Annual Report for 2010 - svn.osgeo.org€¦ · GRASS Project. Several of our chapters submitted 2010 Annual Report items, and they are also included. I hope you will enjoy reading

Annual Report for 2010OSGeo Journal Volume 9 - January 2012

OSGeo Journal Volume 9 (2010 Annual Report) January 2012

http://www.osgeo.org/journal

Table of ContentsEditorial04

Volunteer Recognition07

News09

Geotools Software Project Annual Report11

GRASS Software Project Annual Report14

California Chapter Annual Report16

Francophone Chapter Annual Report18

Greek Chapter Annual Report19

PDX Chapter Report21

Poland Chapter Annual Report22

United Kingdom Annual Report24

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Tyler Mitchell Interview26

The Potential Impact of Recent Changes to the United States PatentSystem On Open Source Software Projects30

Angles and Directions: An Introduction to the JTS Warped SoftwareLibrary41

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EditorialBy Landon BlakeWhat’s In This Issue

It’s a year late, but the OSGeo AnnualReport for 2010 has finally arrived. Youhave no one to blame for the delay butme. After a great deal of procrastinatingand foot dragging, I finally managed toget the articles written, edited, andpublished. You don’t want to hearexcuses from me about the delay. I’llgive you a brief overview of thecontents of this issue instead.

Inside you’ll find 2010 Annual Reportitems from two (2) of our softwareprojects. The first is from the GeoToolsProject, and the second is from theGRASS Project. Several of our chapterssubmitted 2010 Annual Report items,and they are also included. I hope youwill enjoy reading about the busyactivities of the software projects andchapters as I did. The annual reportitems help you get a clear view of howmuch OSGeo related activity is takingplace around the globe.

We’ve included two (2) articles ontechnology related topics and aninterview in this issue in addition to the

annual report items. The interview iswith the former executive director ofOSGeo, Tyler Mitchell. In the interviewwe ask Tyler for his thoughts aboutOSGeo as an organization. We will alsofind out what he’s been working onsince he left his formal position asexecutive director. I was surprised byTyler’s departure, as I know many ofyou were, and I feel like this was a goodopportunity to get some input from an“OSGeo insider”. I’d like to do moreinterviews in future issues. An interviewwith each of our current OSGeo boardmembers seems like a good place tostart.

The first topical article we included inthis issue discusses recent changes tothe United States patent system thatwere created with the America InvestsAct. The end of the article talks aboutpatents and open source geospatial

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software specifically. I believe the topicof software patents is an importantissue that all open source advocatesshould pay attention to. I hope thisarticle will help. I commend theEconomist Magazine, from which mostof the material for the patent articlewas drawn, for their coverage ofpatents.

The second topical article discussessome utility code I developed for theJTS Topology Suite. The utility codeallows programmers to integratebearings, distances, and angles into theJTS world. The code is released underthe GPL through the SurveyOS Projecton Sourceforge, and certainly reflectsmy professional background as a landsurveyor. I welcome suggestions forimprovements to the code, as well ascontributions to the code base. RagiBurhum encourages me to use morePython, so perhaps we will take a lookat some Python code in the next issue.

What’s Coming Up NextNow that work on the 2010 AnnualReport is complete, I’ll immediatelystart collection items for the 2011Annual Report. This is a consequence ofmy waiting so long to finish this currentissue. Still, my goal is to have the 2011Annual Report available by the end of

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the first quarter of this year.

I strongly encourage all OSGeo softwareprojects, chapters, and sponsors tosubmit annual report items for 2011. I’dreally like to see more participation. I willmake the process of submitting thereport items for inclusion in the report aspainless as possible.

If you have an article on a technologyrelated topic that you want to contributeto the next issue, please let me know.

You can send a message to the OSGeoJournal mailing list:http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/newsletter

You can also contact me personally. Mycurrent contact information is alwayslisted in the footer on my home page:http://www.redefinedhorizons.com

Changes to the JournalThere have been some major changes tothe Journal and the Journal team. Someof these changes will be visible in theappearance of this issue.

I put together this issue of the Journalusing Inkscape and Scribus, both opensource tools. The Journal team had usedLaTex for post-production in previous



issues. I’m not a LaTex expert, and didn’thave time to learn it. I’m comfortableusing Scribus, and will continue to use itfor production of the OSGeo Journal PDFfiles until a willing and enthusiasticLaTex expert joins the Journal team. Ihope the change in appearance resultingfrom the move to Scribus will bepleasing and not an irritation.

I’ve stepped into the main editing role,with assistance from Tyler Mitchell. Thisis a bit of a reversal that will continue forthe foreseeable future. I was hesitant totake on more responsibility, but didn’twant to see the Journal languish. I feel itis an important marketing tool forOSGeo as an organization. After a greatdeal of indecision about my role inproducing the Journal and the role of thepublication itself, I believe I’ve found aplan for producing future issues of theJournal that will fit my schedule. (Thanksto Tyler Mitchell for helping me sort allthis out.) I’ve made a tentativecommitment to the Journal team toserve as editor and handle postproduction for two (2) issues a year. Thefirst will be the annual report, which I’lltry to have published by the end of thefirst quarter each year. The second willbe an issue focused on peer-reviewedcontent. I’ll try to have this published bythe end of the third quarter each year.

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I won’t even tentatively commit toanything more. I’ll just say we mightsqueeze out a third issue in the year ifwe have enough volunteer support andcontributed articles. Please considerjoining the Journal team or submitting anarticle to us in 2011. If you have anyquestions about getting involved ineither way, just let me know. I’ll behappy to talk with you and walk youthrough the process. If English isn’t yourfirst language, don’t hesitate tocontribute. OSGeo is a globalorganization. We can polish up yourarticles for our English speakingaudience.

ThanksI want to extend my thanks, first andforemost, to all the people who took thetime to submit annual report items forthis issue. I know you guys are busy, andmany of you would rather be writingcode then writing report items. Iappreciate your effort and hope you willdo me the same favor again soon for the2011 Annual Report.

I also want to thank all the volunteerswho have helped produce previousversions of the OSGeo Journal. It hasbeen a pleasure to work with you, and Ihope you will stay involved, even in asmall way.



VolunteerRecognitionThe OSGeo Journal is created by avolunteer team of open sourcegeospatial technology enthusiasts.Without their help and support, theOSGeo would have no media mouthpiece. We’d like to thank the followingOSGeo members for their continuinginvolvement with the OSGeo JournalTeam:

Eli AdamDaniel AmesHelena MitasovaScott MitchellTyler MitchellJorge SanzMicha SilverBarry RowlingsonRafal WawerZachary Woolard

We’d like to give special thanks andrecognition to the following members ofthe OSGeo Journal Team thatcontributed to Volume 9:

Eli AdamEli Adam has been using open sourcegeospatial software for eight years,currently as a GIS Analyst for Lincoln

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County, Oregon and previously in theprivate sector as an archaeologist. Heis active in the local PDX OSGeochapter, GeoMoose project, and enjoyscopyediting for the OSGeo Journal.

Tyler MitchellTyler is Engineering Director at Actian(Actian.com, formerly Ingres Corp)focused on implementing geospatialtechnologies for their enterprisesupported open source Ingres databaseand other leading edge products.Tyler also owns and runs Locate Press(locatepress.com), a startup publishingcompany focused on open sourcegeospatial books and training supportmaterial.

