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!

Today a good friend of Depiction, Brian, a third-party developer, demoed a very early version of his APRS Live add-on here at the office. This add-on, which will be going into beta very soon, takes data that comes in over radio frequencies, via an antenna, radio and terminal node controller. What this means is that live data is brought into Depiction without Internet access. Pretty cool. The software will eventually allow users to send and recieve short messages right from Depiction.

Brian shows his stuff:

The Runoff element allows simulation of water flow from a point source. The simulation can proceed with a limited supply of water or, alternately, the maximum inundation zone (assuming unlimited supply) can be determined. Flow velocity, general hydrodynamics are not modeled. Soil absorption is modeled indirectly as will become apparent.

As something of a political junkie, I've always wanted to be able to make detailed maps of election results. These days, it's pretty easy to get county-level election maps for most statewide contests--but not all contests are statewide, and a county is a pretty big chunk of land, and usually not as homogenous as the county maps make them look. What I've always wanted to do was to take the basic precinct-level voting data that counties release, and turn it into a map.

Daniel, an intern here at Depiction, has started blogging about his projects using Depiction at a "Network Optimization on Depiction" blog he started. Daniel is is demonstrating how to do some very cool, very high-level analysis work using Depiction--determining, for example, the shortest route connecting a warehouse to each of its connection points.

“Howard Hanson Dam & the Green River: Depicting the Flood Risk," which was used by the Auburn Reporter a few weeks ago to supplement their reporting, continues to be used by the media.

Our recent video, “Howard Hanson Dam & the Green River: Depicting the Flood Risk," has become the most popular Howard Hanson Dam-related video on YouTube, with nearly 2,000 views. This shows the value of Depiction in communicating potential emergencies to the public, but it also shows that the public has a real interest in clear, visually communicated information about this particular situation.

Tomorrow we're going to cohost, along with the Everett, Washington Department of Emergency management, the Everett Office of Neighborhoods, and the Snohomish County Red Cross, a new kind of disaster preparedness event.

Using Depiction, groups of people participating in the drill will make an emergency plan for "the Johnsons," a fictional family in North Everett. Then, an 8.0 earthquake hits, and the attendees will have to make decisions for the Johnsons, to get them through the crisis safely.

September is National Preparedness Month, and Depiction is proud to be a member of the National Preparedness Month coalition. Depiction is being used by businesses, governments, emergency planners and more to prepare for and respond to disasters, and so we are excited about this opportunity to continue helping people become ready. Watch this space for news about the very cool things we have planned for National Preparedness Month.

In my recent post about mapping land parcels for the fire department, I mentioned I changed some existing icons, but I didn’t go into much detail about how I did it. I started by finding free icons on the Internet through a Google search. Next, my quandary was what format they need to be in and what size.