Free Geography Tools

Historical Marker Database

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:53:00 +0000

The Historical Marker Database (HMdb.org) is a voluntary effort to document and catalog historical markers, mainly from the US and Canada (a few markers from foreign countries are also listed). Markers are listed by category and state; you can also search by multiple parameters (keywords, postal code, county, etc.). Marker info pages have a photo [...]

One-Click Reverse Geocoding In Google Maps

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:52:00 +0000

Digital Inspiration’s Find Postal Address … site is a one-trick pony, but does it well. Zoom to a location in Google Maps, click on the map, and a pop-up will give you the closest postal address to the point you’re clicking on: A search box aids in zooming in quickly to a desired city or zip [...]

Tools To Help With Creating Garmin KMZ Files With G-Raster

Leszek Pawlowicz — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:27:00 +0000

Last post, I covered G-Raster, a free program I wrote that converts georeferenced imagery (GeoTiffs, MRSID, BSB, IMG, and graphics with worldfiles) into KMZ overlays compatible with some of Garmin’s more recent handheld GPS models (the Colorado, Oregon, and Dakota series). While G-Raster does a good job by itself on most such imagery, like that [...]

Create Garmin-Compatible Raster KMZ Files From Georeferenced Imagery With G-Raster

Leszek Pawlowicz — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:25:15 +0000

Garmin recently announced support for raster imagery like aerial photos and topo maps for some of their handheld GPS units, specifically their newer product lines: the Colorado, Oregon, and Dakota series. See recent posts at GPS Tracklog and GPS Fix for more information on this new feature. It requires download and installation of [...]

Convert OCAD Maps Into Garmin Format

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:20:10 +0000

As with yesterday’s posts on TomTom GPS units, this is another in my series of “stuff that looks cool, but I don’t have everything I need to try it out”. OCAD is a vector-based map-drawing program (current version 10 is not free; version 6 has been released as freeware, available on the Download page). I [...]

Raster Maps On A TomTom GPS

Leszek Pawlowicz — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:10:12 +0000

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about Garmin adding raster map compatiblity to their Colorado/Oregon/Dakota lines of handheld GPS units; I’ll have something to add to that later this week. But I just stumbled across ttMaps, a free application that claims to let you view custom raster imagery on a TomTom GPS unit. Most [...]

Incredible Satellite Shot Of Mars

Leszek Pawlowicz — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:40:59 +0000

Wow indeed. Click on the picture for a larger view. Via Bad Astronomy.

Climate Action Day 2009

Leszek Pawlowicz — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:51:01 +0000

Forgot Climate Action Day was today. Two indispensable links to deal with the standard global warming denial talking points: How To Talk To A Climate Skeptic Grist Magazine’s series on standard global warming denial talking points, written in non-technical language, and categorized for easy search and browsing. The first place to look. RealClimate A blog run by real climate [...]

Great Introductory GIS Tutorial And Screencast Series

Leszek Pawlowicz — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:09:03 +0000

The Department of Land Affairs, Eastern Cape, South Africa has created a terrific tutorial series on GIS called “introducing GIS”. PDF worksheets and video screencasts cover topics like vector and raster data, attributes, topology, coordinate systems, map production and spatial analysis in a clear and easy-to-follow fashion. The worksheets are freely distributable under the terms [...]

Quick GPX Viewing In A Google Maps Interface With GPXViewer

Leszek Pawlowicz — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:19:55 +0000

It’s nothing fancy, but Zonum’s GPXViewer website lets you upload a GPX file (points and tracks), and then quickly plots it in a Google Maps interface: No editing, export or additional info in this app, just display; but Zonums has other web apps like Digipoint and MapTool for that.