Virtual Worlds

For my Virtual Worlds blog this week, I would like to do a discussion on Google Earth Pro. This was the program that I did my work for project 2 on and I have to admit that it is an amazing piece of software. My project was supposed to be on golf courses of the reno area, but I encountered some technical difficulites and lost my work on one of the computers. With all that aside, this was the progress I achieved before I lost the info. My project was based on a common starting point that both locals and tourists would be able to identify; the Reno/Tahoe international airport. I had designed "least resistance" routes based partially on google's recommendation, and my general local knowledge of streets in Reno. These routes were then highlighted in a light purple to produce a distinctive figure/ground relationship and not be overly distracting. Next, I created manual fly-by's for each route (11 total) and labled intersections that were junctions in the routes. This produced "mapquest" like directions right on the map for the viewer to put a name with the surrounding area as they took the virtual drive from the airport to their golf course of choice. In order to keep the street visible as well as the surrounding area for landmarks and reference points, I used 300 ft elevation with a 50 degree angle. This provided enough of both to be able to point out distinctive features that one could recognize from both a real drive and the tour. When I showed people this tour, they were very impressed with my ability to use this program, but in reality I was impressed at how amazingly easy it was to use. Most things are very straight forward for the beginning user and once you become a little more familiar with it, some very amazing products can be created. So, my hat is off to Google for producing such a program and I can't wait for Higher-resolution immagery to come out so that even more things can be done. I know you can download your own remote sensing photos, but it would be nice to have them already in the database for use by all.

Very Spatial Games

So, the game I decided to play was a great game that had you place each individual state in its respective location on a United States map. The link to this game is: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html Before I discuss it, my personal stats on the game were as follows: I completed it in 422 seconds, had a 68% score and my average error was 92 miles. I was doing this game with a laptop cursor, so I don't feel all to bad for that score. I'm sure I would do much better had a taken a little more time to place the state a little better in most instances. Okay...About the game. The game is a really good design that allows you asks you to place the states on the US map in a random order. When a state is placed correctly, it gives you your stat immedietly and when you place it incorrectly, it shows you where the state belongs by highliting the area that it should be placed in. The one thing to remember is that this game does not have state boundries in any type of marking, so sometimes it is nessicary to take a ball park guess at first until you get a few major states in place for better reference. Because I had been to roughly 40 of the states, I had a very good knowledge of where most of them went, but then I also realized that the ones that I haven't been to posed the biggest problem for me. Go figure... All in all, I thing this is a great game worth using as a pedogogical tool for elementry to early middle school teachers. I really wish I would have had something this fun when I was going to school!

Mapping Hazards

Over the past few years, mapping hazards has come more into the public eye. This has been the case for many reasons, but primarily, it is because the public wants to know how much damage has been caused by natural disasters. Because of the extent of this damage, people want to know more about their own risk of being in danger. This is where modeling comes into play. Geographers as well as specialists in many other fields have been able to map potential threats with increasing ease because of the use of G.I.S. and can make several different maps displaying several different outcomes based on information of these hazards. The very first time I saw a hazard map was when I was in the army. At the time, I didn't think alot of it because it was just a tool that was given to us to help us stay alive, but this landmine field map was precisely a hazard map. Next was our standard aviator maps. These maps listed several hazards ranging from power lines, to towers that had suffecient height to be a danger to the hellicopter and its crew. But once I arrived to college, I started to see a completely different hazard map. These maps ranged from fault line geological maps, to flood plane maps. The one thing that all of these maps had in common though were the predicition of certain hazards under certain conditions. Now, even in vehicles, we have up to date hazard maps that outline construction zones and current traffic conditions and can help us circumnavigate these hazards. Point in hand, mapping hazards is all about prevention. Prevention of damage to body and property and they are becoming more frequent in our everyday lives. What was once a map designed to show the aftermath of a disaster, is now a map showing the possible effects of a disaster and how to help prepare or prevent these hazards from adversly affecting you.