A question of business models in webmap offerings

Eighteen months ago, Google quietly deprecated its Maps API, and ESRI offered and alternative with ArcGIS Earth, then Mapbox and Carto in quick succession: I blogged then Esri, Google and if the shoe fits... Part 1 and Part 2, mirrored on LinkedIn here and here, respectively. Safe Software, LINQ Ltd. and I basically saw it as the next phase in the battle for The Internet of Things (IoT), which has been gaining traction of late.

When is a map not a map, Part II

I just posted on LinkedIn Pulse Opinions are free, but Facts are sacred, taking off from Simon Rogers ex of Guardian Data now at Google Data by way of Twitter. This was spurred by the EU Referendum, and setting aside debates raging around it, this is my contribution in my field of petroleum geology in general and mapping / GIS in particular. UN Comtrade has a fabulous collection of statistics, which are so easy to search & discover, that I simply copy&pasted screenshots into this video.

New business, renewed website

[Update: find on my map blog the full story on how the video below was created]

Since www.zolnai.ca will be the landing page for my new business, I spruced it up to reflect my new brand.  zolnai.ca is indeed now registered in England as a Sole Trader.

The banner has been changed to show some example web maps created since 2006, a topic will be renewed at center page, and the navigation has been improved.

Personal portfolio of Esri maps

As I went solo in the new year, I collected my previous works also seen in the banner map gallery, and posted the Esri maps as a map story. Go here if it's too slow to load.

Big data and maps reloaded

Social media really work! +Vicky Gallardo posted on Google+ that the map is not the territory, with a wonderful big data map by Ben Allen of Denton TX (near where I used to live). That prompted a post by the same title on my companion map blog. The distinction between data and maps has long kept me up at night (see my blog tagline), and many others to judging by exhibits and media only in London (near where I live now).

Maps are forever (Part III)

My first post on this theme traced beautiful medieval maps from the British library in London to the Harvard Libray online, to land on a 1610 beauty.

Andrew Zolnai map catalog

Happy New Year! Don't you think that 175 blog posts and almost 150,000 page views over 7.5 years merit a catalog of my maps? This also coincides with my first end-to-end project:

1. collect on the desktop
2. disseminate and receive feedback via social media
3. post as a webmap on private AWS account

Around the world in 30 maps

[Update 2: this map gallery is now the first pane of my personal portfolio]
[Update 1: Apple iOS doesn't support Flash, please try this old link instead]

I revamped my blog to make its header more engaging. I replaced the static image I changed from time to time, with a map gallery. It comes from a Flickr slide show of maps I have collected over time, posted in chronological order. Although each screenshot is captioned and tagged in Flickr, here is the text in the same order:

Maps are forever...

... or they are Man's best friend. I'm a big fan of the British Library, not only because it's next to Kings Cross station I alight when coming to London often (or rarely hop onto the Eurostar at nearby St Pancras to Bruxelles or Paris) - bl.uk has an amazing array of old maps, which they just finished georeferencing through a significant effort in crowd-sourcing (the 21st. c. variant of volunteering).

Story Maps are your friend

Simple story maps help scientists make important work a lot more relevant to their audience, by putting their story at the front. The maps and data are there in their completeness, but out of the way as supporting materials. This adds a twist to a growing list of  on-line map stories and community maps, and I was motivated by past work with reporters to better cover news.

Releasing data really works, Part II

[Oct 2012 update: Here is an example on how much further map stories can be taken]

Here is another simple example of posting data as maps on-line, in order to help linguists this time elucidate spatio-temporal relationships on not-insignificant amounts of data.

Petroleum GIS then and now

Exprodat published a free eBook: Why use GIS in petroleum?, an excellent state-of-play as well as good industry marketing to augment their impressive blog. Does their Figure 1 not have a certain air of déjà vu, however, compared to Figure 1 of my article in CADalyst written 25 years ago?

Multi-modal maps R us, part II

Last week I reported Google Maps' released of multimodal transportation mapping in the greater London UK area (GLA). I mused that this rendition was more visually appealing that Transport for London's website. The 'granddaddy' for train and tube in London extended beyond GLA to be used from larger surrounding centres - I myself used it regularly from Cambridge an hour train to the north.

Multi-modal maps R us

Google multi-modal maps are so significant to greater London Area commuters that I cannot pass it up. Ed Parsons posted it on his blog and I immediately tried it: it's just the ticket (pun intended) living near Cambridge about an hour north of London and travelling around London only by public transit.

“Au revoir” RMOTC dataset, part VII

“Lucky 7”, this is my closing post on the RMOTC series on subsurface 3D data, to explore reservoir depletion, pipeline routing and gridding/contouring. This also ends for now my tenure in Kuwait, where I prepared this dataset for a training tool. Follow me on LinkedIn to see where I'll go next...

Gridding and contouring (RMOTC dataset, part VI)

Free geosciences 3D data show GIS helping model reservoir depletion, and displaying it on the desktop and on-line. Then came pipeline routing and now to close the loop is gridding and contouring. Again, this is no replacement for geosciences packages, but rather a tool for triage:

• first stack as many data as needed (like basin hydrodynamics or land permitting) for play-fairway analyses
• then focus on targets with geoscience apps on specifics (like seismic and petrophysics) for prospects

Openware inaugural newlsetter

Ask the GIS Expert column on page 14 in the inaugural newsletter of Openware (Esri distributor in Kuwait) echoes the current blog series: use what you already have on your Esri desktop.

Pipeline routing (RMOTC dataset, part V)

As promised last week here is the update to my second most popular Slideshare post: using ArcGIS Model Builder to plan a pipeline route as a function of topography, slope, land cover and cultural data (roads, rivers, wetlands etc.). As RMOTC is remote, see (pardon the pun) it is uninhabited and land cover is uniformly grass- or shrub-land, which has the same IGBP class of 5 (middle-of-the-road).

Simple reservoir depletion modelling, part IV

This last in a series shows how to further extend the reach of your GIS analysis across the corporation in full 3D via a free ArcGIS Explorer Desktop. Simply go Add Contents: ArcGIS layers, and to enhance performance go Base Map: Clear basemap. This is a large data set complete with local topography.

Simple reservoir depletion modelling, part III

This is to show on the web or with a free desktop GIS the results of the previous two postings. The free data-set from Teapot Dome is a great opportunity to display 3D petro-data in Esri. As the previous posting suggested, data were upgraded to Esri 3D Analyst ArcGlobe here.