Today was a long day. I got up at a decent hour (read half past eight am, that's early for me!), went the to gym, did some work for my housing association, went to GIS Day at Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC), and then had a meeting for my housing association. It doesn't sound like a whole lot but one of those events, GIS Day, took up a big chunk of time. What's that you say? What's GIS Day? Well let me tell you about it!
GIS Day is a day dedicated to GIS, duh. HACC hosted the event and brought in a bunch of people to do presentations on GIS and its uses. I only got to stay part of the day but I learned a lot. Hopefully I can explain some of it but there definitely is a lot I don't know.
I guess I should start with what GIS stands for. It is not Google Image Search, which is what I thought of the first time I saw the acronym. GIS stands for Geographical Information System which is the use of data linked to a location solve problems. I think the most common use of GIS is in your car. That little GPS unit uses location data to show you how to get from Point A to Point B. That's about the most basic part of GIS. Another common use includes plotting census information like population density, household income, and population growth.
These make pretty maps and are fun to play with but that isn't the point behind GIS. Now that the information is in a graphical representation and easier to understand you've got to use it to solve a problem. Let's take population density for example. Now that you have a map of the population density you can overlay a road map of the area and figure out where you can expect higher amounts of traffic. Now you can figure out if you need to expand the roads or put in new lights to compensate for the larger population. Add in the population growth and you can design your roads to plan ahead for the expected growth of the region. That's what GIS is all about.
It gets even more in depth too. You can track delivery trucks with GPS so you can plot better delivery routes for the future or figure out exactly when a package will be delivered. Some of the devices even measure speed, fuel consumption, breaking power, or how long a truck has been idling which can be used to figure out whether or not a driver is meeting your criteria for their deliveries like time between deliveries, safety hazards, or bad driving habits. One of the presenters showed us a model of a delivery company in Europe with a system like this. The system could show us the path the driver took, how fast he was going (and if he was speeding), how long he stayed at a stop, and tons and tons of other information. It's a bit of an overload if you don't know what to do with the information but from a logistics stand point it makes a lot of sense.
One of the sessions included a tutorial on Google Earth. I love Google Earth. It is one of the most fascinating tools out there. If you haven't played with it I suggest you download it now, enter in your address, and watch as Google Earth plummets you from orbit down onto your house. Do it, now.
Anyway, the presenter showed us how we could use Google Earth to show our own hot spots and enter in information. Nothing new to me. What I didn't know is that you could embed images and YouTube videos using HTML in your saved locations. AND after you've done that you can actually save your "trips" and send them to your friends who can download and then see your content in Google Earth on their computer. There are a few caveats about it, like if you use a photo file that's local on your hard drive it won't embed in the save file. You can use an image hosted on a website (like Flickr) and that will automatically get pulled form the web and into Google Earth (just make sure you follow the Creative Commons set up by the owner of the image). It was pretty fun to play around with that.
Last but not least there was a session on GeoCaching. GeoCaching is pretty much a scavenger hunt. People hide things out in the world and give you the coordinates which you use to find the cache. Pretty simple. Lots of fun. I dabbled with this a little before but now that GPS technology is pretty widespread it's hard not to get into it. During the session our presenter actually had GPS units for us to use and find a GeoCache that was hidden nearby. Field trip! I actually used Google Maps on my BlackBerry and was able to put in the longitude and latitude and find the location. Now, you have to know that most GPS units aren't exact. Yes, they will get you to within a couple feet of your destination but it won't be literally right on top of the GeoCache (at least not always) so there's a little bit of searching that needs to be done to find the GeoCache. And it's not always in plain sight or easy to find. That's part of the fun of GeoCaching. It's getting to the location and then finding the actual GeoCache. Yes, it may sound a little lame to some of you (stop rolling your eyes) but it can be enjoyable and will get me out of the house.
I'm hoping I can convince some of my local friends to join me on a GeoCaching expedition. If I do it will give me some more to write about. I don't see it being that hard since I know at least two people who would be interested. I just have to prepare myself for being out of the house for something other than going to the bar (I'm not an alcoholic). I'm also hoping the weather gets cooler so Ski RoundTop will start making snow and open up. I want to go skiing so bad. Random though, I know. That's me. Until next time.
Asian out.
