[edshuck]

This may be of no interest to anyone here, but it is cool.

The map is of San Francisco Bay

http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/c1259/

[Penny]

Originally Posted by edshuck

This may be of no interest to anyone here, but it is cool.

The map is of San Francisco Bay

http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/c1259/

Thats pretty cool there Ed! Mind you I love stuff like that, my job is maps (I'm a GIS admiistrator).

I quite enjoy looking at pretty pictures like that!

[edshuck]

There is always a move to privatize and that would mean that the items would be held not by the public.

The geodetic survey crowd need to be allowed the freedom of not looking for a particular thing. But work for all of us.

One of my favorite sites is

http://quake.usgs.gov/

And I always have a link to this

http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/FaultMaps/122-38.htm

These are also the people who provide topo maps. They can provide most areas of the country. The scales available vary.

[styx]

Stuff like maps etc should be in the public domain, for all to use. Sure there are costs involved in gathering the data and so on, but surely that can be offset in other ways . . .
I'm quite keen to get a copy of Tumonz, which looks like a great tool (or plaything!).

That's probably worth the $100 or so they ask, but for one-off maps, it should be possible to get hold of one without giving away my first-born!

[edshuck]

Originally Posted by styx

Stuff like maps etc should be in the public domain, for all to use. Sure there are costs involved in gathering the data and so on, but surely that can be offset in other ways . . .

Quite right.

I think the public interest iIS served when these things happen.

Now for the greedy part of me.

Gold was discovered at Sutters Mill near Sacramento, CA in 1849

This had come from the Sierra to the North and East. People made the mad dash to the mountains. Do you suppose that gold had been washing down the river to collect in some of the deep pockets for years and even eons?

[styx]

Do I detect a bit of Gold Fever there, Ed?

I have relatives who manage to pay for their family holidays down on the West Coat (South Island, NZ!) by panning for gold - with a bit of perseverance, there's still gold to be found

[Penny]

You do have to remember that there is an awful lot of work that goes into getting the data into formats that you can read it. So you will probably find what you pay for isn't the data its the work that went into it.

Up until recently at work we had to pay license fees to Linz + processing fees to someone like terralink, to use the landbase data for our area, our GIS is practically useless without it. With LINZ's iniative they did that big landonline project, and also changed the data we use from DCDB (digital cadastral database or something) to CRS. CRS had no license fees to pay to LINZ. We thought this was a great idea. Unfortunaltey terralink choose that time to increase their processing costs. So we still pay out the same amount.

But I can't see them ever letting anyone get free topo maps or other such maps, too much work goes into creating them. I don't see why the people that do the work should have to let them be free either.

[edshuck]

The topos at the geodetic survey do cost.

They are pricey for the very reasons penny mentions. Additionally, they are often part of legal documents.

Details and accuracy.

Gold fever. Yes. But only lusting in my mind. But it does seem logical that gravity rules.

[Penny]

Yes, altho' sometimes you gotta wonder exactly how much work it is when you look at how much they charge us for it! hahaha, then you get the situation that with the radio network they are putting in (telecommunications stuff) we needed the landbase for all of auckland and beyond, she rings me up says "we have only exported some of it and it is already at 10 GB, I hope thats OK" so we go into panic mode of "oh my gosh where on earth are we going to find 10GB of sapce on the GIS server" and it arrives and its only 4.5!! silly lady I mean theres quite a large difference between 4.5 and 10 GB!

I think I am quite lucky tho' cos we get allsorts of maps at work, so if i need them for personal reasons I can quite often look at them anduse them. Sometimes the guys come and ask me if I have the marine maps haha, I just tell them if they can organise a power pole or two out where they want to fish, we can get the marine maps!