Written by Doug Moak

​When I first read of 3D printing, Discover magazine reported on a “3D fax machine.” A point file was transmitted over phone lines, resulting in a transparent print of a simian skull. The article went on to proclaim that stereolithography would replace the copious backstocks of spare parts in manufacturing facilities, repair shops, and aircraft carriers; I refused to believe that scenario as a possibility. Now that possibility is the new normal, and I was dead wrong.

Stereolithography is primarily manifested in polymer resin excited by a laser, with a hobbyist’s market in desktop rapid prototype machines and websites dedicated to sharing data files that result in robot hands or Baby Groot. The bulk of the individual product are knick-knacks.

3D printing can be used for analytical purposes by virtue of miniaturized models used for study. Of the many things I was not aware of in the field of geospatial analysis is the use of raster data to produce 3D prints of natural features. Aside from nice things to place on the desk or gather dust on a shelf, these products can be used for analysis such as avalanche study, weather modeling, search and rescue, and excursion planning.

​There are a couple of different ways- a raster DEM can be converted to a triangulated irregular network (TIN) file, processed through TIN Extrude Between, Decimate TIN Nodes, and Multipatch To Collada tools, then conversion to .STL using a third party Mashlab program, such as this unnamed author. Another way is to feed a DEM into Accutrans 3D, which is a pay-to-use program, explained here.

These processes have been used to produce 3D prints of Mt St. Helens, Yosemite Valley, and an accurate model of Devils Tower-out of mashed potatoes. The possibilities are not limited to exterior natural features. When my friend Clarence was sent through caves at the foot of most of the Cascade’s stratocones with a LiDar package strapped to his back, he produced point clouds that could be processed into accurate cutaway models, enabling close study of cave features by researchers who are nowhere near these caves.
These are just two ways to create tangible representations of spatial data using raster files that are usually readily available online, using processing applications that we are familiar with.

Written by Cody Simons

If you are into the outdoors and you like to get off the beaten path, OnX maps is an application that is a must have. OnX maps is a web mapping application that is designed for the hunter, fisherman, backpacker, and general outdoor enthusiast. OnX is a subscription-based application. They sell their subscriptions by the state, and they last for one year. You can download the application on your phone for 30 dollars a year, and you also get access to their online application. OnX offers a 7-day free trial, which I would suggest activating just before you head out on a trip. Get familiar with the app, download maps for the areas you will be in, and test out its features in the field.  
 
OnX is essential for someone who likes to get off the trail while hiking, hunting, fishing, mushroom picking, mountain biking, or performing just about any outdoor activity. OnX offers 27 different layers that are useful for all outdoor activities, but they are most known for their Public and Private land layers.  Simply turning on the Private Lands layer and clicking on an area where you want to access gives you necessary information to be able to contact the land owner and get permission to access their property. This is very useful for someone who is into hunting and fishing, but it can be used for any outdoor activity. You can also create waypoints, routes, and polygons. They have a tracker that tracks distance, time moving, speed and various other data about your trip.
 
 Below is an overview of the Deschutes River just down stream of Warm Springs. This is a popular area for Rafting, Fishing, Upland Bird Hunting, Hiking and Biking. This is a very important spot to know exactly where you are. A permit is required to access the tribal land, and private land owners aren’t too friendly to trespassers. OnX lets you know exactly where you are and gives you information to be able to contact the land owner if you need to access their land. 

When you tap on the private land polygon, you will get land ownership data including Owner, Secondary Owner, Tax Address and the Area of their property. Here is the Landowner info for the land that borders the Deschutes River.

You can usually figure contact info for the owner by searching the tax address online. It has proven to be useful as I have used this several times for getting permission to cross private land to get to a stream while fly fishing.
​           
While the Private/ Public land layer is their most popular layer, there are several other layers that are very useful for outdoor activities. One of my personal favorites is the “Roadless Areas” layer. I am into backpacking and back country hunting, so getting away from the roads and other people is key. This layer creates a heat map that highlights the areas that have no roads. You can see that there isn’t a whole lot of roadless areas in Oregon, so knowing where to find those small areas is useful. 

If you are an outdoor enthusiast I suggest giving OnX maps a try. They have layers that are useful for just about any outdoor activity. They also have tutorials on their website that can teach you the ins and outs of OnX in just a few minutes. Download it and try it for free for a week and see what all it has to offer! I guarantee that if you like the outdoors, you will find it useful! 

Written by Matt Lackey

Picking a font that reads well, looks great, and fits the overall feel you are looking to create can be a difficult decision to make. There are many factors that will influence your decision like attended audience, the medium it is presented on, and who the product is being created for just to name a few. Often times you can be tempted to go with the default font of the software you are using, but your final product could be missing out on getting it’s true message across.
 
A lot of times we tend to go with a list of fonts we know we like to work it, but when you find yourself wanting to explore other fonts it can be difficult to even know where to begin. One great place to start exploring is on fontmap.ideao.com.

Kevin Ho, a software designer and project lead for IDEO created this font map by first creating images of each font to then be used in a network called VGG16 to generate a list of numbers to be associated with each font. Then to represent the data spatially, x and y points were created using T-SNE, an algorithm for taking large vectors and compressing them into a 2-D plane. What is created is a grouping of fonts that are similar to one another.

You can zoom in and out and scroll around easily searching through fonts. Holding your cursor over a letter will display the fonts name and show an example of the font in use. Double clicking on a font will display more details on the left side of the screen. A list of similar fonts are displayed and each font has a link View on Google Fonts, which links you to even more information about that font.
 
This is very useful when you are searching for a new font to try on your next project. This display feels easier to search through grouping the fonts in a way the makes sense visually, as opposed to being listed alphabetically on a single drop down menu. The interactive ability of this map makes picking a font more entertaining as well. Now this just needs to be expanded beyond google fonts and then it will be a really great tool!

Written by Kaitlyn Zurcher

I decided to go with a web mapping service that I use quite a lot for my work in a Wetland Delineation company, the “Web Soil Survey” that is provided by the USDA. Its main purpose is for people who need to know what type of soils are in any particular area. When you first open the website, it shows a page that welcomes the user to the map and gives examples of why you might need to use the data and how they collected the data. As you scroll down the page, it then gives you the four basic steps that you would need to go through to create your maps and gather your data. Once you feel as though you understand what the program is, you can press the big green button at the top of the page to actually get to the map. 

You can get to your area of interest multiple ways, you can import it from a shape file, or you can manually draw the AOI by going through the quick navigation. When I’m using this for work, I use the PLSS (Section, Township, Range) because I’ve found that when you put in an address an orange circle appears on the map and no matter how many buttons I press it doesn’t go away.  

After, you can either create a custom area, or you can use a rectangle. Once you’ve created your AOI, it allows you to open up the greyed out tabs at the top.

The soil map tab brings up a layer that shows you what types of soils are in any particular area. At this point you can print the study area as a .pdf by clicking the “Printable Version” button at the top of the screen. The printable version gives you the study area and the map unit Legend. By going through the other tabs, you can gather more information about the different types of soils. In my job, I do need to determine what soils are Hydric or not, which you can find by going through the Soil Data Explorer to find the soil report of the area. This mapping service is really only applicable to people who need to know the soil types of any particular area. But I do think that the user interface is pretty easy to understand and there is a lot of information that is inside of it that is useful.

Below is a map that I created of the soils area so that you could see what the final product looks like.

Written by Thyra Bishop

I spent 28 years as a member of the United States Air Force, as a weather officer.
I loved giving weather briefings.  However, the word, “briefing,” means to be short and to the point.  I first found out about Google Earth when I was stationed in Afghanistan.  It was such an exciting platform, and I loved being able to use Google Earth to look at my home in Portland, Oregon.  I’d also look at different areas in the Pacific Northwest and dream of home.  Back then, in 2009, I had a lot of hope that I could use the platform to create weather briefings that were more to the point and interactive, and just plain fun to view. 
But of course, getting the data onto Google Earth, and the, “Comm Nazis,” (our term for the communications personnel that would limit our accesses to fun online programs) wouldn’t let us use Google Earth for our presentations anyway.

Now I know how I can put data into a .lyr file then convert the .lyr file to .kmz to show on Google Earth.

Follow along if you too want to put data onto Google Earth.

• Open ArcMAP
• Pull up a map you have worked on with different layers.
• Layer can be RASTER or FEATURE layer.
• Using my Fall 2017 GEO 265 Project Here is an image of my county and bridge maps.

• I made sure I had layers for:

Oregon Coastal Counties
Oregon Boundary
Oregon Coast Cities
Oregon Coast Bridges
Oregon Coast Highways
 

• I saved each layer in a file called Google Earth, so I can easily find them to use the conversion tool.
  
• ArcToolbox > Conversion Tools > To KML > Layer to KML

You want your input layer, make sure you output to a file where you can find it again.  I recommend setting the extent properties.  I set my extent to the same layer as the Oregon_Boundary
 
Now you can show it in Google Earth:

• File > Import > find the file you just made that ends with .kmz

Now you can view the data on Google Earth.

Direct from ArcToolbox:
Layer To KML (Conversion)

Summary
 This tool converts a feature or raster layer into a KML file containing a translation of Esri geometries and symbology. This file is compressed using ZIP compression, has a .kmz extension, and can be read by any KML client including ArcGIS Explorer, ArcGlobe, and Google Earth.

Usage
You can control the appearance of KML in two ways:

• If layer properties such as the HTML PopUp setting, display expression, and the alias for KMLSnippet are used, they will be used in the creation of the KML.
• When the layer properties are not set and the feature class contains certain attributes (fields), the field properties will be used in creating the KML. Layers that were originally created using the KML To Layer tool have attributes that define how KML will be created.

A few other pointers

• You can reduce the size of the output KMZ document if your layer has scale-dependent display properties and you choose an appropriate map output scale.
• All KML and KMZ files are created in the WGS84 coordinate system. You need to be sure your layers will properly project if they aren't already in WGS84. You can use the Project tool to reproject your data prior to KML conversion if your projection requires a transformation.
• To output a single raster image draped over topography, use the Return single composite image option.
• Input features with attachments will be included in the output .kmz file. Be aware of the following conditions for attachments inside .kmz files.
• Attachments can dramatically increase the output file size.
• When consuming the KML file in a KML client, attachments are available from the KML pop-up.
• Attachments can be excluded by disabling the Maintain Attachments environment setting prior to running the tool.
• Not all KML clients support displaying attachments equally. Some KML client applications have better support for attachments like images and PDFs.

Written by Bob Nicholas

I have to admit that when I enrolled in an interactive mapping class, I didn’t know what an interactive map was. I don’t have one of those phones and I am fairly new at using computers. About half way through the first class, I realized that I had seen an interactive map on a phone belonging to a Sellwood Middle School student who rides the bus with me. It is named the TriMet Interactive Map.

The first thing that strikes me about this map is that is instantly familiar. Its content looks like the route maps posted at downtown bus and train stops, as well on the vehicles themselves. This seems to be the standard among transit companies. I have seen those same maps in Chicago, Los Angeles and Eugene. The base map also looks quite familiar. I imagine that the person who made this map was using some of the same tools that we do.
​

Here is a map that pops up when the trip planner is used. The directions Tells riders exactly how far it is necessary to walk. For those concerned about hills, there is an elevation chart so pedestrians know what they will be up against. 

The TriMet Interactive Map has a sliding zoom bar, a pan button and a row of widgets across the top. One widget shows where the “Biketown” bike share racks are, one displays the major transit centers. There is one for park and ride lots and one shows where one can buy bus tickets or a hop card. There is a widget to clear the map and start over, but the coolest thing about this map is this right here.

When that button is pressed, the bus you are waiting for will appear on the map. That is what the kid in Sellwood showed me. That right there is enough to make me think about getting one of those phones.

Written by Michael Medina

I began working in wildlife biology back when all we used was a map, compass, and actual aerial photos.  Commercial, high-accuracy GPS units, were available but they were bulky and due to selective availability, required you to collect a lot of data and post-process it back at the office.  It could not accurately tell you where you were in the field. In 2000 selective availability was turned off and consumer units became accurate enough for most uses.
 
Fast forward a “few” more years and I found myself looking at the large, bright display on my smartphone wondering if this device would be good enough for general field work (short answer, yes).  For 2 years, whenever I was in the field, I used and tested 3-4 devices side by side, whichever iOS smartphone I had, my personal GPS unit, a work-assigned GNSS unit, often a Garmin fitness device, and sometimes an Android tablet.

​For general field work, a smartphone/tablet is sufficient in almost every use case.  The main drawback is that some devices will filter out small location errors you would normally see on an unfiltered unit.  This can make it difficult to precisely locate a predetermined point (like a geocache).  When you are moving slowly around trying to locate a point, the OS will interpret this as a location error and will not register the movement.  This seems to be less of an issue now that we have aerial photos which give us context.   

Despite this filtering, your phone will meet or exceed most consumer GNSS units as modern smartphones now support GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo.  Another drawback is the risk/cost of damaging your personal device in inclement weather on rugged terrain.

​GaiaGPS
I’ve tried several GNSS apps over the years and settled on GaiaGPS as my application of choice.  It performs the same functions you would expect from any consumer grade GNSS unit with the added features available from a smartphone (a big bright touchscreen, a camera, and easier keyboard use).
 
GaiaGPS is an (paid) iOS and Android GNSS application.  It costs $20 or $40 per year depending on your license but is free to emergency responders.  There are differences between iOS and Android versions but I do not have access to Android devices for testing.
 
Data Collection Types:
Waypoints
Tracks
Areas (polygons)
Routes (straight line or routed)
 
You can attach photos and notes to each of these.
 
The notes will be exported in your KML/GPX and can be added to your attribute table as a single field.  If you are good with scripting, you could manipulate your KML/GPX into something resembling attributes before importing it.
 
GaiaGPS vs. ArcGIS Collector
ArcGIS Collector is frequently used for biological data collection. It’s well thought out and implemented for GIS-centric data collection (for the most part).  I almost always need something Collector doesn’t offer and here is where GaiaGPS fits in.  The chart below highlights some of the more important and useful differences between GaiaGPS and Collector.

Various Screen Shots

GaiaGPS and Custom Web Maps
GaiaGPS offers dozens of map sources for download, hundreds if you count the US Hunting Overlays.  Most of these are high quality, some are authoritative, others are open source and/or are so complex they need to be verified before use (Public Land).
 
You can import and download any maps served by a web Tile Map Server (TMS).  If you are looking at a global web map and you want it to import it into GaiaGPS, there’s a good chance you can.
 
To add maps to your phone, GaiaGPS offers an online tool or you can create a TileJSON file here.  The TileJSON file can be dropped it into the File Sharing pane in iTunes (iOS version).
 
When adding custom maps, you are looking for map tiles served in this format:
Example URL from OpenStreetMap: http://c.tile.openstreetmap.org/5/15/14.png
How you change for use in GaiaGPS: http://c.tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png
 
If you happen across a map you want to add, sometimes you need to do a little detective work. You can right click on the map and open a map tile in a new window or view the page source/elements/network activity to see the map tile URLs.  If they are formatted like above, you can add them to GaiaGPS.  I’ve discovered several cool maps that I can add to GaiaGPS this way.
 
If you’re a Mapbox user (and you should be), you may have noticed the URL scheme above matches the Carto Share URL minus your Mapbox access token.  Any data layer you add to Mapbox can be added to GaiaGPS using the Carto URL.  You can add MBTiles, KML, GPX, GeoJSON, Shapefile (zipped), CSV or GeoTIFF to Mapbox and then add them to GaiaGPS.  You can finally take that cool choropleth map on your hike!
 
Mapbox compatibility gives you a lot of flexibility with your data.  You can have a custom map layer with only GeoTIFFs, a layer with only contours, a hillshade-only layer, or a layer with vector points from a shapefile you downloaded from a geospatial library somewhere.
 
The smartphone is a great solution for many applications.  In addition to it being an integrated GNSS solution, it contains a still camera, video camera, and an audio player and recorder.  I’ve had occasion to use each of these functions both before and after the smartphone revolution and it is much easier to carry a single device in your pocket than each device in your pack.
 
