The other day whilst hearing about the apostle Paul’s missionary journeys in church, I was finding it hard to remember all the names of the places where he brought the gospel, let alone where on earth they are! And then a thought came to my mind which hasn’t left me since, why not visualize his missionary journeys in Google Earth? I am sure many people with an interest in the Bible would want to check this out. So I did a quick google for Bible places in order to pinpoint the towns he visited. Fortunately others have spent vast amounts of time (from the looks of it) in pinpointing Biblical places, so ‘all’ I had to do was create a Google Earth path to connect this places in the right order. You need Google Earth Pro (trial) for this.I have a ‘beta’ of the first missionary journey available for you to check out here. The rest will follow as soon as I find enough of my precious time :-).
Yesterday my colleague and I scripted, created and published the remaining NASA World Wind files for the Maplecroft Global Map Series. These maps will be updated as often as needed and are a great resource for various target groups, namely researchers, educational institutes and businesses.
The following maps can now be downloaded in World Wind format:
* Global map of carbon resources
* Global map of child labour
* Global map of child rights risk
* Global map of climate change
* Global map of corruption transparency
* Global map of digital inclusion
* Global map of displacement
* Global map of education
* Global map of financial inclusion
* Global map of financial market risk
* Global map of fiscal risk
* Global map of geological disasters
* Global map of growth competitiveness
* Global map of health and safety
* Global map of hunger
* Global map of hydro-meteorological disasters
* Global map of landmine risk
* Global map of malaria
* Global map of military expenditure
* Global map of natural disasters economic losses
* Global map of political risk
* Global map of poverty
* Global map of renewable energy use
* Global map of tuberculosis
* Global map of water
The add-ons can be downloaded from:
http://maps.maplecroft.com/mapdata.
By clicking on the legend a browser window can be opened which explains how the index was composed, which data was used and how the information should be interpreted.
Recently I have gotten involved in sharing my GPS tracks onto the OpenStreetMap project, a great initiative! The idea is to share your infrastructure waypoints and points of interest in order to create a detailed global map which belongs to everyone and which everybody can use without copyright restrictions or other limitations.
I started by adding some of the tracks of my Mozambique/South Africa holiday/business trip back in November 2005. These were the first tracks in Mozambique at all which is quite exciting!! This is a great thing to get involved with so please check it out if you are an enthusiastic GPS user.
Recently Google has announced that it is going to have it’s search robots index the (spatial) content of all kml and kmz files published online. This could have huge consequences for the way in which people make available their spatial data. Directions Magazine have made a nice graphic tour of how Google’s KML Search works. You can check it out here.
Wow, March 8th is the launch date of my personal blog and this is my first item! I want to use this blog to post important information, products I have worked on, news I have come across, etc., in the field of (Open) GIS in relation to international development and global issues that matter us all. The stuff you will find here reflects my personal interests and not necessarily those of my employer. I am based in Bradford-on-Avon, United Kingdom. Hope you find something of interest to you! Happy surfing 
Spent most of today publishing ten Maplecroft Global Maps in NASA World Wind format. Maplecroft Global Maps analyses a wide range of environmental, social, economic and political issues that impact on society and the goals of business. This is one of the first steps we are taking in making our data more interoperable. We (Maplecroft) have already published all of our global maps in Google Earth kml format at the end of 2006.
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