Wednesday 27 August 2008

GeoData Visualization: Geoquery v. SQL Server 2008

Came across this post today - GeoData Visualization vs. Analysis - and thought it would be fun to try in Geoquery.

The dataset (au_sumg.e00) can be found at USGS and imported into SQL Server 2008 using Shape2Sql (by Morten). Among other statistics it contains data on known oil reserves (outside the USA, as of 2000).

The simplest query - SELECT * FROM au_sumg - looks like this in SQL Server 2008 Management Studio and Geoquery 2008 respectively:



Management Studio's Dundas graphic sure looks nice - but a little difficult to interpret in isolation. Geoquery's Shape tab looks worse without even the funky pastel colors.

However, the Map tab in Geoquery starts to make up for the green-ness by giving the shapes some context.


But that's not all - using the same 'scale' as this image and the [Fill] and [Thickness] 'special columns' that Geoquery supports we can write this:
select * ,
CASE
WHEN KWN_OIL < -6238 THEN '#FFF2ECB0'
WHEN KWN_OIL < 15769 THEN '#FFF3CE75'
WHEN KWN_OIL < 37775 THEN '#FFEA944B'
WHEN KWN_OIL < 59781 THEN '#FFB16B3A'
ELSE '#FF864E37'
END AS [Fill]
, 0 AS [Thickness]
FROM au_sumg
to produce this result:


Of course, viewing these results on the globe offers absolutely no advantage; but I'll include an obligatory screenshot anyway...

Sunday 24 August 2008

DeepZoom "Publisher" (alpha)

The website for DeepZoomPublisher.com is now 'live', although Publisher itself isn't quite finished yet. In the interim, I've uploaded Tag Updater which is a much simpler tool to extract metadata from JPGs and make it 'accessible' within a Silverlight 2.0/Deep Zoom application.

Tag Updater is based on this Filtering by Tag Sample and these previous posts. An example of the 'output' from Tag Updater can be viewed here

Also, Deep Zoom Composer can now stitch panoramas!.

In unrelated news, Geoquery 2008 examples have also been updated.

Friday 22 August 2008

My first Photosynth...

Photosynth is live; and after the site was "overloaded" yesterday I was able to upload my first effort today. It's only 50% synthy but at it's a start... check out my Punakha Dzong (Bhutan) Photosynth!
UPDATE 1: scroll down for my second 66% synthy Thimphu Dzong (Bhutan) Photosynth!
UPDATE 2: scroll down some more for my third 40% synthy Sydney (Australia) Photosynth!



I love how it DeepZooms into the detail




which is no surprise, incidentally, since Photosynth seems to be using DeepZoom files (.dzc and .dzi) as part of it's file structure. Here's a Photosynth message from yesterday:

and the DeepZoom-related files it references (note the xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/deepzoom/2008"):


So there is a single .dzc (DeepZoom Collection) file that appears to define each of the 'photos' in the synth(?) and a .dzi (DeepZoom Image) file for each of them. There must be much more information to support the Photosynth renderer (the 'dots', the 3D 'position' of the images, etc) but given the shared heritage with the Silverlight 2.0 MultiScaleImage control I wouldn't be surprised to see a Photosynth 'viewer' in RTM version of Silverlight 2.0 (or certainly a future version after that).

UPDATE: my second attempt - Thimphu Dzong (Bhutan) Photosynth - is online. Click to enlarge the black-ish image: it shows the 'dots' that tie the photos together. You can zoom "past" a small 'rotunda' to the right of center to see this doorway and flowerbed...



UPDATE: my second attempt - Sydney (Australia) Photosynth - is online now. Not sure why it's only 40% synthy tho'



Keep an eye out for more Photosynths.

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Geoquery 2008 v0.73 (for SQL Server 2008 RTM)

v0.72 of Geoquery2008 has been recompiled against Microsoft.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and updated for the RTM of SQL Server 2008. It also has a new home, at

Geoquery2008.com!

It is now aware of the geography coordinate order swap and only requires the Client Profile portion of Microsoft.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 and the System CLR Types to run.

The next 'major' version - 0.8 - is still a work-in-progress - but will never be designed to compete with the 'built-in' Spatial Results Tab in Management Studio.

Monday 18 August 2008

SilverlightEarth gets OpenStreetView, Hotmap layers

SilverlightEarth.com now has some additional map tile layers to view:OpenStreetMap with Google StreetView overlay


Hotmap overlaid on Virtual Earth