Category Archives: Blog

GeoRabble Tas #2 – Post-Event Wrapup

GeoRabble Tas #2 was a another success. Feedback received after the event was very positive: great food, great presenters and a great venue (thanks, Republic Bar).

On the presenters, it was a diverse bunch of folks. The evening started with Peter Boyer, who writes about climate change from a Tasmanian perspective. Peter gave us an excerpt from the latest IPCC report, which was a timely reminder that this issue is not going away and that we need to continue planning for it.

Next Steven Harvey and Ryan Anthony spoke about transforming a map drawn in 1826 into a modern interactive web-map. They spent last summer digitising the Sharland map, including information and images relating to buildings and property owners that were present on the old map.

Rob Rowell, from Insight GIS, then got us all excited about visualisation with a presentation entitled ‘If Visualising Information is Beautiful – is GIS the Ugly Sister?’ which contained many examples of beautiful non-maps, spatial information presented in innovative ways.

Buy my highlight of the evening was John Corbett and his ‘virtual sandpit’, which is difficult to give justice to in words. Here’s what it does:

  • It’s got a Kinect sensor and a projector, both pointed at a 1 m x 2 m area of terrain (composed of bean bags and tubes with a white sheet over it all)
  • An attached laptop models the surface in real time and projects snow-capped mountain peaks in the high bits and leafy green forests that grow over the low bits
  • Then there’s a water source , which is powered by an ‘industrial strength fluid model’, and which creates streams and lakes all while reacting to changes to the landscape and your hands
  • There’s a little toy Humvee, which you can drive through the landscape splashing through the water and leaving tire tracks behind it
  • For the grand finale, if you push the top of the mountain in, a vol lava flows out the top of the newly created volcano!

We have photos, but really you had to be there…

-Alex

Terrain in the Virtual Sandbox
Terrain in the Virtual Sandbox
Terrain and truck in the Virtual Sandbox
Terrain and truck in the Virtual Sandbox
Terrain, water, lava and chaos in the Virtual Sandbox
Terrain, water, lava and chaos in the Virtual Sandbox

GeoRabble All-Stars coming to Canberra

Georabble presents an All Star event brought to you by Boundless and LocationTech, on Monday 7 April

As an allied event with the Locate14 conference, Georabble organisers have put together an array of All Star top speakers plus a few new ones lead by MapStory‘s Chris Tucker.

The Line-Up includes:

  • Pia Waugh – Open Data Ninja
  • Julian Carver – Land Information New Zealand
  • Denise McKenzie – Open Geospatial Consortium
  • Mike Bradford – Landgate WA
  • Jody Garnett – Boundless
  • Chris Tucker – Mapstory

Plus more

Come and enjoy this free event; register here.

Have questions about Georabble All Stars – Canberra? Contact GeoRabble. Continue reading GeoRabble All-Stars coming to Canberra

GeoRabble Tas #2

GeoRabble Tas #1 was a great success, and #2 is looking to be fantastic too!

We’ve got four great speakers speaking on a diverse range of topics. See you there.

When: Thursday the 20th of March, 5 – 7 pm

WhereRepublic Bar, North Hobart

What: Beer, Food, Conversation and Punchy Presentations

Presenters:

  • John Corbett – Virtual Sandbox (I’m pretty excited about this, it includes a live demo, and funnily enough it’s physical)
  • Rob Rowell – If visualising information is beautiful – is GIS the Ugly Sister?
  • Peter Boyer – Coast and Climate Change: a Tough Policy Challenge
  • Steven Harvey and Ryan Anthony – Making the W.S. Sharland 1826 Map of Launceston Interactive

This event is sponsored by Insight GIS, thanks Insight! For more info, contact alex.

Register here: GeoRabble Tas #2

Insight GIS Logo

GeoRabble Xmas in Brisbane (aka #5)!

Georabble Christmas

It’s that time of year again when thoughts of the GeoRabble in Brisbane turn to Xmas!

Our latest event with ticket “sales” breaking through 120, and fast approaching the “capacity” of 150, is on tomorrow night, Tue 3 December 2013, at the Pig n Whistle.

