This FREE online geography website provides interested individuals (geographers) with decent explanations and instructions on how anyone can use some very practical geographic tools. All of us in this class are fortunate to be blessed enough to attend a school like University of Richmond and learn from great infrastructures in hands on lessons and lab meetings. Not all young adults across the United States have these same luxuries. There are many people who would love to learn about the environment and the practical use of geographic tools but never get the exposure.
The website provides “useful links” accompanied by downloads to many tools we have been exposed to in our geography class. Some of these include Archaeogeek, GIS and Science, Google Earth, Google Lat Long and much more.
I particularly like this cite because the author offers explanations for beginners starting with the basics of how to read and make maps and then all the way up to professional geographers.
Here I have included a link to a video for Photo Fly: “Project Photofly is a cloud-based service that converts 2D photographs to 3D computer models. It is available as a free technology preview on Autodesk Labs. This video demonstrates how to take a series of photographs with a standard digital camera to maximize the results.”
The author also talks about fun tricks and tools that one can do with a Garmin GPS device. I was very intrigued by this because I have always been a huge fan of portable GPS devices; primarily from when I used to fish a lot. Whether I was out in the ocean or on a freshwater lake my grandfather would always save points on the GPS memory so we would know where we had luck catching fish or ran into a big school the previous day.
Two particular tools the author provides downloads for include:
1) MapSource Uploader – A program to help install OSM-based Garmin maps into MapSource/BaseCamp.
2) Route Editor – GUI to create custom Garmin routing styles
Overall this is a useful website for any interested beginner or experienced geographer.
Thanks,
Jack