The MapScaping Podcast - GIS, Geospatial, Remote Sensing, earth observation and digital geography

MapScaping

About

A podcast for geospatial people. Weekly episodes that focus on the tech, trends, tools, and stories from the geospatial world. Interviews with the people that are shaping the future of GIS, geospatial as well as practitioners working in the geo industry.

This is a podcast for the GIS and geospatial community subscribe or visit https://mapscaping.com to learn more

Available on

Community

226 episodes

GNSS receivers - why precise positioning will not be coming to your phone any time soon

GNSS receivers - why precise positioning will not be coming to your phone any time soon   Igor is the CEO and cofounder of Emlid.com a company that started out making high-precision GNSS receivers in his kitchen and crowd-funded the first batch on Kickstarter.    But that was over ten years ago so today on the podcast Igor is going to tell us about the innovations that made this possible, give a great explanation of RTK and PPP and explain why we should expect to see high precision positioning on your phone any time soon. Connect with Igor here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/igor-vereninov-52a73ab0/ Or visit https://emlid.com/   In this episode, we cover:  __ __   __ __   __ __   __ __   __ __   __ __   __ __   __ __ More GNSS-related podcast episodes! From GNSS to VPS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/from-gnss-to-vps/ Reimaging GPS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/gps-reimagined/ How Google Knows Your Location https://mapscaping.com/podcast/how-google-calculates-your-location/ Past, Present and Future of GNSS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/navigating-the-past-present-and-future-of-gnss/ SBAS - A base station in the sky https://mapscaping.com/podcast/satellite-based-augmentation-system-a-base-station-in-the-sky/          

51m
Mar 21
The way you talk about your geospatial skills is costing you money

Refactoring the Way you Talk About your geospatial skills: It is Costing you Money Some of the key topics in this episode  1.Our Geospatial Skills and Marketability: There's a realization that while our traditional geospatial skills are valuable, they might not always be marketed effectively to match the broader IT and data analysis job markets. We discuss the benefit of framing our skills in terms that are more widely recognized outside the niche of geospatial technology, such as data science or IT. 2.The Spatial Discount: We explore the concept of the spatial discount, which refers to the observation that geospatial professionals might face a disparity in compensation compared to their counterparts in more generalized IT roles, despite having highly transferable and valuable data manipulation skills. 3. Skill Development and Adaptation: The importance of continually developing skills that are not only advanced within the geospatial domain but also marketable across various sectors is emphasized. Learning and mastering technologies that have broad applications, such as SQL for spatial data manipulation, can enhance our versatility and marketability. 4. Communication and Marketing Skills: Our ability to effectively communicate and market our skills is highlighted as crucial for career advancement. We are encouraged to adopt the language and terminology that resonate with broader industries and potential employers, moving beyond the jargon of the geospatial field. 5. Finding Value in Our Geospatial Work: The discussion also touches on the importance of identifying and articulating the real-world value of our geospatial work. We should focus on how our skills can solve practical problems and address the needs of businesses and organizations, rather than solely on the technical complexity of our tasks. 6. Professional Development: Lastly, the conversation advocates for a proactive approach to our professional development, suggesting that we should seek out opportunities to learn new skills and technologies that align with market demands and personal interests. These points collectively suggest a strategy for us, as geospatial professionals, to enhance our career prospects: by broadening our skill sets, effectively marketing our capabilities, and aligning our work with the needs and language of the wider IT and data analysis fields.   Connect with Brain Timoney on LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-timoney-a760534/ Thank you to our sponsors  https://www.scribblemaps.com/  https://merginmaps.com/   Recommended Listening   Modern Geospatial https://mapscaping.com/podcast/modern-geospatial/ Rebranding Gis and Geospatial https://mapscaping.com/podcast/rebranding-gis-geospatial/ Getting Where You Want To Go In Your Geospatial Career https://mapscaping.com/podcast/getting-where-you-want-to-go-in-your-geospatial-career/ Mid-Career Change https://mapscaping.com/podcast/mid-career-change/    

