2017 Spring Fling

Reconstructing the history of the Ebola epidemic
Gytis Dudas
The 2013-2015 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa has been unprecedented in its magnitude and duration. Advances in genetic sequencing technologies have given us complete virus genomes from over 5% of known cases and sequence data were employed for the first time to direct near real time healthcare response on the ground. On behalf of my numerous colleagues and international collaborators I will show how our team used state-of-the-art methods to reconstruct the history of the epidemic from sequence data from its inception in late 2013 to its decline and extinction in 2015. I will describe what our model told us about the drivers of the epidemic and issues of logistics and data availability we encountered along the way.

Seattle zoning and equitable school access
Margaret Morales
Margaret will showcase Sightline Institute’s maps created in CARTO linking Seattle city zoning with access to the city’s public schools and parks. The maps show that highly restrictive single-family zoning segregates attendance at the city’s top public elementary schools, making the student body disproportionately white, non-poor, and English speaking. Park access is similarly unbalanced across the city. Mrs. Morales works at the Sightline Institute, Cascadia’s sustainability think tank, where she focuses on housing policy solutions that make Seattle a more walkable, welcoming, and sustainable city.

Searching for Pokemon Go
Mike Patterson
Mike loves catching Pokemon. He will describe how a data structure called KD-Trees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-d_tree) can help calculate minimum distances between sets of locations, using the example of Pokemon in Hong Kong. Then he will show how to scale these trees to billions of locations using Apache Spark.

Mobile @ Mapbox
Justin Miller
Justin will share some recent additions to Mapbox's mobile SDKs as well as share some insight into developing mapbox-gl-native in the open.

A Cartographic Map of Lake Como Cycling Routes Using QGIS
Jill Bodnar
What's better than maps, bikes, and Italy? Combining all 3 in QGIS! The Lombardy region of Lake Como, Italy, has a long history of professional cycling races and is a favored destination for cyclists to train and visit on holiday. Over the past two years it has become my home away from home and I found a need for a comprehensive cycling map of the area. As a personal project I have been exploring the world of QGIS to create a cartographic map of cycling routes in the area. I'll describe the background of the project, the data I've used, and what I've learned about cartography and features in QGIS.

Open Source Geo at Vulcan Technology
Joel Masselink
Joel Masselink, of Vulcan Technology, will discuss the role Open Source tools play in the work of a developing software for philanthropy. Vulcan Tech develops solutions to global challenges as varied as climate change, poaching/wildlife trafficking, illegal fishing, and rural connectivity. Open source software and open data are critical to this work.

Lunch
Nom nom

QGIS Quick Start with Tips for ArcGIS Users
Evan Derickson
Audience: Beginner, new to QGIS.
Preparation: Bring your laptop and make sure to have QGIS 2.16 or later installed.
Description: Get oriented to the QGIS interface and references to essential resources for QGIS. Proceed with specific functions of QGIS, with tips for users familiar with ArcGIS features: loading data, working with layers, and geoprocessing; and how to leverage the vast resource provided with QGIS as plug-ins. Plug-ins are part of the primary toolkit for QGIS, they are also the key to extending QGIS functionality. We'll explore file formats, data entry and forms, and raster processing. This workshop stands alone as an introduction to QGIS, and is also great preparation for Cartography with QGIS in the second workshop session.

A Simple GIS Workflow in Python and R
Christy Heaton and Caileigh Shoot
Audience: Intermediate. We will assume intermediate understanding of GIS and basic understanding of R or Python.
Preparation: We will be using R and R Studio for the R portion, and Miniconda, Geopandas, and Jupyter Notebooks for the Python portion. If you want to follow along, please come with the following installed:

• R
• R Studio
• Miniconda
• This GitHub Repo, and follow the Getting Started section in the README.md to get the conda environment set up.

Description: Python and R are programming languages commonly used to automate GIS workflows. Join us to learn the very basics of both, their strengths and weaknesses, and use them to automate a simple GIS workflow using vector data. Attendees are welcome to come to watch and learn, and will also be provided necessary code and data if they want to follow along. This workshop is brought to you by Maptime Seattle. Join our Meetup group to be notified of our free talk and social events!

Missing Maps
American Red Cross, NW Region Missing Maps Team
Audience: Beginner
Preparation: Bring a laptop, charger, and a mouse--for key presses and cursor movement a mouse makes editing tasks easier. No software installation is necessary, activities are browser based.
Description: Missing Maps is an amazing humanitarian project to map the world's most vulnerable places. When natural disasters (like earthquakes/hurricanes) or epidemic disease (like Ebola/Malaria) occur, first responders such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders need to know where people live, and how to get to them. However, most of the world isn't on any map! Please stop in and learn how to help save lives around the world – we'll be looking at aerial photos and drawing the roads and building outlines that we see into OpenStreetMap.

Cartography with QGIS
Matt Stevenson
Audience: Some experience with QGIS is expected.
Preparation: Bring your laptop and make sure to have QGIS 2.16 or later installed.
Description: Build on your newfound QGIS knowledge by exploring different cartographic techniques within QGIS. We will briefly review some important cartographic and design concepts, then delve into the Layer Styling panel, various transparency tools, labeling techniques, and layout design to make a map in real time! You can make your map with the data provided, or bring your own data and follow along.

Map Cubes
Claire Erickson and Jared Erickson
Audience: Beginner
Preparation: None needed, some materials are provided. Bring scissors (or share what's available), a laptop with QGIS and G.Projector if you want to create your own original map cubes.
Description: Get crafty in this hands on workshop. Learn how to assemble map cubes and then learn how to create your own with G.Projector and QGIS. Bring a pair of scissors and your laptop with G.Projector and QGIS. This workshop will be fun for kids and grownups, bring your favorite kid too (if you have one).

The OSGeo Miscellaneous Drawer
Rafa Gutierrez
Audience: Beginner/Novice
Preparation: None
Description: Everyone has that drawer at home - the everything drawer. Many geospatial developers have the same - but for day-to-day tools. Jump into this workshop to learn tips and tricks to expedite workflows, manage and validate spatial data, and join in the show and tell of how we all use these tools. We'll cover:

• geojsonio
• GDAL
• geojsonhint
• rasterio
• tippecanoe
• MBUtil
• useful console commands
• and as many others as we can pack in this 90-minute session

Closing remarks
Let's wrap up the day by discussing what we learned and how we can keep the momentum going at the next CUGOS meeting.

Social
No better way to close out an action packed day than by cheersing your soda or beer with new friends. Location TBD.