Brian Kazmerik is the 2015 MGUG Award Winner

Congratulations to Brian Kazmerik who was presented with the 2015 MGUG Award at the Fall Conference on October 7^th.  It is quite a year for Brian who was also recognized at the Esri User Group meeting for his contribution to the GIS community.

Beginning in 2012, MGUG has presented this award annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the Manitoba Geomatics community.   Tom Naughten won in 2012; Conrad Wyrzykowski won the award in 2013; and Al Dakin won the award in 2014.  I have known all four award winners for many years and agree that they are outstanding individuals and deserve recognition for their contributions to the Geomatics community.

Congratulations Brian on your award – it is well deserved.

GIS Day at the University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba recently held its second annual GIS Day event.  The “conference” was interesting, successful and I was happy to be invited.  The setting was unique.  The event was held in the intimate setting of the Archives and Special Collections area of the Elizabeth Dafoe Library.   The head of the organizing committee is Cynthia Dietz, GIS Environmental Studies Librarian, at the University of Manitoba.

Several progressive organizations participated to showcase their achievements.  Participants included: Ducks Unlimited, Province of Manitoba, City of Winnipeg, University of Winnipeg, University of Manitoba, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and North/South Consultants.

GIS Day occurs every year on the Wednesday of Geography week.  This year GIS Day was on November 19, 2014.  GIS Day provides a forum for users of GIS technology to demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society.

For more information on the University of Manitoba GIS Day event visit: University of Manitoba GISday Event

I am looking forward to the 2015 Event.

Al Dakin is the 2014 MGUG Award Winner

Congratulations to Al Dakin who was presented with the 2014 MGUG Award at the Fall Conference on October 1^st.   Beginning in 2012, MGUS has presented this award annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the Manitoba Geomatics community.   Tom Naughten won in 2012 and Conrad Wyrzykowski won the award in 2013.  I have known all three award winners for many years and agree that they are outstanding individuals and deserve recognition for their contributions to the Geomatics community.

For the last dozen years, Al Dakin was known as the force behind the Manitoba Land Initiative (MLI).  After 35 years of working for the Government of Manitoba, Al has retired.  We already miss you Al.

Congratulations Al on your well-deserved award and on your retirement.

MGUG 2014 Fall Conference Set for October 1st, 2014

The Manitoba GIS User Group (MGUG) 2014 Fall Conference is set for October 1st at the Victoria Inn and Convention Centre in Winnipeg.  The MGUG Fall Conference is Manitoba's premier geospatial information conference event. With an outstanding slate of geospatial presentations, excellent networking opportunities, and a vibrant trade show, we are expecting another great turnout for this year’s Conference.

MGUG is honoured to have the Mayor of Brandon, Shari Decter Hirst, welcome delegates to the 2014 Conference with opening remarks.  Diamond and Conference keynote sponsor TECTERRA is bringing Dr. Joseph Berry, a leading consultant and educator in the application of GIS technology and a writer of over 200 papers on the theory and application of map analysis techniques, to be one of our keynote speakers.  Dr. Berry will be presenting on the ‘Future Directions of Map Analysis and GIS Modelling’ and on ‘GIS in Natural Resources and Agriculture’.  A second keynote by Michael Luchia will explore the role of GIS in the 2013 Calgary flood and Dr. James Boxall will provide an update on the Pan-Canadian Geomatics Strategy.  The Conference will also feature student contest winners, the 2014 MGUG Award recipient and a variety of additional presentations that we think will all inform and inspire you.  A vibrant vendor display area is also expected.


MGUG is also excited to be displaying the Canadian Geographic’s giant ‘Canada from Space’ floor map during the Conference.  With a dimension of 10.7m (35’) x 7.9m (26’), this huge Canada map of RADARSAT-2 imagery is guaranteed to be popular.

Finally, if you’re interested in attending an informal pre-conference mixer the evening of September 30th, please join us between 5 – 8 pm at the Victoria Inn Hotel lounge.

For additional Conference information as well as registration details, please visit the MGUG website at www.mgug.ca.



Today's post is brought to you by:

Tony Viveiros, GISP
MGUG President

Imagery for Manitoba

Do you sometimes (or always) switch from the map view to the satellite / photography backdrop when using Bing Maps, Google Maps or Esri online products? I do because I like the extra information conveyed with pictures.

Long before the Google, Microsoft and Esri online products were around Manitoba was collecting and creating a photo mosaic backdrop for Manitoba.  Although in those days, it was primarily for GIS and CADD desktop users.

