Over the four long, hot months since the WALIS forum in November, Perth geo-geeks built up a Rabble-sized thirst, with only one way to quench it… cue GeoRabble Perth #9! Held at the Universal Bar in Northbridge, this iteration of Perth’s favourite geo-outing drew a big crowd, including some of the usual suspects and many new faces.

As usual, we had a great array of thought provoking speakers bringing their perspective on what makes our field of endeavour fascinating. It’s not easy to stand up in front of your peers and talk about yourself for 10 minutes, particularly given GeoRabble’s strict rules on sales pitches, ‘about us’ slides, etc… but these folks really delivered the goods.

Ably hosted by Chelsea Samuel, GR#9 was kicked off by Grahame Bowland, who dazzled us with some pretty serious SQL queries, but promised that his open source geodata analysis framework would save us from having to write them ourselves.

Emil Vulin was up next, and shared his perspective on the exciting area of mobile mapping, including some interesting observations on the arrival of low-cost tablets in the developing world.

Sophie Richards’ talk on her experiences in crisis mapping with the UN, and particularly the use of crowdsourced information, was a fascinating look into how mapping and spatial data can make a real impact in the lives of people.

For something completely different, Chris Toovey treated us with some eye candy, talking about his experiences in the business of making 3d animated scenes, as said scenes flashed by on the screen. Cool!

Finally, Dan Goldberg, visiting from the University of Texas, dropped in to tell a few jokes and talk up his students.

And with the presentation portion of the evening at its end, the GeoRabble settled in for beers & some spirited conversation.

Thanks to all our speakers for entertaining us and providing food for thought, and to everyone who came and made GeoRabble #9 a great night! We’ll look forward to seeing you at the next one, and if you have a geo-story to tell, we want to hear from you…  Also thanks to our sponsors Talis Consultants