Geospatial Revolution Project | Episode One

The Geospatial Revolution Project is an integrated public service media and outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact.

The mission of the Geospatial Revolution Project is to expand public knowledge about the history, applications, related privacy and legal issues, and the potential future of location-based technologies.

Geospatial information influences nearly everything. Seamless layers of satellites, surveillance, and location-based technologies create a worldwide geographic knowledge base vital to solving myriad social and environmental problems in the interconnected global community. We count on these technologies to:

• fight climate change
• map populations across continents, countries, and communities
• track disease
• strengthen bonds between cultures
• assist first responders in protecting safety
• enable democracy
• navigate our personal lives

More details here:  http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/

Free GIS Book: A Practical Guide to Geostatistical Mapping (Tomislav Hengl)

A practical guide to geostatistical mapping using R+gstat/geoR, SAGA GIS and Google Earth combo of software packages. Includes seven diverse data analysis exercises. Materials presented in this book have been used for the five-day advanced training course “GEOSTAT: spatio-temporal data analysis with R+SAGA+Google Earth”, that is periodically organized by the author and collaborators. Visit http://spatial-analyst.net/book/ to obtain a digital copy of the book and R scripts / data sets used. This is an Open Access Publication.

• More Details: http://freecomputerbooks.com/A-Practical-Guide-to-Geostatistical-Mapping.html
• Download: http://spatial-analyst.net/book/download

FME: Microsoft SQL Native Client: Deferred prepare could not be completed.

I just ran into this error in FME:

Microsoft SQL Native Client: Deferred prepare could not be completed.

Initially, I thought that I received this error because I needed to install some SQL Server libraries, as explained on the ESRI Forums here, but then I realized that my WHERE CLAUSE in one of my FME datasource was erroneous…

Here is the error

Using ArcObjects to retrieve all versions of ArcSDE in C#

Recently, I needed to get all the existing versions of an ArcGIS database (sde.DEFAULT, and so on). To do so, I decided to use ArcObjects in C#.NET. I found it pretty complicated to manage to get what I wanted to do, so I’m placing my code on this blog.

First, you need to connect to a valid license.

ESRI.ArcGIS.esriSystem.esriLicenseStatus eLicenseStatus = init.IsProductCodeAvailable(esriLicenseProductCode.esriLicenseProductCodeEngineGeoDB);

if (eLicenseStatus == ESRI.ArcGIS.esriSystem.esriLicenseStatus.esriLicenseAvailable)
{
init.Initialize(esriLicenseProductCode.esriLicenseProductCodeEngineGeoDB);
}

Then,  connect to the ArcSDE Service.

ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IWorkspaceFactory pWFactory = new ESRI.ArcGIS.DataSourcesGDB.SdeWorkspaceFactory();
ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IWorkspace pWorkspace = null;

ESRI.ArcGIS.esriSystem.PropertySet propertySet = new ESRI.ArcGIS.esriSystem.PropertySetClass();
propertySet.SetProperty(“server”, m_ConnectionInformationData.ServerName);
propertySet.SetProperty(“database”, m_ConnectionInformationData.DatabaseName);
propertySet.SetProperty(“user”, m_ConnectionInformationData.UserName);
propertySet.SetProperty(“password”, m_ConnectionInformationData.UserPassword);
propertySet.SetProperty(“instance”, m_ConnectionInformationData.InstanceName);
propertySet.SetProperty(“version”, m_ConnectionInformationData.Version);

pWorkspace = pWFactory.Open(propertySet, 0);

Cast your workspace to a VersionedWorkspace:

ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IVersionedWorkspace versionedWorkspace = (ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IVersionedWorkspace)pWorkspace;

You can then iterate through all the versions.

//get a enumeration of all the versions on the versioned workspace
ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IEnumVersionInfo enumVersionInfo = versionedWorkspace.Versions;
enumVersionInfo.Reset();

cbxVersion.Items.Clear();

ESRI.ArcGIS.Geodatabase.IVersionInfo versionInfo = enumVersionInfo.Next();
while (versionInfo != null)
{
string versionName = versionInfo.VersionName;
cbxVersion.Items.Add(versionName);
versionInfo = enumVersionInfo.Next();
}

Finally, don’t forget to close the connection.

init.Shutdown();

Here is what it looks like.

You can find an official example at the ESRI Resources Center.

GE Magik Smallworld Training: Missing in Action

Recently, I’ve been very interested in taking some courses to learn the Magik language. After hours and hours, and days and days of research (ok, maybe not days) I found… some links on wikipedia and the original documentation on the website of GE itself.

Is it me or… is there any school offering a simple basic formation about Magik? The Magik community seems pretty small, but I’ve been told they are willing to help each other through specialized forums and seminars. But for a beginner like me, is there any way out to learn magically how to code in Magik?

I’ve still managed to find some useful websites, like these ones:

• MDT – Magik Development Tools : http://www.mdt.net/
• MagikBites (blog): http://magikbites.blogspot.com/
• Smallworld GIS Wiki: http://sw-gis.wikidot.com/magik-lang

If any of you guys have any experience with Magik, maybe you can share it with us!