GIS Open Discussion

Todd Kingman (APAN)

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  • in reply to James Quillen
    The world of GIS is very far reaching and broad, so I guess the question for you is - what is it about GIS that interests you? Is there a part of your job function related to creating and sharing geographic content?

    As Tom points out Esri's ArcGIS platform has much to offer, but it also contains a lot of complex capabilities which may be hard for a novice to grasp. The good thing is that Esri has an extensive knowledge base and there is quite a bit of training available online if you go that route. There are also easy to use applications such as Story Maps in ArcGIS which are an intuitive way to create GIS related content as a beginner.

    Free resources such as Google Earth and Google Maps allow you to easily create maps both online and on your desktop which may be worth looking into. APAN also has various mapping capabilities if you are a member of a community with appropriate rights. Our Community Maps feature can pull in geographic references from a group's geotagged content to display on a map. We also have the ArcGIS for SharePoint Web Part available for sites which allow custom lists containing Latitude and Longitude references to be added to a map.

    I have put together a quick list of external resources for you to check out in the MAPUG Wiki which other users may also find helpful:

    community.apan.org/.../
  • in reply to Todd Kingman (APAN)
    Todd,

    As a non GIS specialist I would agree with you- . ARCGIS is too complex for many US and partner cross functional staff members. I think the current mapping provided through APAN is very useable for the non GIS specialist. I'd advocate for continuing to use a google based map and imagery solution that can import data in KML format. I like the idea of being able to toggle between the map and imagery- this feature of APAN maps is very useable. I'd like more ability to use (import and export) various coordinate formats though because its difficult at present to import all lat long variations and I have not found that MGRS is supported. I'd like to have an ability in all maps to draw ellipses or add points.

    I'd like an ability to use APAN to maintain a CIP COP in a coalition environment. I'd also like to see APAN have a geonames database that can be queried.
  • in reply to James Quillen
    Youtube has a number of videos that can introduce you to GIS.

    If you want to take a course, try searching on GIS MOOC (Massive Open Online Course); try www.mooc-list.com/.../gis. Coursera offers a course ($$), but you get a yearlong license for ArcGIS (non-commercial).

    Similar to ArcGIS, but free is QGIS, www.qgis.org. Tutorial at www.qgistutorials.com/.../, and Youtube.

    If you want to make simple maps, for desktop and mobile, try Google My Maps. Whatever you can do in Google Maps, e.g., find points of interest or get directions, you can add to a map, have it wherever you log in, and share it. Here's one I made for a trip - drive.google.com/open

    Also, OpenStreetMap, www.openstreetmap.org, allows you to contribute to an open project. You can even map your hometown or community.

    Wanna volunteer? Humanitarian OpenStreetMap at www.hotosm.org; Missing Maps at www.missingmaps.org; The International Network of Crisis Mappers (Crisis Mappers Net) at crisismappers.org; USGS National Map Corps at nationalmap.gov/TheNationalMapCorps
  • in reply to john mcgregor
    Hi John. Gotta disagree when you are talking about real world, enterprise, warfighting functions. If you want to collaborate, share, and improve SA for decision making in JIIM environments the ArcGIS platform with industry standards, formats, support to open standards etc. IS the way to go. Our partners in US Gov't, NATO, FVEY etc. usually have ELAs to utilize ArcGIS. This allows the common understanding of REST services, use of extensible APIs and widgets and more. NATO has just renewed their ELA and announced they will be utilizing it for more than GIS- it will be the foundation of their C4ISR technology.
    I would agree with Todd though- Is there a part of your job function related to creating and sharing geographic content? What do you need from a GIS? What information products do you need to create, share, archive etc.
  • in reply to Todd Kingman (APAN)
    I'm looking for pretty simple stuff at this point. Namely an overlay showing where all of our units are and another overlay showing what missions are going on and where. I have absolutely not experience with GIS from a design standpoint so I'm starting from the beginning.
  • in reply to James Quillen

    If you have Excel, v2013-2016 I think, you can map your data that is in a spreadsheet. You just need data in Lat/Lon pair, City, Country/Region, Zip/Postal code, State/Province, or address. Go to Insert, Map, Launch Power Map, click New Tour. Search the web on Power Maps for Excel for tutorials. You can use different column values for attribution, e.g., Unit Name, Mission, Count of Days Deployed, Number of Half-Norwegians, etc.  This would need to be unclassifed data, btw.  Also applies to ArcGIS.com.

  • in reply to James Quillen

    If you have access to SIPRNet, I can point you to tools my Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), has for classified use. Our GEOINT Services office provides Google Earth, ArcGIS Earth, and ArcGIS.com-ish services. Send me a note at roy.a.rathbun@nga.smil.mil.

    Also, check out our Protected Internet eXchange (PiX), at www.pixtoday.net; you should recieve an invitation to join. On the left side panel there is an app called GeoPiX Beta that allows you to simply annotate points with labels on a map. There will be more functionality in the future. And, if you're lazy, check out the RFI button a little higher on the left.  You provide the data, and someone else can make you a map.  Again, unclassifed, but access controlled. You can also invite your friends and mission partners to PiX, foreign included. Do you have friends?

    Had enough yet?

