Spaced-OoooO-Out

How to do well in a PhD viva

After a brief chat this week with a student about an upcoming viva I thought I would list some of the useful pieces of advice from my own viva (thanks to Ian Evans for a pleasant experience!) and some recent students:

be honest
its a 2-way conversation. Talk about your work
its better without your supervisor. It also means that if theyve made a bad project decision you can happily blame them!
its quite nice at the beginning of discussing each chapter to actually point out any mistakes you've spotted
make sure you references are totally spot on

Im sure there are others so feel free to add to them.

Sony London Underground

These images did the rounds a few weeks back, but I really like them. As part of Sony's advertising campaign for the Walkman they have produce various underground maps in the style of a set of headphones. In Sony fashion, they are understated but really rather pleasing on the eye. Worth a look.

Maps that Matter

Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins had a really good PPT running in the foyer of the RGS-IBG last week (related to the "Maps as Method" session) called "Maps that Matter." Have a look at their blog which discusses a really interesting lists of "maps" that have played a vital role in geographical thinking. Note that this is not a list about "good" maps and that they use the following criteria:

significant impact on geographical knowledge: advanced geographical theory or practice
abstract visualisation with core spatial element (could be conceptual or data driven), including maps, charts, diagrams, graphs. (Generally excludes other visual media - paintings, photographs, etc.)
widely recognised amongst peers as a 'classic'
produced in last 120 or so years (taking 1887 appointment of Mackinder at Oxford as start of academic geography discipline)

I'm sure that there will be more added to the list (my bet being William Smith's geological map of the UK).

Google Chrome

If you've been living on another planet for the last 24 hours then you might just have missed Google's typically understated announcement that they are releasing a new web browser called Chrome, designed to meet the deficiences in Firefox, IE and Opera. In particular a simple interface and much faster Javascript engine for running web applications. Only on Windows at the moment, but a Mac and Linux version are currently brewing. Some initial reactions but expect a whole slew of reports tomorrow. However it is fast, Google Mail and Documents are slick and the whole browser experience much more immersive. The download is only 0.5Mb, but this is just an installer program that then downloads a 22Mb data file. Interestingly it installs into the users profile (NOT Program Files). Chrome uses Apples WebKey technology and bits of Firefox. Notably there is no facility for plugins, yet, but this appears to be part of Firefox, using the Google Gears plugin to support offline use of GMail and Documents. So it will interesting to see if this is opened up at all. Also note that the compressed installer is also saved with the installation. Finally, I do wonder how wise installing into a users profile is. Profiles often get corrupted, whilst this appears to mean that each individual user on a PC will need to install Chrome separately.

No doubt Chrome will be picked apart of the next few weeks, however Microsoft should be worried because the OS is becoming more and more irrelevant as browsers provide the channel to SaaS (Software as a Service).

Google Maps and Academic Mashups

During the "Maps as Method" sessions at the RGS-IBG last week, there were a surprising number of people talking about using Google Maps and Google Earth in mashups. In particular, using them to leverage visualisation, data serving and data exploration. All admirable goals, except I couldn't understand why there was such a focus on Google products. What blew people away with Google Earth was the access to imagery, but none of these talks were focused on imagery. Google Maps provides a nice "slippy maps" interface, but there are other vendors. In fact the biggest negative to Google Maps (and Earth) is the proprietary interface and commercial data. Compare it to OpenStreetMaps and perhaps using OpenLayers. An open source interface with non-commercial data. Is anyone working along these lines at all?? Why all the fuss with Google Maps?? Is the API really that much better? Or have I missed something painfully obvious?!

OS Trumped

Just returned from a pleasant day at the RGS-IBG annual conference. An event well worth attending as its mellow and covers a range of subjects. However it is largely colonised by human geographers, a strange breed. Thats not for want of the RGS trying to get physical geographers involved... Time will tell.

Anyway the OS are one the of the primary (platinum?!) sponsors of the RGS (along with Land Rover and Rolex from memory). So the map of the venue, and how to get to it, prominantly displayed on the back cover of the abstracts naturally used

Open Street Map data. Nice one!

C5 Aviator

I have a habit of destroying watches and, over the years, have always ended up coming back to my old trusty Casio Flight Planner. Its a solid digital watch that just keeps going, but the glass has got badly scratched over the years. So my search for a new watch begun with a long list of possible constraints. However key to this was a sapphire glass, not too big and waterproof. In addition a chronograph and alarm would be useful. After trawling around the main watch manufacturers I came across Christopher Ward Watches, a UK firm that designs functional, high quality, watches using Swiss components (and, indeed, are now Swiss made). They started out with 2 or 3 basic designs but have expanded this year to 8 or 10 models. And they are a company that stand by their products; you get a 60:60 guarantee (60 days return, 60 months warranty) and can email the owner directly.

So what did I buy? Well a C5 Aviator. Its the smallest watch CW do, incorporates a sapphire glass and is self-winding (similar to the Seiko Kinetic). The Aviator moniker refers to the aviation style variation on the design. Its a great watch and seems to serve my needs. It does only come with a leather strap and, given I like to wear a watch when I swim, I prefer a rubber/nylon strap which has been ordered from elsewhere.

Getting things done...

