The Columbia Regional Geospatial Service Center, Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture, Stephen F. Austin State University, SCAUG, ETUG, Texas View, USDA Forest Service, Texas Forest Service and the Texas Forestry Association are pleased to announce a Geospatial Gathering to be held on the SFASU campus January 26-30, 2010. The conference will bring together GIS professionals, educators, public safety officials, economic development groups and natural resource manager to discuss advancements in: Geospatial Applications and Issues.

Click here for more information.

Ever wish your favorite breakfast joint would offer a GIS combo meal? That way, as you chomp down on that sausage biscuit, you could revel in the beauty of the latest satellite imagery of the Lone Star State.

Here at the Columbia Center, I am sad to announce that we are unable to offer you a bacon and egg croissant. As of today, however, we will be serving up daily MODIS imagery of Texas via our TexasView.org web presence. We’ve made a cozy spot for a thumbnail of the latest imagery at the top of the right column of this page. Click on it, but take CAUTION: Contents are AWESOME!

Or you can click here, if you don’t feel like moving your mouse that far because you haven’t had your coffee yet…

The Geospatial Enthusiast Organization, or Team GEO, is a NEW official Organization on SFA campus. Any students at SFA who take part in GIS, GPS, or Geocaching activites are encouraged to join. We also take part in volunteer Geospatial activties in encouraging the public awareness about the many uses of GPS and Geocaching.

On Saturday, April 18, Team GEO took part in the Earth Day 2009 events at the SFA Recreation Center. Members brought flyers, GPS units, and a 4-foot globe to the event where they set up at a booth. Four members including Charles Ashton, Allison Bergman, Chelsea West, and Alex Brown represented the organization by showing students, faculty, and the Nacogdoches community how to use GPS units, explaining the method by which the devices triangulate a position from satellite signals. Geocaching is one of the most popular uses of GPS in which people download points into their unit and go on treasure hunts to find hidden containers called geocaches. In one particular instance, Charles Ashton discussed with two bicyclist riders how they could strap GPS units to their bikes and track their biking routes. Outside the weather was dark and gloomy, and the clouds dropped 3 to 4 inches of rain. But inside, people were entertained by live music and visited the various booths and vendors.

College Station based television station KBTX featured a Texas State Guard training exercise for which the Columbia Center provided GPS equipment and observation. Click here to watch the video.

Every year, the Texas Natural Resource Information System (TNRIS) hosts Texas GIS Forum, a conference dedicated to bringing GIS professionals together from all over Texas to share their applications of GIS technology.

The Columbia Center was represented at the conference by Johnny Brown, Charles Ashton, Dr. Darrel McDonald, Jason Raines, and Shane Diaz. As usual, the conference proved to be a great opportunity for networking. “It was great because we got to tell a lot of people about the Columbia Center,” Diaz said. “We had lots of good comments about our response to hurricane Ike.”

In addition, Dr. McDonald presented on Wide Area Damage Assessment using GPS technology, and Columbia Center System member Kevin Mulligan presented a session entitled “Mapping the Usable Lifetime of the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas.” Both sessions were well received.

Conference attendees were all abuzz over Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and an application of its possibilities using new table-top touch-screen technology called Microsoft Surface. Microsoft Surface is demonstrated in the video below: