sitting on your machine. Just pay attention. I did get confused at first but I’m slow.

You don’t want to use Mergin?

  1. Then copy your data to your mobile device.
  2. Create a directory under the projects folder under Input and move your data there.
  3. Start working. At some point you’ll have to manually move things back to your laptop.

….and there you go.

So where does that leave me with all of my current love of data and databases? So as an experiment I connected to a test server and edited data against PostGIS (live). I wouldn’t suggest that for day to day because “you always need a network connection of some sort”. So I’d always build a local project to share to your mobile device.

I need more than “me” collecting data – then read up. Several people can edit and Lutra has used Geodiff to handle multiple users. All your edits can go back into the same geopackage that you download back to your Workstation.

So should you pay for Mergin? If I stuff a street centerline file, building footprints, streams, and a few other things for a medium sized city I’m getting close to 100mb of disk space. So I’d say pay. If you just can’t pay – then keep it under 100Mb or manually move your data over.

Overall I like it.  For years I’ve said “QGIS on Mobile” and now we have Qfield and Input.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fishbones for the TN NG911 Address Server

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It’s been a bit since I’ve talked about the TN address server. I’ve been slowly adding more functionality to it and some of that functionality has been more difficult than others.

If you’ve played in the address space any length of time you’ve heard of fishbones – and that is simply drawing a line from the address point to it’s “spot on the street”. Granted if you’ve ever done an addressing project from scratch (I had the joy to do that a few years ago in the Caribbean) it makes a lot of sense. You can quickly see problems where lines cross over other lines or where addresses have no lines at all.  Please read up here if you are so inclined.

There are probably multiple ways to do this  but I’ve gotten fishboning (if that’s a word) running in the TN NG911 Address Server. In PostGIS with less than 25 lines of SQL (and I’m quite proud of myself – 5 years ago I sucked at SQL. I still suck at it – but way less).  While it’s not quite ready for prime time it’s close – I’m just trying to figure out what I can pull out of this that makes the County’s job easier in the addressing realm. I’d love to move it to python at some point – and it’s probably doable (well I know it is – it’s just doing it).

Three things happen:

  1. I join the address point to the closest road using ST_LineLocatePoint
  2. Does the closest point fit the address range on the street (double bonus I also check left and right).
  3. Finish it up with ST_Makeline to join the spot closest to the street to the address point.

Which quickly shows something is wrong here:

Bonus for this one as is it’s not incredibly obvious what the problem is at first glance….UNTIL you see you have an addressing issue where you have 2, 3, and 4 on the same side of the street.

Hurrah for misspelled street names by leaving a W off

Anyway – there will be more announcements coming like this “running in the cloud” and other things. I’d like to get the fishbones running once a night or realistically run the one for the new address. Why not both probably. Anyway – pretty nice for an ArcView/FGDB Replacement.

QGIS 16 Hour Class May 13-14th 2020

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The QGIS Workshop  makes an appearance on May 13th-14th 2020 at Chattanooga State Technical Community College.

This 16 hour workshop is designed to introduce you to QGIS 3.x, an alternative Open Source GIS software for viewing, editing, and managing spatial data in a wide variety of commonly used vector and raster formats. It is lightweight, flexible, and can be installed on Windows, MacOSX, and Linux. Best of all, most will find QGIS to be extremely affordable while still providing a growing list of features and functionality.

Length of workshop: Approximately 16 hours

Topics Covered:

  • Interface
  • Vector Data
  • Raster Data
  • Plugins
  • Processing Tools
  • Field Calculator
  • Exercises Throughout

Registration: https://www.campusce.net/cscc/course/EventDetail.aspx?C=106

Cost: $700

Now that I have all that boring stuff out of the way…..

So the first class went pretty well and although small – I received great feedback from people. Plus it made me navigate my way back through the QGIS Certification process for my end (Certificates/Payment). So the two day will get a slight upgrade for the May class and I should have certificates in hand on the last day. Plus the exercises will be a lot easier vs what I’m doing now.

On the facility – Easy parking and easier lunch. Granted we will all need to jump in a car for lunch it’s only a few miles away.

Anyway – come learn some QGIS and hang out in Chattanooga for a few days.

 

 

QGIS 4 hour workshop at TNGIC Conference on April 7th 2020

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It’s that time of the year again.

So I’ll be doing the 4 hour QGIS Workshop at the TNGIC Conference this year. The Conference will be in Kingsport TN for 2020. Where is Kingsport? Head to the NE Corner of the state until you’re about an hour past the last “Gatlinburg TN” sign.

