Articles

Submit a (John) Speed Presentation Proposal

Presentations will be held at SFU’s downtown campus on GIS Day during GeoAwareness Week, 2018 EXTENDED Deadline for submission: October 12, 2018

Image courtesy of Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center

John Speed’s A new and accurat map of the world, courtesy of Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center

Are you working on a project or research involving geographic information systems (GIS), geospatial data, cartography, or maps? Are you interested in sharing your knowledge and work with the larger SFU and UBC geospatial community? We want to hear about it and encourage you to present on GIS Day 2018! This is an opportunity to share your work, network with local colleagues, and soak in a spectrum of geospatial activities.

GIS Day is an annual worldwide celebration of GIS technology and community. SFU Library, UBC Library, and UBC Faculty of Forestry are partnering to provide this year’s celebrations on Wednesday, November 14th, 2018 at the SFU Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver. More information about the day including the agenda will be available soon and linked to from this page.

Each presentation will follow the same format – 7.5 minute presentation = 15 slides x 30 seconds each. This format allows presenters to focus on essential content and engaging slides while giving the audience a chance to see several presentations on a wide range of topics. And – equally important – this format is fun. These presentations were inspired by John Speed – 16th Century English cartographer who published widely iconic maps and atlases of England and the world. Speed had nothing to do with presentations, but he did make maps and we like his name.

Please submit your expression of interest by filling out the form below by 12 pm noon on Friday, October 12, 2018 (extended). The description of your presentation is the most important piece of your submission, but we ask that you limit it to no more than 500 words. All submitters will be followed up with by Sunday, October 14. If you have any questions about these presentations or GIS Day 2018, please contact Evan Thornberry (evan.thornberry[at]ubc.ca).

DEADLINE for submission: October 12, 2018 (extended)

UBC Vancouver Campus Orthophotos for 2018 are here

High resolution orthophotos for UBC-V Campus 2018 are now available on Abacus. These images provide complete coverage of campus and limited surrounding area at 10cm per pixel – fine enough to see view the details of buildings, vegetation, and other ground features. Images were processed by McElhanney Consulting Services of Vancouver and released by UBC Vancouver’s Campus and Community Planning Department with Public Domain License.

UBC Vancouver Campus Orthophoto 2018

Orthophotos from this dataset are downloaded in ZIP format, which once extracted contain a TIF file with detailed imagery, as well as several side-car files essential to use in GIS software – such as an OVR pyramid file and world file. The uncompressed TIF file can also be used in image editing software if not needed for geospatial processing or analysis.

The image files are organized and distributed for download on a grid. This index map represents the grid layout complete with file names to help you determine which name covers what area of campus.


Click on an area below to see it’s tile ID number, then download the correct tile in Abacus.

Summer internship for graduate students

The UBC Sustainability Scholars Program is an innovative paid internship program that matches UBC graduate students with on- and off-campus sustainability partners to work on projects that support the advancement of sustainability in the region.

A paid part-time summer internship available for a current graduate student with GIS experience. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until the position is filled or April 22 (whichever comes first). Information about salary and how the program works.

The full job description is available below as a PDF:

2018-59 GIS Interoperable Database for Community Impact Real Estate Society April 2018

Yuhao Lu from UBC Forestry wins Esri Canada’s 2018 Scholarship contest

© Yuhao Lu

Global light trends mapped in ArcGIS Pro using a dark canvas proved to be a winning map submission for Yuhao Lu for Esri Canada’s 2018 Scholarship contest. This visualization using Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) images conceptualizes where the fastest growing cities are located in contrast to where declining cites exist using dark mapping. Comparing brightness in cities around the globe showing growing illumination versus dimming pixels, the correlation between fading light and areas where the worst humanitarian crisis have occurred is revealed.

Congratulations Yuhao Lu!

Scholarship: Esri International Young Scholars Award

Are you an undergrad or grad student who has used Esri to complete a project? Interested in having your expenses paid for a visit to the International Esri User Conference in sunny San Diego this July? Esri Canada has announced their International Young Scholars Award that will pay for a student to go to San Diego and receive complimentary registration for both the Internation Esri User Conference and the Esri Educational GIS Conference.

Applicants will need to submit:

  1. A poster highlighting the your use of Esri technology
  2. A summary paper that explains your work
  3. A personal statement describing your experience with GIS and why you want to attend the User Conference
  4. Your academic transcript
  5. Your contact information, as well as your institution and program of study

The deadline for submissions Thursday, March 29th at 2:00 pm PST. For more information or to submit your application, head to scholars.esri.ca, or see the press announcement below.

PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

OpenStreetMap Mapping Party

Join UBC Library for an introductory session and mapping party where we will contribute to the freely accessible, non-commercial dataset of the world – OpenStreetMap (OSM). Contributions from this mapping party are toward Building Canada 2020 (BC2020i) – a nation-wide initiative to map all of Canada’s buildings by 2020. With the aid of aerial imagery, we will map buildings in rural Masset and Trail, British Columbia. Inexperienced mappers are welcome (and encouraged!) to attend. The first 30 minutes of this session will be an info session to give new mappers a firm understanding of OSM principals and get off the ground to start adding buildings with confidence. Attendees can expect to spend about an hour mapping their area of choice. Pizza and light refreshments will be provided. OSM is a mapping collaborative aiming to create an open geographic dataset of the world, collected and imported by volunteers worldwide. OSM data is used by a variety of industries for a wide range of purposes as a replacement for other proprietary sources of geographic data – and map parties and mapathons are particularly notable for their benefit to emergency response efforts after large natural disasters as they can provide swift logistical support for on-site responders.

Come join the party!

When: 12pm to 2pm, Thursday, March 8th, 2018
Where: Koerner Library, 217 (Computer Lab)

REGISTER HERE