52m
Mar 15
Modern Geospatial

Modern geospatial - not the bleeding edge of geospatial but modern geospatial - what is it? Well my guest Will Cadell, the CEO of SparkGeo describes modern geospatial as the intersection of the cloud, smart space, open source data/standards, AI and smart devices - that's modern geospatial  And as you will hear during the discussion it's important to understand the difference between modernisation and innovation when we think about moving people from where they are now to where they want to be with regards to their geospatial capabilities.  You might be wondering - what does any of this have to do with me? I just want to make better things, I just want to help people use all this awesome geospatial stuff … but you don’t get to do that without first understanding what “better” looks like for them - what is their version of awesome geo stuff … and that is why you should listen to this episode!    Connect with Will Cadell Twitter https://twitter.com/geo_will LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/willcadell/ SparkGeo  https://sparkgeo.com/ https://www.strategicgeospatial.com/   This episode is sponsored by https://www.scribblemaps.com/   Recommended Listening   The Business of Web Maps https://mapscaping.com/podcast/the-business-of-web-maps/   Modern GIS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/what-is-modern-gis/                

48m
Feb 29
Introduction To LIDAR & Point Clouds

The main topics discussed during this episode include: __ __ Connect with Nejc Dougan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nejcdougan/ or at https://www.flai.ai/    Recommended listening    Cloud Optimized Point Clouds https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-optimized-point-clouds/   PDAL - the point data abstraction library https://mapscaping.com/podcast/pdal-point-data-abstraction-library/   Lidar from drones https://mapscaping.com/podcast/lidar-from-drones/   Bathymetric Lidar https://mapscaping.com/podcast/bathymetric-lidar-and-blue-carbon/    

48m
Feb 15
Introduction to Cloud Native Geospatial

Alex Leith is a Digital Earth Architect and in this episode, you will learn what Infrastructure as cloud is  - hint it is the opposite of the "clicky-clicky" and so much more! Connect with Alex here https://auspatious.com/   Recommended Listening  Cloud-Optimized Point CLounds https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-optimized-point-clouds/   Cloud Native Geospatial  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-native-geospatial/   Planet Scale Tiled Maps without a Server https://mapscaping.com/podcast/planet-scale-tiled-maps-without-a-server/   What is Modern GIS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/what-is-modern-gis/

55m
Jan 26
GeeMap

GeeMap is an open-source Python library that provides tools for interactive mapping with Google Earth Engine (GEE), which is a platform for earth science data and analysis ... and today you are going to hear from the creator of GeeMap!   Connect with Qiusheng Wu here: https://wetlands.io/   This episode is sponsored by Planet learn more at https://www.planet.com/gis/   Recommended Listening Introduction to Google Earth Engine https://mapscaping.com/podcast/introducing-google-earth-engine/   Introduction to Sentinel Hub https://mapscaping.com/podcast/sentinel-hub/   Planet - Imaging everything every day ( almost )  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/planet-imaging-everything-every-day-almost/   Introduction to Microsoft's Planetary Computer https://mapscaping.com/podcast/the-planetary-computer/  

54m
Jan 09
GPS Reimagined

GPS reimagined? Why do we need to reimagine GPS? ... Is it broken?   Recommended Podcast Episodes   How Google Calculates Your Location https://mapscaping.com/podcast/how-google-calculates-your-location/   From GNSS To VPS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/from-gnss-to-vps/   Navigating The Past Present and Future of GNSS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/navigating-the-past-present-and-future-of-gnss/   SatelliteBased Augmentation System - A Base Station In The Sky https://mapscaping.com/podcast/satellite-based-augmentation-system-a-base-station-in-the-sky/  

45m
Dec 27, 2023
The Business of QGIS Development

Nyall Dawson is a QGIS developer, cartographer, and owner and founder of North Road, a company specializing in open-source geospatial software. His journey into geospatial began with personal interests in mapping and cartography, which later evolved into a business called North Road. But that's not why I wanted to make this episode for you, I wanted to share this story with you because it could be your story too.  You could decide to have a story that starts with contributing to something you care about, which leads to you becoming a known expert within a community that cares about the same thing and evolves into paid opportunities. That could be your story too!   You can connect with Nyall here: https://twitter.com/nyalldawson https://www.linkedin.com/in/nyall-dawson-18b6016a/ https://north-road.com/   Recommended Podcast Episodes   Planet https://mapscaping.com/podcast/planet-imaging-everything-every-day-almost/   Monetizing an open-source geospatial project https://mapscaping.com/podcast/monetizing-an-open-source-geospatial-project/   Being self-employed in Earth Observation https://mapscaping.com/podcast/being-self-employed-in-the-earth-observation-sector/   Geospatial Side Hustles https://mapscaping.com/podcast/geospatial-side-hustles/   Self Employment in the GIS Industry https://mapscaping.com/podcast/self-employment-in-the-gis-geospatial-industry/   A Business built on Open Source GIS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/a-business-built-on-open-source-gis/      

