Romanian Chapter Report 2008

Romanian Local Chapter

• Contact name: Vasile Crăciunescu

Key Accomplishments

• Visibility at conferences and workshops:
  • 30-31 May 2008: a general presentation of geo-spatial.org, Romanian in formation chapter and OSGeo was done at the "International Symposium on Technical Geography", in Cluj Napoca - Romania.
  • 16-19 June 2008: a poster with geo-spatial.org activities was presented at the "Evaluating Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) for Environmental Applications" workshop, organized by FP6 CASCADOSS project consortium (http://cascadoss.eu/), in Warsaw - Poland.
  • 24-25 September 2008: general presentation at 16th GIS Users Conference, Iasi - Romania.
  • 11-12 December 2008: general presentation at the "Technologies for the consolidation of the national spatial data infrastructure" conference (http://sdi08.rosa.ro/) held in Bucharest.

• Romanian articles and tutorials published on geo-spatial.org:
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/utilizare-qgis-unu (QGIS tutorial)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/realizare-simboluri-qgis (tutorial on custom cartographic symbols in QGIS)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/georeferentiere-harta-scanata (tutorial on map georeferencing using QGIS)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/utilizare-qgis-doi (tutorial on data editing in QGIS)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/adaugarea-coordonatelor-x-si-y-unui-set-de-puncte (QGIS tutorial)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/tutorial-stereo70-ILWIS (ILWIS tutorial)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/utilizare-postgis-unu (PostGIS installation and configuration tutorial)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/harta-temperatura-medie-lunara (tutorial describing how interpolate temperature values using detrended kriging method in SAGA GIS)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/decuparea-unui-set-de-date-grid-folosind-o-masca-vectoriala (tutorial on GRID/DEM clipping using a vector mask in SAGA GIS.)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/dezvoltarea-de-aplicaii-webgis-folosind-soluii-open-source-partea-i-introducere-openlayers (OpenLayers tutorial)
  • http://earth.unibuc.ro/tutoriale/solutii-wms-open-source-partea-i (Geoserver tutorial)

• Meetings:
  • 28 February 2008: meeting in a pub. 17 attendees. City: Bucharest. Details and photos at http://earth.unibuc.ro/index.php?id=240
  • 30 May 2008: meeting in a pub. 7 attendees. City: Cluj Napoca.
  • 25 September 2008: meeting at the Faculty of Geography - University of Bucharest. Presentations on open source software use (VTP, OpenLayers, Geoserver, PostGIS, Geonetwork, LeoWorks) and free talks. 21 attendees. Photos and details at http://earth.unibuc.ro/index.php?id=241.
  • 23 October: meeting at the Faculty of Geography - University Alexandru Ioan Cuza. 35 attendees. City: Iasi. Practical introductions to open source webmapping software (OpenLayers, Geoserver), OpenStreetMap Romania presentation and live demos, free talks. Details and photos at http://earth.unibuc.ro/index.php?id=242.
  • 13-14 December: first real "hands on" workshop on webmapping. 13 attendees. City: Brasov. Details and photos at http://earth.unibuc.ro/index.php?id=243.

• Work on open geodata:
  • Detailed data for the city of Suceava (http://earth.unibuc.ro/download/seturi-date-geospatiale-locale).
  • Geomorphological units of Romania (http://earth.unibuc.ro/download/harta-unitati-relief-romania).
  • Old maps and atlases. More than 4000 maps sheets, scanned during 2008, are in process to be publish (via Geonetwork Opensource) on geo-spatial.org.

• Open letter
  • An open letter, signed by 39 GIS users, was sent to the Romanian National Mapping Agency (http://ancpi.ro), asking to support us in replacing the existing transformations between the Romanian coordinate systems and WGS84 in EPSG tables with more accurate (and public) ones. The answer was positive (http://earth.unibuc.ro/articole/raspuns-petitie-ancpi_new) and the new transformations were approved by EPSG board.

• Translations
  • The important sections on www.osgeo.org were translated to Romanian an published on http://earth.unibuc.ro/osgeo. The translation will be soon moved to osgeo.org.

Areas for Improvement

• Present the FOSS benefits to companies involved in the geospatial business here in Romania

Opportunities to Help

• Join and express your opinions to our local mailing lists (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/geo-spatial) or forum (http://www.nabble.com/geo-spatial.org-f25985.html)
• Volunteers for translations, write new materials, help on organizing workshops

Outlook for 2009

• In partnership with the Faculty of Geography - University Babes - Bolyai, Cluj Napoca, we are organizing an seminar on free and open source geospatial solutions. The event will take place between 3-4 of April 2009 and will be hosted by the Faculty of Geography, in Cluj Napoca. The event consist in general presentations and "hands on" workshops. Four type of workshops are planned: webmapping (using Geoserver, PostGIS, OpenLayers, Geonetwork), 3D visualization (using VTP), geomorphological analysis (using SAGA GIS), satellite image processing (using LeoWorks). Seats are available for 30 persons at each workshop. The complete program can be downloaded at http://earth.unibuc.ro/file_download/24339. Other details will be available at http://earth.unibuc.ro/index.php?id=244.
• Regular meetings during the whole year
• Become an official local chapter
• Publish more articles and datasets on geo-spatial.org