The practical impact of the BitPass announcement is that we will not be able to sell maps online anymore unless another similar payment system can be found.

This news is certainly a surprise. Apologies to anyone who is inconvenienced.

Received this from BitPass today:

“We want to thank you for your past business, however due to circumstances beyond our
control, we are discontinuing our operations.

We have partnered with Digital River to provide operational support during the
period prior to shut down. As of today, January 19, 2007, all Bitpass Buyers with
US dollar denominated accounts are being notified that they will have seven (7) days
to spend any amounts that currently exist in their Bitpass Account.

During this seven day period, US Buyers will not be able to further fund their account.

On January 26, all US Bitpass Buyer accounts will be closed and Digital River will
begin the process of refunding all unspent monies to the accountholder.

All account records and materials will be retained for 60 days and available upon
request. ”

I hadn’t heard that there was a special version of Canvas with GIS capabilities (or that Canvas is no longer a Deneba product):

http://www.acdamerica.com/arcnews/default.html

Does anyone know if this software allows you to import a set of vectors from Illustrator CS2 and geo-reference them? Then convert to another projection? Then export back to Illustrator? The site mentions georectifying imagery, but nothing about vectors.

erik

USGS to Release TerraLook: “The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced today the upcoming release of the TerraLook data product. TerraLook consists of a collection of JPEG images created from ASTER images from the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center and Landsat Orthorectified images from the USGS Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science archive.

Users of the images will be able to select and order their own images through the USGS Global Visualization Viewer (GloVIS), The images are geo-registered, simulate natural color, and are bundled with footprints of the images as well as standards-compliant metadata. The data will come as a single zipped file. The images are expected to available later this month.
“

(Via GeoCarta.)

Hardly anyone has used the octant map/projection since 1514 or so. At least it is hard to find examples.

So I put it to use in the Art of Geography logo.

Many people have commented on the logo… I thought it would be interesting to delve into this unusual projection/map. The following article explains more about Leonardo da Vinci’s octant map and projection:

http://www.artofgeography.com/info/octant-projection.html

Garmin FINALLY Supports OS X: “

Garmin announced nearly a year ago that they would be supporting OS X for their Forerunner and Edge line of GPS devices designed for running and biking. Windows users have long been able to upload tracking information for use with the Garmin Training Center. Now Macworld is reporting that Garmin will finally be supporting OS X in late January (it’s not out yet, but they will be giving out copies of the software at MWSF). All I have to say is: it’s about time!

[Via Macworld and The Unofficial Apple Weblog.]