He is also a Charter Member of OSGeoand served for 5 years as ExecutiveDirector.He is seasoned speaker and regularlyinvited to speak at various conferencesaround the world on the topic ofgeospatial technologies.

Scott MitchellScott is co-director of CarletonUniversity’s Geomatics and LandscapeEcology Research Laboratory in Ottawa,Canada. He is an Assistant Professor inCarleton’s Department of Geographyand Environmental Studies. Hisresearch is directed at spatial analysis



in support of environmental decisionmaking, especially in agricultural andprotected landscapes. Open sourcegeospatial software and open standardsprovide valuable tools to enable hisgroup’s work, as well as transparentand accessible means to develop andshare new algorithms and datasets. Thelab’s web site ishttp://www.glel.carleton.ca , and Scottcan be reached at scott.mitchell atglel.carleton.ca.

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Brief News andEventAnnouncementsfrom the OSGeoCommunityCompiled and Written by Scott Mitchell

To keep abreast of OSGeo news, watchhttp://www.osgeo.org/news , orsubscribe to its RSS feed. This reportincludes highlights from recent months,plus items specifically sent to the NewsEditor.

OSGeo GovernanceCharter MemberElectionsOn November 30, 2011, the results ofthe 2011 Charter Member election wereannounced. 21 new members wereelected, further diversifying the bodythat votes, and is drawn from, for theOSGeo board of directors. Thecomplete list of new members can befound athttp://www.osgeo.org/node/1251

Conferences andMeetingsFOSS4G Denver 2011 and Beijing2012

Another great FOSS4G meeting hascome and gone. Many of theconference's talks are recorded andavailable at the FOSS LearningCommons:http://www.fosslc.org/drupal/category/event/foss4g2011

The next FOSS4G will be in Beijing,September 10-15, 2012.

FOSS4G Regional Events - NorthAmerica and Europe

The first ever North American FOSS4Gregional meeting (FOSS4G-NA) will takeplace from the 10th to the 12th of April,2012, at the Walter E. WashingtonConvention Center in Washington, DC.Registration has begun - see details athttp://foss4g-na.org/

This will be followed up by FOSS4G-CEE& Geoinformatics, in Prague, 21-23May, 2012. It is paired with theGeoinformatics FCE CTU conference,and more details can be found athttp://foss4g-cee.org/

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Bolsena Hacking Event 2012

The fifth OSGeo hacking event in amonastery in Bolsena, Italy will occurfrom 10 to 16 June, 2012. The venue isbeautiful, has great facilities, and allmeals for the week are provided. Thereis limited space (25 beds), however, soif you are interested in joining, you areencouraged to sign up soon at theevent’s wiki page. Seehttp://www.osgeo.org/node/1221

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GeoToolsSoftware ProjectAnnual ReportKey AccomplishmentsThe GeoTools Project had four (4) stablereleases and six developer releases ofthe software project in 2010. A lot ofnew features were included in the newreleases of the project. These includethe following:

Georeferencing- Support for Mollweide, EckertIV,Winkel Tripel, Policonic projections.

- Better generation of ESRI PRJ files.

- Integration of EPSG database updates.

- Concurrent execution improvements.

Rendering- Symbology encoding 1.1 datastructure now supported.

- Dash array support for graphic strokesand stability improvements over simplelines.

- Fast polygon clipping.

- Transforming data on the fly duringrendering.

- Injecting environment variables instyle sheets.

- New options and assortedimprovements for the labeling engine.

- Light multithreading in rendering anda set of other rendering speedimprovements.

Datastore- Support for SQL driven views.

- Support for terradata store, SpatiaLitestore, and updates to support recentversions of PostGIS.

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Raster Rendering- Mosaic improvements to supportheterogeneous mosaics.

- Time and elevation support.

- Raster reprojection speedimprovements.

- External overviews for GeoTIFF data.

- Performance improvements.

- Added the ability to extract very largeportions of a mosaic at native resolutionwithout memory penalties.

Application Schema- Complex features graduated tosupported status along with a numberof fixes and improvements in bothfunctionality and performance.

Documentation-A large effort was made in 2010 onimproving documentation andintroductory tutorials.

Areas for ImprovementThere are a number of opportunities toimprove the documentation for

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GeoTools. The use of the CodeHaus wikifor user docs has tapered off due torestrictive controls designed to combatspam. This has left the project in a no-mans-land where currentdocumentation is not available.

The project has also done a poor job ofinvolving "downstream" projectsdependent on GeoTools. Noticeable isthe delay in 52N upgrading to a modernversion of the library, and in thebalance of active developers drawingfrom early adopters.

Events

The project had a great showing atFOSS4G with many presentations basedon GeoTools powered software and a"Geospatial for Java" workshop.

Opportunities to HelpThe GeoTools community would like tothank contributors that providedpatches, our users for their feedbackand the companies providingsponsorship to fix bugs and add newfeatures. Thanks to our developmentteam for making this a great year. If youwould like to join any of the aboveactivities, send a message to our emaillist. You are welcome to take part.



- Does your project use GeoTools?Please get involved, we would like toget your voice involved in the futuredirection of the library.

- This year we are looking for editors,sensible questions and ideas for theGeoTools user guide.

- As always patches make open sourcegreat, please contribute in code!

Outlook for 2011GeoTools is shaping up for an excellentyear in 2011, you can get a sneak peakby viewing the change proposalsalready underway.

- The GeoTools 2.7 release mentionedabove has now been released.

- Thanks to AuScope, the app-schemawork is scheduled to be completed.

- The project has a couple of great ideasscheduled to land this year.

- The project is "re-versioning" so thenext major release of GeoTools will be8.0 (and based on Java 6).

- The project also has a lot of workgoing into Web Feature Service 2.0support with all the new capabilities

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that implies for Filter, Data Access,Joins, Temporal support and more!

- Access to the latest GDAL (withoutpatches) thanks to ImageIO-Extprogress.

- The big news is the porting of our userguide to Sphinx. The user guide isweighing in at over 100,000 words withdiagrams and "live" code examples.



GRASS GISSoftware ProjectAnnual ReportKey AccomplishmentsIn 2010 the project released version6.4.1RC of GRASS. There was also anew winGRASS 6.4.1RC stand-alonepackage, MacOSX installer and Linuxpackage released in 2010. The projectparticipated in the Google Summer ofCode 2010 participation with twoprojects. The first Google Summer ofCode was by Martin Landa. Martinworked on wxNviz development forenhanced 3/4D visualization andanalysis in Grass. In the second GoogleSummer of Code Seth Price worked onGPU accelerated imagery resamplingand reprojection in Grass.

The project also focused on gettingGRASS 7 into a usable state and able tooffer many new features.

EventsOn November 17, the projectparticipated in GIS Day 2010 atWarszawa, Poland. There was a GRASSlecture and GRASS workshop at thisevent.

On October 31, presentations weremade at the Geological Society ofAmerica Annual Meeting. This includedthe Pardee keynote and poster.

On October 15-17, several GRASSpresentations and a winning posterwere presented at the 41stInternational BinghamtonGeomorphology Symposium (BGS) onGeospatial Technologies &Geomorphological Mapping.

On September 13-16, the 12th AnnualScientific GRASS Workshop entitled“Spatial Analysis with GRASS" was heldin Wroclaw, Poland.