52m
Dec 20, 2023
Making Beautiful Maps In Felt

This episode is all about making beautiful maps ... I am not a cartographer but my guest Mamata Akella is a professional cartographer at Felt!  So today on the podcast we are talking about Essential Elements of Map Design: Which of course starts with questions like - who is it for, what is it for and how do we get it to them? And then moves on to Visual Hierarchy,   Zoom-Based Styling, Color Palettes, and Interpretation We discuss a few practical examples during the conversation and you can find links to those in the show notes  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/making-beautiful-maps-in-felt/   Recommended Listening https://mapscaping.com/podcast/felt-upload-anything/ https://mapscaping.com/podcast/communicating-with-maps-the-art-of-cartography/ https://mapscaping.com/podcast/full-stack-cartography/            

52m
Dec 14, 2023
Planet - Imaging Everything, Every Day ... Almost

Planet manufactures and manages the world's largest consolation of earth observation satellites! Imaging "Just about everywhere on earth just about every day - Making change visible, accessible, and actionable" ... and the hope of this episode is to help you understand how they do that - along the way __ __ For more information go to https://www.planet.com/gis/   Recommended Podcast Episodes   Hyperspectral vs. Multispectral https://mapscaping.com/podcast/hyperspectral-vs-multispectral/ NICFI Program https://mapscaping.com/podcast/reduce-and-reverse-tropical-forest-loss-with-nicfi/ Synthetic Data https://mapscaping.com/podcast/synthetic-data-for-real-problems/ Labels Matter https://mapscaping.com/podcast/labels-matter/      

45m
Dec 06, 2023
Fire Mapping, Maritime Search And Wide Angle Imaging

This episode is a story about wide-angle imaging for fire mapping and maritime search but it's also a story about changing the culture and getting people to trust a new way of doing things.   My guest today is Alison Harrod - mission success manager at a start-up called Overwatch imaging    Whenever I work with a company like Overwatch Imaging it is hard to know which story to tell, we could just as easily have made an episode about AI and object detection or about smart sensors because they do those things too.     The decision depends on the guest and their background so after meeting Alison we decided to make this episode for you and try to give you a broad overview of what wide-angle imaging is and how it's used in the context of fire mapping and maritime search. ...but It's one thing to have a technology and it is another thing entirely to get people to use it … as you will hear fire mapping is not “a move fast and break things kind of situation”   Connect with Alison here! https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonharrod/ https://www.overwatchimaging.com/   Other relevant podcast episodes that you might enjoy Thermal Imagery From Space https://mapscaping.com/podcast/thermal-imagery-from-space/ Finding Water Leaks From Space https://mapscaping.com/podcast/finding-water-leaks-from-space/ Cube Satellites Of The Stratosphere https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cube-satellites-of-the-stratosphere/

46m
Nov 30, 2023
Personal Branding in Geospatial

It's not about becoming an influencer it's about creating opportunities for yourself   In this episode, we tackle the common misconception that personal branding is solely for influencers, revealing how it's actually about creating the right visibility and opportunities in your professional sphere. Helena Merschdorf https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenamerschdorf/ shares her unique insights, drawing from her rich background in GIS and marketing, and discusses: __ __ This episode is not just about building a personal brand; it's about leveraging that brand to carve a unique path in the geospatial industry.   Connect with Helena here https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenamerschdorf/ https://www.tales.co.nz/   Other relevant podcast episodes  Rebranding GIS and Geospatial https://mapscaping.com/podcast/rebranding-gis-geospatial/   Python Maps https://mapscaping.com/podcast/python-maps/   Getting Your Dream Job In Earth Observation https://mapscaping.com/podcast/getting-your-dream-job-in-earth-observation/  

50m
Nov 22, 2023
Entity Resolution with Placekey

Entity resolution is the process of matching and merging records from different sources that refer to the same entity.   today's episode is about entity resolution for place data, why you might want to do that, and what any of this has to do with the dollar, Unix time and the idea that If data is really driving innovation, join keys are going to become more valuable.   Today's guest is Auren Hoffman https://www.linkedin.com/in/auren/ https://twitter.com/auren https://www.youtube.com/@worldofdaas   If you want to try Placekey for yourself go to https://www.placekey.io/   If you want to learn more about SafeGraph listen to this podcast episode https://mapscaping.com/podcast/building-geospatial-truth-sets/          