I've been an advocate of the Getting Things Done (GTD) for a number of years now. In a management era that seems to be defined by self-organization manuals, this one stands out from the crowd by its relatively simple explanation of why things don't get done and how to go about rectifying the situation. The everyday solutions are really useful and, when augmented with an electronic diary, provide a great way to keep track of projects. David Allen has a nice business developed around the methodology and deserves the credit he receives.

To whet your appetite, he suggests augmenting a system where each "activity" is organised as a project with a timetable of things to do. The next item is noted as an action and given a "context" (such as a place like "the office") where it must be achieved. The power here is being organised so that all the action points are listed in one place. An action may involve contacting someone in which case you keep track of responses required, whilst you might receive a communication which needs actioning. Its the simplicity of organising projects in this manner, and keeping track of it, that is a real productivity booster. And the biggest cause of a decrease in productivity.... having to remember "things"!! So he is a big advocate of writing something down as soon as you think of it in order to keep track of it.

Now running such a system with a paper based diary would be hard work, but "going electronic" in a combined PDA/PC setup is the ideal solution. I guarantee that as soon as you create an email folder named "WAITING FOR", moving all your sent items that you expect a response to in to it, your life will be changed!! Anyway, in terms of a setup for organising projects I have long used Note Studio, a personal wiki-like software that runs on a PC/Palm combination (meaning you can take it with you). It isn't perfect but has some great features that make it well suited to such a purpose. Unfortunately the developers have stopped working on it and no longer sell it (although if you hunt hard you can find it via 3rd parties). One of the downsides was that it was entirely textbased and didnt allow the incorporation of doodles or sketches.

Enter the recently released NinerPad, a paint/sketch app for the Palm specifically aimed at GTD. As a first release it is remarkably complete offering near-unlimited canvas size, sketch tagging, search facilities, reminders etc. This alone makes it well worth purchasing, however the developer has a real vision for the inclusion of new features including the addition of text entry which would give it the best of both worlds.

Maximising the benfits of publication

As Editor of the Journal of Maps, I've recently been chatting to the British Geological Survey about the potential for publishing some maps. What became clear quite quickly was they spatial data is their core business and, often, it is presented in map form, although there are other formats. A large number of people are involved in the production of a single piece of output and it is clear that the organisation wants to demonstrate it's value by getting maximum exposure to its products and giving credit where credits due.

This is all fine for more traditional academic roles within the organisation, but is more tricky for someone who is, for example, a database programmer or cartographer. Indeed, just publishing a map raises all sorts of issues concerning how the internal review process is linked (if at all) with the external peer-review process and how this is actioned once completed.

Clearly a "traditional" journal is able to offer limited support is these scenarios, hence the discussions I have had. I would like to think we are quite forward thinking at JoM, however I know that some of the following does occur in other subject disciplines. Suffice to say that the geographical sciences tend to be quite conservative. Anyway, these are some of the ideas that I hope we will be trialling: -publication based upon satisfactory peer-review, but no modification. Rather the peer-reviews are published with the paper for ongoing public review with a new version produced at a later date -primary and secondary authors. In the case of a geological map, the field geologists would be primary authors and cited in the same way as a "traditional" paper. Secondary authors would be everyone else that assisted in the production of the final map. This could be tens of people who would receive recognition for the work they have done. -publication of data in the journal. We are currently doing this, with the data being cited separately. Note that this can give the opportunity for those who compile the data to get recognition, and be cited separately, from the primary authors.

TagCrowd

Came acrossTagCrowd today which is an interesting service that analyses a piece of text and provides a visual cue as to the types of words and their frequency. You can create "stop lists" which exclude certain words from the count, as well as specify minimum frequencies (to be included) and maximum words in the image. They are also working on an API so that it can be embedded in a page. Below is the image generated for the RSS feed of this blog. Not sure what this says about me, but I think I use "although" too much!

created at TagCrowd.com

NGA Coastline Data

I came across the NGA Prototype Global Shoreline Data, otherwise known as NGA PGS, after a link from the EVS Islands Project. This seems to be one of the best (freely available!) world datasets around at the moment. Its derived from LANDSAT 7 (GeoCover) multi-spectral imagery and uses the Short-Wave Infra-Red (SWIR) bands to define the land water interface to about 50m. Gaps are in the dataset due to cloud, snow and ice (~10%). Well worth a look!

Modelling urban changes: Mastermap is the solution you can't use

I have been involved in a project looking at detecting urban change from radar imagery and, specifically, the building and demolition of buildings. In order to validate the work we are doing it struck me that Mastermap would be an ideal product to use. TOIDs are used to model features in the landscape and are added, modified and deleted. These can be rolled out to users for an AOI so that an updates to the area can be applied. Of course, the corollary of such a service is that (in Asda speak) you could "roll back" the landscape to a prior point in time to see what the landscape looked like. Or, another way, you could "print" map for a certain point in time. This is potentially a powerful way of looking at urban change and would be very interesting to exploit, except....

I don't believe OS (or EDINA) offer such a service. When acquiring data it is only ever for the "current release". This astounds me (although please correct me if I'm wrong) as there must be 101 uses for (recent) historic data. So it would seem that the only way to get temporal snapshots is to get a printed map. Hmmmmm... the wonders of the digital age.

