CUGOS 2011 Spring Fling

On April 20th, 2011, CUGOS (www.cugos.org,[1]) will be holding a special all-day "spring fling" event at University of Washington Seattle Campus in place of our regular monthly meeting. We will provide FREE food and drinks, thanks to following sponsors: TerraGIS([2]), Spatialdev([3]), Zonar System([4]) & UW Geospatial Club.

The basic idea of this event is to come in the morning to learn something new (tools and real workflows)... stick around and apply it in the afternoon on some semi-structured hack sessions... and then learn some high level stuff in the evening.  As such, the day will be broken up as follows:

• 9-12: morning session -- "speed" workshops
  
• 12-1: lunch
  
• 1-4: afternoon session -- open hacking
  
• 4-6: dinner
  
• 6-8: evening session -- regular meeting
  

Details are given below, but be aware that all agendas and times are approximate -- we'll be loose and agile and nimble and react to changing events and schedules as our whimsies take us.

All skill and interest levels are welcome! -- please join us for as much of the day as you can.

Morning Session: Workshops (9am to 12pm)

Sponsor by TerraGIS & Spatialdev

Venue: Forest Club Room, Anderson Hall

12 - 10 minute slots (10 min lightning instruction, 5 minutes Q&A each):
Idea is a progression from server to desktop to web... hopefully utilizing common test data

4 slots on server side tools:

• Install and setup of PostgresSQL/PostGIS on Linux system - RogerA
  
• R, PostgreSQL, and PostGIS: techniques for processing large data sets - Phil Hurvitz
  
• Does the World Need a Lidar Data Server?  - mpg
• tbd (maybe gdal/ogr tips and tricks) ???
  
• tbd (basic batch processing with bash and python) AaronR?
  
• tbd (maybe basic dev env tools like git/svn) GregC?
  

4 slots on desktop tools:

• gvSIG spatial analysis basics - Karsten
  
• elevation data processing - Roger
  
• Workflow Migration from ESRI to Open Source (python scripting) - Allison Bailey
  
• tbd (maybe qgis plugins) ???
  

4 slots on web tools:

• OSM rendering (comparison of rendering tools and OpenLayers setup for OSM) - Matt K
• "Subverting the dominant paradigm: a critical look at the concept of Neo-postcounterhegemonic source"
  
• tbd (maybe basic AJAX and jQuery) ???
  
• tbd (maybe OpenLayers) ???
  
• tbd (maybe tilemill/carto) DaneS?
  

Meal Session: Lunch (12pm to 1pm)

Venue: Forest Club Room, Anderson Hall

Lunch is sponsor by Zonar System& UW Geospatial Club.

Afternoon Session: Open (yet organized!) Hacking (1pm to 4pm)

Venue: Forest Club Room, Anderson Hall


Idea is to have 2-3 pre-planned projects (topics) that small groups can self organize and hack on some code. There would be a group leader that will have much of the infrastructure set up ahead of time (test data, code repo, etc). Here are some ideas::

• "Does the World Need an Open Source Server Framework for Lidar Data, and If So, How Would We Build It?":: Leader mpg
  

- mpg will lead a 30 minute idea-gathering session, based on his lightning talk on this topic
- goal is to see if we can identify what existing tools we can use/extend to satisfy the goal
- this will proceed AaronR's OBM session

• OSM rendering test framework:: Leader MattK and GregC

- Idea is to create as many rendering instances of OSM data as posible on the OBM server
- Come up with test cases that will stress all rendering engines
- Come up with jMeter test suites to run
- Maybe a django project to run tests, visualize results, and even add and remove tests.

• Restful interface to all OBM services:: Leader AaronR

- Idea is to create a django project to wrap all OBM services (NAIP images, OSM rendering, etc) into a logical restful interface
- Sub-projects include coming up with URL structures, implementing the restful interface, and finally implementing the pages (metadata, tests, examples, etc)

Dinner Session (4pm to 6pm)

We will be walking over to the University Ave for a no-host dinner sometime after 4pm, returning around 6pm.  Exact venue to be determined on the fly; this session might even split into parallel tracks.

Evening Session: Monthly Meeting and prepared talks (6pm to 8pm)

Venue: 121 Raitt Hall

First 10 minutes will be CUGOS intro and mini meeting::

• Aaron intro the group and what we are and invite new folks to participate as well as recap of rest of day
  
• MPG will be be presenting a short (~5 min) recap of last month's Montreal codesprint and suggest CUGOS to host the 2012 event
  

2 hours of talks -> 6 - 20 minute talks (hard stop on timing)::

• "Open Data Kit project (http://code.google.com/p/opendatakit)" -Yaw Anokwa of UW
  
• "Publishing Data to GeoNetwork/GeoServer from ArcGIS using GeoCat bridge" from Jubal Harpster.
• "ArcGIS, OpenGeoData, and R or Why I use the tools I do: the sordid life of a spatial statistics post doc" - Chris Fowler
• "Open Source Lidar State of the Union" - MPG
  
• "OSM in Disaster Response - Humanitarian OpenStreetMap (HOT)" - Dane Springmeyer
• "ERMA and the Gulf Coast - Open Source tools in government disaster response" - Aaron Racicot

Directions and Transportation

Parking: www.washington.edu/facilities/transportation/commuterservices/parking/daily

Driving: www.washington.edu/facilities/transportation/commuterservices/drive

Walking: www.washington.edu/facilities/transportation/commuterservices/walk

Bus/Train: www.washington.edu/facilities/transportation/commuterservices/bus-train and www.washington.edu/facilities/transportation/commuterservices/bus-train/routes

One person noted that "my personal experience is that one can find street parking north of 50th, west of I-5, and down by University Village shopping center, if one is willing to walk 30 to 45 minutes () . But many of those areas were also being converted to resident restricted zones. Bus is really easy."

Another noted that "There are a ton of routes which stops near Anderson hall (Forest Club Room): bit.ly/eKKmHE (OneBusAway pointing to nearest bus stops north of Anderson)

Maps of event locations:

• Anderson Hall (Forest Club room 207): www.washington.edu/home/maps/southcentral.html
• Raitt Hall (room 121): www.washington.edu/home/maps/northcentral.html
  

If you are interested in an Olympia-based carpool, contact Webb Sprague (webb.sprague=AT=gmail.com)

Contacts

Local arrangements chair: Matt Dunbar -- dunbar.matt(AT)gmail.com

Wiki chair: mpg -- mpg^AT^flaxen.com

Attendees

Michael P. Gerlek (mpg) - Flaxen Geo

Peter Keum - King County DNRP - Wastewater Treatment Division

Greg Corradini

E. Ryan Small

Ruben Rodriguez

Aaron Racicot - Z-Pulley Inc.

Matthew Kenny - RIDOLFI Inc.

Matt Dunbar - UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE)

Holly Glaser

<insert your name here>