|
|
| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
| |
| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | GISList: Comments on DEMS |
| Date: |
08/03/2001 04:48:33 PM |
| From: |
Glenn Letham |
|
|
Greetings all,
(sorry for the delay... I actually composed an even longer
email yesterday afternoon, only to have my computer GPF me
and shut down prematurely before I hit the send button!)
As you likely know, I've been away for about 10 days - hence
my noticeable absence in this very interesting (albeit
getting rather sidetracked) discussion. When I went away I
decided to do minimal office duties and my relationship with
my wife and family has definitely benefited from this!
Anyway, I did manage to check the email while I was away and
I must say I was getting pretty ansy and eager to jump in,
particularly when threads with subject lines that read "DEM
Ransom" start popping up.
So now I am left to sift through about 2500 emails (tons
with those blasted .PIF files attached to them $##$), hoping
that I don't accidentally miss something urgent or
interesting... if I have, please excuse me and resend or
contact me.
So here I am back at GeoComm in our new office and find that
we have loads of new data being served up at the
GISDataDepot.com. The data has been housed here for all of
two weeks and it looks like the feathers have been ruffled
pretty good already... Bill, we have a vacant congress seat
down here in Florida and I couldn't help but think of you as
you seem to be very eager to lobby people to jump on your
band wagon and wave "we want data" banners up on Capitol
Hill... [I couldn't help myself!\
I'm not going to use this opportunity to attempt to discuss
public policy or GeoComm's perception of it. This matter is
best left to the USGS and the Government. In my role as
managing editor I do like to voice my own personal opinion
and often this may differ from that of the company - I'm
fortunate enough to have enough creative licensing to do so.
DEMs... So what's all the fuss about?
(http://www.gisdatadepot.com/dem/)
The USGS want to get away from serving up DEM data. The data
are large, often changing or being corrected/updated and
more recently, been positionaly corrected. GeoComm has
worked closely with the USGS over the last 2 years in an
effort to help make their data available to the public. All
too often we are abused and criticized because we have "the
nerve" to put ads on our site and to charge people for a CD
write service (which is priced lower than anywhere else
around). On top of that, we systematically respond to an
endless stream of phone calls and email from people wanting
to know how to translate SDTS data, what to do with a DDF
file, and even explain what an E00 file is. Sure we may take
a while to respond to some questions, however, if you had
any idea how many requests for help come in here you would
fall off your chair. Over the years we have developed
discussion lists, boards, FAQs, tutorials, etc... to attempt
to resolve commonly asked questions yet still the calls keep
coming in.... "how do I translate an E00 file to something I
can use" ... "where can I get colarless data" etc... We are
always available and openly publicize our phone number and
email contacts - something you won't find at many sites. So
why am I ranting?
The USGS has recently corrected the DEM data. I imagine that
since the data was needing to be updated that this was a
logical time to make the data available via a new
mechanism... makes sense doesn't it? Of course it does. Do
you think the USGS is going to simply hand over their entire
collection to anyone who asks for it and then give their
stamp of approval and start linking to the new site? Of
course not. Establishing a strusted and respected
relationship with an agency such as the USGS takes time...
something we have been doing for at least a couple of years
now. This is a new method of distributing data and like
anything else, the bugs will have to be worked out. C'mon,
the data has been here for what, about 2 weeks now and a
vocal few people are quickly jumping up and down and
screaming "ransom" "revolt" "conflict" "favortism"... yada
yada yada. Lets get things worked out. We are already adding
more bandwith in order to serve up the data for free... I
know, but we make $$ off banner ads..., sure we do - perhaps
a nominal fee, however, if you know anything about running a
.com business and think your going to strike it rich serving
ads then you better wake up and smell the coffee.
It has been already pointed out that the arrangement that
GeoComm has is not an exclusive one and that users can
expect other nodes to pop up in the future (that's up to the
USGS to decide). Don't expect hundreds of nodes (keeping
data current would be a nightmare) but I'm sure there will
be others. So why the GeoCommunity? Well, maybe its because
we provide a good service and pretty decent support. Don't
get me wrong, we're not here to be a free help line to the
GI
|
|
Sponsored by:
For information
regarding
advertising rates
Click Here!
|
