Posts

Canadian opendata

Canadian Open Data and Free Geospatial Data

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Over the past few years CanadianGIS.com has been highlighting and promoting various cities and provinces in Canada that have done a great job providing data and applications to the public. We created this page a few years ago to collaborate links of all the open geospatial data info (sites that offer data downloads at no cost and without restrictions), fee based geospatial data, online web mapping applications and other great sources of geospatial information (including National, Provincial and Regional levels). This comprehensive list of open geospatial data, fee based geospatial data, web mapping applications and cartographic products is a valuable asset to many people (... we get hundreds of emails and requests regarding "Where can I find data for ...?") so we continue to update it with new information and sources of Canadian data sets.
Professional Geomatics Associations and Groups in Canada

Professional Geomatics Associations and Groups in Canada

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Professional organizations are great ways to network and discuss GIS topics with others in the same industry. Here are the professional geomatics related associations, groups and organizations in Canada ...
Geomatics Acronyms and Abbreviations

Geomatics Acronyms and Abbreviations

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[List updated May 2016] Geomatics has become a pretty common term in Canada lately and includes many different disciplines such as  geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, cartography, land surveying, global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), photogrammetry, geography and other related forms of spatial mapping. Using acronyms and abbreviations is commonly practiced in the Geomatics industry and most of the time people just assume that everybody else knows what every acronyms and abbreviation stands for. Well that is obviously not the case most of the time and over the years I have created myself a little digital cheat-sheet of geomatics acronyms and abbreviations that I use with my work in my writing. Here is a large collection of common acronyms and abbreviations that you may when working in the Canadian Geomatics industry.
How to Get Ontario Topographic Data

How to Get Ontario Topographic Data

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Recently, someone contacted me looking for information on where they could find topographic map data for the Thunder Bay area, so I assumed that they must have already checked the Canadian data page, so suggested that they check out the Ontario Basic Mapping web site (OBM). The Ontario Basic Mapping (OBM) site by the Geography Network is a great online resource with simplistic interactive interface that provides users tools to create customized map views and the ability to download various topographic base mapping data for the entire Province of Ontario. The site contains GIS layers created from 1:10,000 base maps from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources that people can download including layers for transportation, water, municipal, elevation, parks and conservation areas. Today I have included more information about the OBM including a video on how to download free topographic data from the site.
GEONB mapping for New Brunswick

GeoNB – the ‘All Things Geographic’ place for New Brunswick data

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Last year I featured GeoNB, New Brunswick’s approach to publicly available geographic information for the entire province of New Brunswick. This valuable resource by Service New Brunswick provides a robust web mapping application, value-added products, various applications and extensive collection of open source data sets. Not to mention an outstanding web GIS application that stands out from others and one that earned them an Esri Canada Award of Excellence award last fall at the Esri User Conference in Fredericton. GeoNB currently includes a wide variety of data sets for the entire province including digital topographic layers, orthophotos, property maps and much more. On top of having one of the best online mapping applications available they also provide access to download any of these digital data sets in a variety of formats for people to use in their own GIS software packages. Here is a follow up with more news about freely available geographic information data in New Brunswick and GeoNB.