Mapping Urban Ecologies

4.213J/11.308J URBAN NATURE AND CITY DESIGN

MAPPING NATURE:

ONLINE TOOLS FOR

SEEING AND ENGAGING URBAN ECOLOGIES

CASES


	DATA \| INTERFACE \| COMPUTATION All digital projects need data and a means to manipulate that data. GIS as both a hard- and soft-ware interface has many, many proprietary formats and new interfaces can even be developed independently using existing software tools. The biggest difference between spatial applications is the manner in which data, software, and hardware are organized. Some for-profit groups keep everything in a big, expensive, but powerful and consistently supported package. Other projects piggyback on either proprietary data or software; suplementing it with components from the public domain. Still other projects utilize both data and software publicly available from large providers/ aggregators and adapt them to specific purposes. The fragmented nature of contemporary GIS tools and cultures present either serious obstacles or rich oppoprtunities to integrate a comprehensive sense of natural relationships into our developing technology. These case studies are intended to outline the development and distribution of geo-locational mapping technology online. They are not exhaustive critiques of particular projects of methods.						"The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few but information in the hands of many. "--John Naisbitt, Megatrends

PROPRIETARY		PROPRIETARY/ PIGGYBACK		OPEN PROJECTS
	BostonAtlas		CaseyTrees		MapJunction
	ESRI: GIS and Mapping software product applications issues		ProvidencePlan		Mapicurious
	USGS: U.S. Geological Survey		NationalParks (via Discover)		GlacialBay
					EXXONSecrets

ESRI is the big kahuna of proprietary GIS software. Its extensive menu of products and services are built around ArcGIS, a "integrated collection of GIS software products for building a complete GIS for your organization" ESRI provides a powerful software backbone and an adaptable interface. It also offers specialized datasets for locations around the globe. The ability of ArcGIS to visualize and accomodate nature is broad. As the software is intended to be set up for special applications, the responsibility falls upon the user to incorporate ecological factors into their personalized interface.				Applications
				just about anything. includes valuable analytic tools.
				Issues
				expensive, requires extensive training for best results, potential for hyperfocus, 'professional' tool not public, bonus recent tools allow easy publication and integration of ArcGIS functionality online. This decreases the specialist knowledge required to make data publicly accessible.




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