this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Science Memes

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[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 88 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] deus@lemmy.world 35 points 11 months ago

Of course there's a xkcd about it.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 47 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I do wish there was a river settings to better highlight rivers.

[–] K4mpfie@feddit.de 53 points 11 months ago (4 children)
[–] anarchist@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago

this is really cool, thanks so much

[–] macaroni1556@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 months ago

Wow this is unreal

[–] grue@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If you're taking requests, could you point me to a visualization that shows the navigable ones (including canals, BTW)?

[–] K4mpfie@feddit.de 3 points 11 months ago

Tbh I only had this because of two reasons:

  1. ages ago an account on Mastodon shared it
  2. I need to prove to myself that taking a day to sort all my bookmarks was a good investment of my time.
[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

There's another cool site like this that wasn't as graphically cool but popped up various rivers quickly just by mousing over. Can't find it right now but I'll check again to see if I can dig it up.

[–] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Good point. They're always impossible to find unless you know exactly where to look

[–] grahamja@reddthat.com 2 points 11 months ago

Download the surveyed water data, turn the layer on, profit?

[–] ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 11 months ago (3 children)

openstreetmaps ftw. Get that, turn on cartographic overlays (outdated scans but still useful), aerial imagery, download and import nhd data, pull up ngs website, and enjoy. Help us map rivers! Even better if you can do an actual ground survey w/ gps.

[–] books@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I spent way toonlong mapping our houses in my neighborhood. It's always funny to see my work on apps, I'm like shit that street is missing houses I need to get on it.

[–] ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

yeah, it's addictive, I started with sidewalks in my neighborhood, and before I knew it, I was mapping parking zones, fire hydrants, trash cans, benches, traffic signals, speed limits, turn lanes...

[–] books@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What's the best tool to map points? I walk my dog and would love to quickly drop a pin for a sewer grate or fire hydrant? Is there something I can do mobile?

[–] ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 11 months ago

I've only used vespucci and it gets the job done.

[–] Pantoffel@feddit.de 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Okay what is nhd and ngs? When I'm horny for aerial imagery, I'm usually browsing Landsat and Sentinel archives.

[–] ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

National hydrography dataset and national geodetic survey (but I actually meant USGS, they provide a lot of data, their map viewer is a good introduction).

[–] Pantoffel@feddit.de 3 points 11 months ago

Oh thank you very much. Yes, the map viewer I often use, although I've only touched Landsat and Sentinel imagery.

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[–] Kase@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the recommendation! Downloading osm now o7

[–] ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 11 months ago

Be sure to check out the osm wiki! For editing, you can use their web viewer, but I personally prefer JOSM for more advanced work. Vespucci is a great tool for mapping on your phone.

[–] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I heard you're not supposed to go source-to-mouth

[–] BananaPeal@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago

Sometimes, in the heart of obsession, it's forgivable to go source to mouth.

[–] vonSvard@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Iz only smellz...

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[–] PoisonedPrisonPanda@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I like to do this for civil constructions.

You ever took a look an desert settlements?

There are so many awesome things to see there, and thinking of all the little humans doing their shit there is mesmerizing.

Kind of Sim city/sims in real life

[–] ThatFembyWho@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Agreed, I've learned a lot doing this. Sometimes it leads to a story, like the ruins of a federal fire watchtower that was destroyed by arson, or discovering one of the largest fisheries in the country. I've also noticed a lot more houses are torn down in my city than might be expected. Whole blocks are empty fields now, or maybe have one derelict house remaining.

It's also disturbing just how much trash people collect in their yards... and the massive wounds of foresting and strip mining.

[–] Pantoffel@feddit.de 2 points 11 months ago

Ugh, I was in rural china once and the uncle of my ex threw all his trash in his back yard. Disgusting. Nobody really minded though. They didn't approve, but they didn't confront him.

[–] Yokozuna@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

I feel targeted.

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 12 points 11 months ago

Trying to find the right zoom level that shows the name of the river

[–] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I feel seen :D

It’s a fun way to do some free virtual tourism. Especially if it’s well travelled places with plenty of user content. Plus, you get to be as nosy as you want, without making people uncomfortable.

I love looking at odd architecture for example, but not everyone would appreciate me walking around their building and peering intently through the windows.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I used to process aerial imagery and it was so good for this reason. It was like playing Geoguesser as a job.

[–] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That sounds like an awesome job. As someone who loves aviation, photography and maps, I’d probably really enjoy that. How’d you get into that field if you don’t mind me asking?

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[–] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My wife and I used to take care of her grandmother. I had a simple VR headset and I would show her parts of cities she hadn't been to in street view.

[–] FinishingDutch@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Nostalgia is an incredibly powerful thing. Especially when it comes to elderly and/or people with dementia.

I’ve done a fair few VR demonstrations with my Quest headsets. Google Streetview-like apps are always a big hit with everyone. It’s a great way to revisit places from the past with a good sense of presence. And of course to see a place you’ve always wanted to go.

[–] thebuoyancyofcitrus@beehaw.org 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Why do that when you can pull in a hydrological dataset and perform stream network analysis to find the flow path between your points of interest?

[–] spaduf@slrpnk.net 10 points 11 months ago

smh at folks using googlemaps instead of qgis

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Why follow a line when I could make a DEM from some LIDAR data, then run Aspect and Accumulation functions and dileneate watersheds?

[–] KrokanteBamischijf@feddit.nl 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're now playing GIS DnD:

The LiDAR dataset you're using was scanned in a forested area and doesn't include any secondary return data. As a result, your watersheds are occluded and the data doesn't provide the greatest cartography.

What do you do?

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I attempt to create a TIN from survey data collected with the tree survey.

Rolls RPLS....

[–] KrokanteBamischijf@feddit.nl 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Success! You manage to build a somewhat useful TIN from the data. Upon further inspection, the contours of the watersheds you were looking for are vaguely visible. Occlusion from the surrounding trees has had an impact on the dataset though, and it seems the noise wasn't filtered out of the dataset properly, leaving you with the occasional ridiculously stretched triangle to work with. Generating nice vector data from this will prove challenging.

How do you proceed?

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Knowing this isn't old growth and that the trees have been harvested for lumber multiple times, I summon my unpaid intern and have her search for maps containing contours in a year closely following a tree harvest.

I cast Quadrangle with a conformity bonus from my UTM state plane.

[–] KrokanteBamischijf@feddit.nl 1 points 11 months ago

[consults with other DMs]: "Wait...they can't do that, can they?"... "Really? Well, damn".

Your intern somehow manages to convince the local forestry corporation to share an old field map of the region. Problem is, the file is not georeferenced and she is having trouble doing so. Not being familiar with affine transformations, she picks some horrible references and her attempt has an error of a couple meters.

This is your chance to teach your intern a valuable skill and you're very close to finalizing the map of the region. What is your next move?

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 4 points 11 months ago

This guy maps

[–] weariedfae@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Lol, relatable.

[–] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago

Me exploring railroads on GSV....

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Bro wtf where does the river come from? I tried following it upstream on gmaps but it just stops in the middle of some field. Not even a mountain or something

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

It goes... underground!

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago
[–] SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net 2 points 11 months ago

Modern technology has really spoilt us

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