WNCGIS meeting tomorrow - Wed Dec 2nd

We are combining the Nov/Dec meetings tomorrow afternoon at Asheville Brewing Company. 5pm - 7ish. Come if you can ... we'll be there.

WNCGIS gathering tonight ...

come have your favorite beer (tea or soft drink) with your local GIS colleagues ... 

DATE: June, 25th 2009  Thursday
TIME: 5:15pm until about 6:30pm
WHERE: Asheville Brewing Co., 77 Cox Avenue   
MUNCHIES: by RDI (buy your own drinks)

that's TONIGHT by the way!

WNC GIS Gathering back on this month ...

After a few months off ... come on out!

WNCGIS GATHERING
WHEN: Oct. 29th Wednesday (this week)
TIME: 5:15pm until about 6:30pm
WHERE: Asheville Brewing Co.,77 Cox Avenue
MUNCHIES: by Resource Data (buy your own drinks)

Same casual atmosphere.
Always best to walk or ride your bike. Drink responsibly.
The bus station is very close.

#1. GIS DAY at AB TECH is coming up soon! Last year was incredible. Presenters are lining up for this year. This could be one of the largest GIS events we have ever seen in WNC.

Friday, November 14th, 2008
9:00am – 2:00pm
Contact Pete Kennedy or Greg Dobson for more info.

#2. RENCI engagement centers at UNC and UNCA are organizing a statewide GIS Volunteer program. I want to hear more about this from Greg Dobson. There are a lot of GIS folks in western NC trying to find opportunities to use their talents in new and creative ways with meaningful results outside of their daily jobs. And there is a substantial public interest need in western NC for GIS support.

#3. John Wood at UNCA is looking for your hand drawn maps to study and discuss. Bring paper and pencil. Penciled maps are so much more interesting than these computer based GIS maps we have to deal with every day.

#4. Bring your own special projects to talk about. We want to hear what everyone is doing.

gathering tonight ...

Where: Asheville Pizza Company -
When: 5:00pm until

Best pizza in town and it's 50 cents off beer and 50% off appetizers.



View Larger Map

Meeting Wednesday of this month!

Greetings to all the good GIS people...

Summer is coming up fast, but before you head for the beach, be sure to join us for the next WNCGIS Gathering. We've been having a really good turnout with lots of great conversation lately, so let's have that tradition continue.

We will be meeting this Wednesday, May 28th, at the Asheville Brewing on Coxe Avenue downtown. On Wednesdays they have been doing a special where you get 50 cents off the brews and their (delicious!) appetizers are half-off, so don't fret if you're hungry after work.

Enjoy the sunshine and see you in a few days....

--->Leo Klausmann
Neil Thomas

WNC GIS meeting - Wednesday April 30th

Greetings to all the Good GIS People out there.....

We hope that y'all are enjoying this phenomenal Spring weather, and that you find the time to stop lounging around in the sun to join us for the upcoming WNCGIS Gathering! As posted in the previous email, it is coming up on April 30th, Wednesday, at Asheville Brewing on Coxe Ave.

Feel free to come around 5PM if you can, or drop by later on. We've had an especially sizable and entertaining crowd of folks the last few times, so let's keep up that tradition! Snacks will be provided as usual by the ever-generous Resource Data Inc., and Asheville Brewing serves more fine brews, pizza, and sides then you'll have time to try.

Wishing you the best and hoping you can join the fun,

--Leo Klausmann
WNCGIS Group List Admin

---- thanks for sending out the email to everyone Leo - I copied it verbatim to this post for anyone that stumbles onto the blog that is not on the email list.

WNC GIS Gathering this week!

When: Thursday, Dec. 29th - 5:00pm - until
Where: Asheville Pizza Company - Downtown on Coxe Ave.

Come visit and see what's going on with the world of GIS

Announcing the WNC GIS Map Contest

Some of us involved with the monthly WNC GIS meetings have been brainstorming an idea for a contest that we hope will allow a variety of people to show off their personal projects, showcase their mapping talent, and raise awareness about important issues in the WNC area. This email is intended to provide the information needed to get you, your students, or colleagues engaged in the contest. If possible, I intend to follow-up soon with a phone call to see what you think.

Purpose and Process

The idea is for people to submit an original map product to the WNC GIS Users Group for review. A panel of map experts (your peers) will review the submissions. Initially the odds of winning are probably pretty darn good because our mailing list is not very long. In order to become eligible you must be on the WNC-GIS’s mailing list (email me, Leo Klausmann, at leklausm@yahoo.com to join). The larger goal is to develop a WNC-GIS Map Calendar for 2008. The map will be sold through any sponsors we can muster and online. Any income generated from the sales will pay for the production of the calendars and feed back into contest prizes.

