pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Bear K wrote:
> > > I'd also like to say it seemed like a very good event. Met and talked 
> > > with quite a few interesting people. One person (Mark) works with a 
> > > guy (@ onevillage.biz) who has done ecological GIS work in Kenya, etc 
> > > and knows those systems very well. So good overlap with what Lawrence 
> > > has been wanting.
> >
> >
> > A GIS expert helping us would be a very valuable resource, usually 
> > hard to find
> > for small projects and expensive (because of the high demand for GIS 
> > services,
> > prices are very high). I wonder if there is a family of opensource GIS 
> > software
> > products being developed?
>
> I've looked into it to some degree, and it seems there is...
> I can't pull all the links together right now...

Thanks.

> This might get you started:
> http://opensourcegis.org/
>
> Or the Virtual Terrian Project:
> http://www.vterrain.org/

Just looked at this URL. To quote them:

"The goal of VTP is to foster the creation of tools for easily constructing any 
part of the real world in interactive, 3D digital form."
and:
"This goal will require a synergetic convergence of the fields of CAD, GIS, visual simulation, surveying and remote sensing.  VTP gathers 
information and tracks progress in areas such as procedural scene construction, feature extraction, and rendering algorithms."

If VTP can "easily constructing any part of the real world in interactive, 3D 
digital form" with GIS coordinates for contour mapping, etc.
and present this data in 3D format, could it or some software derived from it take "3 D" data, i.e. fauna/flora-habitat-environment 
information and present it in some three dimensional way similar to the way Touchgraph-like tools do? Say, if you (the user) could change 
something represented in one of the three dimensions represented in the image on your screen (like, for example change Johnson grass
to pennyroyal) the data/image in the other two dimensions would change 
correspondingly (and maybe sprout branches of data to indicate
other possibilities for displaying relationships 3 dimensionally - maybe a 
data fractal would emerge to entrance the user.

Related to my notion of using PIW DB and GIS for market farmers, permaculturists and homesteaders is my notion of exploring plant culture 
methods on farmland (gardening) where data on existing land contours, land features, microclimates, drainage, exposure, land features and 
slopes, existing plantings, edge zones and native vegetation are cataloged and processed for graphical presentation of possibilities for 
planting locations and cultural methods (raised beds, row, orchard). I thought that with knowledge of this sort one could try out
exotic planting schemes such as permanent notill raised beds in mandala 
and/or keyhole gardens laid out in a fractal pattern.

I have an array of exotic tractor tillage equipment that I can use to create the beginnings of gardening systems of this sort. I am about 2 
acres of intensively prepared, very weedy soil into it so far.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech