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Earthquake damage assessment just got a little easier. In the spirit of the close of the ESRI User Conference, I figured it was appropriate to post a little something about a GIS application using Microsoft Virtual Earth - enter Inlet (Internet-based Loss Estimation Tool) - okay, my post name is unoriginal. Inlet is a web-based loss estimation and transportation modeling platform used to evaluate whether Information Technology (IT) solutions can reduce the impacts of disasters on transportation systems.
According to the site, “INLET currently incorporates GIS, a risk model, and a transportation model to provide online estimates for building damage, transportation impacts, and casualties. Additional features include a demonstration of a model simulating the effect of IT on evacuation routing. Specifically, the model illustrates how awareness of a disaster scenario and familiarity with routing alternatives can impact traffic congestion and evacuation time.”
First, I selected the spot to run the simulation. I used Santa Clarita, CA where I went to High School - not my favorite place in the world, so let’s blow it up. Next I set the magnitude of the quake and the depth of the quake. The epicenter latitude and longitude are read from where I clicked on the map (or I could manually input this here). Finally, I click “Run Simulation.” The application then hits the GIS data source to estimate the cost of properties in the damage zone. The visualization is presented on Virtual Earth maps illustrating the different levels of damage by color coding the areas.
Additionally, tabular information is provided for the number of damaged buildings, percentage of damaged buildings, injuries and casualties and bridge damage if available. In this scenario, a magnitude 6 earthquake at 8 kilometers below the surface, centered on Santa Clarita would have have at least slight damage to over 200,000 buildings. I’d love to see some aerial photography integration and clickable parcels to really get down to a granular level of which property has approximately how much damage.
And, that’s just the custom earthquake scenario! The application also includes USGS Earthquake Simulations (ShakeMap), Census Track Results, Thematic Mapping, and plotting of facilities.
The site currently only works for California. I was in the Northridge Earthquake and yes there are strange lights in the sky during an earthquake. Perhaps the lights are the lights of the UFOs taking off- the real cause of the quake. Or, perhaps I watch too much X-Files.
CP
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Tags: Map
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I’ve always thought of GeoServer as a great way to get introduced to open source web mapping servers because its Admin page was much easer to use than MapServer. It looks like at 2.0, the Admin page will get even better as the GeoServer team announced that the new UI is in the 2.0 alpha release. I can’t wait to see how this develops until the “final” 2.0 release.
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Tags: Map
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I’m simplifying but that’s a quick conclusion based on Xconomy’s list of apps a full month after the iPhone 3D launch as it looked for apps from companies around its Seattle and Boston offices. The vast majority are geo related.
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Tags: Map
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The Suggestr
The Suggestr, a suggestion site for restaurants and hotels built around Google Maps and user reviews, has two maps based on TV Shows.
Channel 4 Big British Food Map
This food map for British television station Channel 4 is a user submitted map of interesting places to eat. The idea behind the map is that viewers will share their favourite eating places with other Channel 4 viewers.
Channel 4 reporter Andrew Webb will then travel around Britain visiting many of the places suggested. Each week he’ll travel to a different county, in search of the interesting places and great food that Channel 4’s viewers have recommended. He will then report back on his travels on the Channel 4 website.
Everyone who adds a recommendation to the Big British Food Map could be in with a chance of winning a fabulous hamper of food worth ?100. Channel 4 will be giving away one hamper a month to a contributor until November 2008.
Via: Mapperz
Ueatcheap.com
OK, this map is not related to a television show but I love the idea for this Google Map mash-up. Ueatcheap.com is a website for people to find places to eat for $10 or less a person.
Ueatcheap can help you locate places to eat on a budget in your area. With Ueatcheap, you can locate places to eat for $10 or less, add new restaurants and reviews and automatically receive up-dates of new restaurants in your neighbourhood.
To search the map you choose your location, the type of restaurant you are interested in and define the distance you are willing to travel. Ueatcheap then tags all the restaurants that match your criteria on a Google Map.
Opening Times
Of course if you want a real TV dinner you’ll need to visit a supermarket. And if you live in the UK that task has just got easier thanks to Opening Times.
Opening Times is a Google Map mash-up of UK supermarket opening times. To search for the opening times of supermarkets you simply enter your post code or allow Opening Times to access your Fire Eagle account. The opening times of supermarkets near you are then returned and the supermarkets are tagged on a Google Map. The supermarkets that are currently open are tagged in green and those that are closed are tagged in red.
Opening Times are planning to add chemists and pharmacy opening times to their site soon and also have long term plans to open the data up to Wiki style editing.
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Tags: Map
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(click on map to enlarge)
Out of a total of 443 Danish islands, only 76 are permanently inhabited. Elleore occupies a special place among them: unpeopled for most of the year, and not part of Denmark when it is – that is, if you’re partial to the semi-jocular sovereignty claims of micronations.
Until 1944 Elleore, a small (15,000 m2) island in Roskilde Fjord* shaped like a pregnant boomerang, was known to contemporary Danes – if at all – as the setting for one of Denmark’s early movies: L?vejagten p? Elleore (‘Lion Hunt on Elleore’, 1907).
Lions are far from indigenous to any part of Denmark, but placing them on Elleore was prescient, the lion being a standard of regalia. For in 1944, right under the noses of the German occupiers, a group of Copenhagen schoolteachers acquired Elleore for use as a summer retreat, and proclaimed its independence.
A daring parody in wartime, the tongue-in-cheek Kingdom of Elleore survives to this day, having acquired a number of extra quirks along the way, including a ban on the novel Robinson Crusoe, the artificial Interlingua as an official language, and something called Elleore Standard Time, 12 minutes ahead of the clocks in Copenhagen.
Like the sleeping beauty of the fairytale, Elleore remains dormant for most of the year, only waking for Elleuge (‘Elle-week’), when its ‘citizens’ travel to the island** to crown the reigning monarch (currently Leo, the third of that name and the sixth since Erik, who reigned from 1945 to 1949).
The website for the Kingdom of Elleore announces a special treat for its citizens, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of L?vejagten: the first ever movie made by the national film company, a 11 minute documentary (fiction or fact, your choice), entitled Kongen & Dronningen vender hjem (‘The King and Queen return home’).
This map, also taken from the Kingdom’s official website, details the island and surrounding waters with terms that appear humourous (e.g. Cape Carneval, the island’s eastern tip) but might prove elusive to non-Danish-speakers.
As my knowledge of Danish is still somewhat shaky and I’m probably unable to pick up double-entendres: can any Danes (or Elleoreans) offer some translations?
* i.e. the firth of Roskilde (that much Danish I do know).
** the trip from the mainland takes 17 mts by rowboat.
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Tags: Map
