Module 12 - Google Earth & NeoCartography

As this was our last lecture and lab before finals begin, we discussed in our online chat boards some of the hot topics in Cartography & GIS right now, including Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), Public Participation in GIS (PPGIS), data integrity, collaborative GIS, and cloud computing/cloud based GIS. With the increased spread of technology we've seen an increase in user contributed data, of which there are advantages and disadvantages. We have social interaction on a wider scale, volunteer projects that encourage citizen involvement leading to better responses to disasters or better decisions by policy makers, and more data available to scientists and researchers. The major concern with this huge amount of data is integrity or quality. Volunteers may lack expertise, data collection methods may be inconsistent, and data may be reported incorrectly, intentionally or unintentionally. Numerous studies and discussions are already underway to try to set standards for open source data collection and management and I look forward to seeing what develops in the future.

For our lab we explored Google Earth, specifically using our population density dot map from Module 10 to add information and create a tour of South Florida. In ArcMap we used conversion tools to turn our map and a specific layer into KMLs by changing the vector features into grouped raster layers. We then opened those in Google Earth. The trickiest part there was getting the legend to show up. Best I could figure out was to remove any features or layers I didn't need in Google Earth off my MXD then do the conversion again. The legend appeared after that, whether coincidentally I'm not sure. Adding placemarks and creating the tour was simple enough, except that I wanted some layers and labels on at different points during the tour and had to try recording numerous times before getting an acceptable result. I also didn't haven't much success zooming around or rotating the view during the recording as it often kicked off my rotation with a wild spin of the camera. So I ended up sticking with my snapshot view for each placemark.

I will admit I am old enough or maybe it's the naturalist in me talking, but I do feel slight hesitation at the ever increasing reliance and absorption with technology in our modern world. I wonder if we sometimes end up more "disconnected" from each other and the world then connected. Regardless, I think VGI and other open source opportunities in GIS are valuable for all the reasons listed above and more and the concern of data integrity and source checking is one we all should be aware of when using online resources anyway.

Screenshot of South Florida population density dot map overlay in Google Earth.