ArcView 3.x is alive and kicking

GIS Lounge have a nice article entitled Why ArcView 3.x is Still in Use. And the funny thing is that it describes (by inference) all the problems with AV3 and then goes on to say why it can still be better than ArcMap. Not really a glowing recommendation for ESRI. And yes, incredibly poor performance, high overheads of implementation, draconian licensing and the arse-about-face way of doing things. Yup, it is usually quicker to do things in ArcView 3.x (create a new shapefile, delete vertices etc etc).

ArcGIS Terrains

ESRI have been busy bees in the 3D geospatial world and one of the "new" features in ArcGIS 9.2 (OK, I know 9.2 isn't that new with SP5 out and 9.3 imminent!) is the ability to create "Terrains". Clearly ESRI realise that a huge new sector of data capture is via LiDAR (initially airborne, but increasingly terrestrial) and given that performance in ArcGIS (generally) is, as Ian would say, as good as a chocolate teapot, they needed to come up with some ways of improving data visualisation (re-drawing speeds). Not only that, but given that many people don't use server-side databases, the personal geodatabase was increasingly looking long in the tooth, using a bespoke format, and just not designed for the job (i.e. it can't store more than 2Gb). LiDAR, and more generally raster, data can surpass this limit quite quickly.

So terrains have been born that essentially take the idea of pyramid layers (i.e. subsampling) and applies it to vector data. And by vector data we are primarily talking about LiDAR point clouds and their conversion to TINs, but that then can include things like breaklines, drainage, masks etc etc. So its not exactly revolutionary but very much a step in the right direction. The ESRI Instructional Series has two useful introductions on terrains.

And to create them? Well you need 3D Analyst installed and, you would hope, there would be a single "whizzy" button that says "Create Terrain". However hope is too much in the world of ESRI and it has to be more complicated than that. Firstly you need to create a file geodatabase (in Catalog). Yes, thankfully ESRI have seen the error of their ways with personal geodatabases and finally have a format that is easily transportable and unlikely to corrupt. It can also store upto 1Tb per table which is handy. Once you have said geodatabase, you need to create a feature dataset inside it (note its a dataset, as in a collection of classes) and then put your terrain data inside the dataset. So if your LiDAR has come as a 3D shapefile then this needs to be exported into the feature dataset. Only then can you run the Terrain wizard to create your terrain (right click on the feature dataset, goto New and then Terrain). Note that the wizard does automate the terrain creation process and the individual tools are available in ArcToolBox. The 3D Analyst PDF does have some further info.

SoftGIS?

OK, its actually SoftGrid and ArcGIS. Bought by Microsoft recently, softgrid provides a virtualisation environment where you can "push" an application across a network to a client sitting on a PC. It *looks& seemless and means the application doesn't have to be installed locally. This is really useful for our computing support people as our GIS software is site licensed through the faculty, but we have students wanting to use them in university labs. Softgrid is a great solution and works with everything we have thrown at it (ERDAS Imagine usefully!) except, you've guessed it, ArcGIS. This is the one application we really wanted to get working, but with little success. It initially loads but with very slow performance, hanging etc, it becomes unusable.

And (thanks Kris for the info) it appears that the problem may be related to the archaic port of ARC/INFO to the PC, the appallingly poor use of registry entries (apparantly 50-70Mb just for ArcGIS!) and Microsofts slow registry performance. All of this adds up to alot of registry accesses which kill performance.

Solution? ESRI needs to re-write ArcGIS properly and get rid of the bad back end. ESRI needs to use *anything* other than the registry for most of its settings. Microsoft needs to sort out registry performance.

None of which is likely to happen!

Mobile broadband speeds

For those that have taken advantage of the tumbling subscription rates for mobile broadband through the likes of 3, T-Mobile etc (as cheap as �5 per month), the different data rates might prove a little confusing. Paul Ockenden has a useful article in PCPro this month that summarises and gives a little history on the topic. And the main data rates you will come across are:

CSD: 14.4 Kb/s
GPRS: 114 Kb/s
EDGE: 230 Kb/s
3G: 384 Kb/s
HSDPA: 1.8, 3.6 or 7.2 Mb/s

The interesting thing here is that 3G only ever vaguely approached the slowest ADSL line speeds (51Kb/s) and we certainly wouldn't consider it fast today. And also note how fast EDGE is to 3G. However it is HSDPA that is really pushing the envelope and the data rates can get this fast (depending upon the contention). Note that 3G/HSDPA are separate from the other standards which run on standard GSM. 3G technologies are at different frequencies and on a different network. Interestingly both EDGE and HSDPA can supposedly be deployed using firmware upgrades to existing equipment.

Firefox 3 and addons

I've finally taken the plunge and upgraded to Firefox 3, although through the portableapps.com route. This has the benefit of being able to run both FF2 and FF3. Having tinkered with FF3 when it was first released I was impressed by the speed at rendering sites; noticeably faster than FF2. IE7 appears glacial in comparison! The address bar has some really neat features and we finally getting tagging for bookmarks which nicely does away with the need for folders.