40m
Nov 15, 2023
Strategic Buy-In For FOSS4G

Embracing Open-Source Geospatial Technology is easy as an individual but what if you want your organization to use FOSS4G How do you get strategic buy-in? It turns out that the software does not sell itself and that even in the age of AI we still have to convince a human if we want organizational change to to happen.  I think the temptation is to say hey look at this long list of specifications and notice how FOSS4G is often better or equal to the close source equivalent.  Or hey look at the price tag … it costs nothing which is way cheaper than this other thing which costs more than nothing. While this might be all the argumentation you need in some cases … in general, making change happen is hard,  and it's going to require more than that.  That's why I have invited Todd Barr https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddbarr/back on the podcast to walk us through what it takes to get an organization to Embrace Open-Source Geospatial Technology.   Here are a few of the key points __ __ The last time Todd was on the podcast we talked about Leadership and Mentorship in the Geospatial community https://mapscaping.com/podcast/skills-leadership-mentorship-and-the-geospatial-community/   If you are interested in FOSS4G you might enjoy these previous episodes   A Business built on Open Source GIS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/a-business-built-on-open-source-gis/   Monetizing an open-source geospatial project https://mapscaping.com/podcast/monetizing-an-open-source-geospatial-project/   Or just scroll through the archive to find episodes about QGIS, PostGIS, Geoserver, Geonode, Python, and a bunch of other open-source projects   I could use some support! please consider supporting this podcast on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/MapScaping  https://www.patreon.com/MapScaping   

45m
Oct 04, 2023
From GNSS to VPS

** Warning** Consuming this content may lead to educated opinions and or a better understanding of the future of location technology!   ** Proceed with caution!! **   If are curious about any of the following topics this episode is for you!   Evolution of Positioning Systems    Terrestrial-based Positioning: The role of Wi-Fi positioning and the potential of 5G in positioning.    Visual Positioning Systems (VPS)   GNSS Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellites: The potential of LEO satellites in enhancing positioning and navigation.   Future of Positioning: Predictions and expectations for the future of navigation and positioning technologies.   Connect with Sandy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-kennedy-569a6a4/     Recommended listening  SBAS - Satellite-based augmentation system https://mapscaping.com/podcast/satellite-based-augmentation-system-a-base-station-in-the-sky/   GNSS - past present and future https://mapscaping.com/podcast/navigating-the-past-present-and-future-of-gnss/   Where does Goolge's blue dot come from https://mapscaping.com/podcast/how-google-calculates-your-location/   On the personal front, I have just moved back to New Zealand after 13 years in Denmark. It has been pretty busy the last couple of weeks, hence the lack of published podcast episodes.   

54m
Sep 19, 2023
Overture Maps And The Daylight Distribution

In this podcast episode, Jennings Anderson, a research scientist at Meta, discusses the Overture Maps Foundation https://overturemaps.org/, a downstream product of OpenStreetMap. He explains his background in open map data and his interest in studying collaboration within the OpenStreetMap community. Jennings then dives into the Daylight Distribution https://daylightmap.org/, an open data product produced by Meta, and how it combines building data sets from various sources into one unified theme. Jennings emphasizes the importance of a stable ID system within the Overture Maps Foundation and the potential for easy conflation and integration of third-party data. Jennings also explains the relationship between OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps, highlighting how they complement each other.   Relevant podcast episodes  OpenStreetMap Is A Community Of Communities Cloud Native Geospatial Cloud Optimized Point Clouds The Rapid Editor With regards to accessing Overture Map data, you might find this YouTube video helpful https://youtu.be/fZj6kTwXN1U?feature=shared   Just in case you are interested in the Google building footprints here is a link to that :)  https://sites.research.google/open-buildings/

