Slashgeo

GIS Development tells us about a new book named GIS Tutorial from ESRI Press. From GIS Development: "GIS Tutorial: Workbook for ArcView 9 offers exercises and instructions that users can adapt to specific training needs, whether it is teaching GIS in a classroom or using the book for individual study."

Vector One shortly introduces the emerging field of "geovisual analytics". What is geovisual analytics? From this pdf [3.62MB]: "Geovisual Analytics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that integrates perspectives from Visual Analytics (grounded in Information and Scientific Visualization) and Geographic Information Science (growing particularly on work in geovisualization, geospatial semantics and knowledge management, geocomputation, and spatial analysis). Geovisual Analytics tools help identify relevant geospatial information, data, and knowledge by supporting analytical process that meld innate human abilities of vision and cognition with computer-based visual interfaces that provide flexible connections to relevant data and supporting knowledge, and that are specifically designed to provide support for analytical reasoning. Often the activities that Geovisual Analytics is directed toward involve recognizing relevant information in enormous datasets that make what is relevant difficult to determine using traditional methods."

Very Spatial runs an entry on the book Geospatial Analysis by Drs de Smith, Goodchild, and Longley: "This is a great resource for those who need to look up something quickly or for those who are new to geospatial analysis methods and tools and need a strong introduction. The sections of the book are: # Conceptual Frameworks for Spatial Analysis # Historical and Methodological Context # Building Blocks of Spatial Analysis # Data Exploration and Spatial Statistics # Surface and Field Analysis # Network and Location Analysis # Geocomputational methods and modelling"

There has been a lot of activity on the geoblogs in the last few days regarding the distinction between neogeography and GIS. It started with an All Points Blog entry: "Hickey explained that while neogeography is focused on "Where" there is no data creation and no spatial analysis, an essentially visually useful concept that has helped "cross the chasm from early adopters to an early majority." My take is decidedly biased and I come down on Hickey's side entirely." Amongst the reactions, you'll find entries from The Memory Leak, Fantom Planet, GeoTips's Paul Ramsey, GeoMusings, Spatially Adjusted and PerryGeo. From GeoTips: "Try to remember folks, it's not how big your tool is, it's what you do with it that counts." An interesting passion-laden debate...

Two weeks ago Vector One and Spatial Sustain wondered what's the difference between maps and geospatial intelligence. From V1: "However, in 2004 the U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) renamed itself to become the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Overnight, this put the term ‘geospatial intelligence’ into the limelight and peoples minds. [...] As author Harrison Donnelly writes in Military Geospatial Technology magazine, “geospatial intelligence continues to define itself as a profession, gaps remain between the needs of geoint-using government agencies and the growing number of academic programs in the field, according to a recent roundtable of experts.”" From SS: "Rather than simply a repository of knowledge, geospatial intelligence adds interaction, experimentation, scenario building and heightened awareness of a location that allows us to effectively and efficiently deal with problems." See also related stories below.