Category Archives: GIS

maps are just one way of looking at it

Toronto Data really open

Looks like the data sets at toronto.ca/open might finally actually be open; that is, usable in a way that doesn’t bind subsequent users to impossible terms. The new licence (which unfortunately is behind a squirrelly link) basically just requires you … Continue reading

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we can has street names

Pierre Béland reminded the Canadian OSM group of the GeoBase WMS, which has all the NRN road names in it. Here’s my neighbourhood’s OpenStreetMap data with the road names overlaid. Pierre Béland reminded the Canadian OSM group of the GeoBase … Continue reading

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quite a bit of work to do in Toronto

Looking at the OSM Inspector for Toronto, there are still a lot of nodes that need to be remapped (or OpenStreetMap users that need to be advised) when the big licence change comes. (and yes, I blogged this just so … Continue reading

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Not really getting the Azimuthal Equidistant projection right

All I really wanted to do is make a map like this: This is an Azimuthal Equidistant projection, with me at the centre (of course) and the rest of the world spread out in a fan by distance and bearing. … Continue reading

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binning by angle

I was trying to sort a series of polar coordinates by compass direction: everything in the N sector, then NNE, NE, ENE, E, … This is trickier than it looks, since the North sector includes angles between 348.75° and 11.25°. … Continue reading

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Drawing Eggs

When designing wind farms, you need to keep the turbines a certain distance apart from one another. If you don’t, the wakes from the turbines reduce efficiency, and the turbulence can reduce the warranted life of the machine. Typically, a … Continue reading

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Ham Radio log to interactive OpenStreetMap

You might notice that there’s now a Ham Radio QSO Map lurking on the front page. Thanks to the WordPress OpenStreetMap plugin (which I’ve slightly abused before). Here’s a small piece of Perl which will take your ADIF log and … Continue reading

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Bixi comes to Toronto!

BIXI Toronto is (nearly) here! Here are the proposed station locations: Bixi_Toronto_shp.zip (Shapefile) or Bixi_Toronto-kml_csv.zip (KML and CSV). BIXI Toronto is (nearly) here! Here are the proposed station locations: Bixi_Toronto_shp.zip (Shapefile) or Bixi_Toronto-kml_csv.zip (KML and CSV).

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More radio amateur grid squares

After yesterday’s post, I went a bit nuts with working out the whole amateur radio grid locator thing (not that I’m currently likely to use it, though). I’d hoped to provide a shapefile of the entire world, but that would … Continue reading

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Maidenhead Grid Locator, in Perl

Amateur radio operators sometimes use the Maidenhead Grid Locator Square system to identify location. Here’s my attempt at a translator, written in slightly squirrelly Perl: Grid square to lat/long and grid square shapefiles to follow. Amateur radio operators sometimes use … Continue reading

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