Islandia Geomatics

I am very pleased to have been invited as a contributing writer and a consultant for Kanelstrand Organic Living to share expert advice on ecology, open technology and carbon footprint. Kanelstrand Organic Living is an initiative about sustainable design and eco friendly living, where apart from environmental issues a lot more is discussed, like methods for reducing, reusing and recycling, as well as implementing the organic approach in optimizing your time and efficiency on the Internet. Take a look at our collaboration - A Portrait Of The Artist Project, where each week we interview one artist, devoted to ecological sustainability. The aim of this project is to offer publicity to independent artists from around the world, regardless of their media or experience but who implement earth-friendly philosophies in their works.

I flew over Iceland! Main emphasis of the flight was to observe in the late summer the vegetation, i.e. carbon production in North East Iceland. It was part of my Ph.D. study in University of Iceland. It was made thanks to my amazing supervisors. We were flying on Cessna 185. I measured the track of the flight with my Garmin 60CS GPS receiver. Below you can see the map of the flight. Red line shows the flight from Reykjavæík to Egilsstaðir where after refueling we flew back to Reykjavík seen on the orange line. The blue lines defines the catchment boundaries of the rivers I studied in my Ph.D. research. View Larger Map Here you can some of the thousands of the photos we did on one of the most beautiful places on this World. See also photos mapped here or for Google Earth here .

These days there are a lot of openly available spatial data in the cloud. Because of number of reasons - political, financial, lack of understanding on the open source software and open data to name a few - Iceland is suffering from the lack of vector map data in Google Maps and Google Earth. Here are some links to add Iceland to: Goolge Maps: example 1 , exapmple 2 Google Earth: example 1 , exapmple 2

I started my mobile GIS of Iceland in 2001. This GIS was totally made by open source programs and it was hosted on one of my servers at the University of Iceland, set up with the help of bofh.is . On the photos bellow you can see my then water, shock and dust proof mobile Siemens ME45 running this interactive GIS of Iceland. You clearly can see the map on a mono display, map features, map scale, ESSO petrol stations, reference map. Some of the layer are query-able. The waterfall in the background is Dettifoss , located in Jökulsárgljúfur National Park of Northeast Iceland. The river is Jökulsá á Fjöllum and it plays significant part of my Ph.D. research and my life but this is another story. The photos were taken on 20.06.2004, then I didn't know that exactly 4 years later on the same day I will defend my Ph.D. thesis in Geography at the University of Iceland.

I compiled myself a GPS map for all Scandinavian countries. Few moments later it was uploaded into my Garmin GPSmap 60CS . Sorry Garmin, but thanks to my parents I became a cartographer and it is shame for me to pay you for outdated maps. But thank you for the hardware. Actually this GPS receiver from Garmin was supposed to be durable but the belt clip bolt broke on the 2nd week, Garmin service didn't know how to fix it. I fixed it myself. Then the USB port neded a fix, then the keypad needed a replacement. Later on, the moderate heat of southern Europe unstuck the ruber top of the receiver as it was on my belt. And this "reliable" device made in SE Asia was advertised as an outdoor receiver. I wonder shall I go for 60CSx or is there another option? Garmin Oregon?

Iceland is the most developed country in the World without vector data (roads, points of interest, etc.) available in Google Maps. Google Map Maker is a great idea to create user contributed map of Iceland as I've already wrote in Let's map Iceland finally . And now Google Map Maker's maps of Iceland are available on Google Maps. Thanks to all the people who contributed their time for this wonderful initiative to bring finally free map of Iceland. You might need detailed free maps of Iceland for Google Earth .