North River Geographic Systems Inc

Spatial Problem Solving

Conference

Southeast FOSS4G meeting

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Emails are going out to people and the gears are slowly starting to turn.

Last year several of use got together and held a FOSS4G “mini event” in Knoxville TN. It turned out pretty well with about 50 people coming from as far as 5 hours away to join in the fun. I think we had about 10 or 11 presentations – too many to be honest but I didn’t want to turn anyone down. We ran the event for free and if I remember (I’m not looking up the costs) the entire event ran something like 600 dollars. We had 4 sponsors (including myself in that one) and overall it rocked.

Two things:

  • I’ve had a large number of people ask “Are you doing this again?” and I had a blast doing it. Sooooooo – the answer has turned into “YES”. Granted I don’t run meetings like this for a living but everyone enjoyed themselves and the true spirit of Free and Open Source software for GIS was there. Yes it’s happening.
  • The big question is where and when. I’ve had offers of moving this to Chattanooga. I’ve had offers of Knoxville again. I’ve had other offers outside of my normal area. So I’ve got to decide and go “IT’S HERE” and we crank this up again. FOSS4GNA got in the way for spring so we’re gonna have to push this off a bit.
  • OK this is a third thing. I will probably charge just a wee bit for this one. Why? So we had something like 50 register. 5 dropped. 5 walked up out of nowhere. I bought food for 65 people so some left with an extra sandwich shoved in their pocket. If I run this for $10 bucks a piece people are likely to show up and it gives me a bit more money to play with to do things like deal with parking or snacks or fly someone in for the event. Yeah I said it. Fly someone in.
  • Fourth thing – workshops? I’ve debated some educational opportunities for this event – except that drags it into multi-iday. I’m OK with multi-day if it remains fun.

That was four things – you might wonder how I write blog posts and the answer is pretty much unedited most of the time.

So anyway – I have no clue what to call this gathering. Don’t really want to give it a name. Are un-conferences a thing still? Where conferences? Anyway – more news will be coming and if you want to help track me down and we’ll make this a thing for 2018.

 

 

FOSS4G event in TN

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Join this email list if you haven’t already: https://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/southeast-us

I know with this being Labor Day many of you may be off so I’ll be repeating this email on Tuesday Sept 6th also.

Over the last few months I’ve been getting more and more comments of “We need to do something FOSS4G related in the area” with the area being the general area of East Tennessee. So after a lot of emails to various people from Texas to Canada and all points in between:

  • There is momentum after the FOSS4GNA Raleigh event. People are interested in Free and Open Source GIS and People are using Free and Open Source GIS.
  • Colleges in Particular have been vocal (more so than usual): ETSU and UTK I’m looking at you and I’m yelling to anyone else in the area.
  • The consensus is this needs to be cheap and fun. Emphasis on Cheap and we can always make it Fun. It will be Informative by default.
  • Location: We don’t have no stinkin’ location – we need one (see above bullet point for cheap).
  • We have some funding to pull this off (more funding sources are welcome).
  • This will be a “Pre Boston FOSS4G 2017 event” – whatever we do needs to feed into that event. I’ve been talking to them and they are excited and send energy our way.
  • There are three conferences we will be avoiding and as this gets more momentum I’ll be sticking those up somewhere. The three conferences are good conferences and we in no way want to hurt those events (NC TNGIC FOSS4G2017).
  • Date: We don’t have no stinkin’ dates.

With all that being said – A Free and Open Source GIS event of some type and shape at some point is happening. FOSS4G people in the surrounding areas – we welcome your input and participation.

This will all be done probably on this list – so if you don’t like a lot of email – Sorry. This is community building at the ground level. Step 1 was this email list. Step 2 is happening. Step 3 is ????.

If I can repeat two things: Cheap and Fun.

Georgia Geospatial Conference 2016

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Georgia Geospatial Conference of 2016

Call for Presentations

The Georgia Geospatial Conference of 2016 is seeking abstracts for breakout sessions presentations.  Share your work; learn from others.  Presentations will be limited to 30 minutes (including time for questions).  All breakout session rooms will be moderated and equipped with wi-fi access, a screen, projector, and cables to plug in presenter’s laptop (it is the responsibility of the presenter to verify their laptop’s compatibility with provided cables).

Moderators: If you are interested in being a moderator, then please respond to events@gaurisa.org.  Sessions will consist of a group of three (3) associated presentations.

