I'm back from a remarkably frosty FrostFest. The weather in Richmond itself was not as bad as it could have been, but the record-breaking blizzard just to the north of us dampened turnout somewhat.

Even so, the folks that braved the snow were enthusiastic, and it was great meeting current, new and future Depiction users.

If you attended FrostFest, you should know that we're extending the coupon code that we handed out there, and it will be good through Friday. If you know people who couldn't make it on Saturday, feel free to pass on it on to them.

Additionally, we have two webinars scheduled for FrostFest attendees, would-be attendees and anyone else interested in Depiction. They're coming up on Wednesday the 10th and Thursday the 11th. Hope to see you there--and this time, the weather shouldn't keep you away!

(If you were at the show, and would like to get your hands on the Richmond data I was using, it's available from the city through an FTP server.)

N4CDB, a Depiction user, is embarking on an ambitious project: running Depiction under Linux, without using a virtual machine. It's not going to be an easy task, and he outlines some of the challenges, but we certainly hope he's successful!

This Saturday, February 6, Depiction staff (including yours truly) will be at FrostFest 2010 in Richmond, Virginia. We're looking forward to meeting some Depiction users, and hopefully creating many more! If you're going to be there, drop by and say 'hi'--we're on a corner table across from

Following up on our time at FrostFest, on Wednesday the 10th and Thursday the 11th, we're going to be holding two webinars exclusively for FrostFest attendees--well, not quite exclusively, because anyone can sign up for them online right now, but we'll be signing people up for them both while we are there.

Additionally, in my preparation for the event, I've discovered that Richmond has a really fantastic selection of GIS data online. It's available through an FTP server, which is not the most user-friendly setup, but what they lack for in ease-of-use they make up for in the sheer volume of data. Kudos to the city GIS department!

Brian Hamm of the San Gabriel Pomona Valley Red Cross was kind enough to share his Depiction success story in the forum:

In the past month, our chapter has had to relocate many vehicles. We have used vehicles to service community events and provide services at shelters. Using Depiction, we have been able to look at the various lots that we could potentially store our vehicles at, compare their distance to the locations at which they would ultimately be used, and then used that information to store them in the most logical places.

Thanks to Brian for sharing--if you have a Depiction success story you'd like to share, we'd love you to post it in the Success Stories forum.

We've had several inquiries about looking at data related to the Haiti earthquake in Depiction. Our video showed how easy it is to get basic earthquake data into Depiction--and you can now view a related depiction online--but what most people are concerned about at the moment is the recovery situation.

There is now a great resource for that kind of data that can be easily loaded into Depiction. CubeWerx and the Carbon Project have put up two different web services with data relating to Haiti and the earthquake. One is a WMS, which brings in images, and another is a WFS that brings in shapes and point data--including building locations, building footprints and more.

WFS URL: http://demo.cubewerx.com/demo/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?config=haiti&datastore=OSM&service=WFS&request=GetCapabilities

WMS URL: http://demo.cubewerx.com/demo/cubeserv/cubeserv.cgi?config=haiti&service=WMS&request=GetCapabilities

To add these into a depiction, just go to Add>>Web service, paste the URL into the field, note which type of service you are using, and hit Show content. That will load up a menu of the different layers included in the service, which you can add as various element types.

Much of this data comes from OpenStreetMap, which has been doing incredible work mapping the situation there. Depiction tiling & Quickstart already brings in some of the data included in these services, such as road networks, but most of it is unique. Here's what just a very quick use of the WFS gave us:

UPDATE: Many more WMS feeds are available here.