52m
Aug 30, 2023
100 billion Points Every Day

100 billion Points Every Day 100 billion is a very large number, let's say that I gave you a spreadsheet with 100 billion rows in it, each row consisted of five columns Latitude, Longitude, Device ID, A Timestamp, and a column telling the name of the data provider What would you do with that?  How would you clean it? Make sense of it? Extract value from it? What would people use it for? And how would you do this in a way that could be systematized? FourSquare https://foursquare.com/ does this every day with the help of something they call a movement engine. To help understand more about how they do this I have invited Gabriel Durkin the director of data science https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrieldurkin/ on the podcast. This is the last in a series of episodes I have worked on together with FourSquare and I have to say it's been really enjoyable working with them.  If you are interested in hearing some of the previous episodes just check out the links below!   From Pixels To Patterns AI In Spatial Analysis https://mapscaping.com/podcast/from-pixels-to-patterns-ai-in-spatial-analysis/ Big Data In The Browser https://mapscaping.com/podcast/big-data-in-the-browser/ Spatial Knowledge Graphs https://mapscaping.com/podcast/spatial-knowledge-graphs/ Designing For Location Privacy https://mapscaping.com/podcast/designing-for-location-privacy/ All Of The Places In The World https://mapscaping.com/podcast/all-of-the-places-in-the-world/ Geospatial Jobs   There are a few new jobs on our Job Board! The most interesting one is the role of Social Media Manager at Felt - United States (Remote)  https://mapscaping.com/job/felt-san-francisco-full-time-social-media-manager-gis-education/ ( If you want to apply for this one, it might be a good idea to listen to this episode first ;)  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/felt-upload-anything/ ) See more at https://mapscaping.com/jobs/   As a bonus for reading all the way to the end :)    If you are looking for free terrain data for anywhere in the world you might find this useful  https://github.com/openterrain/openterrain/wiki/Terrain-Data

49m
Aug 16, 2023
Synthetic Data For Real Problems

Computer vision is everywhere! But teaching an algorithm to identify objects requires a lot of data and this is definitely the case when we think about GeoAI   But it is not enough to have a lot of data we also need data that is labeled If we are looking for cars in images we need a lot of images of cars and we need to know which pixels are the car!  Of course, I am oversimplifying but I hope you get the idea,  Now imagine that you can automatically generate a large labeled data set of realistic images of cars based on the specifications of a specific sensor. These data sets are often referred to as synthetic data or fake data and to help us understand more about this I have invited Chris Andrews https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjandrews/ from Rendered AI https://www.rendered.ai/ on the podcast.   Here are a few previous episodes you might find interesting    Computer Vision And GeoAI https://mapscaping.com/podcast/computer-vision-and-geoai/ In this episode, the discussion is aimed at an increased understanding of the differences between computer vision and the AI that is used in the Earth Observation world.   Labels Matter https://mapscaping.com/podcast/labels-matter/ What it takes to create labeled training data manually. If you are new to the idea of labeled data sets this is a good place to start.   Fake Satellite Imagery https://mapscaping.com/podcast/fake-satellite-imagery/ This is a good episode if you want to know more about Generative AI and Generative Adversarial Networks.    Also, check out this website https://thisxdoesnotexist.com/ to get an idea of where and how these Generative Adversarial Networks can be used. Look for a website called This City Does Not Exist  http://thiscitydoesnotexist.com/   On a silently similar note try uploading an image to https://bard.google.com/ … it's pretty interesting!       

1h 2m
Aug 09, 2023
Hub Ocean

This is an interview with a senior data scientist from Hub Ocean https://www.hubocean.earth/, a platform that aims to unlock and unite ocean data. Hub Ocean - as the name suggests is a hub for ocean data  Now we have talked about these kinds of data hubs before on the podcast - Sentinal Hub https://mapscaping.com/podcast/sentinel-hub/ - a data hub for earth observation data, Microsoft Planetary Computer https://mapscaping.com/podcast/the-planetary-computer/, Google Earth Engine https://mapscaping.com/podcast/introducing-google-earth-engine/, Open Topography https://mapscaping.com/podcast/open-topography-infrastructure-for-topographic-data/ is data but for topography data …. The concept is not new but also not easy to implement and if they work, these types of data hubs have a gravity to them that becomes more powerful over time. One of the guiding concepts behind these data hubs seems to be the idea of FAIR data - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reuseable data   …. But its not enough to ensure that the data is fair I think we should also consider how we can make the results of our research Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reuseable data  If you are not already familiar with Cloud Optimised Geospatial formats it is worth checking out these two episodes.  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-optimized-point-clouds/ https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-native-geospatial/      