On September 11, Helena Mitasovareceived the Sol Katz Award.

On September 6-9, various

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presentations were made at theFOSS4G conference in Barcelona, Spain.

On April 14 to 16, presentations weremade in a symposium at the AmericanAssociation of Geographers meeting inWashington, DC, USA.

Areas for ImprovementThe project would like to develop amigration guide for publicadministrations and wants to improvethe existing sponsorship program.

Opportunities to HelpThe project could use help in translatingGRASS GIS messages. The project alsoneeds assistance in preparing moremarketing material. This would includeupdating flyers and posters in differentlanguages, and the preparation of anew website.

EducationThe project has an inventory ofuniversity courses based on GRASSposted at its website.

11-12 Feb: FOSS4G-IT 2010, Lugano - XIMeeting degli utenti di lingua Italiana diGRASS e FOSS4G, Lugano, Switzerland

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1-2 May: Geoinformatics FCE CTU 2010- Free and Open Source Software inGeoinformatics, Prague, Czech Republic



CaliforniaChapter ReportChapter EventsThe chapter maintained a presence at 5events during 2010. These eventsincluded the annual meeting of theCalifornia Geographical Society, theannual meeting of the Association ofAmerican Geographers, and the 2011Southern California Linux Expo.California Chapter member RagiBurhum also presented a talk at thePGWest 2010 Conference.

Member ActivitiesLandon Blake continued his work on theunsupported GPX2 Module. This moduleallows Java programs to parse GPS files.(GPX files are XML files used to storepoints, routes, and tracks fromrecreational grade GPS receivers.) Italso allows Java programs tomanipulate entities from GPX files assimple feature objects. This work on thenext release of the module focuses onthe removal of the JDOM for XMLparsing. It is being replaced with ahybrid DOM-on-Demand XML parsinglibrary from the SurveyOS Project. Workon the next release of the module willalso include implementation of a set of

objects to provide a GPX file DOM toJava Programs.

Landon also continued his work as anassistant editor of the OSGeo Journal.This included work on Volume 9 of theJournal, the 2010 Annual Report andexploring ways to make OSGeo JournalContent available in formats other thanPDF.

Alex Mandel continued his work to hostand build the OSGeo Live Version 3 andVersion 4. A presentation on OSGeoLive was given to the CaliforniaGeographical Society. Alex also helpedconvert a university course on GIS fromVisual Basic for Applications to thePython Programming Language, andassisted with teaching the modifiedcourse to students. At the United StatesForest Service International Seminar onClimate Change, Alex provided a 2 hour

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workshop in QGIS using OSGeo Live.

Ragi Burhum started the San Francisco,California Geomeetup. This group hasgrown into a highly focused geodeveloper bi-monthly event with morethan 450 members from big and smallcompanies across the California BayArea. The San Francisco Geomeetupsponsors have included O’Reilly,SimpleGeo, CBS Interactive, xCubeLabs,TRulia, Eventbrite and others. Both RagiBurhum and Josh Livni have given talksat Geomeetup events that heavilypromoted OSGeo. Brian Hamlindistributes OSGeo Live DVD’s as prizesduring the trivia sections of theGeomeetup events. Ragi wrote andcommitted two (2) drivers for GDAL.The first was for ArcObjects. The secondwas a FileGDB driver.

Ragi Burhum and Brian Hamlin havecontinued their work with Californiacompanies to solve complex problemsfor California on top of Open Source GISstacks.

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FrancophoneChapter ReportKey AccomplishmentsThe chapter elected a new board inJune 2010.

Areas for ImprovementThe chapter would like to improve in anumber of areas. These include thefollowing:

1) Encouraging more contributions totranslation projects.2) The creation of a marketing packagefor the chapter.3) More assistance for chaptermembers in organizing event booths.4) Attracting additional contributors andproject managers.5) Improving communication in theFrancophone geospatial community.

Opportunities to HelpThe chapter is looking for help in thefollowing areas.

1) Translation and proof reading of theMapServer manual.2) Help in organizing Francophone QGISevents. This would include booths atOGRS and at several conferences.3) Help in marketing duties. This wouldinclude design of a flyer, booth

materials and improvement of theOSGeo-fr website.

Outlook for 2011The chapter has several goals for the2011 year. This includes setting up alegal association for the FrenchChapter, improving the documenttranslation process, and organizingQGIS French day!

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Greek LanguageChapterThe OSGeo Greek Local Chapter wasinitiated in November 2007. During2010 membership grew, but there isstill a need more chapter members.

Key AccomplishmentsChapter members participated in two(2) events during 2010.

The first was the National ISPIRE SDIInfrastructure Event. This event tookplace on October 1st, 2010 at theUniversity of Thessaly, Volos, Greece. Itwas jointly organized by the chapterwith HellasGI ( http://www.hellasgi.gr ).The event was very successful withover 90 participants who stayed for theduration of the event. Many Greek andinternational experts presented issuesrelated to the event’s main theme.

Participants in this first event were verysupportive of holding a second event.This second event was the NationalGreek GI Conference. This event tookplace between December 2nd and 3rd,2009 at NTUA, in Athens, Greece. It wasorganized by HellasGI (www.hellasgi.gr).During the conference many papers onor involving open source technology

were presented.

Areas for ImprovementThe chapter still does not have theparticipation that was expected. Itneeds to intensify efforts to increasethe membership and the overallawareness of the organization. A bigchallenge faced by the chapter issecuring funding for organizing furtherevents.

Opportunities to HelpIn the future the chapter will definitelyneed some speakers for national FOSSor other simple GIS events. It wouldalso like to demonstrate some cases ofsuccessful use of FOSS GIS by thepublic sector to local governmentofficials.

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The chapter would like to plan somedemo classes on FOSS GIS for studentsin universities. This would includedetermining how these classes can beintegrated in their curricula, andshowing that these classes can achievethe exact same educational result as aprogram focused on proprietary GISsoftware.

Outlook for 2011The chapter is interested in determininghow to raise funds for a chapterpresence at future events. They alsoplan on working to attract additionalmembership.

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PDX OSGeoChapter Reportfor 2010Key Accomplishments:We had monthly meetings withnumerous presentations covering avariety of topics. Our mailing listremained strong and active listmembership increased. We put on awell attended unconference,http://pdxosgis2010.eventbrite.com/.We presented several sessions at aRegional GIS conference (GIS In Action),including an Open Source DesktopSmackdown, OSGeo LiveDVD use andpresentation. We became an ORURISASpecial Interest Group,http://orurisa.org/PDXOSGISConference

Areas for Improvement:Organization could be slightly moreformal. Planning meetings andactivities further in advance could makeevents run slightly smoother.Increasing coordination with otherregional OSGeo groups (CUGOS) couldbroaden horizons.

Opportunities to Help:Visit our wiki,http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/PDX, ormailing list to see current activities or

find out how to help.

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Poland ChapterReportChapter EventsThe Poland Chapter organized or had apresence at three (3) events in 2010. InMay the first event was the secondOpen Software for Geodesy andGeoinformation Science Conferenceheld at the Wroclaw University ofEnvironmental and Life Sciences, inWroclaw, Poland. The conference had aPolish audience but an internationalscope. Foreign guests, including therepresentatives of national mappingagencies of the European Unionmember states, were invited to deliverplenary lectures. The conference wasalso an used to hold the OSGeo ChapterPoland annual meeting.

