Here is a recipe for installing Leo from scratch on Windows (Win7 tested). The only prerequisites are command line wget in PATH and an internet connection.

About 50mb of files are downloaded and 200mb consumed when done.

Open a command prompt and run:

mkdir X:\testing
pushd X:\testing

wget -O apt.exe --no-clobber http://download.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/x86/release/apt/apt-r1193M.exe
SET OSGEO4W_ROOT=%~dp0\root
apt setup
apt update
apt install pyqt4 sip

call root\osgeo4w.bat

wget --no-check-certificate http://gist.github.com/maphew/5393935/raw/install-pip.py
python install-pip.py GO
python install-pip.py GO

pip install -i https://testpypi.python.org/pypi leo-editor

python apps\Python27\Scripts\leo

After this the directory X:\testing\root can be renamed and/or moved anywhere.

To run leo in future sessions, simply call x:\path\to\root\osgeo4w.bat python apps\Python27\Scripts\leo, either as a batch file or windows shortcut.

IMPORTANT NOTE - this is just a proof …continue.

I’ve been sporadically working on a little command line installer for OSGeo4W, called apt. It is based on cyg-apt, a command line apt-get-like installer for cygwin byJan Nieuwenhuizen. I currently have two forks. One for o4w alone, which I’ve renamed apt, and the second for cygwin alone, which I’ve left as cyg-apt. Forking is not a good idea when there is so much in common, so I’m going to try and bring them together. One app, two installers. Neither name fits this new job so I’m going to use appy for the time being. It will have to change eventually as there’s another, much bigger, python project with the appy name, but I …continue.

This article came across my desk and inspired me to make a poster. Well, it inspired me to find a poster, but I didn't locate one that resonated just the right way with me, so I made my own.

A portion of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 from a distance of more than 4 billion miles from Earth. Our world is a mere point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixels in size, coincidentally right in the center of a scattered light ray, resulting from taking the image so close to the sun.

"We succeeded in taking that picture , …continue.

I was cleaning out old email and ran across this important message which fell through the cracks. I don't have the time to fulfill this urgent request, but thought perhaps I could help by getting the word out to someone who can. Thus was born the Time Traveller drop points:

A web map service for Time Travellers who need to arrange for pick up and or delivery of specialty goods. On the go and need a supply dump provisioned? Put your drop point and request here.\ \ NOTE: payment and delivery term arrangements are *strictly* between traveller and deliverer. We don't want to know about it and will not …continue.

….some further experiments with ipythonand ArcGIS python geoprocessing. Here is a simple script to convert a bunch of coverages to shapefile. There are 9 coverages occupying 3mb, it takes about 6 minutes, consumes 2 processors to 80-90% capacity and chews through 300mb of ram:

cd w:/Env-dat.003/2007-March/workspace/envy_ed2import arcgisscripting
gp = arcgisscripting.create()
gp.Workspace = ‘./’

todo = !dir /b fwtc*

for cov in todo:
   try:
      print cov
      gp.FeatureClassToShapefile( cov + ‘/arc’, ‘./shp’)
   except:
      print gp.GetMessages()

Contrast that to using fwtools ogr2ogr, which takes 10 seconds:

for %a in (fwtc*) do ogr2ogr -f “esri shapefile” ogr\%a %a

The problem is, ogr2ogr doesn’t …continue.

Prompted by a conversation with my father eons ago, I'm researching and experimenting how to create a map in a discontinuous or interrupted projection. Initially I was thinking of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Map, but I've since chosen a variant of the Bernard J. S. Cahill's Butterfly Map, the Cahill-Keyes M-style.

• Technical notes and specification - http://www.genekeyes.com/CKOG-OOo/1-...rinciples.html
• my code repository of same - https://bitbucket.org/maphew/cahill-keyes/

• GIS Exchange Q on Discontinuous projections in open source GIS

• MJ's work reproduced

2007 September 07

A free Canada-wide 1:50,000 elevation model.

This project was in preparation of sending a Canada-wide elevation model to Google Earth and NASA World Wind. It was completed a couple of years ago, although the data is not yet generally available through those tools — thus the reason for hosting it here:~~http://sydney.freeearthfoundation.com/mattwilkie/draft/canada_50k_dem~~\ (thank you Adam Nowaki and the Free Earth Foundation!).

note: hostname has changed tohttp://s1.static.tileservice.net/mattwilkie/draft/canada_50k_dem/

The data are marked draft because only a very preliminary review of the resulting mosaick has been done. There is no guarantee the data is complete or faithfully represents it’s source. I am interested feedback on the product and it’s utility but I make no promises …continue.

At work we'd put together an experimental OpenZoom image of a mountain panorama. Time passed, stuff happened, and the original photo montage was lost. So now the project is how do we get the original back from the eight thousand tiles which comprise the zoomified experiment?

Enter dezoomify.rb, "Stitch Zoomify tiles into a single image (Ruby + ImageMagick)" by henrik. Now because I'd used openzoom and not zoomify, and had the tiles on a local network disk instead of an a webserver, I had to majorly bastardize dezoomify to get it to work. The result isn't pretty and is hardcoded to work with this single project, but because it didwork I'm posting it here. Perhaps …continue.

My wife bought me 100 years of National Geographic maps on an 8 CDROM set. The maps are great, but the image viewer it comes with is horrible. If anyone can help me extract the images I would be incredibly grateful. This is a personal project, so I don't have a lot of money for it, but would be willing to trade  services in kind in addition to a small honorarium.

The files have the extension ".@EX", begin with "ExeComp Binary @EX File v2" and appear to have embedded JFIF pyramids in them. I can send a sample to anyone interested in helping me but not post publicly as they …continue.

This is one of the smallest maps from the natgeo set. The compressed attached @xe file is 545kb. Here is zoom level 4, focused on the canadian part of the Yukon River, using the NG map viewer.

Corresponding entry from my reconstructed mapdb (more on that later):

<map>
    <title>Sketch Map of Alaska</title>
    <file>UAK191E1</file>
    <features>
    125Map LegendJuneau, Alas.Sitka, Alas.Pt. BarrowBering StraitYukon RiverYakutat BayAleutian Islands35543351533122342221241311211211</features>
    <size>13 3/8 x 10</size>
</map>

And this is how it looks in the NG app. Obviusly there is another table beside the one I've reconstructed to pull info from. I've not …continue.