The problem?? The fact that I run around 30 add-ons. Perhaps not best for stability but they all serve a specific purpose and really do extend the functionality. Much to my surprise nearly all of them were FF3 compatible, although a few key ones weren't (Copy Plain Text, Auto Copy, Minimize To Tray). Add-ons are downloaded as XPI files, which are simply ZIP files with the requisite additional files to add to your profile. FF does a compatibility check against install.rdf to see which version is supported (against the maxVersion field). So for these addons they can be got to work, rename the XPI to ZIP and extract the RDF file. Simply change this field to version 3, put it back in the ZIP and rename it to XPI. Clearly you don't want to do this for all addons (particularly complex ones!) as FF3 clearly has changed. However for simpler addons this will get them working again.

Engaging students

OK, so there are potentially cognitive thresholds which inhibit the progression of (willing!) students in their learning. Sandy Gilkes went on to suggest four primary areas that engage students and assist in their learning (and I quote):

Telling
-that they are recognised
-what "learning" is
-what you expect of them
-how they are doing

Seeing
-critical writing looks like this
-reflective writing looks like this
-an argument looks like this
-a dissertation looks like this

Thinking
-models of reflection
-prompt questions for reflection
-prompt questions for evaluation
-assessment feedback

Doing
-vehicles for practice
-exercises/own work
-tools to develop skills
-open learning resources

Sandy finished with a very nice quote from Pestalozzi (1746-1827):

"Education is the development of an innate power, the formation of an abiding habit, that constitutes its true value."

A better way...

The Free Our Data Campaign report on the Show Us a Better Way "competition" from the e Power of Information Taskforce. In short, getting people to come up with good ideas for the use of public data. What's nice that they have a brief list of data available and have posted new datasets. Makes for interesting reading even if you don't post any ideas!

NERC FSF

I spent a day this week at the NERC Field Spectroscopy Facility receiving some training in the use of a GER1500 that is being used to study loess profiles. The facility is extremely well run with the training not only being thorough but also very practical indeed. They have a good pool of equipment (GER, ASD etc) that can be used in a variety of environments (e.g. marine) with a rolling programme of upgrades. They are also very active in both the development of field spec techniques as well as their application and are in regular contact with the manufacturers. As with any NERC equipment (e.g ARSF), an application form should be completed with deadlines of 1 June and 1 November. This should provide a supporting science statement and detail of the methodology. Its not onerous, but clearly the FSF has to be sure it is funding appropriate projects.

Geomorphological definitions

I came across a recent USGS publication today, Annotated Definitions of Selected Geomorphic Terms and Related Terms of Hydrology, Sedimentology, Soil Science and Ecology. This is a geomorphologically focussed "dictionary", although there is a bias towards fluvial environments. Possibly not as useful as the Penguin Dictionary of Physical Geography but none-the-less well worth a look at and with a more inter-disciplinary focus.

Cognitive Thresholds

I was at the Middlesex University Teaching and Learning Conference today where one of the keynote presentations was given by Sandy Gilkes from the University of Nottingham. A very interesting talk broadly covering HE in the 21st century, the skills students need, their expectations, lecturers requirements, barriers to learning achievement and some ways of overcoming them. So here is my take on some of the things she covered (and this is principally from her talk).

The keypoint for me was the notion of "cognitive thresholds", that is elements/points during a degree programme that are "sticking points" or barriers to a students learning progress. Specifically these can be:

entry to HE
first assignment
feedback
tranisition to year 2 or 3
first assessment
dissertation proposal
dissertation

This is an interesting list because I have long felt that students have really struggled when they enter university, when they transition to year 2 and when they do their dissertation. So what key elements are associated with this and can they help us?

Well part of this relates to the key skills we expect our students to have/acquire. These include learning to learn (how to learn), teamwork (working in a group), self-management (managing time and tasks), communication (presentation, written), ICT (using computers/technology) and numeracy (working with numbers). These then feed in to intellectual skills (analysis, synthesis, evaluation, problem solving) and are assessed through essays, exams, MCQs, presentations, reports, projects, groupwork etc.

Of course both the students and staff have expectations about what the other will get from the HE experience. Staff expect that students: want to be there (OK, maybe we are realistic and know that not all actually do!), are interested in the module, that they know what/when to do, critical thinking/reflection will be used and assignments demonstrate progress. Of course, the student view is likely to be different and, well, it is. Such that HE is: like school (but a bit harder), acquiring knowledge, knowledge is regurgitating what is seen/heard, will be told what to do and when, assignments regurgitate what the lecturer "wants", lectures give everything they need to know and lecturers are available most of the time.

All these points raise some interesting questions, not least how students can really achieve at university. Learning is a 2-way process so students need to be aware of the pressures that are ahead and the expectations placed upon them. Lecturers should be aware of students expectations when they arrive and the areas that require further assistance.

Which rather neatly brings me back to the blog title, that is cognitive thresholds. There are specific points during a degree which students find hard because of the expectations in their learning, skills and understanding. Students and staff need to be aware of these. For me, this is entering HE (and effective time management), the first assignment (being able to submit on time, to the correct specification), the first exam (being able to manage time, play the assessment "game" and plan/write an essay), the move to the second year (increased expectations in learning and ability) and the dissertation. These are all key and extra care is needed when transitioning through them.

Reviewers: an editors nightmare (or "Your can't live with em...")

