Latest Contributions by BernSzukalski

With recent data compiled by the USGS, the WNS maps and Story Map have been updated. The update includes new reports from Texas, Washington, Minnesota, and several Canadian provinces. Story Map Interactive map How the maps are made The Story Map uses the Story Map Journal, and embeds two Story Map Series and the Time Aware configurable app. The interactive map shown above uses the sharing preview of the map in the Minimalist configurable app. For more information on this "quick share" technique, see Quickly share your map using an app. ... View more

Today, June 6th, 2019, is National Caves and Karst Day. You'll find lots of commercial caves and National Park caves holding special events today. I took a quick look for cave and karst related maps and apps on ArcGIS Online, here's the search links. Maps:  https://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=caves&start=1&num=20&restrict=false&focus=maps https://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=karst&start=1&num=20&restrict=false&focus=maps Apps:  https://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=caves&start=1&num=20&restrict=false&focus=applications https://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=karst&start=1&num=20&restrict=false&focus=applications Scenes: https://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?q=karst&start=1&num=20&restrict=false&focus=scenes What are you doing with cave and karst GIS and digital mapping on this day? Share your stories! ... View more

Too many maps, apps, or Story Maps that are otherwise great, have suffered from poorly crafted or unconfigured pop-ups. Even the very best GIS and digital mapping pros often overlook the importance, and ease, by which great layer pop-ups can be made. Pop-ups are equally important as thinking about how you present your map data. We typically think about cartography, and smart mapping provides great tools and guidance to help us make better maps, but all too often those great maps are spoiled by poor pop-ups. Pop-ups are an equally important part of the overall map experience, and deserving of no less attention than other aspects of your maps. They are a very important and integral part of the presentation of information in your maps, and can turn a dull and dopey dump of attributes into a far more meaningful presentation of information. See the comparison below - which do you think is the better presentation of information? Updated posts With the above in mind, I've updated a series of blog posts that provide all the information you will (perhaps ever) need to craft amazing pop-ups.  Pop-ups: the essentials covers all of the basics, and all of the ways you might think to present information.It includes a sample web map that covers all of the examples in the blog post. Pop-ups: custom attribute display covers everything from single-attribute pop-ups, to using HTML. It includes source HTML which you can use and modify to make your own, plus a sample web map. Pop-ups: adding charts covers the basics of adding charts, including some examples that show you how. In addition to the above, you'll find: Pop-ups: tips for adding photos - some ideas for making the most out of adding photos. Use color in pop-ups - this includes a simple Arcade example that adds color to your pop-up using a conditional statement based on attribute values. Send email from pop-ups - a nice way to leverage the power of links that include attribute values to do more from your pop-ups. And more... And you'll find more by searching Help documentation, and also searching for additional posts on the ArcGIS Blog about pop-ups. Let's make pop-ups an essential part of authoring great web maps. ... View more

This is an example of an online cave map with links to photos. The cave is real, it was mapped and (re-) discovered during a project for Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. The cave name is hidden, as is its location. Click the camera symbol to see the photos, you'll see it's a very unique and special cave.   The map was scanned and then published using ArcGIS Online to scale, It's geolinked, not geo-referenced, since that made the most sense for a cave of this size.   Click the camera icon to view the pop-up with a photo thumbnail. Click the thumbnail to view a larger photo.   What I like about this example is that it uses the best tools for the best results. The cave map was drawn using Illustrator, and most cave maps are drawn using Illustrator or similar graphic programs. Yes, you could do this in ArcGIS Pro but it would be tedious. It's much easier to create this type of map in Illustrator, or Xara, or a similar graphics program. The map is actually geolinked (not georeferenced) to an ArcGIS Online feature layer in an online database. However it was published from ArcGIS Pro and used a technique to publish it at it's correct scale, so web map tools like Measure can be used. ... View more

Here's a couple of examples that I put together that show different ways to manage a variety of documents associated with a feature in a hosted feature layer. The original question and subsequent example was catalyzed by someone that wanted to explore how different kinds of documents - photos, PDF files, scanned images, maps, etc. - could be associated to a specific location, in this case a cave location, or a survey station in a cave survey. This example uses a hosted feature layer with links to various document storage options - Flickr, Google Drive, an ArcGIS Online group, and two group-based configurable apps - Minimal Gallery, and Category Gallery. In my opinion the best implementation is actually the Category Gallery. Click the filter to browse the categories describing the content found in the group. This, however, was the most curative intensive approach. Perhaps the easiest were Flickr (if you are focused on photos) or Google Drive if you just need to manage a variety of documents. This next example shows all of those document types stored as attachments to the feature. All of the attachments were enabled and added using ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS Pro was not used, everything was done on the ArcGIS Online hosted feature layer using layer settings, and editing capabilities in the Map Viewer. Attachments are a very powerful way to store many different kinds of document types with any feature.  Which method is best? Well as usual it depends on what you need to do, your intended audience, and the workflows involved in adding documents to features and who will be managing and viewing them. ... View more

I just stumbled across this nice Story Map Tour of the Rudické plateau in the central part of the Moravian Karst titled KRAS RUDICKÉ PLOŠINY. Details about the app can be found on the InMap.cz website. On the maps and documents to download page you'll also find an interesting PDF document - the Map Guide to Moravian Karst (MAPOVÝ PRŮVODCE MORAVSKÝM KRASEM) - containing links to maps of the area as well as well as descriptions for features found on each. It's published in several languages, so you might be able to read one of them. ... View more

