[R-sig-Geo] FYI: GDEM is out! / Open Access Journals / CAPAWARE (3D GIS layer browser)

[Tomislav Hengl]

Hi all,

Some exciting news that I felt like sharing over this mailing list...

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GDEM GLOBAL DEM AT 30 m RESOLUTION

The first 30 m resolution global DEM has just been released (this is now the most detailed global
GIS layer with public access - I've read about it in the news). The GDEM was created by
stereo-correlating the 1.3 million-scene ASTER archive of optical images, covering almost 98% of
Earth's land surface (95% vertical ci: 20 meters, 95% horizontal ci: 30 meters). The one-by-one-
degree tiles can be downloaded from NASA's EOS data archive and/or Japan's Ground Data System. I
have just downloaded some tiles for the areas in the Netherlands and it does not look very
promising: (1) there is still a lot of filtering to be done (you can see tiles borders and similar
artifacts); (2) the DEM is rather noisy (see att.). Data can be downloaded from JAPAN/METI
[http://www.gdem.aster.ersdac.or.jp/] or LP DAAC [https://wist.echo.nasa.gov/~wist/api/imswelcome/].
Caution: the download is rather difficult because the Japanese server is always down; the NASA's
server requires that you register and fill out some questions. 

Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20090629.html 

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OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS

Why not publish in Open Access Journals?

There is an increasing number of open access journals (OAJs) that are worth promoting among your
colleagues. Some of the OAJ even have a fairly high Impact Factor. For example, we have decided to
publish the papers from our Geomorphometry conference in the HESS journal, which has an impact
factor of 2.2. Read more: http://2009.geomorphometry.org/special_issue.htm  

Here are some OAJs that might be of interest:
*Biogeosciences (BG): http://www.biogeosciences.net/  
*Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS): http://www.hydrology-and-earth-system-sciences.net/ 
*(NEW) Remote Sensing: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/  

Note that the OAJs typically assign copyright to authors and allow access to the discussion and
revision process (this is often more interesting than the paper itself!!). Not to mention that
anybody can comment on a paper etc.

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CAPAWARE.ORG - AN OPEN SOURCE 3D MULTILAYER FRAMEWORK

Are you aware of the Capaware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capaware)? Finally, a decent alternative
for Google Earth? It is open source, so go ahead and test it (product of Instituto Tecnológico de
Canarias).

Some video demos: http://www.capaware.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82&Itemid=101


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cheers,

Tom Hengl
http://spatial-analyst.net 

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