For all the details visit GeoRabble Brisbane’s home page or jump straight here to register!

As an insider’s tip I am sure at least some of us will stay on after the official event close at 8pm and grab a bite to eat at the restaurant towards the front of the hotel.

Geo-Trivia and Xmas Drinks – Sydney, Thursday 5 December

Join us for the annual GeoRabble Sydney Christmas drinks & pizzas, from 6PM upstairs at the Occidental Hotel.

As always – this is a free event, and pizza will be supplied (sponsored by Omnilink)

omnilinklogo

There will be no formal talks this time, but there will be a Geo-Trivia show with liquid prizes (donated by Scalable Solutions and Mercury Project Solutions)!

Hosted by first-hour rabbler Francisco Urbina, you will have the chance to win free drinks by demonstrating your knowledge of some of the more (and less) obscure geo-trivia we are going to come up with over the next two weeks!

Though it’s a free event, you will need to register here, or RSVP at our Meetup Group.

Looking forward to see you all at the Occidental, on Thursday 5 December.

Image Credit: Courtesy of jppi on morgueFile.com

GeoRabble Tas #1 – Post Event Writeup

The first GeoRabble Tas was held on Thursday the 14th of November and attracted almost 40 registrations. The event was held at Tattersalls in Hobart in their upstairs room, which was probably a little small for the number of people. But the food was great, and free, thanks to the event’s sponsor, Geometry. Thanks Geometry! The speakers were excellent, and the crowd’s vibe very positive.

 

Continue reading GeoRabble Tas #1 – Post Event Writeup

GeoRabble Tas #1 – State of the Web Map

The first GeoRabble Tas is on and it’s going to be a web-mapping special. We’ve got speakers covering many aspects of the web, from Open Layers to Open Source, from big, complex statewide basemaps to foundational open data initiatives in local government.

We’ve got four speakers, a great sponsor, a tidy venue, good food… All we need is you to come along and make the event great! Book in here: georabbletas1.eventbrite.com.au. If you have an idea of a good speaker or topic, or if you’re interested in helping run an event in the future, drop by the Google+ Community.

Details:

When: from 5 – 7pm on 14th Nov, 2013

Where: Upstairs at the Tattersalls Hotel

Who:

  • Mark Chiltott – DPIPWE

  • Andrew Betlehem – Geometry

  • Alex Crothers – Launceston City Council

  • Peter Corlett – ESRI Australia

What: Four short talks followed by a panel session of question and answer.

How much: Geometry are sponsoring, so there’s free food and free entry.

Continue reading GeoRabble Tas #1 – State of the Web Map

GeoRabble Sydney #7 Speakers Announced

A diverse range of geo topics has been assembled for next Thursday’s Sydney GeoRabble from geo hacking to geo broadcasting to massive maps.

Register @ https://georabblesydney.eventbrite.com.au/ and get your fix of geo talks, beer and pizza

  1. Stories from the frontline of GovHack – Team Fusrodata
  2. Why a Spatial Professional is never on Holidays – Stewart Hay
  3. The story behind designing GIS for Broadcasting – Channel 7 Election Maps, Bill Martin
  4. It is not about the bike – using data to make better transport decisions – Rebecca Lehman
  5. Geographic Biases in Scholarly Production – Frederick Michna
  6. Creating User Friendly Massive Maps – Kelvin Nicholson

GeoRabble Melbourne #5 Speakers Announced

We are pleased to announce the following GeoRabblers who have volunteered their time to share their fantastic GeoStories at GeoRabble Melbourne #5.

If you haven’t registered yet to listen to these fantastic speakers and the opportunity to network with your fellow GeoRabblers then do so now at https://georabble-melb5.eventbrite.com.au/

Photo Scott Manley

Scott Manley – Making GIS Mobile

Scott will discuss some of the challenges around building a mobile GIS Apps. Some of the challenges he will share include; offline basemaps, offline overlays/features, performance and battery use.

Scott has been designing and building enterprise IT solutions for almost 20 years. With a recent focus on mobility, Scott is currently interested in the problem of creating usable and effective mobile geospatial solutions (spoiler, its not easy). Scott is a senior consultant with Geoplex.