I'm just completing a moderately busy spring season at the Journal of Maps which has left me feeling a little battle worn. Having had two deadlines for special issues come (and go), I've had to deal with two "slugs" of papers coming for review. This is enough work in itself but was unfortuantely compounded by a problem with outgoing email on the JoM server. We use an "in-house" peer-review system on our server which sends out emails at various (editor controlled) stages of the review process. The system was successfully submitting emails for sending. Unfortunately the server wasn't relaying any error which meant a took a couple of weeks to spot the problem and revert to a semi-manual system whilst the bug was fixed.

Anyway, that's not the point of this blog (other than to note that editing is, well, admin, with a little bit of scholarly activity thrown in for good measure). Whilst the email problem compunded my woes, I have again been faced with the usual frustrations of dealing with reviewers. That is:

finding an appropriate reviewer
getting a response from a reviewer as to whether they are happy to review (or not
getting agreement from a reviewer who has problems interacting with the website
getting agreement from a reviewer who has problems in meeting a 1 month deadline (or 2 or 3)
getting agreement from a reviewer who has no intention of providing a review, but won't both telling you
getting a reviewer who provides 1 sentence or paragraph of review

All of the the above happens, sadly, far too regularly and these are the consequences:

some subject areas/specialisms are difficult to find reviewers for (because they are so specialist). Not so much of a moan, but just goes with the territory
I request a response with about a week, knowing that some reviewers will be away from email. Sadly it seems too much trouble for some to respond. DELAY: 1-2 weeks
OK, not everyone is computer literate and journals are increasingly trying to minimise admin. It just surprises how difficult some people find interacting with websites. I suspect this will get easier with time
meeting a 1-month deadline is perhaps a little tight (although shorter timescales are common in medicine) and I don't mind too much if it runs over a little. I also know that, outside teaching time, people's committments can be much more fluid. However, is it really that difficult to schedule time to review 1,500 words of manuscript?? DELAY: 2-4 weeks
This has to be my #1 pet hate. OK, so if a reviewer accepts to review a manuscript they probably have every good intention, at the beginning, of doing so. However, even after the gentle 1-month reminder, you get... no response. If you don't want to review a manscript, please don't do it and let the editor know. DELAY: 4-8 weeks
This is possibly #2 on my list of pet hates. The only thing worse than providing no review, is a review that is, well, pointless. I don't believe any paper is perfect either in writing style of content. So please read the manuscript carefully and provide some pertinent comments, otherwise say you don't want to do it.

Perhaps I'm being a little hard on reviewers given that they are giving up their time with no recompense. However it cuts both ways. There is kudos in reviewing a manuscript and, of course, if you want to publish a manuscript in a journal then you will need it reviewed. Totting up some of the potential delays I've noted above, if you are unlucky they can run to a considerable number of weeks. The review process is by far the most time-consuming part of the process at JoM. We normally typeset within 2-weeks and publish in the next available issue. So reviewers are the real logjam (although authors can take a considerable amount of time to make corrections).

When I review a manuscript I will only accept if I believe I can justifiably comment upon the content and I can fit it in my schedule. I normally like to review within ~2-weeks. Being a train commuter I do get time to read which helps. I would normally expect to read the paper twice and provide at least 1-page of comments, although it is often 2-3 and sometimes 5-6. I also like to start out with the premise that a paper is publishable in the first instance, highlighting the positive impact upon the discipline. I prefer to see the author number the pages and provide correctly formatted (and cited) references, although I'm not particularly fussy typographically (as I think typesetting should get these in to shape).

Tbis might sound like a bit of a moan, but it is a plea across the board that reviewing forms part of our scholarly activity and we should therefore take it seriously as it impacts upon other peoples careers. I am genuinely very grateful to reviewers for the job they do and appreciate the assistance they give me in making an editorial decision.

Underlying geospatial algorithms

I was completing a project this week that used, in-part, a tensioned spline to interpolate across an area with no data points. My colleague had actually written a custom interpolator based upon the well used algorithm from Smith and Wessell (1). This is the algorithm used in the popular Generic Mapping Tools and seems commonly employed. I then trialled the same process in ArcGIS and noticed that the tension parameter is different between the two and therefore, not surprisingly, that the algorithms are different.

The SPLINE function that is used in Spatial Analyst and available within ArcToolBox actually calls the underlying ARC-INFO function. You won't find details of it in the Help file. Rather you have to look in ArcDocs or online. And what you find is that they are using a method from two early papers (2,3). Now I don't have a problem with this per se as the method appears to work reasonably well, although you do need to know what the tension parameter is actually doing. However it is interesting to note that the original Smith and Wessel algorithm has recently been updated (4). Which then begs the question as to why ESRI are still using the 1982 algorithm. Is there a sound basis for this? Or is it simply a case of "code and forget"?

1. Smith, W.H.F. & Wessel, P., 1990. Gridding with continuous curvature splines in tension, Geophysics, 55, 293-305.
2. Franke, R., 1982. Smooth Interpolation of Scattered Data by Local Thin Plate Splines. Comp. & Maths. with Appls. Vol. 8. No. 4. pp. 237 - 281.
3. Mitas, L., and H. Mitasova. 1988. General Variational Approach to the Interpolation Problem. Comput. Math. Applic. Vol. 16. No. 12. pp. 983�992.
4. Wessel, P. & Becker, J.M., 2008 Interpolation using a generalized Green�s function for a spherical surface spline in tension. Geophys. J. Int., 174, 21-28.