In September the Chapter held a fourday workshop at the Department ofClimatology and Atmosphere Protection,University of Wroclaw, in Wroclaw,Poland. The workshop was organized bythe Laboratory for GeographicEnvironment Spatial Modeling Methods,University of Wroclaw, and Wroclaw'sGRASS Users Group (WGUG). Theworkshop was also backed by ENRIS ofthe Royal University of Stockholm. Itwas split into three parts: lectures (with

some presentations of submittedworks), practical classes and individualconsultations (where participants coulddevelop their own ideas and work ontheir own projects). During four days ofthe workshop there were four lecturesand ten shorter presentations. Therewere also introductory courses for newGRASS users in the first day ofworkshop.

Other activitiesThe chapter actively promoted OSGeoprojects at Poland GIS events, includingconferences and GIS Day. Thissupplemented promotion of OSGeoprojects in blogs and other media. Thechapter also actively participated in thelocalization (translation) of FOSS4Gpackages into Polish.

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Areas for ImprovementThe Poland Chapter has identified two(2) areas for improvement movingforward. These are:

1)Having a broader impact on the opensource software community.2)Encouraging greater membership inthe chapter.

Opportunities to HelpThe chapter would like assistance withthe promotion of FOSS4G at theuniversities by the definition of diplomasubjects for master and engineeringdegrees. The chapter would also like toestablish repositories for geospatialdeliverables.

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OSGeo UKChapter Reportfor 2010Key Accomplishments:2010 has been a defining year for thechapter. The chapter passed the 100member mark, up from 80 last year. Wehelped to co-host the OSGIS 2010Conference in Nottinghamhttp://cgs.nottingham.ac.uk/~osgis10/os_home.html, and chapter memberspresented at a number of other opensource and geospatial events andworkshops. We have also been luckyenough to receive some sponsorshipfrom the following organisations andindividuals:Astun Technology( http://www.isharemaps.com ), SaberRazmjooei of Faunalia( http://www.faunalia.it/en/home ), andSuchith Anand of the Centre forGeospatial Sciences( http://cgs.nottingham.ac.uk ).

The chapter has been improving thecommunication with chapter membersand other interested parties throughmonthly IRC meetings and an officialOSGeo:UK twitter account (@osgeouk).Members have also been busypromoting open source GIS through

local Linux User Groups and otherplaces.

The chapter has members on the boardof the new Open Source Geospatial Labat the Centre for Geospatial Sciences inNottingham, and a chapter member hasalso been elected to OSGeo CharterMembership.

Areas for Improvement:The chapter could improve ourcollaboration with other GIorganisations in the UK such as theAssociation for Geographic Information.This would help to promote open sourceGIS products as mainstream choicesrather than niche or specialist options.

Opportunities to Help:The chapter is always on the lookout fornew members, and new events at

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which to promote OSGeo. Interestedindividuals can join the chapter mailinglist and get involved!( http://www.osgeo.org/uk/mailing_list )

Outlook for 2011:The outlook for 2011 is sunny. Thecurrent focus of the chapter is ongathering case studies showcasing theuse of open source GIS in manydifferent environments( http://www.osgeo.org/uk/case_studies). The chapter has tried to make theprocess of submitting a case study aseasy as possible by providing atemplate and set of guidance notes.The chapter will be helping with OSGIS2011 ( http://cgs.nottingham.ac.uk/~osgis11/os_home.html ), wherevarious chapter members will bespeaking, and running workshops.

The sponsorship the chapter hasreceived is allowing the chapter to startamassing a collection of marketingmaterials and to help the chaptersponsor some small GI events itself.

In the wake of the recent UK PublicSector Mapping Agreementhttp://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/media/news/2010/aug/psma.html,the chapter will be helping chaptersponsors hold a number of freeworkshops introducing ways that

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government organizations can useOrdnance Survey data using opensource software. Chapter sponsor AstunTechnology is also developing a suite ofopen source tools for working withOrdnance Survey data, either OpenData( http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-opendata.html )or data released under the PSMA.


http://www.osgeo.org/journal25

Interview withTyler MitchellThe interview in this issue is with TylerMitchell. Tyler Mitchell served as theexecutive director for OSGeo for severalyears and offers a unique perspectiveon the organization. In this interview wetalk with Tyler about his term asexecutive director and find out what heis working on as his career advancesoutside of the organization.

1) What were the keyaccomplishments of OSGeo duringyour term as executive director?

Many will remember the earliest days ofthe MapServer Foundation. It was anexciting time to start passing aroundideas. It was also a tremendouslearning curve for me and the othersinvolved early on. Surviving some ofthat learning back in 2005 was our firsttest. I am glad during that early periodthat we aimed for more than justMapServer and MapGuide related work.I remember during my first few monthswith OSGeo doggedly working alongsidea few others over Christmas holidays tomigrate systems to a new serviceprovider. This makes me laugh,because during the last month of myterm in 2011, I spent much time on

systems stuff again.

What happened between those twobookends is purely amazing. It wasn’tsomething I will take credit for, butsomething I was happy to supportwhere I could. We had the idea to worktogether across projects to help raiseawareness of open source geospatialsoftware. The projects were alreadyrunning fine as separate entities, somany didn't see the need for this typeof collaborative marketing. However, Isaw that the collaborative marketingeffort was an opportunity to help getOSGeo software onto more desks.

Once we started to brand OSGeo andraise the profile of the organization invarious ways, the local chapters werekeen to form and further support theefforts. Meeting others on-the-groundin your own locale is of paramount



Interview withTyler MitchellThe interview in this issue is with TylerMitchell. Tyler Mitchell served as theexecutive director for OSGeo for severalyears and offers a unique perspectiveon the organization. In this interview wetalk with Tyler about his term asexecutive director and find out what heis working on as his career advancesoutside of the organization.

1) What were the keyaccomplishments of OSGeo duringyour term as executive director?

Many will remember the earliest days ofthe MapServer Foundation. It was anexciting time to start passing aroundideas. It was also a tremendouslearning curve for me and the othersinvolved early on. Surviving some ofthat learning back in 2005 was our firsttest. I am glad during that early periodthat we aimed for more than justMapServer and MapGuide related work.I remember during my first few monthswith OSGeo doggedly working alongsidea few others over Christmas holidays tomigrate systems to a new serviceprovider. This makes me laugh,because during the last month of myterm in 2011, I spent much time on

systems stuff again.

What happened between those twobookends is purely amazing. It wasn’tsomething I will take credit for, butsomething I was happy to supportwhere I could. We had the idea to worktogether across projects to help raiseawareness of open source geospatialsoftware. The projects were alreadyrunning fine as separate entities, somany didn't see the need for this typeof collaborative marketing. However, Isaw that the collaborative marketingeffort was an opportunity to help getOSGeo software onto more desks.

Once we started to brand OSGeo andraise the profile of the organization invarious ways, the local chapters werekeen to form and further support theefforts. Meeting others on-the-groundin your own locale is of paramount



importance for many users. Again, Iwas just one of many trying toencourage this growth of theorganization.

Another key accomplishment is theseveral successful FOSS4G events.These events are a feather in our cap.No matter how you measure thesuccess of these events (financialsuccess, number of attendees, qualityof speakers) it has been going verywell. Not perfect of course, but morethan most of us could have imagined. Iwas glad that part of my job at OSGeowas to be involved in these events. Itallowed me to see all the work thatgoes on behinds the scenes with localorganizers. This was a tremendousaccomplishment.

