On Jul 21, 2011, at 2:02 AM, Michael Barton wrote:

> A bit over a year ago, if anyone remembers, I was inspired by a symposium 
> that Helena and I attended at the AAG meetings to offer some thoughts on the 
> future of GIS interfaces. One of the things I mentioned is that the iOS 
> interface (iPad and iPhone) was especially conducive to tactile manipulation 
> of geospatial data. 
> 
> Recently, a group has produced a new GIS app that runs in this environment. 
> The app is called iGIS, and is produced by 
> <http://www.geometryit.com/igis/>in Australia. It is still a bit buggy but 
> already allows for the import of vector (as shapefile) and raster (produced 
> by MapTiler) data via USB or wifi connections, overlay of vectors and a 
> raster basemap (when online, you also have access to Google basemaps), the 
> ability to change vector appearances, basic querying and thematic mapping, 
> editing of vector data tables, and rudimentary digitizing. Map layers can be 
> rearranged and turned on/off. It also can access and use the GPS functions 
> built into iOS devices. It uses the full range of EPSG projections and seems 
> to do reprojection on the fly. That's actually a pretty good start. 
> Currently, it is free of charge. I don't think it is open source, although it 
> seems to use some open source tools.
> 
> ESRI also has some iOS GIS apps out, also free. But these seem closely tied 
> to ESRI geodatabases and ESRI server online data. 
You also have GisRoam that only works with epsg4326 but it's pretty cool, I 
like that you can browse your maps where offline. They have also a paid server 
to upload your stuff.
http://www.gisroam.com/
> 
> This is potentially exciting environment for geospatial tools, combining GPS, 
> portability, and much more functionality than older hand-held units. I don't 
> know what it would take to make GRASS data and raster tools available this 
> way, but someone from the GRASS or QGIS communities might be interested in 
> looking into it.
> 
> You can see a screen shot at 
> <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7437464/iGIS_example.PNG>. This shows archaeological 
> sites as vector points and a vector streams layer over a Google satellite 
> base map of central Arizona.
> 
> Michael
> ______________________________
> C. Michael Barton 
> Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
> Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
> Arizona State University
> Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
> USA
> 
> voice:        480-965-6262 (SHESC), 480-727-9746 (CSDC)
> fax:          480-965-7671(SHESC), 480-727-0709 (CSDC)
> www:  http://csdc.asu.edu, http://shesc.asu.edu
>               http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton
> 
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