IR-pen again...

After my last post on using the Wiimote as part of an interactive whiteboard, and the follow-up on building an IR pen, I have now found that it is not quite so easy to get ahold of as I thought. Having been around quite a number of stationary shops, I have come to the conlusion that no one sells an IR pen. A few online places do, but they are not easily dismantleable.

So having paused to think, I hit upon this as the simplest solution:

1. Get a normal LED keychain light. As cheap as 25p each!

2. Get an IR LED and replace the bulbs (79p).

3. Attach to your set of keys and voila, an IR pointer!

P.S. You obviously can't see if the bulb is on (!) so to test it, point it at a digital camera and see if you can see the bulb on on the LCD screen.

Bibliographies and referencing

Referencing is a bit of a black art in universities and something we try to drum in from the first year. If you present an idea or piece of information that is not your, cite it. That then requires the use of a reference list and whilst universities are generally happy to stick with a Harvard "style", most journals are not. This of course means there must be 1,000's of reference styles actively in use. The de facto standard in referencing is Endnote which is a very accomplished (and relatively expensive) package that combines both a bibliographic database with a style manager, all of which can be copied in to Microsoft Word ready formatted. Of course you can go one step further and simply insert a "tag" within Word to your cited article and then get it to dynamically build the reference list. Endnote also went down the portable route and wrote a Palm application as well.

Clearly this is a profitable market and there are quite a few vendors around offering such products, as well as some quite good online applications, Refworks being the one that we use at Kingston.

Not to be outdone, it is worth mentioning that Latex has long had a very effective system that is similar (called BibTex). As ever, the database is a marked up text file that is then used to dynamically build the reference list. It is very sophisticated and can handle pretty much every citation requirement. Of course its non too user friendly and there have been a few GUIs developed, the most popular of which is Jabref. It is a Java programme so cross-platform, fast and well designed. It even comes with some custom import/export-ers ("Tools->Unpack Endnote filter set") to make the transition with Endnote pretty good. However note that it is a GUI for building a bibliographic database, it is not a style manager. So whilst you can export HTML and RTF formats of your database you donot have the rich styles provided by Endnote. There is currently work underway for an Open Office Plugin but very little in the way fo the styles themselves. Another (open source) alternative is Zotero which is a Firefox plugin that offers a database and a rapidly expanding set of stylesheets. This rapidly seems to be becomign a popular choice. Of course the reason I've ended up using Jabref is that.... I use Latex!

Extracting images from MS Office documents

For quite a while image handling in MS Office has bugged me. Its never been particularly great for two reasons:

1. When images are inserted, they are done so in a native format and stored at "full resolution" regardless of the print options. There has also never been an option to optimise images in Office documents, leading to hugely bloated files (a blatant commercial plug for NXPowerlite which does a sterling job in performing such a service for all Office documents and versions).

2. You then can't "export" the images in their original format. Copy/Paste works, but only as a bitmap at screen resolution.

I have taken to using Open Office to open my MS Office documents and doing a copy/paste which is at least at full resolution. However the guys at NXPowerlite suggested an obvious (well it was after I read it) alternative:

1. After Open Office has opened the MS Office document, save it is a native (ODT) Open Office file.

2. Change the file extension from .ODT to .ZIP and open it. Inside the "Pictures" folder will be all the native images.

Its a great tip, although note that the Open Office conversion may not always work perfectly.

WinGRASS is finally here

It's had a quiet announcement (over a month ago actually) but WinGRASS is finally here. Since its inception in 1983, GRASS has never run natively on Windows and this, in part, has limited its application by a wider audience. To be fair, it can run very well on most modern Linux distributions, but its not quite the same. And it can run on Windows under Cygwin, just not natively. Note that, as per Linux releases, odd point increments (v6.3 in this instance) are considered beta versions in preparation for full "even" releases (the upcoming 6.4 and eventually 7.0). So download and have a play as the capabilities are remarkable.

Foxit PDF Read 2.3

A new version of Foxit PDF Reader has been released and whilst on the face of it it only appears to be an incremental update, the big news is that it now offers full audio/video support for PDFs.

At the Journal of Maps I am keen to promote the wider use of "multimedia" within e-journals and, as a result, we have published several articles containing videos (fly-throughs, micro-simulations, animated flight atlas) and hope to expand this to 3D models at some point (although Foxit can't currently handle these). Foxit is a small PDF reader (~6Mb) that renders pages quickly and, increasingly, supports a wide range of features. It also requires no installation and can be run directly from a USB stick. So its ideal for quick PDF viewing.

LED IR Pen

As a follow up to the recent blog on the Wiimote interactive whiteboard, you will need an IR LED pen for the Wiimote to track. You can obviously dust off your soldering iron and build your own pen, or follow this painless and easy tutorial!!

Wii-moting

I came across Johnny Chung Lee's Wii remote projects this week. And, well... they blew me away!! Have a look at the 3 YouTube videos and you will see how understanding what hardware is in the Wii remote, with a little lateral thinking, can develop some astounding results. The fact that no games designers had actually thought of head tracking is amazing because the demo is cool beyond belief. If we don't see any games on the shelves that use these ideas in the next 6 months then I'll east my hat! And, from the teaching perspective, having a portable, low-cost, interactive whiteboard is brilliant. I'm building my LED pen as we speak!!

