Autodesk 123D Catch

Panorama-stitching applications have been around for a while now...it started with GigaPan and their robotic tripod panorama heads. Now we have Microsoft Photosynth (and others) which made all this much easier and usable on smart phones.

Autodesk 123D Catch takes this one step further and combines images of a stationary object into 3D models. That's nothing really new either and uses a process referred to as Structure from motion (see for example VisualSFM or Bundler).

Autodesk 123D Catch claims to make this more accessible to consumers with an online version and iPhone/iPad apps (in addition to a downloadable version for Windows). I have not tried any of this myself so have a look at this review or this one to get more information.

Mobile Geoscience

Here is a nice compilation of apps for tablets and smart phones that can be used in geoscience education and research: Mobile Geoscience

The EarthViewer app for iPad is quite good!

Stimulating STEM

This feels like listening to a broken record: careers in STEM are growing, but the US education system is incapable of delivering good STEM education - we have talked about this for the last 20 years! But, if you want to see it again...have a look at this infograhic:

• Stimulating STEM (also here)

In fact...you could argue that our education leaders have already thrown-in the towel with respect to STEM and are now talking about civic engagement to fix our flawed education system - which is bogus. If anybody is interested: I have the solution and it is simple and quick (Barack - call me!).

Quelccaya Ice Cap (1998)

Here is an animated GIF combining 16 Landsat 5 images from 1998.
More information!

What is Spatial Thinking?

This is another one of these issues that demonstrates how geographers continue to struggle to justify their existence as a science...what is it we do and teach and argue that everyone should be excited about?

Spatial Thinking = Geographic Perspective = Geographic Reasoning (it's all the same!).

Joe Kerski (Esri) defines spatial thinking as "identifying, analyzing, and understanding the location, scale, patterns, and trends of the geographic and temporal relationships among data, phenomena, and issues." The goal is then to cultivate spatial thinking as a useful habit of mind (similar I suppose to cultivating the scientific method as such) to analyze how the world works, including how systems function, how and why certain relationships exist, and also how we might approach and solve problems.

Here's the link to the full essay.

The Art of Data Visualization

You got data, you got software, and you can create graphs to visualize those data. That's easy. But, how do you visualize data effectively and beautifully? Here are some useful sources:

• The Art of Data Visualization (PBS video)
• Data Points: Visualization that means something (book by Nathan Yau)
• Flowing Data (blog by Nathan Yau)
• Edward Tufte (the guru of data visualization)

What is Geographic Reasoning?

This is an excellent column by Daniel Edelson (VP for Education at the National Geographic Society) in ArcNews (Spring 2013).

Our challenge as geographers is always the same: nobody understands what modern geography actually is...which makes it really difficult to convince them that we need more and better geography education. in some point during the conversation we usually throw-out the term geographic reasoning...that generally fails because we cannot define without circular reasoning...now what?

Edelson suggests the core components of geographic reasoning (and I modified slightly):

1. Measuring and mapping geographic distributions (= where is stuff?)
2. Identifying patterns and clusters (= stuff usually does not occur randomly on Earth!)
3. Identifying paths and flows (= think roads and traffic!)
4. Analyze these geographic relationships (over time, if applicable)