Geospatial World

As far as GIS/CAD integration goes, I have long stated you should choose the best tool for the job you are trying to do. As such, I have held the belief that if you are doing pure vector data creation/design work, a 'CAD' tool is probably better suited, and vice versa, if you are performing spatial analysis, high end cartographic output a 'GIS' tool is probably your tool of choice. Over the last number of years I've been talking about how the lines are being blurred between these two camps based on recent advancements in many software tools. One tool that I've found to be extremely powerful in the Arc* products is the Trace command, and I have to admit that some of my beliefs are being challenged a little in light of some recent work I've been doing. For example, let's say I'm working on a watershed analysis, and creating boundaries to represent the watershed. Now I'm not talking about an automated analysis procedure here, I'm taking about...

I'm currently in Yellowknife, NT, and I've always wanted to get up here, but I must say, that I was hoping to do this in the summer sometime, as I hear it is beautiful up there. I guess the only bonus is that it is currently colder here at home, than it is up there! :-) Regardless, this should be a great trip and I'm really looking forward to it. The purpose of this trip is to go onsite and see first hand one of the projects I am working on, and to get some 'face time' with other people involved in this project. The project is a 'Freeze Optimization Study' which is part of the larger Giant Mine remediation plan . The main goal of the FOS is to study different ground freezing technologies. For those that do not know, Giant Mine is located in Yellowknife, NT and it produced gold from 1948 to 1999. The remediation project contains many facets including: The clean-up of the surface project Stabilization and securing of the underground project The maintenanc...

I've noticed a little 'gotcha' with the new Mosaic to New Raster command in ArcGIS 10... I do like the new quasi background processing in ArcGIS 10, but the indicator in the status bar seems a little quirky at times, and during a long running process like the Mosaic to New Raster command it seems particularly problematic. Fyi, James Fee's GIS Blog also talks about some of the UI quirks in ArcGIS 10. When the command is running, the progress indicator starts up, but then it will just go blank for long periods of time. Is the process completed? Is it still working? Well, it turns out that it is indeed still working away in the background, however, there is no visual indication of this. If you watch close, you might notice every once in a while you will see the progress indicator start scrolling again for a couple seconds, but then will disappear again? Finally, after some time, which will depend on the size of raster data you are mosaicing, the completed message wil...