Presentation Tracks and Suggested Topics:

Aerial Photography and Remote Sensing

  • LiDAR
  • Photogrammetry
  • Terrestrial Photogrammetry

GIS/Surveying Architecture and Integration

  • AutoCAD Data
  • Census Data
  • Data Storage Methods
  • GIS Architecture
  • Location Based Services
  • Mobile Applications
  • Open Source GIS
  • Programming
  • Public Involvement and GIS
  • Scanning Technology for Data Extraction
  • Server Technology
  • Tax Parcel Management and CAMA Integration
  • Web Applications

GIS/Surveying Program Management & Planning

  • GIS Strategic Planning
  • Management
  • Regional and Urban Planning
  • Return on Investment (ROI)

GIS/Surveying Projects, Implementations and Strategies

  • Addressing
  • Aviation
  • BIM
  • Data Collection Technology
  • Environmental Conservation and Management
  • Emergency Management and Public Safety
  • Mobile Applications
  • Open Source GIS
  • Programming
  • Transportation
  • Transit
  • Utilities

Land Records/Legal/Surveying

  • Accuracy and Precision Requirements in Georgia Law
  • GPS Vertical Accuracy – Ellipsoid and Geoid Accuracy in Georgia
  • NSPS – CST (Certified Survey Technician) Class and Exam
  • Positional Error Expressions on Survey Plats
  • Recent Changes in Georgia Law Affecting Land Surveying
  • Tax Parcel Management and CAMA Integration

Map Publication Systems and Applications (Cartography)

  • Basemap Design and Implementation
  • Web Applications

Breakout session presentations by exhibitors are discouraged unless they are presenting with a client.  If an exhibitor would like to showcase their company and products, they must sign up for the Platinum level, which guarantees 30 minutes to highlight their company and products.

 

Submit here: http://www.geospatialconferencega.com/callforpresentation

FOSS4GNA 2016 Program

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Emails are flying so I wanted to throw something up here

Selection_004

Confession: I’m on the conference committee. The final count came down to these numbers: 93 full talks, 36 half talks, 10 workshops, and 3 keynotes. You may look at this and go “OMG they are going to be talking about how to github a geojson raster into the cloud using geojava.node.whatmacallit and this is going to be nothing but confusing”

To randomly pick 5 talks:

Hiroshima Archive: The goal of the “Hiroshima Archive” is to ensure that future generations will be able to learn the true cost of atomic warfare. Using Cesium, the archive is able to provide a personalized experience. A user could be viewing a 1945 map while browsing survivors’ accounts and photos. They could then choose to switch to modern aerial photography to see how the location has changed since.

Processing Raster Data for Online Use: Have you seen georeferenced historical maps online that just look…fuzzy? That’s what we started with at the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, and we would like to share the steps we’ve found to get clear, legible, zoomable map overlays.

Cartography with InkScape: Sometimes your map needs a little extra polish. In this talk, I will outline my workflow for bringing maps from QGIS into Inkscape and exporting to commonly used formats to produces a finished professional-quality map. It will include “do’s” and “don’ts” to help you develop your own workflow and avoid common pitfalls, as well as some features unique to Inkscape such as filters.

PostGIS Spatial Tricks: This talk will showcase spatial feats you can do with PostGIS Special focus will be given to features new in PostGIS 2.2 and upcoming PostGIS 2.3.

Precision Ag and Open Spatial Technologies: Autonomous Vehicles, Drones and Data Driven decisions happening on a sub inch level. A city of the future? No, a farm today. Come find out the current Precision Agricultural techniques for data collection, analysis and dissimulation and where FOSS4G tech plays a key role. From harvesting millions of data points generated from every vehicle on the farm, to the corporate dashboard and reports, FOSS4G plays a role.

State of QGIS: State of QGIS reviews new and noteworthy features for the QGIS project. This talk will cover both Desktop and Server components from version 2.14 just released by the community.

So if you’ve never been to one of these things – that’s some of the crazy good talks you’ll see. Even if you’re all ESRI all Day this is good information. I know we are going up against the old ESRI SERUG conference – but I think as far as pushing the envelope of technical talks have everyone else beat.

Good People Come to Raleigh!

East TN Regional TNGIC Conference – September 22 2015 Kingsport TN

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So if you are in the area and you haven’t been – you should go to the best biggest smallest regional GIS conference in September. Luckily this conference drifts back up to Kingsport Tn where there is always a good showing. Will the suits show up from NASA? Will the 13 y.o. kid with the drone make an appearance? Will there be Moon Pies?

I’ll be there:

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

2015 Eastern Regional TNGIC Conference will be held at the Eastman Lodge in Kingsport, TN on Tuesday September 22, 2015 with training sessions tentatively planned for Wednesday, September 23rd.

We are tentatively planning a social gathering on Monday evening, September 21st at one of the Eastman picnic shelters near the lodge. Details of social to be determined based on how many are interested in attending.

MORE DETAILS TO COME!

Thank you,

Amesha Whitt awhitt@johnsoncitytn.org and Joyce Pierson joyce.h.pierson@gmail.com Conference Co-Chairs

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