The first round of what many people referred to as digital ortho imagery – or DOI - was flown in the 1990s.  The geographic coverage was southern Manitoba – primarily targeted at the agricultural area, although scope expanded into the Interlake, Whiteshell and Duck Mountains.  The photos were black and white and collected at a 2 meter resolution. 

The imagery turned out to be one of the most important and frequently used GIS datasets that Manitoba has produced.  The usefulness of the imagery also changed the thinking of many hard-core GIS purists, who were convinced that the imagery program was a waste of money and that topographic mapping was the way to continue.

In 2005 a consortium of Manitoba Government Departments, Agriculture Canada (PFRA) and Manitoba Hydro was formed to organize, fund and capture a second round of imagery.  Later Louisiana Pacific also contributed to the program.  The first year of capture was 2007 and the program ended in 2013.  The geographic area was similar to that captured in the 1990s.  The imagery was collected in both color and black & white at 50cm resolution.

The ortho images were made available to the public on the Manitoba Land Initiative (MLI) site.  (Not all imagery is on the MLI because of space limitations.) In addition, Manitoba created an agreement to provide the data to Google so that the information was available in Google Earth and Google Maps.  For a while it was common to see Manitoba credited when zooming around Manitoba in Google products.   Lately, it is less common to see Manitoba credited as Google replaces the Manitoba imagery with more recently collected sources from Landsat, DigitalGlobe, etc.

More than two years ago, in January 2012 (my New Year’s wishesblog), I asked for a new imagery program and stated that: “A Provincial Image strategy that includes the North needs to be developed.”  The last round of imagery is getting old – some of it is 7 years old.

Should Manitoba undertake the cost and effort to embark on a new round of imagery collection?  Should there be an ongoing imagery collection program?  Should the program include the North and the remote areas of Manitoba?  Or, should we rely on the imagery provided by Google, Esri and Bing?

MGUG Wins Award of Excellence

This year at the Esri Canada User conference, MGUG won the Esri Canada Award of Excellence. The award was given out by Scott Labonte, Senior Account Executive and Alex Miller, President. The award is in recognition of the significant role that MGUG plays in the GIS community.

Current MGUG president, Tony Viveiros, accepted the award on behalf of all of the MGUG volunteers, past and present. Past presidents Suzanne Houlind, John Teillet, Grant Wiseman and Richard Lebedynski accompanied Tony on stage.

It somehow seems fitting that MGUG should receive an award on that stage. It was at the Esri User Conference in October 2006 that MGUG was first officially announced to the world. Esri gave MGUG a few minutes of time to describe the organization, our vision and to give out membership forms for people to fill out. MGUG received its first 70 membership applications (other than board members) from that conference.

After accepting the award, Tony Viveiros gave a short presentation on MGUG, describing some of its many accomplishments.

Congratulations to all of the hard working MGUG volunteers that have contributed to MGUG’s success over the years. You are all deserving of this award.

MGUG 2013 Conference is Coming

It’s time to mark your calendars again. The Manitoba GIS Users Group (MGUG) 2013 Conference is October 2nd at the Victoria Inn Hotel & Convention Centre.

The conference keynote presentation will be delivered by Steve Coast, founder of OpenStreetMap (OSM) and Principal Architect at Microsoft's Bing Mobile. Once again TECTERRA has stepped up as the conference keynote sponsor.

Steve will discuss OpenStreetMaps past, present and future and provide insights into Microsoft's mapping strategy. It will be interesting to hear Steve’s comments on crowdsourcing and its influence on mapping.

The MGUG annual conference is the premier GIS event in Manitoba. Last year, the event was heavily advertised and nearly 500 people attended the conference. This year MGUG seems to be taking a different approach to conference advertising. It seems that there are fewer mass emails and the MGUG web-site doesn’t have the “GeoDrive to 500” that was used as a publicly announced goal for success in 2011 and 2012. Also by this time last year, both CBC and Shaw TV were part of the advertising campaign in addition to some key sponsors and a partial agenda (three key speakers, a Geomatics panel discussion with six GIS movers and shakers). My advice to MGUG is to release a bit more of the agenda now and more as it firms up.

Regardless of the advertising approach taken by MGUG this year, the MGUG Conference is the best GIS event of the year and a must attend for those in the geospatial industry. I can guarantee that there will be some excellent presentations and the opportunities for networking in the geospatial field are unmatched.