If you happen to scroll past all the ESRI Centric stuff I’m at the bottom. As I’m not getting paid for this workshop I’d highly encourage you to sneak in. In fact – bring a friend. I’ve capped the class at 20 but if history is any indication I’ll be in a oversized room. Bring data. Bring Questions. Bring people.

What are we going to cover?

  • How this is better than ArcPro
  • Symbology
  • Making maps
  • Reading data
  • Editing data

What do you need?

  • QGIS
  • Laptop
  • Sense of Humor

If we have time after the class we can discuss a Full Open Source Server Installation for those that are interested.

Where is my workshop? I have no idea.

What time is my workshop? No one has told me.

I suppose it’s somewhere in all the details – BUT – show up! I’ll show you a new way to enjoy your GIS again.

 

The Year in Review – 2019 edition

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2019 was weird. If you want to stop there that will sum it up. This will be a long post.

2019 started as an anniversary for me. It was 10 years I have been full time in this business – by that I mean “I have fed myself and existed for one decade doing this”. Small dates took on more meaning. Small ripples turned into waves and small noises amplified. If you look back at 2009 I had recently left my job at the feds and started consulting, had recently become an ESRI business partner, and was recently single. 2019 – I’m still single, 10 years as a company, and up to my neck in Open Source. Looking back over the 10 years was a journey. Interns had come and gone. One employee came and went. I moved. Moved back. Lost Friends. Gained some new friends. People died. People were born. Screwed up some jobs. Nailed other ones. It has been a long year of looking back. On Dec 31st I went to bed early and woke up Jan 1 somewhat relieved I wasn’t dealing with this even number anymore. I actually got up and worked Jan 1st 2020.

Work

 I did two things I hadn’t done before this year: Made every new client sign a contract and started stepping away from the small jobs. I know – “You’re insane you always do contracts”. Well my normal base of clients didn’t either want them or refused to sign them. I have signed a lot of contracts. I’ve occasionally did them. Just not regularly. It’s no longer negotiable. In a lot of cases small jobs take as much effort in some cases as large ones. Couple that with “No Contract” and it was turning into a gamble I was starting to lose over 2019. I looked for larger jobs. NRGS refused some smaller clients. I networked/advertised more than I had done in the past.

 

NRGS made the IT Vendor List in North Carolina. With that I became (as far as I can tell) the only vendor centered on Free and Open Source Software for Geo. That took some time and some work to put together. The effort will hopefully be worth it this year as I start advertising that contract.

 

I spent half the year solidifying the TN 911 database I created for Henry County. Parts of it have been running for over a year now with no breakages and no crashes. That became a product I could market and sell. Out of that I actually got the NENA 911 standard running in QGIS/PostGIS but hadn’t said anything about that (well I just did). I started offering support for what people had called the “OpenGeo Suite” and the “Boundless Suite”. I’m just not calling it by anything that can get me sued. No I don’t build installers for them (already been asked). I hadn’t come up with a name yet…maybe “The software formerly known as the Boundless Suite” and then make some symbol for it….like Prince. It’s not anything magical – you too can install PostGIS/Geoserver with extensions. I’ll do it for you if you hate doing it though.

 

Oh – and I did one more thing. Offer a services based support contract. If you had QGIS/PostGIS/Geoserver/ETC running and wanted support here I am. I will continue advertising that this year. I’m making this more than “maintenance” as I’m actually going to work on your project/system/provide some sort of value add to your organization. Two organizations  signed up for it – I was a bit dumbfounded by that as I really didn’t expect anyone to sign up. I’ve done this before and had no takers – but this time people agreed and contracts went out.

 

My biggest questions of the year:
  • Can we switch to QGIS?
  • Can you help us fix our data?
  • Do you support open source software and how much do you charge?

Training

Training took me to Denver Colorado and Dumas Texas as well as Downtown Chattanooga.

Todd Barr brought me out to work with his employer on moving off Arc to QGIS. So I spent three days teaching a class out in the “flat part” of Colorado. Learned something about drones and watched as an organization worked with Amazon Services. Out of that the one day QGIS class was revamped to two days and there is a third day sketched out. Is there a need for 3 days of QGIS training? I have no clue. Maybe specialized training for companies is where that lies.

You occasionally get to meet a twitter person in some far away place called COLORADO – I present @geofeminina.

I went to Texas. I went there under Respec and taught a three day class for their client that was making a move from Arc to QGIS. Yes there is a theme for the Training.

 

The city of Chattanooga brought me in to talk to their Environmental people on using QGIS. So I did a one day class on “You too can do things with data”. It was a good experience. Someone yelled “Holy Sh*t” in the middle of class when they accomplished some analysis task they had been struggling with. While I do condone as much profanity as is appropriate – that caught me off guard and made me laugh in the middle of class more than I should have.