38m
Aug 03, 2023
Felt - Upload Anything

 felt.com https://felt.com/ is a browser-based mapping tool and but its also a reminder that just because we have always done web mapping one way it doesn’t mean it always has to be done that way. For example, Felt lets you upload anything! That's a bold promise, you can upload anything you want and we will figure it out on the back end.  Felt is also the first and only flagship sustaining member of the QGIS project, they are supporting the development of a build and open-source tiling engine, Tippecanoe. They also support protomaps and the development of PMtiles as well as contributing code to Maplibre and Gdal    ... But that is not why you should listen to this episode … you should listen to this episode because if we are going to grow the geo pie we need more upload anything buttons

39m
Jul 19, 2023
The Rapid Editor

Rapid is a free open-source web-based editor for an OpenStreetMap. In the past the focus was on conflating AI-generated datasets with OpenStreetMap data but the future for this editor is conflating authoritative datasets with OpenStreetMap.  Humans are in the loop, people reviewing data authoritative datasets and adding them to OpenStreetMap with a few clicks!  So you might be wondering, what is Authoritative data? And perhaps it doesn’t even matter what authoritative means maybe the most important thing is it correct. If you are interested in OpenStreetMap you might enjoy this episode  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/openstreetmap-is-a-community-of-communities/ which is a great introduction to OpenStreetMap as a project but also explains some of the commercial interest in updating the map which adds a lot of context to Rapid and its development and future.   Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team If you have not heard of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team this is well worth checking out!  https://www.hotosm.org/   Segment Anything  (SAM) can segment objects by simply clicking or interactively selecting points to include or exclude from the object. This makes it a user-friendly tool for image segmentation. https://segment-anything.com/   Mapillary Mapillary is a platform that provides street-level imagery and map data from all over the world. The platform is powered by collaboration and computer vision, which helps in generating and maintaining up-to-date, detailed maps. https://mapscaping.com/podcast/scaling-map-data-generation-using-computer-vision/   GeoSpatial Jobs! Drone Deploy’s Earthworks team is looking for an experienced Back End Engineer Full time / Remote NV5 is looking for a Senior GIS Analyst https://mapscaping.com/jobs/ Want to help? I could really use some support https://patreon.com/MapScaping?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link!    

51m
Jul 05, 2023
PostgreSQL - Listen and Notify Clients In Real Time

The promise of digital mapping is to provide a shared and real-time view of the state of the underlying system. pg_eventserv https://github.com/CrunchyData/pg_eventserv is a free and open-source component that helps fulfill the promise of real-time event modeling and shared views in PostgreSQL. By connecting to PostgreSQL and listening on specified channels, pg_eventserv captures database notifications and forwards them to web clients, enabling real-time updates and synchronization of data displayed on maps or other web interfaces. pg_eventserv https://github.com/CrunchyData/pg_eventserv does one thing and one thing only: take events generated by the PostgreSQL NOTIFY command and passes the payload along to waiting WebSockets clients. pg_eventserv is free and easy to install and you can find it here: https://github.com/CrunchyData/pg_eventserv What this means is that any client can watch for notifications and update as changes in the database happen. Real-time data! Here is a link to a Youtube video demonstration of pg_eventserv in action! https://youtu.be/UakRtYmoWow  https://youtu.be/UakRtYmoWow I will let Paul Ramsey https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-ramsey-717134/the creator of pg_eventserv explain all this in more detail in this episode.  If you want to reach out to Paul the best place to do that is http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/  http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/ Or if you want to listen to previous episodes with Paul you might find these interesting Raster in the database? https://mapscaping.com/podcast/rasters-in-a-database/ Dynamic Vector Tiles Straight From The Database https://mapscaping.com/podcast/dynamic-vector-tiles-straight-from-the-database/ Spatial SQL- GIS Without The GIS https://mapscaping.com/podcast/spatial-sql-gis-without-the-gis/   also ...  If you are interested in spatial databases at scale ... you might find this episode interesting https://mapscaping.com/podcast/distributing-geospatial-data/    

26m
Jun 28, 2023
Applying For A Job, Getting Picked and Negotiating The Contract

You guessed it this episode is all about recruitment! Who is this episode for? Well if you have a career in geospatial … it's for you!   Getting the job you want, changing your career path, or deciding whether to work at a start-up or a more established company. Once you have made these decisions, how do you stand out from the crowd? What is it the recruiters are looking for? And if you do get offered a contract should you negotiate and what is negotiable?    Jett Metcalf has worked as a geospatial recruitment specialist for a few well-known companies like Google, Descartes Labs and is currently the Head of Talent at Regrow Ag. In this episode, he is going to help us understand some of the answers to these questions.   Reach out to Jett on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jett-metcalf-68898783/ or Twitter  https://twitter.com/jettrecruitsgeo If you enjoy this episode and are interested in more career-focused episodes go to https://mapscaping.com/podcasts/ and filter by “Geospatial Career"   See you next week!  

