Swiss GIS network on Twitter

Out of curiosity and 2.5 years ago, I analysed the network of Swiss GIS twitterers (article in German, French, Italian). That analysis inspired the creation of the GeoBeer event series (of which we had the 11th instalment just a few days ago) and the Twitter list by the name of ‚SwissGIS‘. You can find that one here. If you … Swiss GIS network on Twitter weiterlesen

Data Value and Expertise Value

These days, data and data scientists (and data engineers?) seem to rule the world. Companies are data-driven, problems are solved using data-driven methods and national intelligence agencies (arguably: also online retailers) extensively collect all the data they can get hold of. The data-driven approach is formalised in the Jurney-Warden Data-Value Stack: The data-value stack is to be read from … Data Value and Expertise Value weiterlesen

Internet of Things: Live Data Quality Assessment for a Sensor Network

TL;DR: We believe that connected devices and real-time data analytics are the next big things in GIS.  Geoinformation systems have evolved quite rapidly in recent years and the future seems to be more exciting than ever: All major IT trends such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data or real-time systems are directly related to our professional domain: … Internet of Things: Live Data Quality Assessment for a Sensor Network weiterlesen

Does Web Mercator imply erroneous geospatial positioning?

Web Mercator nowadays is probably the most frequently used map projection. Don’t worry if you have never heard about it though. This new projection is used by Google Maps, Bing Maps by Microsoft, ArcGIS Online by Esri and the OpenLayers community. It became the standard of displaying geographic data on the web. There are rumours … Does Web Mercator imply erroneous geospatial positioning? weiterlesen

Let there be light: Data visualization with SAP Lumira

GIS and Business Intelligence (BI) are buzzwords you hear together increasingly often (see also our articles on GISconnector, which we consider a low-cost, easy-entry BI solution). Inspired by this article from iX magazine I decided to have a look at the „self-service BI“ solution SAP Lumira. Lumira is an analysis and visualization tool and SAP offers a freely downloadable … Let there be light: Data visualization with SAP Lumira weiterlesen

The Data Worker’s Manifesto

Last week I gave a talk at the 8th instalment of the GeoBeer series on EBP’s Zurich-Stadelhofen premises and sponsored by EBP and Crosswind. It was titled State of the Union: Data as Enabling Tech‽ You can check out the whole slidedeck on my private website (The slides are made with impress.js and best viewed in Chrome. Please ignore my … The Data Worker’s Manifesto weiterlesen

Story Maps for Switzerland

What Story Maps are and why simplicity matters I have already explained in my previous blogpost „Storytelling with maps „. Now it’s about designing good Story Maps with the Esri framework and data provided by the Swiss Geoportal geo.admin.ch. My Story Map „Bat watching in Zurich“, the main example used in this blogpost, has been chosen as a runner up in the … Story Maps for Switzerland weiterlesen

Storytelling with maps

A few weeks ago a team of Ernst Basler + Partners have attended the Swiss GeoSummit. Among others we have given a presentation on Story Maps in collaboration with Swisstopo’s (the Swiss national mapping agency) David Oesch. What are Story Maps? Story Maps are simple web apps that combine intelligent web maps with text, photos, and other … Storytelling with maps weiterlesen

How can I use crowdsourced data?

A week ago I published the presentation I had given during the ENERGIC Workshop at the University of Zurich. In that I talked about crowdsourcing and VGI and about using crowdsourced data in applications. I’d like to delve deeper into one of the examples I have talk about in my workshop presentation: Some weeks ago, Strava, a provider of a fitness tracking app for bicyclists and joggers, published … How can I use crowdsourced data? weiterlesen

Operational use of crowdsourced data: ENERGIC workshop presentation

I’m a participant in the Working Group 3 of the COST Action ENERGIC. The latter is the abbrevation of: European Network Exploring Research into Geospatial Information Crowdsourcing: Software and Methodologies for Harnessing Geographic Information from the Crowd – wow! The topics of Working Group 3 are Data mining, semantics and volunteered geographic information (VGI) use, i.e. it is roughly about how and … Operational use of crowdsourced data: ENERGIC workshop presentation weiterlesen

Review of the 2014 Esri Partner Conference and Developer Summit

(Eine deutsche Fassung dieses Beitrags finden sie hier) From 9 to 13 of March, Christoph Graf and I have attended the Esri Partner Conference and the Esri Developer Summit in Palm Springs. In this blog post we report on, and assess, some of the trends that we identified primarily during the Partner Conference. First of all, let’s state that this year’s conference was not dominated … Review of the 2014 Esri Partner Conference and Developer Summit weiterlesen