Photo Nathan Quadros

Nathan Quadros – Working on your own sucks

Who likes working on their own? Not Nathan. Identifying problems involves talking to people… communicating. It is a great feeling to present a concept, obtain support from stakeholders and to produce results. Seeing the smile on people’s faces when they see outcomes, and the impact, makes a project worthwhile. I am demonstrating a collaborative project approach through examples of my work at the CRC for Spatial Information. This includes an eclectic mix  based on research communications, project work in the Pacific Islands and LiDAR quality assurance. It will end with a couple of ideas to stimulate discussion.

Nathan has spent his career focussing on problems. He has been heard saying, “If there were no problems why wouldn’t we just get robots?” From 2008 until 2011 Nathan was solving the Victorian Government’s problems, even setting up the keenly awaited Victorian Government’s office in Bangkok. More recently, Peter Woodgate (CEO, CRC for Spatial Information) came to him and said, “Can you solve my problems?” Naturally he was up for the challenge, and been at the CRCSI ever since

Stewart Hay Photo

Stewart Hay – Are your online maps really reaching everyone?

Online maps are increasingly being used for presenting extensive amounts of information to the public. But are online map accessible to everyone? Stewart will take a look at how online mapping solutions fail to consider people with accessibility difficulties, why this is important and what can be done about it.

Stewart is the Principal Consultant for OneSphere and likes to help organisations get the best out of their GIS investment. His experience encompasses a range of industries from Environmental Management and Utilities to Emergency Services and all tiers of Government. During his free time he helps organise the Melbourne and Sydney GeoRabbles.

Phot Craig Molyneux

Craig Molyneux – Data to Design

Much of the spatial data we use today is designed for a single purpose – for use in creating print maps, display in a web GIS or recording specific details of a feature. With the development of multi-scale tile-based maps and there use in mobile devices, oftentimes this data requires major editing or addition of feature classes to make it fit for purpose. This presentation will look at the way he has been designing data to create stunning cartography multi-scale tile sets for mobile devices and web systems.

Craig has over 27 years’ experience designing and producing high quality cartographic products for some of Australia’s major publishers, including Hema Maps, Australian Geographic, Hardie Grant and Universal Publishers. His recent work includes the Jacaranda Atlas 7th and 8th editions, as well as the Jacaranda World History Atlas, Spatial Vision’s Outdoor Recreation Guide series print maps and iOS apps. He is presently studying his Masters of Land Information at RMIT University

Photo Paul Cook

Paul Cook – Statistical geolocation of twitter users

The language we use on social media gives hints as to our location, even when we don’t explicitly state where we are. Paul will present ongoing research on a system for automatically predicting a Twitter user’s city-level location, which usually gives a prediction within 10 Km of the correct location.

Paul Cook is a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow in the Natural Language Processing Group in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne.

 

Matt Coller

Matthew Coller – The Temporal Earth project: Visualising world history on all timescales

Temporal Earth is an investigative project to create a visualisation of world history across all timescales, based on similar principles to Google Earth.  This talk will include a series of proof-of-concept demonstrations covering topics in Australian history, archaeology, geology and palaeontology.

Matthew Coller is a PhD student in the School of Geography and Environmental Science at Monash University, currently completing his thesis in the hope of launching the Temporal Earth project worldwide next year.

GeoRabble is back again in Melbourne

GeoRabble returns to Melbourne on Tuesday 17th September at a new Venue (Coopers Inn – 282 Exhibition St Melbourne). Grab yourself a free ticket and enjoy the night with friends sharing geospatial ideas, free of sales pitches and hidden agendas!  Each presentation is light, relevant to geo-something and only 10minutes long.

You can register for the event at https://georabble-melb5.eventbrite.com.au/

We are calling for guest speakers – if you have a great geo-spatial idea that you would like to share with a group of like minded people, we want you! Contact the GeoRabble committee asap to express your interesting topic in 20 words or less, or email your idea to melbourne@georabble.org

A very special thanks to our GeoAwesome Spatial Vision Sponsor without whom we couldn’t run this event and provide food to everyone …

Spatial Vision Logo