  • in reply to Roy Rathbun
    The GEOINT Services provides a Portal on all three security domains. Roy has a good idea here to use the Portal for your use case you describe. 2D or 3D with a fairly easy to use work flow. I build most of my maps with Excel and either a) drag the .csv into ArcGIS or b) use ArcGIS Maps for Office which provides a better result than the Excel map to build web maps and apps. You can print these or ArcGIS Maps for Office also mates up with PowerPoint for static or "live" maps. "Live" meaning you can pan, zoom in and out, etc. in your PowerPoint slide show.
  • in reply to James Quillen

     - Looks like you may have received more feedback than you bargained for here! Your mapping requirements are not too complex which keeps things simple. The next thing we will need to identify is - who is the audience for your map and is it unclassified in nature? A big part of determining a solution is through identifying who you are trying to share information with and the information must be unclassified if it is to be posted in APAN.

    If you would like a collaboration workspace for your unit in APAN, to include our very basic and easy to use 'Community Map' feature, feel free to submit a new community request and we can work with you to build that out. Just fill out the form located in APAN here:

    community.apan.org/.../contact

    Based on the type of reporting from your units we can use APAN's geotagging feature to overlay that content on a map. There is also a custom layer where you can add points, lines, and polygons to your map. After submitting your community request our Knowledge Managers can talk with you about your information sharing requirements and then set things up for you.

    Please feel free to contact me directly if you would like to discuss things in more detail.

  • in reply to john mcgregor
    - Currently our Community Map feature has the ability to import KML, GeoJSON files and KML, KMZ, GeoJSON, and ArcGIS URL feeds. Our autogeotagger capability for group content will recognize various Lat/Long formats including, MGRS, States, Countries, Cities and Towns, and relative references. Please refer to our knowledge base for more information:

    community.apan.org/.../

    Once you geotag group content you can add that content to a map or export the data from the group in KML or GeoJSON formats by adding either a '/kml' or '/geojson' to the end of a group application URL. You can do this to the top URL for a group as well.

    Although we do not provide the ability to draw ellipses, as I mentioned to James you can add points, lines and polygons to our mapping feature. We are also looking to pilot ArcGIS Portal Enterprise which will bring various additional capabilities to APAN. As far as your wishlist items (CIP COP and Geonames Database), if you can provide me with more details then maybe there is something that we can do to support your needs. Please feel free to message me directly to discuss further.
  • in reply to Todd Kingman (APAN)
    Thanks to the group for the fantastic inputs. I think that APAN map functions are very important for us here at SOCAFRICA and African partners. We are using APAN to support most of our command exercise programs which we conduct jointly with African partners. I understand the capes on other systems and we use those too. But the focus on my comments was really in the context of APAN and use of the map tools in conjunction with African partners.

    I also discovered a very good GEONAMES search capability that should be looked as an idea for what is needed in APAN. Here is the link: www.geonames.org/.../google_14.497643_-4.198971.html

    We have received excellent support from AFRICOM J69 and our J6 for designing pages. I'll speak with them about what we need for upcoming exercises and refer them back to thread here and the knowledge base.

    Thanks Again.- John McGregor
  • in reply to john mcgregor
    Don't forget to engage your friendly GEOINTers at the NGA Support Team to USAFRICOM:)

    Y'all might also be interested in some development by the Maps4HTML Community Group in customized map elements for html... www.webcomponents.org/.../Web-Map-Custom-Element
  • in reply to James Quillen
    This a big question that cannot easily be answered. Sort of like many Quora responses, the answer can be long, with a lot of caveats stating - it depends.

    GIS has evolved into far more than anyone imagined in the late 1960's when first implemented. During a US SOUTHCOM lecture I gave a few years ago, the ability to map almost any kind of dataset opened up a Pandora's box of where to start. It's interesting that how we learn and new 'technology', is often determined by what questions we want answered in order to determine GIS objectives and goals. I don't say this lightly. This is because I doubt you are actually a novice by asking yourself, the right questions. It starts with a premise and what your objectives are.

    There is good news on the learning front. GIS is available in a variety of online formats using video, lectures, online course materials, illustrations and real world tutorials. It's important to always remember what your macro AND micro objectives intend to illustrate and plot. Is it to enable analysis, awareness, dynamic news events, distribute information, collect data.... is it strategic, tactical or real time? This is important stuff to always be aware of. I find that many "novice" GIS users are in fact, very good at understanding what they are looking at, how to interpret and come to conclusions when viewing GIS datasets.

    As odd as this may sound, documenting the 5 W's of your objectives in learning GIS is a good way to literally, map it out. Below are some resources for your review. All are free to browse and learn from. In my opinion, ESRI's apps and tutorials are not difficult if one takes the time to master them.

    www.google.com/.../

    http://learnosm.org/en/

    msdn.microsoft.com/.../ff428643.aspx

    gisgeography.com/.../

    grass.osgeo.org/.../

    www.qgistutorials.com/.../learning_resources.html

    dotspatial.codeplex.com/

    mannlib.cornell.edu/.../gis

    I wrote a paper on the use of GIS technology, data and imagery for the National Defense University in 2012, which you may find useful. It is used as course material and freely available for download.

    ctnsp.dodlive.mil/.../

    Hope this helps. If I can be of further service, let me know.
  • in reply to john mcgregor
    - Thank you for your participation and valued feedback. It is great to hear that you find APAN and our GIS capabilities useful for you and your mission partners. If there is more we can do to support please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly. Our team works closely with planners to prepare for and support exercises on a regular basis and we can help determine how to utilize APAN based on best practices and lessons learned.

    Also, I wanted to get a better understanding about the GeoNames search capability that you mentioned and referred to. What in particular about it do you find beneficial that could be brought into APAN?
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