Worst presentation moments?

I thought lecturers in HE had some pretty funny teaching moments (I remember one lecturer writing on an overhead projector and then stopping, going white. He had just realised there was no acetate on the projector and he was using a permanent marker!), but anything we can do, Microsoft can do better. Have a look at this page for some really very funny moments in the life of an IT consultant.

Open Access Journal Publication: implementation, copyright and dissemination, using the Journal of Maps as a case study

Smith, M.J.
Digital Mapping Techniques, Columbia, South Carolina

Open access (OA) journals are rapidly becoming an important channel for publishing academic articles and, although they represent a small proportion of the total number of journals published annually, it is significant that organisations such as British Medical Journals (BMJ) operate in this manner. This article explores the broad implementation of OA journals, issues pertaining to copyright and the distribution of (geospatial) research data.

Glacial striae observations for Ireland compiled from historic records

Smith, M.J., Knight, J. and Field, K.
Digital Mapping Techniques, Columbia, South Carolina

Glacial landform mapping is one of the primarily inputs for the reconstruction of past glacial environments and processes, potentially inferring maximum ice sheet extent, primary ice flow configurations, and ice sheet dynamics. Drumlins, end moraines, ribbed moraines, eskers and meltwater channels are often recorded and subsequently used to infer former ice sheet conditions.

Striae (linear, subglacial, scours on bedrock up to several metres long), have been recorded as palaeo-evidence for ice flow direction for nearly 200 years. The recording of striae observations requires extensive fieldwork and is therefore not suited to collection over large areas. Cumulative data collection by many researchers in Ireland since ~1850 has led to a large published and unpublished archive of striae observations. This research has collated over 4000 individual observations from geological survey maps and memoirs, published (peer-reviewed) literature and unpublished work (theses and fieldnotes). These records are now unified in a single database, georeferenced to the Irish National Grid, and linked to a qualitative assessment of their locational accuracy.

High spatial resolution data acquisition for the geosciences: kite aerial photography

Smith, M.J., Chandler, J. and Rose, J.
Earth Surface Processes and Landforms

This paper highlights the requirement for very high resolution (<0.25 m) elevation data for quantitative and qualitative morphometric analyses. Traditional techniques for high resolution data capture (e.g. airborne, heliborne) are prohibitively expensive for small studies and therefore a kite-based platform was developed, in conjunction with a consumer non-metric digital camera, for data capture. The combination of kite and digital camera is more generally termed kite aerial photography (KAP).The accuracy of data derived by digital photogrammetry and imagery acquired using a kite based non-metric camera is assessed by three experiments: one on smooth terrain, one on tor terrain and one on a glaciofluvial esker. Ground control targets were surveyed at all three sites, with the imagery subsequently processed using the Leica Photogrammetry Suite. The results demonstrate that the method can extract a high number of sampling points at high accuracy, provided that there is suitable image texture across the site. However, final judgment concerning the suitability of derived data is dependent upon an understanding of measurement variability and user quantification of acceptable accuracy.

Enter Plan B

I came across Donald Clark's Plan B blog blog recently and have been both impressed, and quite amused by mahy of his musings. He was CEO of the Epic Group and is now a board member at Ufi (learndirect). He clearly has quite a bit of experience in training and this shows through in many of his posts. Two of my recent favourites include:

1. 10 Reasons to Dump Lectures
2. NUTcases

This second blog had me rolling around. Cutting through all the hyperbole are comments like:

"Most people see teachers as doing a good job, and we all understand the stresses and strains. However, most also see the massive holidays, job security, good pay and pension, as reasonable rewards. What many reasonable people resent is the constant carping and negativity, especially from the Easter union bash."

Geotat for a geot*at (or maybe that should be a geowanker!)

Following on from the last blog on the Geo8 trade show and, in particular, following on from the last AGI Tat Awards, I would like to announce the formal re-inauguration of the official, unofficial, Geo8 Tat Awards, or simply GeoTat (for those American readers the title might be lost on you. For everyone else this is what I am on about).

Those not familiar with the term "tat", may I point you to the Oxford English Dictionary? Or, to save time, the wonderfully to the point:

tasteless or shoddy articles

So there you have it. What crap are vendors giving away at this year's show? Well, in comparison to the 2006 AGI trade show, it was a really poor affair, as evidenced by the photo. I'm thoroughly disappointed at how professional companies are becoming. I don't really care that Topcon must have had over �250,000 of survey gear on their site. What I want is some really tasteless freebies. Pens were the order of the day; time will tell if they work (and on past experience the OS really score here). Faro gave away the best quality pen (perhaps matching the "Best Dressed Stand" award they received); the only one metal, but insider information (not mentioning any names Paul) suggests that quality insurance is lacking. As for the OS, pens were all they had. No crappy TOIDs this time around. Perhaps its time to tighten the belt at our national mapping agency. Leica had free pastries and coffee. Satisfaction for the stomach maybe, but quickly forgotten. Pentax had a flashy stand, with absolutely nothing of no-substance on it at all. Pointools tried to flagrantly buy off the judges with some paper anaglyph glasses and a Roses chocolate. Sorry guys, it won't work. It's sad to say, but even Kingston University was coming close to winning with some truly awful pens and magnets. I should give a brief mention to Positioning Systems with their globe stress balls; better than pens perhaps, but its so 90s that I couldn't be bothered to actually pick one up.