Resources
https://gaiagps.com
https://doc.arcgis.com/en/collector/

Written by Kyler Speich

If you have never heard of “Phodar” I don’t blame you. I came across the word while doing research for doing an outline for a Rescue Drone, but that is a whole other story.  Phodar is a hot topic in the Geospatial nerd community right now because it gets you the same last return readings as Lidar, but does not use actual Lidar. For me it was MIND BLOWING to watch as someone at the University of California proceeded to create this interactive phodar map-> http://igis.ucanr.edu/Drone_Phodar/. It uses 3D mapping, and interactive tool bars so that you can see the outlines of all the trees, hills and even the grass if you zoom in and set your “Point Budget” high enough in the menu.

The biggest reason Phodar has become big news is because you do not need anything more than some software, a drone and a camera. It uses the pixel data with photogrammetry to determine elevation and maps it accordingly in a 3D format. Lidar still has a big edge up depending on what kind of information you’re trying to derive. Phodar still only gives you available data that the camera captures, but Lidar can still penetrate non-earth matter and give you many returns. But I find the uses for agriculture or small scale mapping that requires Z axis measurements, this would be significantly cheaper than having someone fly Lidar over your area and process all of the information. I could even see Phodar being used for recreation by Alpinist or rock climbers to scout out routes in real time.

Written by TJ Hutchisson

The CARTO website offers The Map Academy, a set of free tutorials/exercises ranging from easy to hard to mixed, focusing on topics such as map design, working with data tables to create interactive maps, or how to use CARTO’s JavaScript library. The proclaimed goal of The Map Academy is for users to “learn to create maps on the web and visualize geospatial data.” This summary focuses on a section titled Intermediate Map Design, and more specifically How To Choose Map Colors, Part 1.
 
How to Choose Map Colors is split into two parts: Part 1 discussing color perception, and Part 2 on choosing proper schemes. The topics covered in this first lesson are a mixture of general color theory, and how to specify color in CARTO. The lesson very briefly introduces the color spectrum and the concept of color relationships, providing examples of complementary and analogous colors. 

The lesson then addresses how to adjust for legibility using hue, saturation, and value. These terms are BRIEFLY defined, and no hard and fast rules are given about how exactly to change these qualities in the most effective manner. This section seems intentionally vague, asking the viewer to use their judgment, and ultimately provides outside resources for when your colors are not working well together. However, an effective example is used to demonstrate how altering saturation and brightness can dramatically change the perception. 

The high contrast makes these colors nearly vibrate. 

These toned down colors are much easier on the eyes.
 
The lesson then becomes geared specifically to CARTO, and the numerous ways in which you can define color in CartoCSS.

• HTML color names
• Hexadecimal code
• RGB (Red Green Blue)
• RGBA (plus color transparency)
• HSL (Hue Saturation Lightness)
• HSLA (plus color transparency)

 
The lesson ends with other considerations when selecting and adjusting colors. First and foremost, considering the accessibility of maps, particularly for people with color blindness and limited vision. Again, outside resources are offered for checking this aspect of legibility.

​Other considerations mentioned:

• Simultaneous Contrast - when there is a perceived color shift due to the colors it is seen against

• Contrast of Extension - the harshness of contrast due the proportion of the color areas
  
• Rainbow Palettes - the tendency to perceive features that are not actually there

 
Overall, this lesson is only a cursory look at color and color perception. While none of the topics or terms are defined in depth, this section of the Map Academy does serve as a good starting point, and ultimately is more useful as a tool for providing a list of resources. 

Written by Michael Shostak

CalTopo is an online web application to create topographic maps for anywhere in the United States or parts of Canada. This app has been primarily focused on hiking maps but has added more advanced analysis in recent years. As an avid backpacker that likes to visit less frequented places, Caltopo is great for creating maps that are not produced commercially or even to save money on maps that are available for sale. There is never a reason to leave home without a map for your hike now.

​The user interface when first arriving at the site will feel very familiar to those with GIS experience but also is quite friendly to those without. CalTopo uses layers to display data and has a number of preset layers that cover the entire country. The initial MapBuilder Topo layer is the most useful for creating maps that use trail and road infrastructure. To start your line simply select the +Add New Object from the table of contents and select from the available functions, markers (or points) and lines will be the most commonly used but a number of other options are available. My favorite part of this app is the snapping feature. When creating a line on a current trail or road simply hover over the starting point and the trail will become highlighted, once you click the line will then snap to the existing roads and trails as you follow along.