With both the local chapters and theFOSS4G event we've raised OSGeosoftware profiles to a much higherpoint. One related accomplishment isalso around the bridges to proprietaryvendors that has been made. OSGeosponsors have had strong showing anda lot of work has been done to findcommon ways to work together andsupport all who come into the OSGeoecosystem. Maintaining those goodrelationships is not always easy but wasvery satisfying to see.

2) As the executive director ofOSGeo, how did you personallydefine the mission of OSGeo as anorganization?

It has always been simple to me: raisethe profile of OSGeo projects.

You need to keep hands off the projectsthemselves, as they run fine with orwithout OSGeo. Raising awareness ofthe projects is important because themore users you get, the more potentialtesters you have, which increases yourodds of having more developers andmore proponents in high places. To getthat initial increase in users we focusedon various marketing approaches.Some of these marketing approacheswere aimed at "traditional" GIS users.Others were aimed at new approachesto managing geodata. Yet others wereaimed to build academic communitiesaround the world.

Of course, this doesn't mean ignoringneeds of developers or the projects.Instead, it reflects on the goal ofbringing them and their work into thespotlight. Naturally this brings forwardmore opportunities to attract fundingfor more development, which is still anew idea for some of the projects.



3) What are the biggest challengesfor OSGeo moving forward?

There are so many opportunities. I thinkthe challenge is picking the topopportunities and pursuing them withenough force to make a difference.Coming up with feasible ways toengage the four key target areas I havebeen looking at is an importantchallenge to consider. These key targetareas are: business, government, non-governmental organizations, andacademia. I’d also like to see OSGeoworking closer with OGC in somecapacity. I'm not an expert in any oneof these particular areas. To define thebest approach in these areas, serioustime and brainstorming from thebroader community is needed.

4) What excites you personallyabout open source software ortechnology in general as you moveinto the future?

I'm as enthusiastic for open sourcegeospatial solutions as ever. My initialinterest in open source GIS was spurredon when I was looking for ways to buildmy own professional toolkit. I wanted atoolkit I could learn at home. A toolkit Icould bring to work and invest mypersonal time in. It's the same today,though my sights are set a bit higher.

Now I want to help build system-leveltoolkits that can help meet the needs ofthose targets areas I mentioned. I'vemoved from thinking about theindividual who needs some tool for ajob, to the perspective in which I thinkabout organizations that need platformsfor solutions. Platforms they can rely oninto the future. I argue that opensource is still a large part of that need.

5) What do you plan to do next inyour career?

There are two things on my plate. Themost important is my work with Actian(http://www.actian.com/) overseeing thegeospatial implementation into theirIngres database products. (Actian wasformerly Ingres.) It's exciting for mebecause they have real customers with24/7 needs. These customers also havereal challenges. This is a good fitbecause I enjoy keeping thingspractical. If there isn't a practicalreason for spending time on something,then I quickly lose interest. I'm alsoglad to be working at a slightly moretechnical level. Research anddevelopment is also an important partof who I am, so this is helping scratchan itch that had been on the shelf whiledoing outreach at the OSGeo.

The other project I'm really excited



about is my startup of a nichepublishing company LocatePress(http://locatepress.com). LocatePresswas going to be a rainy day project, butsince my work with OSGeo ended, I hadto get moving on it a bit faster than Ihad originally planned. I hear almostuniversal agreement that the OSGeosphere needs more training materials.With the success of my book, WebMapping Illustrated, and other similarbooks, I decided to focus on gettingquality material into print. There isnothing like a financial incentive to helpmotivate would-be writers to help shareknowledge about their favorite OSGeoprojects. While "niche" may be aswearword in publishing, it is actuallyour strength here. Geospatialtechnology may be a side category formany publishers, but for us it iseverything. Its been great to work withGary Sherman to get his latest book,The Geospatial Desktop, into print. Ilook forward to working with others whohave great book ideas. Bring me yourbook ideas Landon!

6) Will you remain involved inOSGeo activities? If you will remaininvolved, on what will youractivities at the OSGeo now focus?

I think there will be some naturaloverlap, just as there has been for

many volunteers over the past 6 years.Finding that overlap will take sometime. I'm still very interested in thesuccess of the OSGeo Journal. TheJournal is serving a particular need(especially for academics desiring peerreview) and the publication can stillgrow. I will also be interested in helpingmake various types of events happen,as keeping in touch with the broadercommunity is important for me bothpersonally and professionally. I expectto find lots of excuses for continuing towork with those who I've enjoyedworking with while at OSGeo.Individuals shouldn’t hesitate to contactme with questions and ideas.( [email protected] ) It's goingto be another interesting decade forsure!

Thanks so much for the opportunity toshare my thoughts.

Tyler



The PotentialImpact of RecentChanges to theUnited StatesPatent SystemOn Open SourceSoftware ProjectsBy Landon Blake

IntroductionIn this article we’ll examine recentchanges to the United States PatentSystem created by the legislationknown as the “America Invests Act”.After a brief discussion of how patentswork we’ll look at the problems with theprevious United States patent system.We will then discuss how the AmericaInvests Act attempted to solve theseproblems, and where it fell short. Wewill conclude with a brief discussion ofhow the changes to the patent systemdiscussed in this article couldpotentially impact open source softwareprojects. Most of the materialresearched and analyzed during thepreparation of this article is from a

series of articles on patents in theEconomist Magazine. References tothese articles are included at the end ofthis article.

What Are Patents?We will begin our article with a simpledefinition of patents. [URL1]

A patent is provided by a governmententity to an inventor. This patent is aform of intellectual property thattypically allows the inventor to have theexclusive right to use, or license toothers the right to use, their invention.Most patents are granted for a limitedamount of time, after which others areallowed to freely use or build upon theinvention.

Patents areessentially atradeoff betweenthe inventor andsociety.Why are patentsimportant?Patents are essentially a tradeoffbetween the inventor and society. Mostpatent systems attempt to balance therights of the inventor to benefitfinancially from their invention with the

30



The Patent Tradeoff



benefits to society that come fromdisclosure of an invention. In a societywithout patents, inventors may have anincentive to keep their innovations asecret. Proponents of patents argue thisslows down the pace of innovation as awhole. Proponents of patents also claimthat investment in research anddevelopment by private companieswould slow dramatically without avigorous patent system which protectstheir investment and allows them toprofit from the results of their researchand development efforts. [URL2] [URL3][URL4]

The Previous UnitedStates Patent SystemFor several years there has been strongdebate about the effectiveness of theUnited States patent system. In theideal situation, companies are grantedpatents with a narrow scope for trulygenuine and unique inventions. (TheEconomist Magazine pointed to patentsin the semiconductor andpharmaceutical industries as anexample of this ideal situation. [URL 5])Opponents of the previous UnitedStates patent system argue manypatents were issued to companies forinventions that were neither unique norgenuine. These bad patents allowcompanies to disrupt the business

32

operations of others in their industry.They can do this by threatening patentlitigation or by squeezing them forlicensing fees. Many agree that badpatents were frequently granted in theUnited States for business and softwareideas that did not really represent trueinnovation. If these “bad patents” arebroad in scope they can cost businessesbillions of dollars. Ultimately these costsare passed onto the consumer. Forexample, a 2008 study revealed thatpublic companies in America earned 4billion dollars from patents in 1999, butspent 14 billion dollars on patentlitigation costs.