Worst Tat
1. Pentax: far too professional for my liking. Avoid their stand like the plague.
2. OS: surely we can do something creative.....

Best Tat
1. Trimble: cracking mugs, although the spoons seem liable to snap
2. Trimble: great little karabiners
So the winner this time around is Trimble, awarded first and second place, taking the coveted crown away from AutoDesk. Well done guys.

Geo8: the new GIS trade show?

Since the demise of the AGI Trade Show in 2006, I've felt that there has been somewhat of a void in the GIS industry. However, are there any other exhibitions that could fill this void? Well the potential is certainly there with Geo8 which was the "World of Geomatics", predominantly a surveying trade show, that has rebranded slightly and is now trying to expand to fill the GIS area as well. And if this year is anything to go by then it has certainly gone some way to doing this (and shame on the AGI for killing off a great event). In addition to the more "surveying-type" companies (Leica, Topcon, Pentax), we had some GIS/data types as well in the form of Ordnance Survey (Vanessa Lawrence gave keynote), Cadcorp, BlueSky, Getmapping and NPA. MapInfo and ESRI were notable exceptions and their absence shows a marked lack of understanding of the current marketplace. Perhaps ESRI UK is focusing on the ESRI EMEA conference to be held in London. And MapInfo (or is it Pitney Bowes Software)? Are they becoming a meaningless part of a global conglomerate or a major force to reckon with? Whatever the answer, they weren't here to talk about it.

So how did the show go? For starters the organisation was spot on. The Ricoh Arena in Coventry is just off junction 3 of the M6 and a complete no-brainer to get to. Anything vaguely in Birmingham area scores for centrality and transport links. The arena itself had ample (free!) parking with a generous size exhibition hall that was perfectly suited to the event. The nightmare of the Chelsea exhbition is, thankfully, a dim and distant memory. Not only that, but there was an inclusive �5 lunch voucher and 256Mb pen drive included in the free pre-registration. OK, so they are going all out for getting people in, but I have no complaints what-so-ever.

As ever the Kingston Centre for GIS had a presence in the form of a seminar by Ken Field on how to better present spatial data; targeted at middle-managers the talk went down well and was a big draw on the first day. Elsewhere, you had the usual vendors displaying their wares and it is a really good way of making industry contacts and keeping up with new faces and new products. Being a mix of GIS, data and surveying it was nice to see a different slant on things. In particular, laser scanning is clearly becoming a major sales ticket with Leica, Zoller and Frohlich and Faro all pushing their wares, along with Pointools for some stunningly fast point cloud manipulation software.

So Geo8 have got their finger bang on the money and I can only give a whole-hearted recommendation to the shebang. Roll on next year!!

1st year field trip to Swansea

I've just got back from our first year geography field trip to the Gower Peninsula. Designated the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1949, development is limited and so it is relatively unspoilt and quite wild. A perfect place for viewing the physical geography/geology (some good geology and coastal/glacial geomorphology), as well as some very interesting human geography with Swansea, the South Wales coalfield and rural Carmarthenshire right on its doorstep. The weather at Easte can be quite "changeable", however for the last 3 years it has been simply stunning. Look at the 2006 photos to see how beautiful the place is.

Conveniently we stayed at Swansea University which, when you have 50-odd students, is much easier than going elsewhere. The Swansea campus at Singleton Park was predominantly built in the 1960's, although there is currently a big building progamme. However, if you go into any of the original buildings (including some of the halls of residence) then the only word to describe then is, well.... a dump. If I was a parent visiting the campus I would definitely think twice. That said the Geography Department has got a glorious building, although it is starting to look a little worn and dated inside. The piece de resistance is definitely the mens toilets on the second floor. It was like stepping into Victorian England; great!!!

"My point buffers are't round." "No problem sir, that is an ArcMap design feature."

One of my MSc students was recently completing a piece of coursework that required finding a solution to a spatial task, part of which involved the creation of buffers. He noticed that the buffers created around points in ArcMap weren't round (giving a significantly different solution to MapInfo) but rather oval and so decided to investigate further. His answer came in the form of this technical note from ESRI:

ArcMap Buffer Wizard produces buffers that are not round

As this note describes, by default ArcMap uses the Hotine projection to calculate buffers and doesn't recommend its use at high latitudes or distances over ~5 miles. I find this an amazing default behaviour. My expectation would have been to perform the buffer in the same projection as the input Data Frame however this is not the case. In fact it appears to be a hard coded setting in the registry that is only changeable by using the AdvancedArcMapSettings utility.

Of course this raises more questions. Why the Hotine projection? Does it effect ArcView 3.x or ARC/INFO prior to the release of ArcGIS? I thought that ArcView 3.x used a different algorithm to calculate buffers (through the GeoProcessing Wizard) than ARC/INFO. This Wizard (in UI form anyway) was ported to ArcGIS, whilst buffering was also available from ARC/INFO in ArcTools. So are the 8.x and 9.x buffer algorithms different?

For such a fundamental algorithm to have this default behaviour is quite worrying and one wonders how many studies have incorrect buffer calculations.