Here's a Story Map Cascade I stumbled across the other day. It's about the ThamLuang Cave (Thailand) rescue, and presents an overview of how GIS was applied. The Story Map was authored by Esri Thailand, and one of the interesting features of the Story Map is that it is bilingual. ... View more

This post covers the basics of symbol rotation in ArcGIS Online web maps. Symbol rotation is easy, and is perfect for "direction focused" point features. These include cameras, travel direction, wind direction, and much more. But there are some very interesting things you can do using a combination of stacked symbols and rotation, covered in this post: Stacking symbols allows you to create gauges, that rotate with your data whether it be static or live. This post covers everything above, with a sprinkle of Arcade thrown in. Arcade is used to calculate the offsets needed to rotate the needle on top of non-circular, or non-half-circular gauges. Using these techniques, you can come up with all sort of creative applications of stacked symbols and rotation. ... View more

A colleague sent me this interesting article about underground mapping using drones. Check out the images in the article. https://newatlas.com/hovermap-emesent-drones-tunnels-mines/57093/#p544783  If anyone has any data from something like this, the 3D team would love to have at it! ... View more

A recent addition to the Teach with GIS lessons is Thailand's Cave Rescue Miracle. It's among many exercises that teachers can use to create engaging and innovative materials for their students.You'll plenty more at the Teach with GIS Curriculum Builder site. This particular lesson is of special interest to those interested in caves. On June 23, 2018 twelve boys between 11 and 17 years of age and their coach entered the Tham Luang cave to explore. The team was trapped in the cave by continuous rainfall. They were found and rescued by an international team that involved 100 divers and many countries. They were found on July 2 and were finally all rescued on July 11, 2018. The lesson also covers various ways to show large numbers of features, in this case the caves in Thailand. The image below shows multiple layers using smart mapping capabilities. Counts and Amounts Size and Counts and Amounts Color are combined to visualize cave density in various provinces. This lessons will build skills in the following areas: Select by attribute Create bookmarks Configure pop-ups Search for data Filter ... View more

With an anticipated Friday landfall, Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the mid-Atlantic United States with potential to cause "massive damage" in both coastal and inland areas. North Carolina Governor Ray Cooper said the storm is a "monster" and will be "like nothing you've ever seen." Over a million people are subject to mandatory evacuation orders. This Hurricanes and Tropical Cyclones Overview Story Map is published by the Esri Disaster Response Team. The underlying map is authored using ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World content that includes the World Imagery Basemap, Sea Surface Temperature, NOAA Hurricanes, NOAA Short Term Warnings, as well as Accuweather weather radar. The Story Map Series (tabbed layout) embeds a variety of other apps, including those built using Web AppBuilder such as the Hurricane and Cyclone App. Other maps include the Hurricane Florence Error Cone: Projected Impact authored using the Impact Summary configurable app template: And the Hurricane Florence Tracker built using the Minimalist configurable app template: For more hurricane maps, apps, and layers visit: Disaster Response Program Hurricanes Hurricane Public Apps Gallery 2018 Hurricane Maps & Layers For more infomration and to request assistance, visit the Esri Disaster Response Program website. ... View more

This year has been among the worst in U.S. wildfire history. This application, by John Von Holle and Jeff Dulin of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), shows the current status of wildfires using continuously updated data. The app is built using Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS, and leverages basemaps, active fire locations and perimeters, MODIS hotspots, and drought data from the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, along with other data sources. See the tweet: ... View more

This app was brought to my attention the other day by warren roberts‌. It's an app by Redding GIS about the Carr Fire, which has devastated the area and destroyed over a thousand homes, tragically claiming at least 7 victims (check the web for the latest). Open the app, built using Web AppBuilder, and click on one of the pushpins: Click the link to view the Aerial 360 View, provided by Esri business partner Hangar 360. The 360s are as fascinating as they are sobering, documenting the devastation of the fire. For more information see the Inciweb and Cal Fire websites for the Carr Fire. For disaster response assistance see the Esri Disaster Response Program website. ... View more

To verify and test a few things, I came up with a 3D visualization of Hidden River Cave, located in the town of Horse Cave, Kentucky. Click the Slides to view the cave from various perspectives, or use your mouse to explore the cave interactively. How it was authored The cave survey data is courtesy of the Cave Research Foundation, with thanks to Dave West, CRF Eastern Operations manager. The cave survey data was entered, managed, and exported as a multipatch shapefile using Compass, one of the more ubiquitous cave survey editing, management, and visualization programs, used widely in the U.S. and also in other parts of the world. Authored by Larry Fish, the software is downloadable from the Compass Cave Survey Software website. The multipatch uses the LRUDs - the Left, Right, Up, Down measurements recorded by cave surveyors at each survey station to create a generalized 3D model of the cave. Compass uses these values to construct a 3D model of the cave, which can be exported to a 3D multipatch shapefile. Once exported, the multipatch was added to a scene document in ArcGIS Pro. Using Pro, a scene layer was published to ArcGIS Online, and used to author a web scene using the Scene Viewer.  Slides (captured specific views of the cave) were saved using the Scene Viewer. The scene was then shared in the application linked above - the Scene Styler, a configurable app used to present web scenes to a broader audience. ... View more