The legal costs ofpatent disputeshave ballooned.The problems with the previous UnitedStates patent system resulted in anumber of disturbing trends. Over timethe number of disputed patents,average monetary awards in patentdisputes, and legal costs of patentdisputes have ballooned. [URL 6] Thecurrent patent system has also allowedthe rise of patent trolls. Patent trolls arecompanies that buy patents fromothers, but who don’t typically invest inresearch and development to createtheir own. They then profit fromlicensing the use of the technology



covered by their patents to othercompanies. If other companies areunwilling to pay these fees, the patenttrolls will sue others for patentinfringement to compel payment. Thisresults in legitimate companies beingshut down or being forced to paylicense fees for a bogus patent thatshouldn’t have been issued in the firstplace. The problem with patent trolls isso bad it has generated wide mediacoverage. This American Life did anexcellent story about patent trolls thatincluded shadow offices in a small Texastown. [URL 7] The Amazon CEO alsotalked about the problem with softwarepatents in a recent Wired Magazineinterview. [URL 12] In the interview JeffBezos says he'd be willing to give upAmazon's 1-click patent for truesoftware patent reform. (PacketVideo’sclaim against Spotify for a patentinfringement for streaming music overthe internet is one example of a patenttroll shakedown. [URL 8])

Many technologycompanies nowvalue quantity ofpatents over qualityof patents.These patent law suits result in patentwars, in which competing companieseach try to acquire broad patents they

33

can use to sue and counter sue. Thissets up a scenario in which the onlyway to avoid patent litigation is a tobecome a player in the “mutuallyassured patent destruction” game.Google’s recent purchase of MotorolaMobility for 12.5 billion dollars may beone example of a purchase made fordefensive patents. Microsoft and Applehave recently sued smart phone makersusing Google’s Android OperatingSystem. (This is a clear demonstrationthat legitimate businesses, not justpatent trolls, are using patents to goafter other businesses.) The purchase ofMotorola Mobility would give Googleand its business partners an armada ofpotentially 24,000 patents with which tofight these claims.

Many technology companies now valuequantity of patents over quality ofpatents. They measure theeffectiveness of a company’s patentportfolio by determining how high thestack of printed patent documents is.

Of particularinterest to the opensource geospatialsoftware communityare the problemswith softwarepatents.



Of particular interest to the open sourcegeospatial software community are theproblems with software patents.Software patents are singled out as aprime example of the patent systemgone wrong. [URL9] Opponents of thepatent system argue that newdiscoveries and true innovation are notrequired to write most software. Inaddition, the complexity of software, inwhich thousands of independent sub-routines or functions are used by asingle program, can make softwarepatent review a real challenge.

The America Invents Act [URL10] wasmeant to fix these problems with theUnited States patent system.

The America InventsActThe act was signed into law by BarackObama on September 16, 2011. Thelead sponsors of the act were PatrickLeahy and Lamar Smith.

The act made threeimportant changes.The act made three important changes.The most significant change was amove from a first-to-invent patentsystem to a first-to-file system. In theprevious patent system you couldn’t be

34

granted a patent if someone elseinvented it first. Now the patent isissued to the first person to file a patentapplication for the particular invention.This relieves the United States PatentOffice from the burden of determininginnovation timelines when evaluating apatent application. Instead, the patentoffice can focus on the merit of theactual patent application. It also meansinventors no longer have the burden ofproving they were the first toimplement an idea. Critics of the newlaw also point out the first-to-filesystem favors large companies, withtheir army of patent lawyers. The newlaw included a “micro-entity” provisionto address this criticism, but opponentssay this provision was not sufficient.Critics also point out, under a first-to-file system, that companies may rush tofile an invention before it is truly readyand merits protection. This could resultin more bad patents being issued.

The law fell far shortof what many patentreformers werehoping for.A second change was the ability tochallenge an existing patent at theUnited States Patent Office, instead ofin the judicial system. The goal of thischange was to provide an alternative,



and less expensive, method tochallenge bogus or overly broadpatents. A related change allows thirdparties to submit evidence of “prior art”when a patent is being challenged. Bothof these changes were implemented toreduce the number of bad patents inthe technology ecosystem.The law fell far short of what manypatent reformers were hoping for. Thelaw doesn’t limit the damages that canbe sought in patent infringement suits.It does not restrict the suit to thedistrict where the alleged patentinfringement occurred. (This allowspatent trolls to shop for the judicialsystems in which juries are known to bemore sympathetic to companies makinga claim of patent infringement.)Working demonstrations or actualprototypes of inventions are notrequired as part of the patentapplication.

Funding is another problem of the newlaw. It doesn’t provide more funding tothe United States Patent Office,although the duties of the office havenow been expanded to include disputeresolution. (This may actually leave lesstime to review patent applications, thesource of most of the problems with theprevious patent system.) BusinessInsider reports the new law even

35

“allows Congress to continue to treatthe patent office as a petty cash drawerand divert applicant fees to otherpurposes”. The law also did not limitthe term of business and softwarepatents.

The Potential Impactson Open SourceSoftware ProjectsThere is good news and bad news foropen source software projects in thesechanges to the United States patentsystem. The new opportunity tochallenge bogus patents at the UnitedStates Patent Office, with the ability forthird parties to contribute to thechallenge, is certainly good news. It isplausible that open source softwareprojects will provide examples of priorart when a company challenges a badpatent in this way. (In fact, open sourcesoftware projects could be a treasuretrove of this prior art.) The move to afirst-to-file system could prove to bebad news. There are many smallcompanies who have embraced the useand development of open sourcesoftware. In addition, the companiesoffering services around an open sourcesoftware product are often small



businesses. A system that makes itharder for smaller organizations andcompanies to apply for patents wouldhave a disproportionate impact on theopen source community. If the first-to-file system does result in prematurepatent applications, that will also makethe problem with patents worse, notbetter.

36

The worst news is the law's failure toaddress the biggest problems with theUnited States patent system. With thepassage of the America Invents Act, it isnot likely the patent system will beexamined again by United Stateslegislators for some time. Theopportunity for real substantial reformof the patent system has been missedfor the foreseeable future. Open source

Diagram of "America Invests Act" Changes to the US Patent System



software projects are not immune topatent disputes. The example of claimsover Android mentioned earlier in thearticle is proof of that. How long until apatent troll sues an open source projector companies related to it, for patentinfringement? What effect would apatent claim against companies usingpopular open source software have?The recent changes to the patentsystem will not prevent this.

The topic of patentreform should be ofspecial interest toprogrammersinvolved with opensource geospatialsoftware.The topic of patent reform should be ofspecial interest to programmersinvolved with open source geospatialsoftware. Location related technologyhas been making huge leaps in the lastcouple of decades. This technology iscreeping into many nooks and cranniesof the average person's life.

The likelihood of including an algorithm,program feature, or technology in thegeospatial arena into your open sourcesoftware that is the subject of someambiguous patent is higher than inmany other technology fields. Because

37

geospatial software is undergoing rapidchange, it is more likely to be the victimof patent disputes. It will be interestingto see how the recent changes to theUnited States patent system will impactfuture patent disputes over geospatialtechnology, and if these disputes suckopen source software projects into theirvortex.

ConclusionThe system used to issue and resolvedisputes related to patents in theUnited States is clearly broken. TheAmerica Invests Act was an attempt tofix this broken system. This legislationmade major changes to the patentsystem in the United States, including amove to a first-to-file system of issuingpatents. However, the America InvestsAct fell fall short of the comprehensivepatent reform needed to improveinnovation in America and remove badpatents as an expensive financialburden on American consumers andbusinesses. The shortcomings thatremain in the United States patentsystem are especially apparent in theproliferation of bad software patents. Inthe future we should expect to seemore patents, and patent-relateddisputes that impact open sourcesoftware projects, including thoserelated to geospatial technology.



Changes in the United States patentsystem made by the America InvestsAct will not prevent these patentdisputes.

38



Article LinksURL1: Wikipedia Article for “Patent”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent

URL 2: “Patents Against Prosperity”, The Economist, August 1, 2011http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/08/intellectual-property

URL3: “Are Patent Problems Stifling US Innovation”, Bloomberg Businessweek, April8, 2009http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/apr2009/id2009048_138177.htm

URL4: “Patent System’s Problems Defy Easy Solutions”, www.news.cnet.com,August 4, 2005http://www.economist.com/node/21526370

URL5: “Patent Medicine”, The Economist, August 20, 2011http://www.economist.com/node/21526370

URL6: The Terrible Cost of Patents, Erick Schonfield, www.techcrunch.com, August19, 2011http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/19/terrible-cost-patents/

URL7: This American Life Episode “When Patents Attack!”http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack

URL8: IT Business Edge Article “Packet Video Sues Spotify for Patent Infringement”http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/news/vam/blog/packetvideo-sues-spotify-for-patent-infringement/?cs=48055

URL 9: Dan Lynch Blog Post “Why Software Patents Suck”http://danlynch.org/blog/2009/08/patents/

39



URL10: Wikipedia Article on the America Invests Acthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act

URL 11: Business Insider Article “3 Ways the New Patent Law Destroys Jobs”http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-21/strategy/30183613_1_patent-system-independent-inventors-patent-cases

URL 12: Wired Magazine Article "Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than YouThink"http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1

Article References“Patents Against Prosperity”, The Economist, August 1, 2011http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/08/intellectual-property

“Patently Different”, The Economist, August 20, 2011http://www.economist.com/node/21526416

“Many Patents, Still Pending”, The Economist, September 10, 2011http://www.economist.com/node/21528643

“Difference Engine: Programmed Nonsense”, The Economist, September 10, 2011http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/10/software-patents

“Patent Medicine”, The Economist, August 20, 2011http://www.economist.com/node/21526370

40



Angles andDirections: AnIntroduction toJTS WarpedBy Landon Blake

IntroductionThis article provides an introduction tothe JTS Warped software library. Itbegins with a brief discussion of the JTSTopology Suite (JTS) and explains whatfunctionality JTS Warped adds to the JTSTopology Suite. It then provides anoverview of the code in JTS Warped thatallows programmers to easily work withangles and bearings in JTS. It concludeswith some code examples.

What Is JTS?JTS is a software library and set of toolsthat support geometry calculations onthe 2D Cartesian plane. JTS conforms tothe Simple Features Specification forSQL published by the OGC. JTS strivesto be (1) fast, (2) robust, and (3)implemented in pure Java. JTS wasoriginally written by Martin Davis whileat Vivid Solutions. He still maintains the

library although he is no longer workingfor the company. JTS is used by populargeospatial software written in Java, andis the geometry library used by theopen source desktop GIS OpenJUMP.

What is JTS Warped?JTS Warped is a library of utility coderelated to JTS. It adds to thefunctionality of JTS but is not included inthe main JTS distribution. JTS Warped iswritten by Landon Blake. The code forJTS is released under the GPL and ismanaged by the SurveyOS Project, amember of the Free SoftwareConservancy. JTS Warped is currently inAlpha status. You can download thesource code, via SVN, for JTS Warpedfrom here:

https://surveyos.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/surveyos

In this article we are going to focus ourdiscussion on the code in JTS Warpedthat allows programmers to work withangles and bearings in JTS.

Overview of Angles andDirections Code in JTSWarpedLand surveyors frequently work with

41



angles and directions when movingdata between 2D grid (also known as2D Cartesian or rectangular coordinatesystems) and polar coordinate systems.

Here is one example: Opticalinstruments used in terrestrialsurveying employ polar coordinatesystems to collect their measurements.In a polar coordinate system points arelocated in relation to the instrumentpoint. This involves two measurements.The first is the measurement of theangle between the instrument point, abacksight point and the point beinglocated (foresight point). The second isthe distance between the instrumentpoint and the point being located.Software is then used to transform thecollected measurements in to pointcoordinates on the project grid

42

coordinate system.

Here is another example: Descriptionsfor land parcel boundaries often usebearings and distances to describethe parcel geometry. It is often usefulto convert this bearing and distanceinformation into 2D vector geometryin a 2D grid coordinate system.The angles and directions code in JTSWarped was designed to make iteasier to perform the transformationsbetween polar coordinate systemsand 2D grid coordinate systems. Theangles and directions code has onlytwo (2) key classes used toimplement this design. TheBasicSurveyorsAngle class representsangular measurements in a polarcoordinate system, and theBasicSurveyorsDirection classrepresents direction measurements in

Class Diagram



a polar coordinate system. Both classesprovide basic implementations ofcorresponding Java interfaces, whichallow the library to support alternateimplementations of the interfaces ifdesired.

The BasicSurveyors Angle ClassThe BasicSurveyorsAngle is essentiallya value class. It represents an anglemeasurement by storing the value ofthe angle in degrees, minutes, andseconds. The degrees value, minutesvalue, and seconds value are passed inand out of the class as ints. Thefractional seconds value is passed inand out of the class as a double. As analternative, you can wrap these valuesin a DegreesMinutesSecondsValueobject for passage in and out of theBasicSurveyorsAngle methods.

There are four (4) ways to create aBasicSurveyorsAngle class. The default,no-argument constructor will create anBasicSurveyorsAngle class with adegree value of 0, a minutes value of 0,a whole seconds value of zero, and afractional seconds value of 0. A secondconstructor allows you to pass thesevalues as three ints and a singledouble. A third constructor sets thevalue during construction using an

43

instance of theDegreesMinutesSecondsValue passedas an argument. The final constructor isa “copy constructor” which acceptsanother instance of SurveyorsAngle asan argument. The value of thisargument is used to set the value of thenew angle. (This constructor is a tool forcloning angle values.)

Code Listing #1 shows examples of howto create instances of theBasicSurveyorsAngle class.

The BasicSurveyorsAngle class isimmutable. You can obtain its degree,minute, second, and fractional secondcomponents using traditional gettermethods of the class. The decrease andincrease methods allow you to increaseor decrease the value of an angle byapplying other angles as a rotation.These methods do not modify thesubject angle, but create a clone,modify and return it. The value of theangle object can also be obtained inradians or decimal degrees throughconvenience methods. Conveniencemethods are also included to return thetrigonometric ratios for the sins, cosins,and tangent of the angle. Thesemethods handle the internalconversions of the angle values to andfrom radians so the trigonometric ratioscan be calculated. Three (3) additional



methods provide information about thetype of angle. These are the isAcutemethod, isObtuse method andisRightAngle method.

