Spaced Out :: 06 2015

Installed teh UK dictionary, but by default the US one is selected? In the portable version, simply delete the files from:

FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox\dictionaries

I’ve been spending a fair bit of time digitising in QGIS 2.8.1 lately so thought I’d list some of my top tips for those doing the same (and dont forget the QGIS Manual)!

• make sure to put the “Digitizing” and “Digitizing Tools” on the toolbar
• “Toggle Editing” allows you to edit the layer currently highlighted in the ToC
• the appropriate geometry will be selected, allowing you to add/edit points, lines or polygons
• click “Add Feature” then left-click in your layer to start digitising. If its a line or polygon, you right click to finish your feature
• middle press (scroll wheel) to pan around the image and rotate the scroll wheel to zoom in/out. Alternatively press the spacebar to allow the mouse to pan. PgUp/Dn to zoom.
• Settings->Snapping Options allows you to set the snapping options (doh!). This is important for digitising features with shared boundaries to stop sliver polygons. From the snapping mode drop-doown, select Advanced - for polygons you will now get an option to “Avoid Intersections”. This will allow any overlapping polygons to share the same boundary. For lines I “snap to segments” at a tolerance of 5 pixels
• Settings->Options->Digitizing allows you to set other options. I tick “Suppress attribute form pop-up after feature creation” to allow me just to digitize features - if you want to enter attribute data then you might want to untick them.
• you can edit vertices by clicking the Node Tool on the toolbar. Ctrl and left mouse click to select a vertex and double click to add a vertex. You can also delete a selected vertex (delete button) and move it (left click and drag)
• don’t forget to click “Toggle editing” again when you’ve finished to turn it off and save your edits!

It’s that time of year again, yes Impact Factors are out and whether we like it or not authors and journals, alongside all those who rank them, will be sifting through the data to see who’s up and who’s down!! So with that in mind, its very pleasing to report that the Journal of Maps has again seen its impact factor rise this time to 1.2. The 1.0 boundary seems like a watershed as that is the point at which there are more citations than articles published. This year’s editorial provides a summary of general performance last year and whilst the number of articles stayed largely the same, we are seeing increasing submissions and downloads (and are probably up about 10% on submissions so far this year). As a result of this we have introduced an extra issue for 2015 which will allow us to increase the amount we publish.

This not only illustrates the resurgence in cartography and so the importance that maps play in a range of academic disciplines, but also how relevant they are to contemporary research. And there is no better example than this year’s “Best Map” winner which is available for free download from Taylor and Francis.

Great news over at the Environment Agency blog noting that their extensive LiDAR back catalog will (from September 2015) become open data available from Datashare. This is a a valuable data source and one of the most extensive LiDAR datasets available for the UK.

O’Connor, J. and Smith, M.J. (2015)
Geomatics World

Surveys using UAVs and photogrammetry are becoming ubiquitous. It is in the community’s best interests to remember the fundamentals of image capture. James O’Connor and Mike J Smith of the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, Kingston University review the main considerations for image capture when undertaking an aerial survey using consumer grade cameras and make recommendations for acquiring the best imagery.