[meteorite-list] Using GIS for Meteorite Hunting and Study
I, too, am a GIS person. Since Land ownership GIS has just been brought up, I have to take this one step farther and mention good free GIS packages. Someone just brought up ESRI as a GIS progam, and I would like to discourage people from using it. ESRI gives you piecemeal crippled software that you'll have to pay licenses for each piece you enable. While there base 'hook' product is free, you can quickly spend $2500 getting the 'Basic GIS' which is just decent GIS (ArcGIS $1500 and ArcView $950). Then the extensions can cost $12,500 to bring you up to a complete GIS system that gives you map webpublishing and db interoperability. All of that is about the same as what GRASS does, but its free. There are some excellent Open Source GIS programs currently available. You can download these for free and have them running within the hour. Quantum can quickly import your GPS data. Both of these run under Windows or Linux. Quantum GIS -- Young, small, and runs fast on old machines. Think of this as a 'dune buggy' of GIS. Use this one first, if you're new to GIS. http://qgis.org/ GRASS GIS -- Mature, stable, powerful, but very complex. Good for 3D and 4D plotting. Like if you wanted to plot a strewnfield thru a mountainous area then do a time lapse flyby. Think of this as a diesel MAC truck of GIS. http://grass.itc.it/ There are a couple of other Open Source GIS packages, but they are immature and not ready yet, IMHO. On getting the basemap to use as your main layer, here's a starting point. http://www.gismonitor.com/data/index.php http://seamless.usgs.gov/ Steps to take once you have your program and basemaps. 1. Load basemap into GIS 2. Load GPS finds into GIS. 3. Make sure you have all data layers on the same projection (like NAD83) 4. Draw polygons of area searched! Important to know where you've been. 5. Draw polygons of area you are ALLOWED to search. Important to know where you can't go. 6. Plot points of where meteorites where found. High Confidence Data gets a special symbol. 7. Plot point of historically found meteorites that you have low confidence of where you think they were found. You could even draw small circle polygons to represent the 'fuzzy' find location. 8. Draw Line of best guess of upper limit of Main fall axis. 9. Draw line of best guess of lower limit of Main fall axis. The space in between is your best greatest statistical chance of finding more. -mt IMCA 2760 copyright 2008 - I reserve all rights to put some of this in my upcoming book. __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Using GIS for Meteorite Hunting and Study
One huge difference between Google Earth and all the other GIS software packages I've seen so far (except a few) is the fact that I don't have to fork out 5,000+ dollars to use it... Google Earth only costs me 20 bucks a year. Don't get me wrong because I'd love to use the high end GIS software (especially since I use high end CAD software at work), but that's a very steep price to pay just to plot out coordinates of my finds. Del --- On Thu, 6/26/08, McCartney Taylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: McCartney Taylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [meteorite-list] Using GIS for Meteorite Hunting and Study To: MeteoriteList meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008, 2:56 PM I, too, am a GIS person. Since Land ownership GIS has just been brought up, I have to take this one step farther and mention good free GIS packages. Someone just brought up ESRI as a GIS progam, and I would like to discourage people from using it. ESRI gives you piecemeal crippled software that you'll have to pay licenses for each piece you enable. While there base 'hook' product is free, you can quickly spend $2500 getting the 'Basic GIS' which is just decent GIS (ArcGIS $1500 and ArcView $950). Then the extensions can cost $12,500 to bring you up to a complete GIS system that gives you map webpublishing and db interoperability. All of that is about the same as what GRASS does, but its free. There are some excellent Open Source GIS programs currently available. You can download these for free and have them running within the hour. Quantum can quickly import your GPS data. Both of these run under Windows or Linux. Quantum GIS -- Young, small, and runs fast on old machines. Think of this as a 'dune buggy' of GIS. Use this one first, if you're new to GIS. http://qgis.org/ GRASS GIS -- Mature, stable, powerful, but very complex. Good for 3D and 4D plotting. Like if you wanted to plot a strewnfield thru a mountainous area then do a time lapse flyby. Think of this as a diesel MAC truck of GIS. http://grass.itc.it/ There are a couple of other Open Source GIS packages, but they are immature and not ready yet, IMHO. On getting the basemap to use as your main layer, here's a starting point. http://www.gismonitor.com/data/index.php http://seamless.usgs.gov/ Steps to take once you have your program and basemaps. 1. Load basemap into GIS 2. Load GPS finds into GIS. 3. Make sure you have all data layers on the same projection (like NAD83) 4. Draw polygons of area searched! Important to know where you've been. 5. Draw polygons of area you are ALLOWED to search. Important to know where you can't go. 6. Plot points of where meteorites where found. High Confidence Data gets a special symbol. 7. Plot point of historically found meteorites that you have low confidence of where you think they were found. You could even draw small circle polygons to represent the 'fuzzy' find location. 8. Draw Line of best guess of upper limit of Main fall axis. 9. Draw line of best guess of lower limit of Main fall axis. The space in between is your best greatest statistical chance of finding more. -mt IMCA 2760 copyright 2008 - I reserve all rights to put some of this in my upcoming book. __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Using GIS for Meteorite Hunting and Study
McCartney Taylor wrote I, too, am a GIS person. Since Land ownership GIS has just been brought up, I have to take this one step farther and mention good free GIS packages. I do not bother with ESRI as a GIS program even though where I work has a group license for it. It takes a long, long time to learn how to work. Instead, I use Global Mapper, which only costs about 300.00 dollars and is very easy to use and does what I need it to do. Also, their support people, not only return email and other inquiries about problems, they typically do it the same day that you contact them. More information can be found at: Global Mapper - http://www.globalmapper.com/ It does a spectacular job with Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) especially those made from LIDAR data. Some examples of DEMs made from the LIDAR data can be seen in The Scotlandville, Denham Springs, and Baton Rouge Faults - A Map Guide for Real Estate Buyers, Sellers, and Developers in the Greater Baton Rouge Area at http://www.lgs.lsu.edu/deploy/uploads/BRFaultsGuide.pdf Yours, Paul H. __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