A few standard utility methods are alsoincluded in the class. There are threemethods to compare angle values forequality and a toString method. ThetoString method returns the angle valuein the following format: degrees-minutes-seconds. For example: 282-12-11.12

The last method of theBasicSurveyorsAngle class allows you torotate a JTS geometry. You provide thegeometry, center of rotation coordinate,and a boolean flag that indicates thedirection of the method. Note that thismethod modifies the JTS geometry it ispassed in-place. It does not create andmodify a copy of the geometry.

The Basic SurveyorsDirection ClassThe BasicSurveyorsDirection class isalso essentially a value class. Itrepresents the direction of a linesegment or line in reference to asystem for angle measurement. In JTSWarped, the direction of a line ismeasured as an azimuth in degrees,minutes, seconds, and fractional

44

seconds. A direction of 0-0-0.0corresponds to cardinal north or the Yaxis of the 2D coordinate grid. Thedegrees value, minutes value, andseconds value are passed in and out ofthe class as ints. The fractional secondsvalue is passed in and out of the classas a double.

There are five (5) ways to create aBasicSurveyorsDirection object. Thedefault constructor creates a directionwith a value that corresponds to 0, ortrue north. Two additional constructorsallow you to create aBasicSurveyorsDirection object from anangle object. You can also create aBasicSurveyorsDirection by passing twoJTS coordinate objects or a stringrepresenting the azimuth. The formatfor the string argument passed to thislast constructor is the same as outputby the toString method of theBasicSurveyorsAngle class.

You can obtain the value of theBasicSurveyorsDirection object as anAngle object, as a string formatted as abearing, or as an angle value indegrees, minutes, seconds, andfractional seconds stored in a string.The format for the returned string is thesame as output by the toString methodof the BasicSurveyorsAngle class.Another method returns the quadrant of



the direction.

The BasicSurveyorsDirection class is notimmutable. (It will be made immutablein the next release.) It can be modifiedby four (4) methods. Three (3) of theseare convenience methods that allow theBasicSurveyorsDirection to be flopped180 degrees or rotated forward andbackward 90 degrees. The last methodallows you to rotate theBasicSurveyorsDirection by passing in arotation angle.

There are two (2) methods of theBasicSurveyorsDirection that create JTSgeometry objects. ThegetLineStringAlongDirection methodaccepts a JTS Coordinate object and adouble as arguments. It then creates aJTS LineString along the direction, usingthe Coordinate object as a start pointand the double as the length of theLineString. ThegetCoordinateAtEndOfVector objectaccepts a JTS Coordinate object and adouble as arguments. It returns aCoordinate object at the end of thevector represented by the directionstored internally in the class and thelength passed in to the method as adouble.

Code Listing #2 shows how to use theBasicSurveyorsDirection class to create

45

a new line segment offset 50 units in aperpendicular direction from an existingline segment.

Converting BetweenAngular Unit SystemsA number of different units systems areused to measure angles. Surveyorstypically measure angles in valuesrecorded as degrees, minutes, andseconds. Mathematicians record anglesas radians. Military surveyors recordangles as Grads. You may measureangles in revolutions. Latitude andlongitude values are often stored indecimal degrees. JTS Warped provides autility class that allows for the easyconversion between these differentangle formats. This utility class isnamed AngleFormatUtilties.

The class also contains three (3)convenience methods. Two of theseprovide BasicSurveyorsAngle objects fora given value in radians or revolutions.The third returns aDegreesMinutesSecondsValue from astring in the appropriate format.

ConclusionJTS Warped contains code that enablesprogrammers to integrate angles anddirections into their creation and



manipulation of JTS geometries. In thisarticle we looked at the two (2) mostimportant classes of this code, theBasicSurveyorsAngle and theBasicSurveyorsDirection. JTS Warpedincludes other code to enhance JTS.This includes classes to supportcommon coordinate geometryoperations, additional coordinate filterimplementations, and utility methodsfor manipulation of LineStrings andCoordinate objects.

JTS Warped is an open source libraryreleased under the GPL. It is maintainedby the SurveyOS Project, a member ofthe Free Software Conservancy.Contributions of code or documentationfor the library are welcome.

46



Code Listing #11) // Use the default, no argument constructor.2) BasicSurveyorsAngle angle1 = new BasicSurveyorsAngle();

3) // Create a BasicSurveyorsAngle with a specific value.4) BasicSurveyorsAngle angle2 = new BasicSurveyorsAngle(35, 22, 11,0.2116);

5) // Create a BasicSurveyorsAngle with using aDegreesMinutesSecondsValue.6) DegreesMinutesSecondsValue dmsvalue = newDegreesMinutesSeconsValue()7) BasicSurveyorsAngle angle3 = new BasicSurveyorsAngle(dmsValue);

8) // Clone a BasicSurveyorsAngle using the copy constructor.9) // The value of clone will be the same as the value of angle2.10) BasicSurveyorsAngle clone = new BasicSurveyorsAngle(angle2);

Code Listing #21) // Rotate the target LineString 90 degrees.2) // Create the angle needed to perform the rotation.3) BasicSurveyorsAngle rotationAngle = new BasicSurveyorsAngle(90, 0, 0, 0.0);

4) // Apply the rotation. “target” holds the JTS LineString to berotated. “rotationBase” holds5) // a JTS Coordinate object that is the basis of the rotation.6) rotationAngle.rotateGeometry(target, baseCoordinate, true);

Code Listing #31) // Get the end coordinates of the existing LineString.2) // “targetLine” holds copy of existing LineString to offset 50units.

47



3) Coordinate coord1 = targetLine.getCoordinateN(0);4) Coordinate coord2 = targetLine.getCoordinateN(1);

5) // Create a BasicSurveyorsDirection from the two (2) coordinates.6) BasicSurveyorsDirection dir = new BasicSurveyorsDirection(coord1, coord2);

7) // Rotate the direction 90 degrees so we can create a point on aline perpendicular to the existing8) // LineString.9) dir.rotateForward90Degrees();

10) // Create a point 50 units away on the perpendicular line.11) Coordinate newStartPoint = dir.getCoordinateAtEndOfVector(coord1, 50.0);

12) // Create a parallel LineString that is 200 units long and offset50 unites from the existing LineString.13) LineString parallelLine = dir.getLineStringAlongDirection(newStartPoint, 200.0);

48



ImprintThe Journal TeamEditor:Landon BlakeTyler Mitchell

Section Editors:Scott Mitchell

Reviewers:Eli Adam

Credits:The Geotools Software Project, GRASS SoftwareProject, California Chapter, FrancophoneChapter, Greek Chapter, Poland Chapter, andUnited Kingdom Chapter all contributed contentfor this article. We thank them for their supportand contributions.

The OSGeo Journal is a publication of the OSGeoFoundation. The open source tools Scribus,Inkscape, Tortoise SVN, and Libre Office wereused in the production of the Journal.

License and CopyrightThis work is licensed under a CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs3.0 United States License. To view a copy of thislicense, visit:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

All articles are copyrighted by the respectiveauthors.

Web SitesThe OSGeo Journal home page can be found at:http://www.osgeo.org/journalOSGeo Homepage: http://www.osgeo.org/

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