 

Conferences

February took me to the North Carolina GIS Conference. Yes I jumped in car and drove the long way to the middle of North Carolina. It’s a Good conference. It’s a great blend of open source and proprietary. Yes – there is a lot of “We made a story map” but you also get a GRASS Developer and some other open source aficionados roaming the hallways.

Nantahala Outdoor Center on the way to the NC GIS Conference

I made the FOSS4G-NA Conference out in San Diego. That was fun. It would have been more fun if I hadn’t caught a bug halfway through the conference. Granted it’s not a huge  like some conferences – but it’s a good time had by all. It’s a good crowd and well worth your time.


I made the TNGIC Conference and taught one class on QGIS. I did a couple of talks. Annoyed a lot of people. I struggle every year on the idea of getting a booth or just being a “mobile booth”. So if you ever see me at TNGIC sitting in the vendors area drinking a coke and eating whatever snack is out – “Welcome to my Mobile Booth”.

The biggest smallest conference happened in Chattanooga this year – The QGIS Chattanooga Conference. We had 50 people ranging from Canada, California, New York, Georgia, Boston, and Florida. We blew out the Tap House with half the conference coming out for a social. So what am I going to do in 2020? News is coming shortly.

Stu

If you go back to the first paragraph I had mentioned the work anniversary. In mid 2009 I was recently single and my neighbor brought me a cat. I said “I don’t want a stupid cat” and out of spite I named the cat Stupid. I shortened it to Stu.

For almost 10 years to the day Stu became my shadow. We talked. We hung out. We did some bird watching and some ball fetching. In a quiet house you’re going to do one of three things: talk to no one, talk to yourself, or talk to your pets. Stu grew on me. It was a rough relationship though. He desperately wanted to be the alpha male and that is my job as the bringer of food and the provider of cat litter. We would battle over who was running the show. He hated the cold so this time of year found him in my bed or hiding in a giant comforter I left crumpled on the floor for him.

In early 2018 Stu got sick. One trip to the vet left me with two possibilities. One treatable. One not. We tried the easiest treatment and one year later the problems resurfaced. I pretty much knew what the problem was….. I went to Texas for training and got a call from family: “He relapsed hard. He has a month at best”. I came home and he lasted a few days. I went to the vet and had him put to sleep. He was ready. I wasn’t ready.  I owe Stu a blog post. I have yet to be able to make one I’m happy with. It’s a tough thing losing a pet. It’s harder when you’ve attached a lot of emotional baggage to the pet. I had no clue that had happened. There is no doubt some psychological study that has this all laid out and fully explains my end of things and why. It did make me deal with a lot of baggage I had been ignoring since day 1 in 2009. So if there is a silver lining to this story I walk into 2020 with a clearer head.

Social Media

Linkedin is crawling with Fake Accounts. I started deleting people and refusing to “connect” if the connection was out of Russia, The Middle East, India, or an account with a glamour photo with no background image. I don’t pay for the service. It’s never helped me get work as far as I can tell. So I use it but sparingly.

My personal facebook account became harder to find. I clamped down on the service – thanks to politics I’ve unfollowed probably 1/4 of the people up there. Removed all the apps from my phone. I actually became a heavier user of whatsapp but I’m attempting to leave that one this year. If you follow my facebook business page you’ll notice posts are falling off as I’ve decided it’s not worth the effort I was putting into it. I will keep posting info – but maybe once a week or twice.

I started using twitter more than I had – with that increase in usage also brought the removal of a lot of accounts that were posting political info or just things not related to Geo. I started deleting my tweets slowly. I signed up for a service and I’m working in keeping nothing longer than 1 year. Which I think I have to manually delete anything older than 2011. That’s slowly happening.

Personal

Did a lot of Hiking.

I did a lot of Canoeing.

I need to do more bike riding and I have no good picture of that. I expect to get a new bike this year.

 

Giant Shout Out

A job resurfaced this year I’d been working off and on to land for 6 years. I didn’t get it.  My random shout out goes to – Michael Terner. I did a lot (and have done a lot) of talking to him about business and about life in general. He offered advice as he always does and it’s good advice. I have said and will continue to say not having a business background has hurt me – so I tend to rely on people for advice and direction. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. His advice has always been solid and great. The best part is the advice is just the facts. I get to make my own mind up and “follow my bliss”.  I did. It was a good thing.

 

Anyway – the year that was. Work was done. Sweat was produced. Overall it was good. I look forward to 2020 as things get serious around here and I start the uphill hike of growing by the end of 2020.

 

 

 

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