1h 0m
Jun 22, 2023
Using Lasers To Talk To Satellites

How do we get data from a satellite down to Earth? How do we task a satellite?  Today the answer is likely to be via radios and a system of downlink sites or ground stations. As the satellites pass overhead or within “line of sight” data can be sent via radio from the satellite to the receiver on the ground.  If you don’t want to wait until the satellite can see the ground station, you can send your data to a geostationary satellite that can always see a ground station and let it send the data back to Earth.  Radios are tried and tested, they have been used for this purpose since the inception of satellite communication and radio waves can pass through Earth's atmosphere without significant loss! But … the frequency spectrum for radio waves is strictly regulated, which can limit available channels for communication, and the bandwidth of radio frequencies is limited, which can reduce the volume of data transmission. What about lasers?  You can send more data faster with a laser, you don’t need to worry about interfering with someone else part of the radio spectrum, and ground stations can be much smaller even human-portable!  But … lasers struggle with clouds and the technology is still relatively new So what is the best way to communicate with satellites? Radio or Laser? The answer is … it depends ;)    Jordan Wachs https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-wachs/, Director of Business Development for SpaceRake.net https://spacerake.net/ does a great job adding context to this discussion but perhaps the bigger question here is what will we do when satellites become internet devices, part of the Internet of Things? What if they were always on always connected in the same way your phone is always on, always connected? What will this enable?    This episode was sponsored by Sponsored by Sinergise https://www.sinergise.com/, as part of Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem knowledge sharing   People who liked this episode also liked …   How to keep your satellite pointing at earth https://mapscaping.com/podcast/how-to-keep-your-satellite-pointing-at-earth/   Hyperspectral v’s Multispectral https://mapscaping.com/podcast/hyperspectral-vs-multispectral/   Sentinel Hub https://mapscaping.com/podcast/sentinel-hub/   Swing by our website sometime https://mapscaping.com/

44m
Jun 14, 2023
From Pixels to Patterns: AI in Spatial Analysis

There is a general understanding that it is becoming increasingly difficult to extract meaning from all the data we are collecting without using AI.   But what is AI, and how did we end up in a situation where it is identifying wolves from dogs based on the presence of snow in the background of images?    What does this mean for spatial analysis using tabular data?    What is explainability?    This is not a "how-to" do spatial analysis using an AI episode, it is an overview of  AI in spatial analysis episode with Vin Sharma, VP of Engineering at FourSquare    https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciphr/ https://foursquare.com/  

1h 5m
Jun 07, 2023
Pygeoapi - A Python Geospaital Server

PYGEOAPI is a Python server implementation of the OGC API suite of standards ... which might be really useful if you are thinking about upgrading from the first-generation OGC standards to the second-generation OGC standards  ... or if need to implement a custom data source or custom functionality to your web services.   If you are using MapServer https://mapserver.org/, Geoserver, Mapproxy https://www.deegree.org/, QGIS server https://docs.qgis.org/3.28/en/docs/server_manual/index.html, or Deegree https://www.deegree.org/ you might find this episode interesting!   Relevant previous episodes   Cloud-native Geospatial https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-native-geospatial/ https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-native-geospatial/   Geoserver https://mapscaping.com/podcast/geoserver/   Geonode https://mapscaping.com/podcast/geonode-open-source-geospatial-content-management-system/      