The first submissions will be due May 10^th, 2007. A winner will be selected during the May WNC GIS Beer Session (most likely occurring on May 24th). That will give you almost 2 months to get something together. By letting everyone get a chance to look at the various maps that were submitted, hopefully further ideas will be sparked and friendly feedback will be exchanged. Assuming the interest in the contest is there, one approach would be to move to a bi-monthly contest with a rotating volunteer "review board" of perhaps five people.

The Shiny Prizes

Every contest cycle (that is, maybe every two months) two winners will be selected, and they shall win a twenty dollar gift certificate to Malaprops Bookstore, the ego-boosting honor of seeing their map printed in the calendar, as well as a copy of the calendar.

Map Themes

Map themes will evolve around the interests of the review panel but currently there are a few guidlines.

· Some essential and dominant theme or aspect of the map ought to have a regional focus. You can include a larger map area of for example, the Southern Appalachian Region or all of North Carolina.

· How many times have you generated a map whose natural patterns are simply beautiful? Aerial photo patterns, elevation model patterns, soils patterns can be beautiful. If you’d like to, why not abstract them a step further to discover their full artistic potential.

· Cartoon maps or spoof maps are great. Subtle or not so subtle sarcastic maps are fine. Map puns are fine. Any kind of map humor is great. We certainly will accept conventional WNC map themes, but creativity and local/regional themes will help make you a winner.

· The eventual goal of compiling our best maps into a calendar to sold to the general public means that by submitting your map to the contest, you release copyright limitations.

For the first contest cycle, a theme (such as environmental issues, historical perspectives, urban characterization, etc) will not be specifically defined so as not to limit what people can submit. If after the maps are reviewed at the May Beer Session meeting, we all want to decide on a theme for next time, then that theme will be announced.

How do you Submit your Map?

Export your map to a PDF file (very easy to do in ESRI products) and set your DPI to about 300. The filesize of maps varies widely, often because complex rasters or photo material can take up lots of disk space. If your map turns out to be about 10MB or less, then just email it to me, Leo Klausmann, at leklausm@yahoo.com. We want the submitted maps to be of high resolution so that we may easily scale them to fit our calendar, so if your map filesize turns out to be larger, just contact me and we’ll work out a way to transfer it, perhaps by CD-ROM. We hope to bring printed versions of the all the maps to the May Beer Session for all to see. Do keep in mind that people have a range of skill levels and experience, so the maps don’t have to be cartographically perfect.

A Final Word

The organization of this Map Contest so far has been the result of a few brainstorming sessions. The contest is likely to evolve as more people become interested. If you have any ideas on how we could organize it differently, we are more than open to suggestions.

mapAsheville API

This post is just a quick demonstration of the mapAsheville - API. Actually, it's our first test of using the API in an existing webpage outside of our own domain... seems to work OK after some trial and error on my part.

As you can see below, we've developed the ability to embed a functional mapAsheville service into an existing webpage. We've got some formative ideas about how this may be able to benefit the community at large and we're already realizng some internal operational benefits from this 'mashup' approach to handing web services.

We've got a long ways to go but I'm excited that it actually works on this blog! Props to Dave Michelson for all of his past and ongoing work on this project!

Give it a try... zooom in, pan around and ID a parcel.

More to come later explaining the mapAsheville efforts...

About the WNC GIS Users Group

WNC GIS Users Group is a gathering of GIS professionals and people with related interests to share ideas and experiences in a casual setting for the benefit of the GIS professional and the larger public interest. The users group is not a marketing venue for private business.


The WNC GIS Blog Site is designed to support the larger WNC GIS community, whether they attend the meetings or not. It is a place to exchange ideas, share and request technical information, present links to special projects and programs, share job and internship opportunities, and link other local WNC GIS groups to the larger WNC GIS community, all within Western NC. The Blog will evolve with demand.


If you would like to become a contributor to this blog please contact Pete Kennedy.

beer + gis = good

the next gathering is this week...

The first revival event of the GIS Beer Sessions collected a group of about 15 folks last month. We fought for tables and chairs but for the most part people found a seat. We will be shifting the venue to Jack of the Wood (JOW), the old stomping grounds.

The whole purpose of this is to visit with everyone so make a point to change tables, introduce yourself to new faces and enjoy.

GIS BEER FEBRUARY SESSION


DATE: Thursday, February 22nd
TIME: 5:15pm to about 6:30-7:00pm or whenever you leave.
PLACE: Jack of the Woods (JOW)
West Side of the Pub.
SNACKS: by Resource Data
BuyYourOwnBeer & Diners


Please invite your GIS friends but send us their email address so we can put them on the list. Send email addresses to Leo Klausmann at leklausm@yahoo.com

Always Drink Responsibly, Walk to the Pub, Take the Bus Home.

Welcome to the WNC GIS blog

NEW WNC GIS BLOG: I am hoping that by the time the email reminder goes out (a day or so before the beer session) we will have a BLOG on the web. Pete Kennedy (Haywood Community College-GIS) is our Western North Carolina GIS Blog Master. We hope to have the blog up and running in the next few days. I do not know how any of this works but if you have any questions ask Pete .