37m
May 31, 2023
Big Data In The Browser

So why would anyone want to put alot of data into a browser? Well, for a lot of the same reasons that edge computing and distributed computing have become so popular. You get the data a lot closer to the user and you don’t have to pay for the compute ;)  … this sounds great but as I found out during this conversation it's not as easy as it might seem!  There are a lot of trade-offs that need to be evaluated when moving data and analytics to the client.   Nick Rabinowitz https://www.linkedin.com/in/nrabinowitz/  Senior Staff Software Engineer at Foursquare has a ton of experience with this so he volunteered his time to help us understand more about it. https://location.foursquare.com/ https://studio.foursquare.com/home If you are not familiar with the Arrow data format https://arrow.apache.org/ it might be worth checking out   Apache Arrow defines a language-independent columnar memory format for flat and hierarchical data, organized for efficient analytic operations on modern hardware like CPUs and GPUs. The Arrow memory format also supports zero-copy reads for lightning-fast data access without serialization overhead   Related podcast episodes that you might find interesting include H3 grid system https://mapscaping.com/podcast/h3-geospatial-indexing-system/ The H3 geospatial indexing system is a discrete global grid system consisting of a multi-precision hexagonal tiling of the sphere with hierarchical indexes. H3 is a really interesting approach to tiling data that was developed by UBER and has been open-sourced.  Hex Tiles https://mapscaping.com/podcast/hex-tiles/ If you have not heard of the H3 grid system before listen to that episode first before listening to this one it will add a lot of useful context! Spatial Knowledge Graphs https://mapscaping.com/podcast/spatial-knowledge-graphs/ Foursquare is moving away from spatial joins and focusing on building a knowledge graph. If you are not familiar with graphs this might be a good place to start, also its interesting to hear the reasons for the move from spatial joins to another data structure.   Distribution Geospatial Data https://mapscaping.com/podcast/distributing-geospatial-data/ This is interesting if you want to understand more about distributed databases and some of the strategies for doing this. It sounds complicated but this episode is a really good introduction!    Cloud Native Geospatial https://mapscaping.com/podcast/cloud-native-geospatial/ This episode give a solid overview of what cloud-native means and some of the current geospatial cloud native formats out there today   I am constantly thinking about how I can make this podcast better for you so if you have any ideas or suggestions please let me know!  Also, I am thinking of recording a behind-the-scenes episode, is that something you might be interested in? if so what questions do you have?   

57m
May 24, 2023
Rasters In A Database?

Sounds like a great idea right?   In this episode, Paul Ramsey explains why you shouldn't ... unless you want to ... and how you can ... if you have to.   You can find Paul's blog here: http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/about   Previous episodes with Paul  Spatial SQL https://mapscaping.com/podcast/spatial-sql-gis-without-the-gis/   GDAL https://mapscaping.com/podcast/gdal-geospatial-data-abstraction-library/   Dynamic Vector Tiles https://mapscaping.com/podcast/dynamic-vector-tiles-straight-from-the-database/   Blog posts by Paul about Rasters in the Database https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/postgres-raster-query-basics https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/waiting-for-postgis-3.2-secure-cloud-raster-access   Check Out Our Geospatial Job Board! https://mapscaping.com/jobs/ https://mapscaping.com/jobs/      

34m
May 17, 2023
ChatGPT and Large Language Models

I am sure you have heard of ChatGPT by now so the hope of this episode is to give you some more context about what is it built on and how it works.   To do that I invited Daniel Whitneck back on the podcast  You can connect with Daniel here https://datadan.io/   and listen to his previous episode here: https://mapscaping.com/podcast/an-introduction-to-artificial-intelligence/   This is perhaps the quote for the episode that I have spent the most time thinking about "We always thought AI would be logical and lack creativity - but it is almost the exact opposite" This reframes the idea of being wrong to being creative which I think you could argue really depends on the context!    If you have not already played around with ChatGPT it's well worth spending the time to experiment with it ... while its still free ;)  https://chat.openai.com/auth/login   Further listening    If you have not already listened to this episode about computer vision and GeoAI you might find it interesting. Listen out for the discussion around plausible / realistic data and real measurements - I think this gives more context to the use cases for generative AI  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/computer-vision-and-geoai/   You might also enjoy this episode about fake satellite imagery  https://mapscaping.com/podcast/fake-satellite-imagery/   BTW  I have started a job board for geospatial people https://mapscaping.com/jobs/ feel free to check it out!        

50m
May 10, 2023
Spatial Knowledge Graphs

A knowledge graph is a network of relationships between real work entities and in this episode, you will learn how and why knowledge graphs might be a better choice than spatial joins!    Further listening! The H3 Indexing System https://mapscaping.com/podcast/h3-geospatial-indexing-system/   Hex Tiles https://mapscaping.com/podcast/hex-tiles/   Points of Interest data https://mapscaping.com/podcast/all-of-the-places-in-the-world/   Dark Data https://mapscaping.com/podcast/unstructured-data-is-dark-data/

32m
May 07, 2023